How to get rich off a dead guy

24 hours after Reagan is buried I get an email from the rabidly Republican Web site Newsmax today telling me to "Honor Ronald Reagan." The email sends me to a Web page that informs me that in order to "honor" Reagan, I must give Newsmax lots of money for a Ronald Reagan coffee mug and Ronald Reagan deck of cards. (Wonder if they sell anything to "honor thy father and thy mother"?)

It always restores my faith in America when the family values crowd finds a way to make a quick buck off a dead guy. Read More......

Let's all apologize to Rush

As noted below in the blog, Rush Limbaugh has announced he's divorcing his THIRD wife (we assume he took each of them in turn, not simultaneously). Wouldn't it be great to start a nationwide campaign calling on all gay people to apologize to Rush, by email and calling in to his show, for having destroyed his marriage? We could call it SorryRush.com

I'm serious, it would be a total hoot, we could even post our letters of sorrow for having threatened his marriage. Come on someone, if you do it, I'll help publicize it :-) You'll definitely get news coverage! Read More......

President Talking Point

It's downright embarrassing when our president can't even answer a simple question without resorting to his one now-overused talking point. If I only had a brain...:

The State Department warned the White House two years ago that rejecting international standards against torture when dealing with detainees could put U.S. troops at risk.

A department memo from Feb. 2, 2002, surfaced Thursday as President Bush (news - web sites) said he ordered U.S. officials to follow the law while interrogating suspected terrorists. Bush sidestepped an opportunity to denounce the use of torture.

'What I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law,' Bush told reporters at the close of the G-8 summit in Georgia.

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Catholic Church still can't get its act straight on pedophilia

Amazing, but not surprising, that the Catholic church is still having "internal divisions" on how to handle its pedophilia problem. Apparently the big debate now is whether there should be a second audit of churches to make sure they're following through on clamping down on pedophiles. Yeah, pretty controversial proposition there. The church that is able to banish homos to hell in the blink of an eye can't decide how harsh an approach to take in clamping down on men who rape small children. Ah, to be the moral compass for billions... Oh, and they're also still debating whether to cut off communion to pro-choicers. In my opinion, I hope they do - kick all the Democrats, the pro-choicers, the gays, the families and friends of gays, and everyone else out of the church and see how effective it is after the church's income is cut in half. Read More......

Poll: Edwards Favored As Kerry VP Choice

That works for me. McCain would have been a hoot, but let's be serious, could we really tolerate a bunch of Republicans sitting in on all the internal strategy meetings? Read More......

Despite ban & threat to national security, Army hired private interrogators

Is this another Rummy mess? It's time someone clamps down and brings a bit of order and respectability.

"A policy memo from December 2000 says letting private workers gather military intelligence would jeopardize national security.

Henry cited a "risk to national security" in turning over intelligence functions to private sector workers. Private contractors may work for companies that do business with other countries and are not subject to the same chain of command that soldiers are, Henry wrote.

"Reliance on private contractors poses risks to maintaining adequate civilian oversight over intelligence operations," Henry wrote. "Civilian oversight over intelligence operations and technologies is essential to assure intelligence operations are conducted with adequate security safeguards and within the scope of law and direction of the authorized chain of command."

An Army report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib says problems at the prison included confusion over who was in charge of contractors and a lack of supervision of the private workers.

...one contract interrogator, Steven Stefanowicz of CACI International, and a contract translator, John B. Israel of Titan Corp., were "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib."

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Alpaca: the other red meat

Somehow I don't expect to see this book selling as quickly as one of Jamie Oliver's latest, but who knows? I ate guinea pig, the other Andean delight, but managed to miss alpaca. Ultimately what we think is normal may be quite strange to others. Foreign visitors weren't always crazy about watching people like me eat softshell crabs and here in France I always have a soft spot for boudin, also known as blood sausages. Read More......

Afghan elections delayed for second time

Afghanistan seems to be long forgotten by the West and the democratic election which has been touted by Bush seems to be slipping again. Whether or not this is on purpose or simply a result of poor management is open for debate. Both the US and the EU have balked at handing over previously pledged money and the registration for the election has yet to be finalized.

"Even if the $70m (£38m) pledged is given, there is still a shortfall in paying for the $101m costs of a proper election...

The role of the US government is regarded as a major factor. While it would be damaging to Mr Bush if Afghanistan were not at the polls before his own date with the electorate, it might be even more harmful if the election took place and was a shambles with some provinces barely participating."

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Wash Post: Sanchez approved abuse tactics

The details continue to come out and it is not good at all for the administration. General Sanchez clearly had "Gitmo-ized" Abu Ghraib and failed to even have any code of conduct until last autumn. Even after rules were established, tactics which are considered violations of international law continued to be approved.

"Unnamed officials at the Florida headquarters of the U.S. Central Command...objected to some of the 32 interrogation tactics approved by Sanchez in September, including the more severe methods that he had said could be used at any time in Abu Ghraib with the consent of the interrogation officer in charge.

As a result, Sanchez decided on Oct. 12 to remove several items on the list and to require that prison officials obtain his direct approval for the remaining high-pressure methods.

The high-pressure options that remained included taking someone to a less hospitable location for interrogation; manipulating his or her diet; imposing isolation for more than 30 days; using military dogs to provoke fear; and requiring someone to maintain a "stress position" for as long as 45 minutes. These were not dropped by Sanchez until a scandal erupted in May over photographs depicting abuse at the prison.

Although the October document calls attention to the strictures of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it neither quotes from that statute nor makes any reference to the Geneva Conventions' rules against cruelty and torture involving detainees.

The list of interrogation options in the document closely matches a menu of options developed for use on detainees held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay and approved in a series of memos signed by top Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In January 2002, for example, Rumsfeld approved the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners there; although officials have said dogs were never used at Guantanamo, they were used at Abu Ghraib.

Then, in April 2003, Rumsfeld approved the use in Guantanamo of at least five other high-pressure techniques also listed on the Oct. 9 Abu Ghraib memo, none of which was among the Army's standard interrogation methods. This overlap existed even though detainees in Iraq were covered, according to the administration's policy, by Geneva Convention protections that did not apply to the detainees in Cuba."

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RNC convention starts early at taxpayer expense

Flogging extremist religion and far right political rhetoric, Bush did a fantastic job of launching his campaign thrust over the dead body of Reagan. A real classy move there George. I'm surprised that he didn't say "donate campaign contributions online at www.georgewbush.com" while resting a foot on the casket. Our dumb as a brick president couldn't even write his own speech and instead relied on a WH writer who made sure to run it through Rove so he could highlight the proper selling points. It's strange though because I am not hearing too many Reagan lovers putting W anywhere in the same category as RR. I shall look forward to seeing what the polls say about how voters connect W and Reagan. Read More......

Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Killed

Two attacks in the last four days... Read More......

Family values Limbaugh files for third divorce

Oh the humanity. Read More......

Genocide or ethnic cleansing? Hmm, let's debate legal terms because it's only 1M people.

Apparently there is not quite enough oil in Sudan to make this a worthwhile venture at the moment. Maybe we have other priorities? It is shocking to hear people like Powell debate what legal term to use for this catastrophe though at least he admits the term won't mean much after the fact. A million people are are in dire need of assistance and the administration wants to debate legal terminology. And to think that they crucified Clinton for playing these games! It was a fucking blowjob which was nobody's business except for Bill and Hillary. This is a million people. Read More......

What is wrong with this story?

I could care less what Ayman al-Zawahri has to say about anything, but the fact that the bastard is still out there makes me ill. After all of the talk of "we'll smoke 'em out" and the rest of the macho grandstanding, Bush has not achieved his promise of catching these guys. Going it alone does not work. Starting unncessary and unilateral wars does not help and capturing the deck of cards from Iraq does not make us any more safe than before that war. Europe may have a lot of problems, coordination between security services being one of them, but notice how Europe managed to work together to track and down the murderers of the Madrid bombings? Maybe it's time the US press woke up and flogged this issue a bit because to me, the difference is striking. Why are the 9/11 leaders still able to deliver their messages to the world? Read More......