I want this kid to have 15 more minutes

Some people may think that they've seen enough of this kid (New York Times, registration required). Call me crazy, idealistic, an idiot, but I think that this is a story where I want to see how it ends. Here's to hoping that one town can do something different and maybe, just maybe, it works out okay... Read More......

The GOP does cheat to win

And every now and then, the cheating is so egregious, they actually get caught, prosecuted and convicted:

A former top Republican Party official was convicted on telephone harassment charges Thursday for his part in a plot to jam the Democrats' phones on Election Day 2002.

The federal jury acquitted James Tobin of the most serious charge against him, of conspiring to violate voters' rights.

Tobin, 45, of Bangor, Maine, was President Bush's New England campaign chairman last year. He could get up seven years in prison and $500,000 in fines when he is sentenced in March.

For nearly two hours on Election Day 2002, hundreds of hang-up calls overwhelmed Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks in New Hampshire and a ride-to-the-polls line run by Manchester's firefighters union.

The RNC paid for Tobin's lawyers. Haven't seen any comments from them or Senator Sununu who was the beneficiary of Tobin's shenanigans. Read More......

NY Times exposes Bush's domestic spying operation

The Bush Administration makes its own rules...even when it means undermining basic civil liberties:

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

It's a long article. Very thorough. And the White House did not want this story told:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

Bush and company have used 9/11 as an excuse for everything. They have no respect for the rule of law. Read More......

REUTERS: US Jews feel threatened by the religious right

Uh, that's because the religious right is looking forward to 2/3 of all Jews dying in the Rapture. Nothing to see here, move right along...

More from Reuters Read More......

Open thread

I'm off to a meeting in the freezing rain. See ya. Read More......

American Family Association now saying Ford DID make a secret agreement with them, and that Ford reneged, and now AFA is considering a boycott

Uh oh, how will some middle class guy in Georgia ever be able to buy a Ford pick-up again knowing that Ford ran a single ad in an Australian magazine that has gay readers.

Good luck selling that boycott, bucko. Not to mention, what company in America is going to want to sit down with AFA again knowing what the AFA has to say about Jews, Muslims and gays?

From the AFA's new press release

AFA considering boycott of Ford Motor Company

(Tupelo, MS) - The American Family Association says that Ford Motor Company reneged on some agreements reached in discussions with the automobile giant, and the organization is considering its next move.

“We had an agreement with Ford, worked out in good faith. Unfortunately, some Ford Motor Company officials made the decision to violate the good faith agreement. We are now considering our response to the violation and expect to reach a decision very soon,” said Donald E. Wildmon, chairman of AFA.

AFA had called for a boycott of Ford last spring because of Ford’s support for the homosexual agenda and homosexual marriage but suspended the boycott for six months at the request of a group of Ford dealers. Wildmon said AFA and Ford officials hammered out an agreement in the interim that was accepted by both parties.

“All we wanted was for Ford to refrain from choosing sides in the cultural war, and supporting groups which promote same-sex marriage is not remaining neutral,” Wildmon stated.

He stated that because Ford broke the agreement, the option of a boycott is now very much alive.

By the way, notice how AFA is now changing the story. They now say this was about Ford "refraining from choosing sides" by supporting gay groups. No. AFA said this was about Ford promoting "gay marriage" by advertising its products to gay consumers, by providing its gay employees with company benefits, and by including sexual orientation discrimination in the company's diversity training.

Nice try, but the AFA is a proven liar. And any company that sits down to talk with them now knows that whatever really happens, the AFA will lie about it in the end.

Corporate America, meet with these extremists at your own risk. Read More......

Gay civil unions split up far less than religious right marriages

Gosh, straight couples have a 50% divorce rate, and religious-right couples divorce at the highest rate of all Christians (this was from a study done a few years back). So the religious right divorces around 50% and gays divorce around 1%.

So the best way to protect marriage and lower the divorce rate is to let gays marry and ban marriages of right-wing evangelical Christians.

Seems we can teach the extremist hate groups a few things about family values. This is a data point that people should be using all around the country to defeat those constitutional amendments and any anti "civil union" legislation.

From the VT Times Argus:

But from July 1, 2000, through the end of 2004, according to the Vermont Office of Vital Records, 7,549 couples have filed for civil unions in Vermont and there have been 78 dissolutions.

(Hat tip to reader Ray) Read More......

One week after the Republicans passed FOUR MORE TAX CUTS costing $100 billion, today they cut federal aid to education for the first time in a decade

We're cutting education because the rich just don't have enough tax cuts.

I gotta ask all you Republicans out there: These people represent you? Read More......

Open Thread

Keep on threading, please. Read More......

Wash Post editor calls blogs "the crankosphere"

I'd rather be a crank than a high-priced whore for the White House.

How's Bob Woodward doing, by the way? Read More......

Freeway blogger starts a blog

Many of you know our good buddy the Freeway Blogger. He puts signs up above freeways, blasting Bush so ten thousand people an hour can read them. Brilliant. Well, now he's started a blog to track his freeway hit-and-runs. Check it out. (I was going to contact Freeway and ask him to help us with a Ford action across the country, that would have gotten their attention.)

Some of his latest brilliant offerings.



Read More......

Shrinking Ice Cap means Polar Bears are drowning

Hat tip to Think Progress for this disturbing global warming story from the Arctic:

It may be the latest evidence of global warming: Polar bears are drowning.

Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice floes.

In a quarter-century of aerial surveys of the Alaskan coastline before 2004, researchers from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said they typically spotted a lone polar bear swimming in the ocean far from ice about once every two years. Polar-bear drownings were so rare that they have never been documented in the surveys.

The drownings were rare, but not anymore:

While the government researchers won't speculate on why a climate change is taking place in the Arctic, environmentalists unconnected to the survey say U.S. policies emphasizing oil and gas development are exacerbating global warming, which is accelerating the melting of the ice. "For anyone who has wondered how global warming and reduced sea ice will affect polar bears, the answer is simple -- they die," said Richard Steiner, a marine-biology professor at the University of Alaska.

What a legacy for the Bush Administration: Ignoring Global Warming, Destroying Species. They should be very proud. Read More......

NBC/WSJ Approval: Bush at 39%, Congress at 25%

Not good numbers for either end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the latest NBC/WSJ poll. The White House is probably crowing cause they went up a point:

According to the poll, 39 percent approve of Bush’s handling of his job while 55 percent disapprove. That’s a slight improvement from the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey last month, when 38 percent gave him a thumbs-up. In fact, it’s the first time since January that Bush’s job-approval rating has increased in the poll....Although Bush’s numbers have inched up, the numbers for Congress keep sinking. Just 25 percent approve of Congress’s job — a three-point drop since November.

And we learn the important nugget that seniors are CRANKY in the poll via Political Wire:

Key finding: "In a period of broad-ranging public discontent, that among senior citizens stands out as most worrisome for Republicans aiming to keep control of the House and Senate in the fall... By a 65% to 19% margin, Americans age 65 and above disapprove of the performance of Congress; those under 65 are also negative but less lopsidedly, 58% to 27%. Moreover, senior citizens say by 47% to 37% that they want Democrats rather than Republicans to win control of Capitol Hill."

Seniors actually vote. Read More......

Bush: DeLay is an Innocent Man

Making himself the judge and jury, Bush declared that DeLay is not guilty:

President Bush said yesterday he is confident that former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is innocent of money-laundering charges, as he offered strong support for several top Republicans who have been battered by investigations or by rumors of fading clout inside the White House.

In an interview with Fox News, Bush said he hopes DeLay will be cleared of charges that he illegally steered corporate money into campaigns for the Texas legislature and will reclaim his powerful leadership position in Congress.

Not that Bush is any great arbiter of morals or judgment, but it's just weird that the President injected himself into a legal proceeding. Is he trying to influence the jury? Maybe he's just testing the waters, knowing he may have to do the same thing for his top political aide. Read More......

Open Thread

Here we go. Read More......

The French Democracy

I wasn't aware of machinima but it's pretty cool. Alex Chan used machinima to create a short movie about the recent wave of racial strife in France, though perhaps it could be applied elsewhere as well. In general this 13 minute movie addresses the key problems that many countries are facing today related to racism and discrimination. For a quick and dirty movie, it's worth checking out. Read More......

Another Iraq war vet to run for Congress

Funny that we're not seeing more Republican war vets running for office and telling everyone how well it's all going, isn't it? I would think that there has to be a whole bunch of patriotic Republicans who served in Iraq and now want to spread the good word of all of the success over there.

The latest person to announce is Andrew Horne of Kentucky.

"It became a realization that we are less safe than we were, not more safe," said Horne, who as a Marine Reserve officer spent months working with Iraqi security forces and helping with reconstruction and humanitarian efforts.

Read More......

Okay, totally cool online map program

You've seen Google, this is even cooler.

http://local.live.com/

Use it to find your house, then click on "aerial" or birds-eye and zoom in to see a wild photo of your neighborhood - depends on where you live, some images are a LOT clearer than the Google ones. I don't think this works abroad yet, only in US. I think. Read More......

NYT on Ford: Actually, Ford is increasing its advertising in a sense

Interesting, I was wondering about this...

In a letter Wednesday to gay advocacy groups, Ford said that in addition to its current advertising campaigns in gay media, it would expand the ads to encompass all eight Ford brands. Previously, only Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo ran ads in gay publications. Now, the company has said it will advertise its Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda and Aston Martin brands in the gay press.

I'm still waiting for fundie-land to erupt. Will be interesting to see just how hateful they're willing to be right before Christmas. Read More......

Great Ford article in the Washington Post

The American Family Association is still making "no comment" - this has been going on for two weeks now. What gives?

Anyway, the Post article is excellent, frames the issue as a clear win for the forces of good inside and outside of Ford. Read More......