Author's posts
Apr 22 2009
We need a new reality show: Waterboarding with the Stars!
ATTENTION, ALL MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATE MEDIA:
Waterboarding is TORTURE.
It’s certainly not an “advanced interrogation technique” – it was used in the Spanish Inquisition.
Please don’t call it “enhanced interrogation” – the Nazis already coined that phrase.
And, “harsh interrogation”? Please – “harsh” is what that detergent you switched from was to your delicate washables.
No – please call it what it is; it’s torture, plain and simple.
Hmmm – but I see you remain unconvinced. In that case, follow me below the fold . . .
Mar 16 2009
Curious flightless birds stranded by global meltdown
“We will impose our reality on them.”
— Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
in a meeting with CIA
and State Department analysts
before the invasion of Iraq
Jan 06 2009
Heartless bastards
Dec 30 2008
A legacy up in smoke: Bushies spark up a big fatty
First Lady Laura Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former White House political advisor Karl Rove were seen stumbling out of a 1963 Volkswagen Microbus yesterday, trailing a billowing cloud of sweet-smelling smoke, blinking and waving their hands in front of their faces. Upon emerging from the brightly festooned van, the three high-powered advisers to President George W. Bush immediately walked over to talk to reporters.
The Secretary of State absently munched from a jumbo-sized bag of Doritos® as she told CBS’s Rita Braver,
I think generations pretty soon are going to start to thank this President for what he’s done.
Dec 11 2008
Bush’s public lands legacy: half an acre
If you could suddenly find yourself standing atop the summit of New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, the highest point in New England and home at times to some of the most bitter weather on earth, and you should happen to be there on a day that was unencumbered by clouds or haze or fog, and you were able to take in the landscape all around you for 50 or 100 miles in every direction – if you could, in other words, see the entire state of New Hampshire from the summit of Mount Washington, all the way north up U.S. 3 to Third Lake and all the way south on 3 to Nashua – if you could somehow make that happen, then you would be able to take in with your own eyes an area the same size as all the public land that Bill Clinton single-handedly protected during his term as President by invoking the Antiquities Act of 1906: that is to say, more than 6 million acres.
Now – if you could find yourself suddenly transported from the summit of Mount Washington all the way across the country and down to sea level, to the Walgreen’s drug store on Olympic Boulevard in west Los Angeles, and if you could have an opportunity to take a good look around – to walk up and down the aisles, past the magazines and the makeup, past the hair color and the headache remedies, past the one-hour photo counter and the pharmacy – and you could make sure you covered the entire store, not missing anything, including the storage warehouse and the employee lounge in the back – if you could do that, then you would be able to take in with your own eyes an area the same size as all the public land that George W. Bush has so far protected during his term as President by invoking the Antiquities Act of 1906: in other words, about 15,000 square feet, or less than half an acre.
Nov 22 2008
The New Ozymandias
Nov 05 2008
The Promised Land
I’m a cynical bastard, but I cried tonight.
I cried listening to a political speech, a speech given by a Chicago politician. I cried standing in a noisy bar in front of a big screen TV with a bunch of other people who were crying, too, a lot of them.
I cried as this politician reminded me of what is best about this country, this species, this planet – reminded me that all things are, in fact, possible, and that we as a nation just proved that.
Oct 30 2008
F-ing socialist! Pals around with terrorists!
Lord almighty, save us from these revolutionary socialist FREAKS who want to break up this great country of ours that has survived for hundreds of years – until now.
Holy crap – listen to what this guy says about redistribution of wealth:
Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.
Kee-ripes, how un-American can you get?!?
Oct 06 2008
McCain’s “war hero” free ride over? LA Times opens the door
Yes, they went there: the LA Times is featuring on its homepage a major story examining a portion of John McCain’s military record:
Here’s the subhead:
Three crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or fault his judgment. A Times review of his record suggests he was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits.
The once-sacred-cow, the Time Period Of Which We Dare Not Speak, is now fair game for the corporate media.
This cannot be good news for McCain.
Sep 29 2008
“If you want an answer RIGHT NOW, the answer’s ‘No.'”
That was the sign that used to hang behind the building permit counter at one of our local municipalities.
I didn’t much like it then, because I thought it represented the worst of an ossified bureaucratic outlook toward public service.
But after the vote in the the House today on the bailout bill, I completely understand the sentiment.
Sep 27 2008
Global warming: new figures MUCH worse than feared
“We should be worried – really worried.”
And you thought Wall Street was underwater now . . .
Want a safe place to put your money? How ’bout, higher ground, away from the coastline?
An analysis of new figures shows that even the worst-case scenario predicted last year by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already been exceeded.
The world pumped up emissions of the chief human-produced global warming gas last year, setting a course that . . . exceeds the most dire outlook for emissions from burning coal and oil and related activities as projected by a Nobel Prize-winning group of international scientists in 2007.
Sep 26 2008