Kids today are just such...homebodies?

According to a recent survey in the UK, teenagers like hanging out at home with their parents, doing well in school and not living a party life. There also appears to be a backlash against the celebrity culture and many teenagers want to run their own business. I only wonder what's going to come of this generation once they hit their 40's. How much more relaxed are they going to be then or will they turn their focus onto a cause later on in life? Read More......

Open thread, and a research request - looking for French blogging tool

Does anyone out there know of a good, free, French-language blogging tool? It has to be something free, like blogger, that hosts the blogs for free, like blogger, BUT - and this is a big but - the instructions are all in French. Blogger has the main sign-in page in French, but the rest of the blog guts is in English.

Any Francophones or Francophiles out there with a clue about this? Thanks, JOHN

PS For the rest of you, open thread away... Read More......

What Will Bush Be Remembered For? Torture.

An angry editorial by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post echoes my feelings. Bush thinks he's going to be remembered for liberating the Middle East when in fact his legacy is a debasing of what America stands for by the callous, widespread use of torture.

Some prisoners were "rendered" to cooperating countries where old-fashioned fingernail-pulling is a routine investigative technique. Others have simply "disappeared," as if the U.S. government were some Latin American junta whose generals wear gold-braided epaulets as big as vultures. Most prisoners have been given neither adequate military nor civilian rights. Many don't know why they were arrested or what charges they face.

It may be that these are all terrible people who wish to harm the United States -- we have no way of knowing, because the supposed evidence is secret. But even if they are, this mistreatment is wrong. If the price we pay for complete safety is complete abandonment of our ideals, the price is too high.

How can President Bush preach to the world about democracy, about transparency, about the rule of law, and at the same time disregard national and international law at will? What message can Vladimir Putin be hearing? Or the dictators in Beijing? Or the mullahs in Tehran?

The thing is, history tends to be relentless in pursuit of the truth -- and its judgments tend to be harsh.

Read More......

Family Research Council excoriates Pat Robertson and Lou Sheldon

Look at the Family Research Council go off on Robertson and Sheldon for not believing that people of faith, especially people from conservative religious faiths, can make worthy judges. This is the email I just got from FRC:

People of faith and conservative values have every right to serve in the judiciary!
April 26, 2005 | Forward to a Friend!

By any measure, our Justice Sunday simulcast to millions of Americans has been a great success. My staff has surveyed various Senate offices today and found that Senators have been getting thousands of calls as a result of our Justice Sunday simulcast.

Democrats in the Senate did not expect this type of response from the public and as a result, some are looking for a compromise. They are not happy that their two- year concerted effort to sanitize the federal judiciary of people of faith and conservative values has finally been exposed.

Despite the intense public outcry to end these unprecedented filibusters, we've learned that many of the Democrats strongest allies are continuing to pressure the Democratic Senate leadership to continue such filibusters because they know it is the only way to defeat the expected nomination of a conservative candidate to the United States Supreme Court this summer.

People for the American Way, has just launched another highly-charged, misleading TV campaign in support of the filibuster of judges. MoveOn.org is bring its supporters to Capitol Hill next week and former Vice President Al Gore will soon give a "major public address" to try to pressure Senators to continue efforts against good judicial nominees. We must keep up the pressure on the floor of the United State Senate.

Nominees, who live according to their religious faith and those that hold to a conservative judicial philosophy, have a right to an up or down vote.

To ensure that they have that right, I need you to send an email right now to your Senators and ask them to end the filibuster of judicial nominees who are people of faith and conservative values. And I need you to forward this alert to your family and friends.

PS ;-) Read More......

The Congressman Sherwood Saga Continues

Wow, this thing just keeps on giving. In today's episode, the spurned 29 year old lover of married Republican Congressman Don Sherwood, one of Pennsylvania's finest, confesses her feelings to the Associated Press:

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Ore said she met Sherwood at a Young Republicans meeting in 1999 and that they had a relationship that lasted over the years.

"For me to start to go back to that day is very painful to deal with all the suffering I went through," Ore said. "I loved him. He always told me he loved me and I believed him."

As my colleague Angela says, "Nothing says love like a good choking."

We also learn today's episode that Congressman Sherwood doesn't want to talk about this anymore:

Sherwood did not want to discuss the complaint Tuesday, said Jake O'Donnell, his press secretary.

Stay tuned. Read More......

Lautenberg makes Frist accountable for Robertson's remarks

GO FRANK.

Senator Lautenberg asked Bill Frist to condemn Pat Robertson's recent comments claiming America's judges are worse than terrorists according to Raw Story. The Senator also sent a letter to Robertson demanding an apology.

Frank Lautenberg is doing what needs to be done. Bill Frist IS responsible for the anti-judge climate that has become pervasive among the right wing radicals. Frist is fanning the flames. And he is doing nothing, nothing at all to stop the hate and violence filled vitriol aimed at the judiciary.

The letters from Lautenberg are powerful. RawStory has the full text. This blurb gives the flavor:

In the letter, obtained by RAW STORY, Lautenberg says he was shocked at Robertson's remarks.

“It was shocking to hear your cavalier dismissal of the atrocious 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by describing them as “a few bearded terrorists who fly planes into buildings,” wrote Lautenberg in his letter to Reverend Robertson. Lautenberg went on to write, “To suggest that members of the federal judiciary are somehow in the same class as “a few bearded terrorists” is an assault on the men and women on the federal bench who safeguard our rights under the Constitution everyday.”

In a separate letter to Sen. Majority Leader Frist, Lautenberg asks Frist to condemn Robertson's comments.

“I hope you will join me in condemning such harmful and heated language and call on Reverend Robertson to publicly apologize to every family who has lost a loved one to terrorism. Your silence on this matter would send a resounding signal to the entire country that the radical right controls the leadership of the Republican Party,” Lautenberg wrote in his letter to Majority Leader Frist.

Frist will never condemn Robertson's remarks. He is fanning the flames of the hate speech. And, Frist and the GOP caucus have become a wholly owned subsidiary of the radicals like Robertson.

The theocrats are such nasty haters -- all in the name of God, of course. Read More......

For the record, I never hit on the JeffJames GannonGuckert

Gag me. More from the upcoming Vanity Fair profile.

More Gannon fodder

Alleged gay escort Jeff Gannon (né James Dale Guckert) has been taken a lot of heat passing himself off as a White House reporter. But there has been an upside.

Gannon says that some of his harshest critics - "radical gay activists" - have actually come on to him.

His detractors shed their convictions "like a sweater on a hot day," Gannon says in the new issue of Vanity Fair.

The born-again Gannon refused to talk about his sexuality with reporters David Margolick and Richard Gooding but says, "Did I know sin before I knew salvation? You bet! But my life was heading in the right direction. What's interesting about this is now I'm being punished for things I left behind."

And for the record, Jeff, if you left hooking behind, then why were a number of your escort profiles LIVE up until weeks after I reported on them? And since you deny everything we've ever accused you of, what exactly was there for you to leave behind (no pun intended)? Also, who then put up your gay male prostitution domain name for sale for $7500 a few months ago - obviously not you, since you left that life of sin behind, so who was trying to profit off of gay male pornography? Read More......

Bolton's A Dick, Say More Officials

More and more officials come forward to say that John Bolton was uniquely difficult and basically a son of a bitch to work with.

"I don't know if he's incapable of negotiation, but he's unwilling," veteran diplomat A. Elizabeth Jones told the New York Times. Remember, she's been working for Bush.

The countdown clock to Bolton withdrawing is ticking louder, I think. Read More......

Microsoft's asshole

The Sunday NYT profiles the homophobic religious right activist who got Microsoft abandon gays. This is my favorite paragraph from his anti-gay tirade.

"You tell me what I went through as an African-American, when they talk about discrimination, compared to what gays go through with discrimination - it's the difference between night and day, not even close," Dr. Hutcherson said. "I even get upset when people say, 'Well, you got to understand what they go through.' Not when they've chosen to do what they do. They can stop choosing what to do what they do, and they can hide it anytime they want. They can hide their homosexuality. Could I take a 'don't ask don't tell' policy as an African-American? I could try even to pretend I was Puerto Rican, but I'm still going to get blasted for my skin color."

I have several responses:

1. I didn't choose to be gay, but you did choose to be a radical-right Christian, and a bigot.

2. You're alive and Matthew Shepard is dead. Tell me again about who is suffering from worse discrimination.

3. They can hide it if they want? You mean like Jews, or light-skinned black people? So what exactly is your point? Read More......

Advertise on AMERICAblog

Just a promo for potential advertisers....

AMERICAblog is now the 4th ranked liberal blog served by BlogAds (we're behind Daily Kos, Eschaton, and Talking Points Memo). We're even ranked higher than Wonkette and Michelle Malkin (the first we love, the other not so much).

You may have seen references to AMERICAblog recently in the New York Times, and in the upcoming June issue of Vanity Fair, among others. Our site is also often promoted on CNN's Inside Politics, and it's not unusual for our top advertisers to be shown in the screen shot of our home page that CNN puts on the air.

And finally a word from a recent advertiser:

"Americablog has had the best clickthrough rate of any sites on which we've placed our ad, so I hope to advertise with you guys again soon..." - People for the American Way

Find out more about our Premium advertising (upper left corner), our Featured advertising (right column), and our VERY low cost classified ads (hell, you could even buy one for someone's birthday, they're that cheap - in the left-hand column). Read More......

Pitcher has two mommies

Cool story. Read More......

Jeff Gannon, Secret Agent Man

Oh, he just keeps giving and giving and giving.

In case you didn't know, Vanity Fair is doing a big expose on GannonGuckert in the issue coming out in NYC on Wednesday, and nationwide the following week. Steve Clemons got an excerpt, including this little ditty.

He volunteers that his story is more complex than described, involving secret work for which he needed security clearance, although he refuses to elaborate: "My history isn't exactly linear."

Well, if a gay male hooker in default on $20,000 in debt got a security clearance, then some agencies in Washington have got some explaining to do.

Though, I don't believe a word he says. Read More......

The incredible shrinking president

Well that didn't take long for the American people to realize what they'd voted for. Read More......

Cheney's talking Al Qaeda Again

Given all the bad polling and press the White House has been getting, you knew this was going to happen.

Cheney gave a speech yesterday warning of the dangers we face from Al Qaeda according to Reuters:

Al Qaeda is still "very active" recruiting and seeking to attack the United States, although it has been hurt since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Monday.

"The enemy that appeared on 9/11 is wounded and off-balance, and on the run -- yet still very active, still seeking recruits, and still trying to find ways to hit us," said Cheney, who reviews intelligence on threats daily.

"As months and years pass, they are hoping that our country will grow complacent, and get lazy, and forget our responsibilities," he said in a speech to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, according to a text released in Washington.

"And it's our job, ladies and gentlemen, to make sure the United States of America never lets down its guard."

Rising gas prices, John Bolton, destroying social security, falling poll numbers, judicial filibusters -- where does that lead the Bush team? -- to their only "positive": terrorism.

Just surprised they didn't haul this one out earlier. Read More......

Open Thread

What's the news today? Read More......

The Times on the Chinese ultra-nationalism

It's no wonder the Chinese government is now sending out text messages to mobile phones warning people against protests against Japan. Over the past hundred years, anti-Japanese protests just haven't worked out well for the Chinese government and they eventually have turned their focus to the government in power. The current regime lost its religion (communism) long ago so the only thing that they had left in their arsenal was ultra-nationalism.

What is surprising here for the government these days is that the protests are not coming from the normal groups who protest in China. This time, the loudest and most radical voices are coming from the urban middle class who have prospered from China's economic boom.

If you look at history and emerging business classes, they only sit back and let the ruling governments run the show for so long before they want a piece of the action. The Chinese government is not a democracy and they are confident (arrogant?) in their own ability to run everything so this situation is going to get interesting. Increasing expectations from a growing business class who hold no political power always seem to work out the same way so this one is going to get interesting. Read More......

US Military Misses Latest Recruiting Goals

It seems obvious that the military might find it difficult to bring in new recruits when we're at war -- but historically the opposite has been true. Now USA Today reports the Army has fallen far short of its recruiting goal for the third month in a row. And the news is bad in every branch.

As of April 30 the Army had achieved only 85% of its target for the first five months of the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.... Specific figures for April [weren't available] but it fell short of the monthly goal of 6,600. In March the Army had hoped to sign up 6,800 recruits but fell 32% short. That was slightly worse than in February, when a goal of 7,050 was missed by 27%.

Prior to missing the February target the Army had not fallen short of a monthly goal since May 2000.

The Army National Guard and Army Reserve have had even more trouble recruiting. In March the Army Reserve signed up barely half the 1,600 soldiers it sought. It has not met a monthly goal since December 2004, and for the period from October 2004 through March it met only 82% of its goal.

The most worrisome aspect is the National Guard and Army Reserve. Bush has completely abused the very nature of the Guard and Reserve, turning weekend warriors who should be called up only in dire situations and turning them into de facto regular army soldiers with no chance to go home even after they've fulfilled their duty. It's damaged these important reserves irreparably for decades to come, I fear, making it that much harder for us to keep this country safe down the road.

Read More......