Gag me

(Hat tip: Petrelis Files) Read More......

Sounds oh so presidential to me

Separating the wheat from the chaff and I think we all know who is the chaff. Read More......

Open thread

Joe is off in Delaware picking up his car that died a while back. Not a happy camper. Read More......

Wash Post op ed: Bush is worst president ever

Washington Post op ed:

Bush has taken this disdain for law even further. He has sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights that date as far back as the Magna Carta in Anglo-American jurisprudence: trial by impartial jury, access to lawyers and knowledge of evidence against them. In dozens of statements when signing legislation, he has asserted the right to ignore the parts of laws with which he disagrees. His administration has adopted policies regarding the treatment of prisoners of war that have disgraced the nation and alienated virtually the entire world. Usually, during wartime, the Supreme Court has refrained from passing judgment on presidential actions related to national defense. The court's unprecedented rebukes of Bush's policies on detainees indicate how far the administration has strayed from the rule of law....

Historians are loath to predict the future. It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.

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Heckuva job, Rummy

A Gold Medal? How does one screw up so badly and still get a gold medal?

About three dozen people rallied outside Philadelphia's venerable Union League to protest the organization's decision to honor departing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Officials at the selective private club presented its Gold Medal to Rumsfeld at a black-tie affair on Friday night, but would not discuss the reason behind the award.

A real profile in courage by the club, eh?

Club member James A. Ounsworth told the paper that he was "astonished and ashamed" because "Rumsfeld is a failure. I don't think you should give an award for failure."

Nice to see at least one sensible club member. Read More......

War Protestor's Public Suicide in Chicago Went Unnoticed by Media

Wow. Someone emailed me about this the other day and I wasn't convinced the story was real. Editor & Publisher has the details.

Malachi Ritscher envisioned his death as one full of purpose. He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family. On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician who'd fought with depression even penned his obituary.

At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 3 -- four days before an election caused a seismic shift in Washington politics-- Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire....

There was only one problem: No one was listening.

It took five days for the Cook County medical examiner to identify the charred-beyond-recognition corpse. Meanwhile, Ritscher's suicide went largely unnoticed. It wasn't until a reporter for an alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader, pieced the facts together that word began to spread.

digg this! Read More......

Romney, the waffler-in-chief wannabe

Some people call him a complete hypocrite for building wingnut credentials by attacking illegal immigrants yet not thinking twice about taking full advantage of their hard work at an attractive price. Some people think Romney is also a hypocrite for working with gays at an earlier time as governor but now is obsessed with gay bashing now that he craves wingnut support for his presidential bid. Some people make a lot of sense. Sounds like Mitt just can't make up his mind on anything and is a waffler, not to mention being a blatant opportunist. He looks like a real leader and just what the country needs at this time as we pick up the pieces from the Bush years.

An advocate for immigrants yesterday called the governor a hypocrite.

"Over the past four years, Governor Romney has railed against undocumented immigrants relentlessly," Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant Advocacy Coalition, said in a statement. "To our knowledge, Governor Romney has never offered a solution that respects undocumented immigrants as hard-working individuals striving to achieve the American dream, like the individuals who manicured his lawn for the past 10 years."

A Democratic National Committee spokesman, Damien LaVera, said that "Romney was too busy using immigration to cozy up to the right wing of the Republican Party to bother tending to his own backyard first."

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Just another day of extreme violence in Baghdad

Nothing is getting better in Iraq:

Three car bombs in central Baghdad killed at least 40 people and wounded 86 as they shopped at a fruit and vegetable market on Saturday.

Angry locals screamed in rage against Saddam Hussein's Baath party and speculated Sunni insurgents may have planted the bombs in retaliation for a raid on a nearby Sunni rebel stronghold on Friday by Iraqi and U.S. troops.

The bombing came two days after President Bush met Iraq's prime minister to discuss ways to avert all-out civil war and 10 days after the bloodiest attack since the U.S. invasion killed more than 200 people in the capital.

The U.S. invaded Iraq. Bush had no plan. He still doesn't. His only strategy is to castigate anyone else's advice. He needs an intervention. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Yesterday, it was in the 70s. Had the windows open. This morning, it's freezing. Have the heat on. We got none of the rain or snow in DC. Just wind and cold.

Anything happen over night? Read More......

Blair pushes Vatican on condoms

The Poodle is right on this one and the Vatican needs to catch up with the modern world. It will be interesting to see if the Vatican manages to pass the American religious right who still hold on to their abstinence program and prefer staying in the dark ages.

In a pointed criticism of the Vatican's stance on contraception, Mr Blair used a television interview on World Aids Day to insist that preaching abstinence was not enough. Speaking to MTV, Mr Blair said: "The danger is if we have a sort of blanket ban from religious hierarchy saying it's wrong to do it, then you discourage people from doing it in circumstances where they need to protect their lives."

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Cleaner air coming to the UK next summer

Perfect. The potential downside here is that pub drinkers might realize just how bad British beer is compared to the good stuff in Belgium and Germany or next door in Ireland but you can't always have everything. Well, at least people will be able to breath again. Tough luck for the pro-cancer crowd, again. Read More......

Open thread

Really need to go to bed. Read More......

White House to reject any broad policy changes in Baker Commission report, even though they haven't even seen it yet

America can't afford two more years of this arrogant, incompetent, idiot as president. From Saturday's Washington Post:

With the Iraq Study Group report due on Wednesday, the Bush administration has notified allies that it will not budge on certain aspects of Iraq policy, whatever recommendations are put forth by the independent panel of 10 prominent Republicans and Democrats....

In a further indication that the White House may be digging in its heels, the U.S. officials told the diplomats that President Bush looks forward to seeing the Iraq Study Group report, but they stressed that he will have the last word on what happens next and will not succumb to outside pressure, the sources said.

The little boy is throwing a temper tantrum. You Republicans voted for this idiot, now you can deal with the consequences as he destroys our country and the world. America and the world can no longer afford this imbecile as president. Read More......