King Tut gets a CAT scan

Oops, forgot the link.

How cool is that?



Consider this an open thread. Read More......

New Bush CIA chief hurting war on terror

Amazing. Porter Goss has abolished the critical 5pm daily counterterrorism meeting at the CIA because he thinks the CIA spends "too much time" working on terrorism. Too much time. Imagine if a Democratic president's CIA chief had said that. He'd be thrown out on his ass.

Democratic missed opportunity #: 3,541 Read More......

Religious right cries about "judicial activism" again

Like I said in a post below, while the Democratic/liberal/progressive groups dawdle, the religious right continues their daily attack on the judiciary. The latest from the religious right propaganda organ AgapePress:

...A national pro-family leader is siding with a Montana Supreme Court justice who recently accused his judicial colleagues of radically revising that state's marriage laws. Justice Jim Rice was reacting to the court's 4-3 decision last week ordering all state universities to provide health insurance for the "domestic partners" of homosexual employees. Dr. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association says the ruling exemplifies the problem of "judicial activism" that is rampant in America. "If the Montana Supreme Court can require the state to provide insurance coverage for the partners of homosexuals, it can require any other changes it sees fit," Wildmon says. The end result, says the AFA founder, is that the ban on homosexual "marriage" passed in Montana in November is "meaningless and void" -- and that the court has "usurped the will of the people." Wildmon's organization has launched a letter-writing campaign to the White House that allows citizens to notify President George W. Bush of their opinion on "strict constructionist" judges and "progressive" judges.

I'd love to see even one member of Wildmon's "flock" who can even enunciate what a "strict constructionst judge" is, without coaching. Read More......

Tom Delay seems to think the tsunami victims died because they're not good Christians

Ok, time to force the man to resign. Read More......

Gosh, I hope we have enough military to help the tsunami relief sufficiently

Funny how the tsunami popped up in the middle of our little war in Iraq. I thought we didn't need to keep any troops on deck for possible crises? We were already overstretched, God only knows what the state of our readiness is now. It's the grasshopper and the ant (or whatever that fable is) all over again.

Consider this an open thread. Read More......

For those who don't think our message resonates

Someone in the comments to a post tipped me off to this issue, so I investigated it and posted about it. Then others suggested a few more Web sites to check. And now there's an article about it. Just as funny, the article notes that the Family Research Council NOW has a prominent link to donate to the tsunami effort, after we'd criticized them. Hmmm....

My point in linking to this is to show folks that even in small ways your efforts matter. Slowly slowly we change things. Read More......

Rehnquist is on death's door - where the hell are the Democrats and the liberal groups?

UPDATE: I initially thought the article said Rehnquist was not swearing in Bush. Though that fact is irrelevant. Rehnquist is clearly ailing and there is NO effective campaign on the left regarding Supreme Court nominees or judicial nominees. My criticism stands.

I have HAD it.

Rehnquist is on death's door. The chief justice of the Supreme Court. An incredibly important position is about to be open. So where is the debate over all of this? Where is the Democratic party? Where are our representatives in Congress? Where are the liberal groups who supposedly care about the Supreme Court? Where the hell is anybody?

Nowhere to be found.

Rehnquist is dying and no one - NO ONE - is getting the word out about this impending Supreme Court battle. On the right, on the other hand, every day I read a new story, a new press release, a new letter to the editor, a new op ed talking about "judicial activists." On the left, where's the strategy, where's the grand plan? Where is any scintilla of a conversation AT ALL about this issue?

A few days ago Rehnquist criticized right-wingers who talk about "judicial activists." That would include the entire religious right, every conservative member of Congress, and President Bush. Where was the massive liberal public relations campaign to take advantage of the fact that Rehnquist on his death bed just endorsed our point of view? Where indeed.

Folks, this problem goes far beyond one organization or one issue. There is deadness in the soul of the left in America. The rot starts in Congress, works its way through the party organizations, and finishes in the progressive non-profits. None of our leaders have a clue how to fight a real war. And it appears they don't even have the desire to fight ANY war.

It's high time we threw ALL the bums out. Starting with the party, working our way through Congress, and ending with the high-priced organizations. If they can't prove their value when political gifts are handed to them on a gold platter, then what use are they. Read More......

Dems. Take Control in Vermont

Hmmm...in Vermont, which has civil unions, gay issues aren't even a factor anymore. In fact, Vermonters are actually comfortable with the concept. And, Democrats are winning there and now control the State Legislature, the Associated Press is reporting:

The Democrats triumphantly reclaimed control of the Vermont House on Wednesday, four years after they were swept from power in a backlash against the state's first-in-the-nation law creating civil unions for gay couples.

Lawmakers and political observers said Vermont's voters have become more comfortable with the notion of civil unions, which grant gay couples nearly all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. They also said anger over an education funding law enacted three years before civil unions appears to have faded.

Longtime lobbyist Steve Kimbell, who represented advocates of civil unions, said the 2000 civil unions law and the education measure had upset the "natural balance of power" in the Legislature - a solid Democratic majority in both the House and Senate.

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Bush award winner calls homosexuality a "deathstyle"

From Media Matters:

In his December 31 nationally syndicated column, which the Washington Times published January 5 as a "Commentary" column, economist Thomas Sowell claimed that rather than marriage rights, what "homosexual activists" really desire is "the stamp of acceptance on homosexuality, as a means of spreading that lifestyle, which has become a deathstyle in the AIDS era."

Sowell continued: "They have already succeeded to a remarkable degree in our public schools, where so-called 'AIDS education' or other pious titles are put on programs that promote homosexuality."

Bush is apparently a big fan of this bigot. Sowell went to a state dinner at the White House, and Bush even gave him a medal (funny, I thought Bush only gave medals out for starting wars based on a lie).

And for anyone who tries to claim that Sowell was misquoted, he wrote last year that liberal judges cause AIDS:

Who appoints liberal judges? Conservatives? Not very likely. Look for lots more liberal judges if you elect a liberal president.

That means judges who will turn more criminals loose and impose their own pet notions as "law," including gay marriage in all likelihood, with the net effect being more AIDS when the gay lifestyle is legitimized to the young.

No, Mr. Sowell, bigots who lie to the black community about the causes of AIDS are the ones who help spread it to people who are especially at risk, like straight black women and closeted black men. Read More......

Open thread

What do YOU think caused the Tsunami? I vote for Shepard Smith. Read More......

Gays and fornication caused the Tsunami (so not kidding)

It was only a matter of time before the wingnuts blamed gays for the Tsunami. Big surprise it's comes from a Saudi and being disseminated via WorldNetDaily (or as I like to call them, WingNutDaily), one of the biggest Republican news sites. (Of course, in all fairness to WingNutDaily, they may just be putting out the story to make Muslims look like idiots. It's so hard to keep track of which class of human beings conservatives are trying to smear from day to day.)

The thing I'm trying to figure out was whether it was the homos that made Bush ignore the death and destruction from the Tsunami for 3 days before even saying a word about it, was it the homos who made him be all stingy by only offering $15m in aid, and was it the homos who have made Bush to this day (10 days out) still not make a personal donation to helping the relief fund?

Damn, we're a powerful bunch.

Oh, and by the way. If we had the power to create Tsunamis, they wouldn't be hitting resorts in Asia, they'd be hitting Virginia. Read More......

Bush overcame potential disadvantages in his life?

Like what, being a moron? Unlesss he means being an alcoholic and a coke user, which would be interesting, because now he's talking about it so it's fair game to ask him exactly WHAT he's talk about. Read More......

The Washington-State GOP still whining

Those Washington State Republicans just don't get it: Dino Rossi lost. According to the AP, they are now doing radio ads saying they want a new vote in the governor's race.

A top Republican, House Minority Leader Bruce Chandler, said the Legislature should delay ratifying the results of the election until more questions are answered....

Also Tuesday, radio stations began running ads paid for by the state Republican Party, declaring the governor's election a "certified mess" and urging people to petition the Legislature for a new election.

It's bad enough that they can't accept the will of the people now that their guy has lost. The great hypocrisy is that in the radio ads they feign concern about an injured Marine apparently couldn't vote. So the GOP is worried about a marine who couldn't vote, but George Bush and Don Rumsfeld aren't worried about sending troops to die without the right armor. And even the Republican Secretary of State said there was no evidence of problems with military voting...but that doesn't stop the GOP activist base. They use the troops for political purposes when it suits them, then send them to die without the right equipment. What a bunch of hypocrites and frauds.

The Republicans just can't stand to lose. They are like a bunch of schoolyard bullies.

Fortunately, Christine Gregoire, who stared down big tobacco when she was Attorney General, is undaunted. Unlike too many Democrats, she is standing her ground. She told the AP, "The vote changed, I won, and now suddenly there's something wrong....I won by 129. It's time for us to put it behind us and move on." Read More......

Are we cheap?

An interesting read about how much the US spends as a nation (public and private) on international aid versus other nations and the potential impact of donations.

We gave 15 cents for every $100 of national income to poor countries. Denmark gave 84 cents, the Netherlands gave 80 cents, Belgium gave 60 cents, France gave 41 cents, and Greece gave 21 cents (that was the lowest share, beside our own).

It is sometimes said that Americans make up for low official aid with private charitable donations. Nope. By OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure - meaning that we still give only 21 cents a day per person.

With America's image tarnished around the world, one of the most effective steps Mr. Bush could take to revive it would be to lead a global effort to confront an ongoing challenge like malaria. That would also give Mr. Bush more credibility by suggesting that the "culture of life" he talks about embraces not just fetuses, but also African children crying from hunger.

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Michael Schumacher donates $10M to tsunami relief

Formula 1 racing champion Schumacher donated as much as the initial Saudi contribution to the relief effort. (The Saudis have now tripled that amount...selfish cheapskates.)

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders/Medicins Sans Frontieres have stopped accepting donations for the tsunami relieft effort in both France and Germany because they have already reached their targets to fund their efforts.

"This might seem to run counter to the mood of general mobilisation, but it's a question of honesty toward our donors. We don't want to continue to lobby the public for projects that are already financed," he [MSF Director General Pierre Salignon] said in a statement.

I've long been a fan of this charity because of their honesty and ability to run a tight ship without the bells and whistles that most other international aid organizations seem to require. While most organizations seem more interested in empire building and dishing out luxurious salaries and perks to the top execs, this group is focused on the task at hand and keeping a limited budget. Read More......

Wall Street still at it: Krispy Kreme cookin' the books

Remember how Enron, World Com, etc. were all blamed on the failures of the Clinton administration by the GOP? So who do we blame then for this latest mess by Krispy Kreme? The Bush team never wanted to do much to crack down on Wall Street so this should come as no surprise, but apparently the management team was double and triple shipping orders at the end of the quarter and then when the extras were sent back, they failed to recognize the returns on their balance sheets. I just can't wait to invest my Social Security retirement money in this stock market because it's just so much better than wasteful bureaucrats.
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