Colbert replacement, Rich Little, bombs at Correspondents dinner

I watched the first half of Little's routine, it was painful. E&P; has the best (and I think only, so far) coverage. Read the rest of this post...

Poof! After centuries, Catholic church suddenly decides "limbo" doesn't really exist

But don't worry, on that "gay is wrong" thing, I'm sure they haven't made a mistake because the Catholic church leadership doesn't make mistakes. Well, other than limbo, slavery, Galileo, and that pedophile thing. Well, and then there's that lingering question about the church's role in World War II. More from Reuters. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Joe is off to a wedding of two friends of ours (it's a wedding of two women, shhhhh, don't tell anyone). Read the rest of this post...

VA Tech gunman bought ammo clips through eBay

There's that 2nd Amendment again. Thank God the Founding Fathers had the forethought to enshrine the right to buy ammo by eBay in the Constitution. They really were wicked smart for a bunch of guys who apparently thought it better to have us all dead than gunless. This is absolutely ridiculous. Buying ammo on eBay? Enough of the cult of the gun in this country. Read the rest of this post...

Gonzo update

Nobody likes him anymore. Read the rest of this post...

Lee Iacocca blasts Bush & Cheney as "clueless bozos"

An excerpt from Iacocca's new book - read the entire excerpt:

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have....

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy....

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day—and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq—a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will....

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough?

Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises—the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough.

Read the rest of this post...

E. coli beef recalled weeks after illness

What would America do without quality food safety from the USDA? Please remember to thank Newt Gingrich and the GOP congress who helped make it all possible, unburdening industry from the troubles of regulation and letting the free market decide when to recall food that causes sickness and even death. After all, why should consumers have the right to know if the food they eat is going to cause liver failure? Just let it work through the system and add the problems to a footnote in a database that's filed somewhere obscure, never to be reviewed again. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Bob Geiger has the week's editorial cartoons. The White House e-mail scandals, Alberto Gonzales and Iraq are the main subjects. Several address the massacre at Virginia Tech. Those cartoonists really capture what is going on in America and the world.

The poem of the week is from "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" by Dylan Thomas.

Post away. Read the rest of this post...

Self-regulation strikes again

More pet food recalls. Another example of GOP political theory crashing and the public paying the price. Is the FDA ever going to step up and do anything? Read the rest of this post...

When in doubt, build a wall

Because religious and ethnic separation has always worked so well in the past...

The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

The wall, which recognises the reality of the hardening sectarian divide in Baghdad, is a central part of George Bush's final push to pacify the capital. Work began on April 10 under cover of darkness and is due for completion by the end of the month.

The highly symbolic wall has evoked comparisons to the barriers dividing Protestants and Catholics in Belfast and Israelis and Palestinians along the length of the West Bank.

Remember, he's a uniter, not a divider. Read the rest of this post...