A New Year's Wish for Peace

It could happen

George W. Bush Is Going To Bomb Iran

George W. Bush is going to bomb Iran. And there may be nothing we can do to stop the crazy bastard before he turns the entire Islamic world against us.

Impeachment - It's Time!

The 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006.

The Bill of Wrongs
By Dahlia Lithwick (Slate.com)

1. Hubris
Whenever the courts push back against the administration's unsupportable constitutional ideas—ideas about "inherent powers" and a "unitary executive" or the silliness of the Geneva Conventions or the limitless sweep of presidential powers during wartime—the Bush response is to repeat the same chorus louder: Every detainee is the worst of the worst; every action taken is legal, necessary, and secret. No mistakes, no apologies. No nuance, no regrets. This legal and intellectual intractability can create the illusion that we are standing on the same constitutional ground we stood upon in 2001, even as that ground is sliding away under our feet.

Continue reading ...

The NRA publishes a richly illustrated pamphlet highlighting the greatest threats to unrestricted gun ownership. “Here, for example, is one of the biggest threats to the white suburban hunter,” finds Wonkette, “dirty hippies and their evil sidekicks: the dynamite-carrying owl, sinister pig, angry Wall Street bull, dire wolf, terror chicken and Land Lobster.”

The complete document is now available for download from BoingBoing.

Freedom in Peril
In addition to absolute control of information flow, propaganda is critical in any dictatorship. One of the most distasteful propagandists during the Nazi regime was Julius Streicher, the publisher of the anti-Semitic rag Der Stürmer. Over the Christmas holidays, while other people were enjoying the company of family and friends, the merry gentlemen at Wonkette were uncovering a modern version of Der Stürmer; this time not from the neo-nazis, but purportedly from our friends at the NRA. More from Eclectics Anonymous

NPR Listeners Pick the Best CDs of 2006

NPR Music's online show All Songs Considered holds its annual countdown of the year's best CDs, as selected by NPR listeners. Host Bob Boilen chats with reviewers and listeners about their picks and plays highlights from each album. Read more ...

Regina Spektor: Begin to Hope

Tom Waits: Orphans

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins: Rabbit Fur Coat

Cat Power: The Greatest

Joanna Newsom: Ys

TV On the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain

M. Ward: Post War

Bob Dylan: Modern Times

Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

The Decemberists: The Crane Wife

Thieves exploit phone system for the deaf

About 22 million calls are expected to be placed this way this year, at a cost of $92.5 million. The IP Relay system is funded by little-noticed charges on our monthly phone bills, charges described in terms like "Disability Access Fee" or "Carrier Cost Recovery Fee."

But an NBC News investigation shows that this well-meaning service may now be helping the criminal community more than the deaf community because of serious flaws in the relay system.

And the U.S. government knows all about it. Records obtained by NBC News under the Freedom of Information Act document private meetings in Washington between representatives of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and the IP Relay companies that profit from the calls. Read more ...

Maybe the FCC should spend less time prosecuting nudity and coarse language and go after the real threat to its citizens posed by this IP Relay scam. Hell No! The fundies and their friends in the FCC remain fixated on their crusade against pornography. These Christianists are costing us more than just our liberties as private citizens, now they’re jeopardizing our personal finances. Just ask anyone that had to fight unauthorized credit card charges.

They say overseas thieves use stolen credit cards and the voices of relay operators to run up large orders from unsuspecting U.S. merchants who may let their guard down because they think they're helping a deaf person.

How much money do they think they helped steal from American businesses?

"Multi-millions," says Audia, "multi-millions." (Lisa Myers, NBC News)

U.A.E. Central Bank Is Selling Dollars, Buying Euros

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates will convert 8 percent of its foreign-exchange reserves to euros from dollars before September after the U.S. currency slumped this year, the country's central bank governor said.

The U.A.E. has started ``in a limited way'' to sell part of its dollar reserves, Sultan Bin Nasser al-Suwaidi said in an interview in Abu Dhabi on Dec. 24. ``We will accumulate euros each time the market appears to dip,'' as part of a plan to expand the country's holding of euros to 10 percent of the total from 2 percent today, he said.

The U.S. current account deficit widened to $225.6 billion in the third quarter, while oil producers in the Middle East and central Asia will run a surplus of $322 billion for all of 2006, according to the IMF. Total foreign holdings of Treasuries increased to a record $2.16 trillion in September, just under 50 percent of the $4.34 trillion outstanding.

China, the second-largest holder of U.S. debt, reduced purchases of U.S. treasuries by 1.7 percent in the first 10 months of the year, according to Treasury Department data. Continue reading ...

While Dubya continues to pour our lifeblood, both literally and figuratively, into the sands of Iraq, the rest of the world grows more concerned over their holdings in US dollars. America’s middle-class may yet pay a great price for having elected such an incompetent fool.

An Excuse for Violence

Get your Jesus Kicks Ass shirt - only $17.99

Christianity and Islam have been hijacked by fundamentalists who have made religion the language of power, the excuse for violence, and the alibi for empire.

Bill Moyers, A Time for Heresy

There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing and predatory as it is - in our country particularly, and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree - it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime- the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor His Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt."

Mark Twain

"Operation: Just Say... 'Merry Christmas'"

Are you in a quandry about which of our exclusive Christmas Bumper Stickers you like best? Can't decide which one to buy for gifts? Well....we've solved your problem! Purchase our variety 3 pack and save money too!

This Christmas season, proclaim to the world a message of joy, hope – and political incorrectness! WND produced three special, original magnetic bumper stickers with our loyal, patriotic readers in mind.

And because these bumper stickers are magnetic, there's no glue on your car, you can re-position it anytime, even move it from car to car. And you can re-use it year after year!

Only $14.95 - Order yours now!

One has to announce that it's not just some random "holiday." No, motherfuckers, it's Christmas, and conservatives wanna make sure you know it.

The American healthcare system is, simply put, a mess, but we may finally be ready to fix it.

EZRA KLEIN at the LAtimes.com December26, 2006
THE STATISTICS, by now, are well known. Forty-seven million uninsured Americans. Premium increases of 81% since 2000. Small businesses failing, big businesses foundering, individuals priced out and, amid all this, skyrocketing profits for insurers, hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The American health system, put simply, is a mess. An expensive one. Indeed, in 2002, we spent $5,267 per capita on healthcare — $1,821 more than Switzerland, the nearest runner-up. And yet we had higher infant mortality, lower life expectancy, more price inflation and an actual uninsured population, a phenomenon virtually unknown in the rest of the developed world, where universal healthcare is, well, universal.

The realization that our illogical, mistaken healthcare system can't go on forever has dawned, and so it will end. The question now is what replaces it. Continue reading ...

Honor Michigan's Fallen

Lance Cpl. Ryan J. Burgess, 21, of Sanford Michigan was one of two Marines killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq, on December 21, 2006. Lance Corporal Burgess was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

1st Marine Expeditionary Force History and Honors

1st Marine Division History and Honors

3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment History and Honors

Today's Chuckle

[Wal-Mart;s] are the George Bushes of the retail world -- drunk with power, cheaply made and full of crap

Mark Morford, Can You Still Hate Wal-Mart?

Bigotry Splits Episcopal Church

Two church congregations in the US have voted to break away from the Episcopal Church because of its decision three years ago to consecrate a gay bishop.

The Truro Church and the Falls Church voted to place themselves instead under the authority of the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola. He has called for the Episcopal Church to be expelled from the worldwide Anglican Communion. He is a fierce critic of the ordination of gay priests.

The parishes of Truro and Falls Church in Virginia - founded in British colonial times - are two of the oldest and largest church congregations in the US. They were once part of the Church of England but now they have voted to sever ties with their diocese and turn instead to the 17 million member church in Nigeria. Continue reading ...

The Truro and Falls Christians search the world for justification of their desire to propigate bigotry. What's next? US Churches seek Iranian justification for the rebirth of anti-Semitism.

"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning." Voltaire

Silent Night, Holy Night

Arlington National Cemetery
Tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrows,
We gave our today.
-- The Kohima Epitaph

Religious Distaste at Harvard

Alliance Defense Fund
The college founded to train Puritan clergy 370 years ago decided last week that a religion requirement should not be a part of its core curriculum. It is unfortunate that some of our Nation’s best and brightest have chosen to shun something as vital as religion. A daily glance at any newspaper reveals the major role religion plays, and has played, in society. From the Middle East conflict (Sunni vs Shiia, Islam vs Christianity) to the battle to protect traditional marriage (God hates Fags), to the genocide in Africa, religion’s role is unmistakable (Yes - for centuries it's been the primary force behind all sorts of brutality). How can Harvard discuss “what it means to be a human being” without discussing religion.

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values. Reinhold Niebuhr

Michigan’s War Dead Reach 112

Brighton, Michigan
Spc. Andrew P. Daul, 21, was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near his Abrams tank during combat operations in Hit, Iraq, on December 19, 2006. Specialist Daul served with the 1st Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

1st Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment Lineage and Honors Information

1st Armored Division (Old Ironsides) Lineage and Honors Information

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own. And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind." Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, killed in action, Dak To, Vietnam.

Son House Buryin' Ground

Born near Lyon, Mississippi, March 21, 1902, Son House chopped cotton as a teenager while developing a passion for the Baptist church. He delivered his first sermon at the age of fifteen and within five years was the pastor of a small country church south of Lyon. His fall from the church was a result of an affair with a woman ten years his senior, whom he followed home to Louisiana. By 1926, House had returned to the Lyon area and began playing guitar under the tutelage of an obscure local musician named James McCoy. He developed quickly as a guitarist; within a year he had fallen in with Delta musician Rube Lacy and began emulating his slide guitar style. House shot and killed a man during a house party near Lyon in 1928. He was sentenced to work on Parchman Farm, but was released within two years after a judge in Clarksdale re-examined the case. Having been advised by the judge to leave the Clarksdale vicinity, House relocated to Lula and there met bluesman Charley Patton while playing at the Lula railroad depot for tips.

Cliff House Project

The Cliff House Project
The goal of this website is to preserve the visual imagery of Adolph Sutro’s Victorian Cliff House. It was neither the first structure nor the last to carry the name of Cliff House, but it was certainly the most grand. Sadly, its existence was short-lived. It was constructed in 1896 and, like so many wooden structures of that era, burned completely to the ground in September of 1907. Link

The World's First Neural Stem Cell Transplant

Just over a month ago, on November 14, orderlies at Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, Ore., wheeled a six-year-old child with an incurable disorder of the nervous system into an operating theater. During the next eight hours surgeons used computers to guide a surgical procedure the likes of which the world has never seen: injections of neural stem cells directly into the brain of a human subject.

"This takes center stage as the first clinical trial that uses stem cells to attempt to possibly treat a disease," says Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Center for Regeneration Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. If successful, the study could pave the way for stem cell therapies to be used on conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and stroke. But, he cautions, "the first criterion is to see whether these stem cells will be safe."
Continue reading ...

Cobb County School Board Wastes $275,000 in Attack on Science Textbook

Let's hope that this decision finally forces the teaching of Intelligent Design (ID) into a comparative religion curriculum.

The Marietta Daily Journal (December 21, 2006) editorially commented, "The Cobb school board finally admitted the obvious on Tuesday: that its 'evolution sticker' case had devolved into a waste of time, tax dollars and educators' attention. As a result, it took the long-overdue step of pulling the plug on its federal court appeal of a lower-court ruling that said the evolution disclaimer stickers the board had ordered placed in all high school science textbooks were unconstitutional." Noting that the board spent about $109,000 to pay its own attorneys, the editorialist added, "Just think how many teachers could have been hired with that $275,000 or so the board wasted on something that never should have been an issue in the first place."

Mike King, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, offered (December 21, 2006) a different, and harsher, perspective. "The current edition of the much-maligned Cobb County school board is limping off the stage," King wrote. "In what might be seen as a lame-duck valedictory, the board is giving up its four-year campaign to ensure that Cobb County students haven't been duped by teachers into believing the evolution theory." King suggests that the board misunderstood its constituency -- "Truth is, there never has been widespread support within the county to change the way human biology should be taught. It has always been the work of a handful of anti-evolution zealots" -- and concludes, "But, for now, this era of embarrassment for the Cobb County school district seems, thankfully, to be drawing to a close."
Continue reading ....

Stevie Nicks - Silent Night (Live with Tom Petty On Guitar)

A holiday gift to all Stevie Nicks fans.

Today's Chuckle

Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution

TOPEKA, KS--In response to a Nov. 7 referendum, Kansas lawmakers passed emergency legislation outlawing evolution, the highly controversial process responsible for the development and diversity of species and the continued survival of all life.

"From now on, the streets, forests, plains, and rivers of Kansas will be safe from the godless practice of evolution, and species will be able to procreate without deviating from God's intended design," said Bob Bethell, a member of the state House of Representatives. "This is about protecting the integrity of all creation."

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The 10 Worst Congressmen

Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 10 worst Congressmen. Please note that there's only 1 Democrat on the list.

Get Out of Iraq

Didn't We Tell You That Bush Was A Fool?

by digby

Back in July of 2004, I wrote a post recommending that people check out this video by fellow blogger and musician Brew. I agreed with the sentiments, of course, but at the time I sort of knew it was prematurely anti-Codpiece for commercial success. The country was still mindlessly flagwaving and Junior was still well over 50 percent.

Brew happened to write me about something else today and I was reminded of his song and wondered what had happened with it. It turns out that like everything else these days, it's up on Youtube.

It's a difficult video to watch. (There are some very harsh images of war, so be advised.) But there are some other images that nobody ever talks about. They barely talked about it when they happened and they don't talk about it today even though the whole country is discussing the massive mistake that Iraq has turned out to be: the millions of people who were against this war from the beginning. And all those millions of people all over the world were not against the war because they were pacifists (although some probably were) and it was not because they were terrorist sympathizers or "hate America firsters" as was popular slander at the time. It was because they knew from the get that George W. Bush and all his neo-poleons were liars.

This song was ahead of their time when Brew and his bandmates put it together. Its time has come.

Surging To Defeat In Iraq

As Robert Gates takes the helm at the Pentagon today, he is probably already aware that Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush are resolute in their decision to stay the course in Iraq (without using those words) for the next two years. What he probably does not realize is that the U.S. military is about to commit hara-kiri.

The media are abuzz with trial balloons with official leaks that President George W. Bush is about to approve a “surge” in U.S. troop strength in Iraq by tens of thousands. At the same time, surge advocate Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., just back from a brief visit to the Green Zone with fellow surgers John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., has warned that “the amount of troops will make no difference” if Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki avoids taking “bold” moves. The three pretend to be unaware that the most important move for which they pressed—breaking with radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr—would amount to political suicide for Maliki.

Continue reading ...

GODLESS: The Church of Liberalism, by Ann Coulter (Crown Forum / 310pp)

Book Review by Christopher Hitchens:

Try sipping this single sentence and then rolling it around your tongue and palate for a while:

If Hitler hadn’t turned against their beloved Stalin, liberals would have stuck by him, too.

Well, I am being paid to parse and ponder that statement and I don’t understand it, either. Does it intend to say that liberals loved Hitler but drew the line at his invasion of the Soviet Union? Should it, rather, be interpreted as meaning that liberals were in love with Stalin but jumped ship when he was attacked by Hitler? It is remarkable to find so much intellectual and syntactical chaos in an assertion that contains no more than fifteen words.
Continue reading ...

The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium

It's a commonplace that something is "out of kilter" in America, as Senator John Kerry put it in the aftermath of the Oklahoma bombing; that "everything that's tied down is coming loose," as Bill Moyers has observed; that "the world has gone crazy," as the Unabomber declared, in his official capacity as op-ed essayist and mad bomber.

Are we on the eve of a new Age of Unrest and Unreason? Or are the visions of excess and premonitions of doom haunting millennial America mere numerology—the same mass manias that have bedeviled the Western world every thousand years? Is there "some sinister hysteria in the air out here tonight, some hint of the monstrous perversion to which any human idea can come," as Joan Didion wondered, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem? Or is it just the smell of Chaos, the new scent from Donna Karan?
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Virgin Komodo dragon is expecting

Another "arrow in the quiver" for Darwin's Theory. Let's see how the supporters of Intellegent Design explain this. 1950s Soviet Union experienced the death of half its citizens in a failed experiment to force evolution to fit their political paradigm. The theories of French genetisist Lamark provided what appeared to be scientific grounding for the theory of Soviet-style, centrally planned communism.

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.

Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

"Nobody in their wildest dreams expected this. But you have a female dragon on her own. She produces a clutch of eggs and those eggs turn out to be fertile. It is nature finding a way," Kevin Buley of Chester Zoo in England said in an interview.

He said the incubating eggs could hatch around Christmas.

Parthenogenesis has occurred in other lizard species, but Buley and his team said this was the first time it has been shown in Komodo dragons -- the world's largest lizards.

Read More ...

Weapons R-us!

Blondesense: How Tainted is our Collective Soul?

There are 2,243,040 people in US prisons. We have the highest percentage of the population imprisoned in the whole wide world. We even beat the bad guys!

Black men are hardly our biggest problem in America, but under George Bush, we beat out encarcerating black men against South Africa in 1993 under apartheid:
US in 2004: 4,919 per 100,000
SA in 1993: 851 per 100,000
(stats via prisonsucks.com)

We execute more white people than blacks though. White people are more likely to be serial killers. The Europeans called for a ban on executions. Here, more than 60% of the populace endorse it. Probably because we discuss who we are killing, not who is doing the killing. We are not number one in worldwide executions, but we share the stage with such luminary countries as Sudan, Kuwait, China, and republics of the former Soviet Union. (link)

As I replied to Blondesense Liz, Duyba’s discovered just how financially rewarding it is to be best-in-class for the science of efficient violence. Domestic or export, we’re your 1-stop shop for the administration of military-grade whoop Ass. Let’s hope that Professor Cook’s prognostication is off the mark. Even our Canadian friends are beginning to be worried.

America now reengineering itself via a technological processes that creates the culture, work, competition and self that is no longer 'made in America' or made anywhere other than in technological space and whose future may well be played out in the only realm that America still holds the edge — violence both inside and outside the nation.

David Cook, Scarborough College, University of Toronto

Michigan's Unfunded health care costs top $20B

Phil Stoddard, Michigan's director of work force development and retirement services, said the state faces more than a $20 billion debt for health care costs promised to state employees and teachers.

When it comes to heath care expenses, the state is $6.9 billion in the hole or departmental workers who are not part of the educational community. The state is in the red for health care promises made to teachers in the $14 billion range. There also are expenses for health care for state police offi cers ($467 million) and judges ($3.9 million) that are not funded. That is more than a $20 billion debt for heath care benefits for which there is no funding.

The state's costs for health care for public employees has skyrocketed more than $300 million in the past six years. In 2000, the estimated cost for health care claims was just over $651 million. In 2006, that cost is expected to exceed $968 million, according to the Michigan Department of Management & Budget. The Oakland Press.
Read more ...

Looking for Holiday Gift Ideas?

Welcome to the MichiganLiberal.com web store! Show your true blue colors, with our gear. Michigan liberals unite! (and friends)

Don't see what you need? Email: matt@michiganliberal.com

JFK to visit Boston before decommissioning starts

The Navy is still mulling the details of the ailing aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy’s decommissioning, but officials have made the decision to give the ship one last hurrah before taking her out of service.

“The Navy is developing a detailed decommissioning plan befitting of her distinguished history of service to our nation,” said Capt. Conrad Chun, spokesman for Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va.

“The final decommissioning date has not been set. JFK will remain in Mayport [Fla.] for some period of time. The exact timeline for the decommissioning process has not been finalized, either.”

Chun confirmed the decommissioning will take place before October 2007. Read more...

Here's to a job well done! Salute to a proud ship and the honorable seamen that served our Nation over its glorious history. A special thanks to Michigan's own CPO Steve Dice for his loyal service in the US Navy.

Why do people still buy Christmas trees?

Will Duguid
Saturday December 16, 2006

Is it just me, or are any other eco-friends out there starting to wonder just what we have to do to get people to listen? Man, how many times do we have to politely point out that buying a Christmas tree is, pretty much, in terms of blinkered selfishness, akin to hand-drowning peasants in the developing world? Read more ...

Election controversy hits Florida, again

It has become a ritual in American life. Go to bed on election night, wake up the day after wondering, "Just what did these people do in past lives to come back as Florida election officials?"

More than a month after polls closed, the certified loser for the congressional seat is refusing to concede, given an extraordinary wave of ballots with no vote cast in that race and a margin of victory as skimpy as a bikini.

But determining just what went wrong, if anything, has proved difficult given the voting machines involved: touch-screen computers with no printout for voters to confirm. The problems roiling Florida's 13th Congressional District may be one reason that a federal advisory board on Tuesday recommended that the next generation of electronic voting machines be "software independent." In essence, that means creating an independent auditing trail. Christian Science Monitor

Full Story

Is America "One Nation Under God or Christians?"

A national furor has been set off by conservative talk show host, Dennis Prager, because Minnesota Democrat, Keith Ellison, the nation’s first African American Muslim elected to Congress has elected to take his oath of office on his book of faith, the Holy Quran.

This whole movement to smoke out “subversive elements” in the “terrorist hunt” was bound to end up with, “if you believe in God-swear on the Bible.” Just as the threat to our nation became a threat to our conscious opposition to what we know is right, the threat to our belief system is becoming a threat not just to what we believe God is—but how we believe God delivers us.
Read more.

The Black Commentator

Intelligent design: The God Lab

[T]he lab's main objective "is to show that the design perspective can lead to better science", although he allows that the Biologic Institute will "contribute substantially to the scientific case for intelligent design".

This science-first message suggests that the developing anti-evolution movement in the US has moved on to a new stage - one in which opponents of evolutionary biology, trained as research scientists, take to the lab in search of the creator's handiwork. In light of recent events, it also makes sense as a public relations strategy. Read more


Intelligent design is just creationism in disguise.
This nonsense has no place in science classes. And, unlike Darwinism, the pseudo-science of ID can never be disproved. Show the creationists how the bacterial tail evolved and they will shift their argument to another complex structure which supposedly shows the hand of the creator. There is no evidence that could in principle disprove ID, so by definition it is not science.

ID was itself designed as a Trojan horse for creationism, with its origins in the Discovery Institute, a thinktank in Seattle whose stated aim is "to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God". Read more

The Guardian Unlimited

Bush and Celebrity Translator

Warning!
This is so funny it'll make milk shoot out your nose!

French Neocons Best the GOP : 6-2, 6-2, 6-2

And all this time I believed we had the best politicians money could buy. These dumb shitbirds had all the power and they wasted it for a low number on the Forbes Richest List. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, today's neocons know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

French Government Activities Deemed Illegal
There seems to have been a successful behind-the-scenes legal battle to persuade the investigating judges Jean-Marie d’Huy and Henri Pons to confine themselves to the first part of the affair and not take action over any secondary ministerial shenanigans. However the Prime Minster has been disappointed if, as is alleged, he wanted the whole matter delayed until after the presidential elections in April and May. Instead, he is apparently seeking a hearing at the earliest possible date, perhaps in the hope that after Christmas all will be forgotten. And he has not managed to get the judges to come to his offices at Matignon: he will have to go to them like any other witness. frenchnews.com

Nigeria To Make Meeting With Gays A Crime

(Lagos) Legislation being considered by Nigeria's House of Representatives would make it a criminal offense to associate with known homosexuals. The bill would make make any meeting between two or more people where one is gay a crime punishable up to five years behind bars. Read More ...

Yes, and this in a country where General Abacha sucked its treasury dry. If you trust Wikipedia ...

According to post-Abacha governmental sources, some $4 billion (U.S.) in foreign assets have been traced to Abacha, his family and their representatives, $2.1 billion of which the Nigerian government tentatively came to an agreement with the Abacha family to return, with the quid pro quo being that the Abachas would be allowed to keep the rest of the money. Although this proposal caused a massive outcry at the time for seeming to reward the theft of public funds, it was subsequently rejected by the late dictator's son, Mohammed Abacha, who continues to maintain that all the assets in question were legitimately acquired.^[4] Although in 2002, Abacha's family accepted to return $1.2 billion that was taken from the central bank.^[5] Abacha was listed as the world's fourth most corrupt leader in recent history by Transparency International in 2004.^[6]

The 12 Days of Xmas - Fox Style

High-level alert at airport over 'War on Christmas'

The New Zealand Herald

One day the seasonal trees that adorn the international terminal at Seattle-Tacoma airport were there, all twinkling and brightly decorated. The next day they were gone - victims of a bureaucratic tussle involving a litigious rabbi and a whole cast of politically correct officials terrified of either offending or indulging anyone's religious sensibilities.

In the United States, this sort of nonsense is becoming an annual phenomenon that the cable news pundits like to call "the War on Christmas". Read more ...

Stop the Madness - Save the Children

Iraq 2005


Oklahoma City 1995

“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children”

Howard Zinn

Photo of the Day

DeLay received a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in biology from the University of Houston in 1970. He spent three years working for Redwood Chemical before founding Albo Pest Control. This work was the source for his nickname "the Exterminator". In the eleven years for which DeLay ran the company, the IRS imposed tax liens on him three times for not paying payroll and income taxes.^[1] The Environmental Protection Agency's ban on a certain pesticide that was used in extermination work led DeLay to oppose government regulation of businesses, a belief that he has carried with him throughout his political career.^{[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay}

Duyba Refuses to Face Reality

The American people, the Baker Study Group, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff all tell Duyba his Iraq policy is a failure but he refuses to recognize the folly of his ill conceived campaign against global terrorism. Quoting Goethe, “There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance.” I believe the only option remaining to save America from Dubya’s continued malfeasance is impeachment.

Absolutely Correct

Photo of the Day

The Dance by Don Holland

DailyDigitalPhoto.com

Le Défi

Visit ”Le Défi” and find yourself in an old Belgian castle. In front of you is a complex trap protecting a precious chalice of Stella Artois ... There are six ways of disarming the trap, all equally challenging to the mind. Beautiful graphics and a real challange. Link

Women: Know your limits

Be plain and simple and let your natural sweetness shine through.
Yea, Right!

Iraq: Stay the Course - Part II

The current media travesty is a drumbeat for the idea that the U.S. war effort must keep going. And again, in its news coverage, the New York Times is a bellwether for the latest media parade to the cadence of the warfare state. Read more ...

End of the Bush Dynasty? One can only hope.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad's letter to the American people

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers.

Noble Americans,

Were we not faced with the activities of the US administration in this part of the world and the negative ramifications of those activities on the daily lives of our peoples, coupled with the many wars and calamities caused by the US administration as well as the tragic consequences of US interference in other countries;

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GOP Candy Sale

I'm Not A Republican Candy-Peach

FS315

Sure, I'm as familiar with hookers and cocaine as much as the next investment banker, but that doesn't make me a bush-lover. Natural Peach Candies. 1 oz. / 28.5 g. Sold in their own innerpacks of 12. Tell a friend about this product
Assistant Asshole Gum

FS913

Why it's the red, white and blue chew. 8 hot & spicy cinnamon pieces - cause every asshole likes it spicy. Sold in casepacks of 40 boxes.

Tell a friend about this product

Happy Crap You can Buy from a Plane

If you've ever been on a long flight and desperate to read - it's likely you flipped through the SkyMall catalog at least once. Here's a parody of that collection of useless crap that will make you laugh.

The SkyMaul catalog
"Hitler-Turning-into-Werewolf Nightlight" for your baby, a Divorced Dad "Pancake Time" Trumpet, Christian Over-the-Clothes Massage Lotion, a combination Retirement Crutch/Metal Detector, a Tiger Arm Extender, and lots more.

“This is the funniest catalog I’ve ever read. And they didn’t even go with the old lady holding the giant ‘massager.’ Funny and classy.”—Joel Stein, LA Times

Baker To Bush: Game Over

For someone that couldn't wait to get out of uniform during Vietnam, Duyba sure enjoys playing the macho warrier now that he has 24/7 Secret Service protection.

Baker tells Bush that he must accept a negotiated end to the Iraq War. read more ...

Sex Will Make You Go Blind

The latest pitiable GOP plan, from what I can tell, goes something like this: To make it all so absurd, to make the remaining Bush administration proposals and doctrines and cultural stratagems so outlandish and silly and degrading and insulting to your mind and your heart and your very own beleaguered genitalia that you cannot help but take note of their existence and laugh and cringe and sit back and go, Oh my God these people have got to be kidding. read more ...
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