Crazy line of the day

From John Gibson at Fox News:

If this war is lost, it's Iraqis who lost it.

Incoherent, aren't they? The American war media don't even know whose zooming who in Iraq anymore.

The cartoon

Apparently there's a big fuss going on about accusations that the Supreme Court let religion influence their abortion ruling last week, including uproar about this Philadelphia Inquirer cartoon:

Joseph Cella, president of the Catholic-based organization Fidelis, called the cartoon "venomous, terribly misleading and blatantly anti-Catholic."

Well, the abortion decision itself was venomous, terribly misleading and blatantly pro-Catholic.

"Don't touch me"

Karl Rove and Sheryl Crowe:

In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me."

Now what did that remind me of? Oh, yeah...

"Isn't there an old Neil Young song in there somewhere?"

Why yes, RossK, and here it is!

Out of the blue
and into the black
You pay for this,
but they give you that
And once you're gone,
you can't come back
When you're out of the blue
and into the black.

Great line of the day

From Travis G at Sadly, No

Shorter Everybody On The Internet:
The senseless massacre at Virginia Tech basically confirms everything I’ve been saying all along.

Earth Day

Remember when Edward G. Robinson goes to the euthanasia centre in Soylent Green, and his last moments are spent with a video of how beautiful the earth used to be?
I hope my last moments aren't spent that way, though this is a beautiful video.



Cherniak provides the following summary of the Tory logic about global warming:

Let's get the Tory argument straight:
1) The Senate sucks;
2) The Senate should overturn the Kyoto bill passed by the House of Commons;
3) The Liberal government didn't do enough;
4) Stéphane Dion wants to do too much;
5) Kyoto targets cannot be met; and
6) The government is committed to the principles of Kyoto.

. . . More Tory logic:
1) Liberals had no programs to decrease greenhouse gases;
2) Liberal programs to decrease greenhouse gasses had to be cancelled because they did not work;
3) Tory reinstatement of Liberal programs to decrease greenhouse gasses with less funding proves that the Tories are taking greenhouse gases seriously;
4) The Tories will introduce new programs to decrease greenhouse gases because not enough is being done;
5) Any real effort to reduce greenhouse gases will lead to economic destruction.

Yep, that pretty well sums it up.
In a pathetic effort to appeal both to their wingnut base and to the majority of concerned Canadians, the Harper Conservatives actually WANT to talk out of both sides of their mouths on the global warming issue.
UPDATE: Anyone who still thinks global warming is scientifically questionable needs to read this great post by Devilstower at Kos.

Clark, the Canadian Hockey Goalie

Your hilarious You-Tube clip of the day:

Psychic advice?

This is really getting good -- Steven Harper's personal stylist is apparently also a clairvoyant. Now, of course, Harper denies ever asking her any questions -- but if she volunteers something, does he block his ears and mumble "nah-nah-nah" until she stops talking?

Neither Harper nor anyone on his staff pays for any kind of psychic services, a spokeswoman said Friday amid reports that stylist Michelle Muntean has a clairvoyant gift . . .
"We now know the prime minister's personal stylist and spiritualist is on the public payroll," Liberal MP Todd Russell said in the House of Commons.
"He thought this blemish would stay concealed. One would think the Prime Minister would blush with embarrassment at being caught out on such inconsistency. It strikes at the foundation of everything he supposedly ever stood for. It contradicts the makeup of his supposed fiscal responsibility. It just does not gel with the Canadian public.
"How can the Prime Minister justify stiffing the Canadian taxpayer for his vanity?"

But maybe she's advising Harper on when the stars align to call an election?
Harper's birthday is April 20, so here's his horoscope:

A stimulating, intimate and aesthetic encounter can be arranged. It is an excellent time for art and music. Buy some tickets now.
Current Influence of the Inner Planets
Each influence lasts from a day to several weeks.
Cultivate mutuality and understanding. You can improve the relationships.... Make plans and goals for the 12 months. Start a new cycle for self-expression, leadership, honor and glory.... Take three deep breaths and think deep thoughts. Find a new focus. You are the star. Communicate.... Your efforts can bring you recognition.
Current Influence of the Outer Planets
Each influence lasts from several weeks to a month or more.
Work with appropriate professionals.... Reach after spiritual goals. Commission a portrait. Live music brings good luck.... Go with some intense self-expressions.

Oh, great -- did someone actually have to tell Harper that "you are the star"?

From The Sir Robert Bond Papers.

No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up

Chickens roosting, dots connecting, petards hoisting, and all that.
Remember the educational software company started by the President's brother, Neil Bush? When Barbara Bush made a big deal about donating money for the Katrina refugees in Texas, it turned out that the "donation" was only to be used to buy Neil Bush's products -- remember that?
And remember how cronyism is a Bush family value?
So keep that in mind while reading this AP report:

Reading First, created by President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind law, offers intensive reading help for low-income children in the early grades. But investigators say that federal officials intervened to influence state and local decisions about what programs to use, a potential violation of the law. Some of the people who were influencing those decisions had a financial interest in the programs that were being pushed, officials said.
"I think we're very close to a criminal enterprise here," House Education and Labor Committee chairman George Miller, D-Calif., said at an investigative hearing Friday. "Have you made any criminal referrals, Mr. Higgins?"
"We have made referrals to the Department of Justice," Higgins said.
Miller said his committee may also make criminal referrals. "I think when we put the evidence together we may join you in those criminal referrals," Miller told Higgins.

The article doesn't mention Neil Bush. But the commenters at Firedoglake put it together.
Well, that could explain why Bush is hanging on so hard to Abu Gonzales as Attorney-General.
Oh yeah, and some of the commenters at Firedoglake also note that Reverend Sun-Myung Moon is apparently invested in Neil Bush's company.
You remember Sun-Myung Moon? The Unification Church? Neil Bush travelled with Moon in a "world peace tour" in 2005.
Moon was the one who apparently bailed out Jerry Falwell's Liberty University a few years ago. That university is graduating its very first class of lawyers this spring. I wonder how many Liberty University grads will end up working for the Justice Department, alongside the lawyers from Pat Robertson's Regent University law school?

Great line of the day

From beep52, commenting at The Carpetbagger Report:

Bush leveraged a national tragedy into reelection. He’s seeded the federal government with true believers, expanded executive authority while marginalizing Congress and appointing 2 radically conservative SC judges. He’s expanded government surveillance of our phones, e-mails, libraary borrowings, bank accounts and medicine cabinets. He’s stalled efforts to curb global warming, cut protections once provided by the EPA, FDA, and silenced scientists who dare refute the literal word of bible or the backward beliefs of those who claim to know the mind of the almighty. The US can now torture, imprision without providing cause and prosecute without allowing a reasonable defense. He’s built bases in the middle east, and fattened the bank accounts of those whose bank accounts were already obscene. The middle class — the masses — have not been so economically impotent in decades.
For such an idiot, this guy has been awfully successful.

I read the news today, oh boy

Kurt Vonnegut quotes from The Freeway Blogger: "There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."
"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."
"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."
"Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules— and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress."

Extreme sports:

A sturgeon jumped out of a river and hit a woman riding a personal watercraft, the latest such injury involving the flying fish along the Suwannee River . . . the Gulf sturgeon migrate into the Suwannee River in March to spawn, and remain in the river until the fall. And researchers still aren't sure why the large fish jump.

Maybe the fish are just fighting back.

Leading: You can always tell which Democratic presidential candidates the Republicans are most scared of -- its the ones they are working hardest to swift-boat with baseless, irrelevant smear campaigns. Right now, its John Edwards and Barak Obama, either of whom would make an excellent president.

Harper's "personal primper": On the other hand, this is actually funny, though as a taxpayer I laughed 'til I cried:

. . . taxpayers are picking up the tab for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's personal primper.
After two days of ducking media and opposition questions, the Conservatives finally revealed Wednesday that Michelle Muntean is on Harper's government staff.
. . . Harper has been travelling with his personal image adviser for major domestic and international events - most recently at ceremonies at Vimy Ridge in France last week. Muntean helps him perfect his look, including managing his wardrobe and general grooming . . . Muntean began working with Harper during his run for the Conservative leadership, and stayed through two federal campaigns. She hails from the world of film and television, and had become CBC's head of makeup by the late 1990s.
A warm, bubbly personality, Muntean has now become a fixture in Harper's entourage and remains the only staff member he tolerates style advice from. Sources said Harper has tried to convince her to move to Ottawa, but she remains based near Toronto.
In addition to her travels to Vimy Ridge, Muntean was also with Harper in Hanoi, Vietnam when he met with Pacific rim leaders, and in St. Petersburg, Russia for last summer's G8 summit.

Maybe if they called her a butler, rather than a primper, the whole thing would be less offensive (I guess I'm just glad Canadian Press didn't call her a "personal fluffer"!)
Whatever you call her, Harper should be paying for this type of employee with his own money, not ours. But darn it, I guess we won't be seeing any more photos like this one:

Great line of the day

Discussing the US Supreme Court decision to allow legislatures to outlaw abortion procedures even if women's lives are at stake, Digby points to this March, 2006 post from Mahablog about abortion rights:

. . . the anti-abortion rights position is based on an assumption that women aren’t real people — especially women who get abortions. Oh, they’re human in a scientific sense, but they aren’t people. They are archetypes who live in the heads of the anti-abortion righters — Careless Woman, Selfish Woman, Woman in a Vacuum. The same people who imagine embryos can think and feel emotions — and therefore deserve protection — must believe a pregnant woman is just a major appliance.
There are copious anecdotes from abortion providers who say that often the same people protesting outside the clinic one week are patients (or parents of patients) the next week. These people assume that their situations are unique and should be the one exception. They often want the abortion staff to know they aren’t like those other women who get abortions. This inspired the bitter joke that the legitimate reasons for abortion are “rape, incest, and me.” Such people recognize their own humanity (or their daughter’s), but those other women who get abortions are just archetypes who don’t deserve respect or considertion.
I’ve long believed that whether one is pro-choice or anti-choice does not depend on whether one thinks embryos are human beings. It depends on whether one recognizes that women are human beings. Not archetypes, but real, individual human beings. Including women who get abortions.

Emphasis mine.

I'm thinking of this song tonight

Feeling old?

I heard on the radio on the way to work -- Bobby Vinton is 72 years old today.
Sigh...

What war is like

Dave at The Galloping Beaver writes about the real, raw, painful experience of war:

The nightmares of past events come more often and with more clarity. And, in the middle of a conversation with people who know nothing of my history, I suddenly recall an event which sends my mind flying in a thousand different directions.
Back then, I used my weapon precisely as I was trained to do: automatically, surgically and as an extension of my arms. Often, I did not feel it kick into my shoulder or hear the metallic working of the action. Now, I can feel the trigger and the pressure against my index finger as I release the round that will kill the human in front of me. I can see the faces of mere boys who were given no choice but to die by my actions. In a particular instance, I replay an event which at the time I could not afford to second-guess. And I now wonder if the wounded young conscript laying in a fire-pit ahead of me was not reaching for his weapon but crossing himself in the style prescribed by his Catholic faith. I put two rounds into his chest before he could finish his act and I will never know whether he intended to kill me or whether he was simply asking for help from his God.
My mind randomly and with no warning suddenly erupts with one thought: “You are a killer.” It is something I have to fight back because when it happens I can see the edge of an abyss. It is a debilitating feeling that no matter what I have done in my life or what good I do, I will always be a killer; someone whose conscience was able to repress remorse for over two decades.

I commend Dave's bravery in telling the story of his war -- and hope that telling it will help reduce the stress.
I once read an article about people recovering in a burn unit of a hospital. Psychiatrists help them by visiting them each day and getting them to tell "the story" of their accident or experience. The theory is that telling it out loud helps them to integrate the experience and deal with it openly, which prevents the nightmares and the other symptoms of post-traumatic stress which burn victims apparently are particularly prone to.
I wonder if everyone who has experienced traumatic events would be better off to tell "the story", rather than let it eat away at them inside. Its hard to find someone to tell the story to -- families and friends are often too emotionally involved to just calmly listen without judgement or comment or reassurance, tending to say "don't think about it" when they can't really think about anything else.