My ox is not to be gored. That's what yours is for...

Go see

Common oversights by close minded people living in fear

over at i speak dog.

4. Personal Responsibility: A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

5. Religious Hypocrites: Jesus loves you, and he shares your mindless pointless hatred of homosexuals (which in reality is actually self loathing).

6. Support Our Troops: The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay, and by putting stickers on your car while never actually thinking about them, and by wearing yellow ribbons that mean nothing while denying the truth and not paying benefits to over 7,000 families of US troops.

7. Sex Education: If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex. (Ignore the problem and it will go away)

Many more, including some in 'Comments'. Go.

Tooting my own horn-just a little,you know,because I rock,and stuff.

Awhile back I wrote a post here called Living Democracy.Kind of a book summary of Frances Moore Lappe's book Democracy's Edge with my own riff.Remember that one?

A couple days ago Fixer forwarded me an email from Jess at the Small Planet Institute wanting to use my post for their Democracy's Edge website. I just got off the phone with Jess,she's way cool,btw.My post is now in it's entirety on their site with a link back to the Brain,if you wanna go peek. Scroll down the page a bit to find their link back to the Brain to the original.

I know,I also promised a series out of this whole thing,but life keeps messing with me.Still dealing with a certain 12 yr old boy's broken teeth(3.5 ish hours at the dentist AGAIN yesterday,with one more appt to go for a total of FIVE mega sessions).For some reason yet to be determined I've broken out in hives(itch,scratch,ouch,itch,scratch,ouch) on my legs and the inside of my elbows.Then I find out this morning my daughter is pregnant with baby #3(which while I love babies and love her,I'm pissed,she was supposed to go to college this fall.I was trying to help her find grant money to go to tech school because that's the only option in that area to get her off welfare and into a paying job.She's known she was pregnant for a few weeks now and decided to fess up this morning.I should have just kept my nose out of her business or she should have just told me to.CRAP!),which is a blessing-it's a baby after all,but the timing sucks.She's not even 24,by the time she is 24 she will have 3 kids ages 4,18 months and brand new.School ain't gonna happen,neither is a job.It's probably a good thing she's in Ohio and I'm in Georgia so I don't go to her place and smack her upside the melonhead.I'll come around,these are my grandbabies and my own big baby after all,but I'm annoyed,to put it mildly.She's young though,she'll probably be like me and get her clue later in life.(((sigh)))And I'm only 46,should I have this many grandkids yet?So now I'm mad because she's making me old before my time too.(ok,not really,I'm being snarky).

An observation

Mrs. F was watching the news this morning and Guvnah Jeb was on, making a speech about Florida's preparedness for Hurricane Alberto (Good luck, folks, serously) and there was the lady translating into sign language standing next to him.

Mrs. F: "I wonder if she's really signing 'this guy's an asshole'."

Ass fucking

Or, dissin' thems that brung ya. The lovely Jane on Wonkette*:

...

Her previous career may have been launched by a wilingness to coarsen political discourse by talking about the things she inserted into her rectum, but at Time she seems to have changed positions. TBogg alerts us this morning that her new stint seems to be on her knees:

...

*Gitcher minds out the gutter...

Centrists

Avedon Carol has an excellent piece on Dem 'centrists'.

...

Hm, sounds like "the center" is actually a creature called "corporate interests". I think most people in America would be awfully surprised to hear it.

Then again:

...

Grrrrrrrr

Just got back from having an abcessed gum lanced. I do not recommend having it done without novocaine but it was an emergency. The infection started Saturday and I figured rinsing my mouth alternating Listerine and salt water would fix it. I woke up this morning and my eye was swollen shut. Shoulda had the root canal done before vacation in Paris last year but noooo...didn't have time. Getting it done tomorrow night whether I have the time or not. I'm usually not one to neglect dental care and it came back to bite me in the ass. Let that be a lesson to ya.

And just a note, it didn't make me feel much better watching our soccer team getting their asses handed to them. I've seen high school varsity teams play better.

Now they've done it...

The Islamists have gone too far this time! From YahooNews:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Islamist militiamen shot in the air to disperse hundreds of Somalis protesting early on Saturday against moves by sharia courts to stop them watching the World Cup in the capital Mogadishu, residents said.

Similar moves by Islamist militia to close cinemas and video stores in Mogadishu last November triggered heavy fighting that killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 20.

Leaders of the capital's influential Islamic courts oppose Western and Indian films which they say promote immorality in the mainly Muslim nation of 10 million people.

However, the World Cup ban stirred resentment among locals, already weary of the fighting in Mogadishu that has killed 350 people in three months.

"The residents of this area are very sorry about the way the Islamic militia is behaving toward the people at a time when our society needs peace and stability," said Moallim Hussein Abdi, a teacher.

One teenager was defiant.

"We do not accept the Islamic militia stopping us from watching the World Cup," Ahmed Yusuf, 19, said. "We'll continue demonstrating until they relent."

Or until they shoot him. TV bad, shooting for Allah OK, I guess.

Can you imagine what would happen here if nutzoid religionists tried to stop folks from watching the Super Bowl? There'd be blood in the streets that would make Mogadishu look like a day at the beach!

MoDo on YearlyKos

Maureen Dowd at Donkey O.D.

If I had to be relegated to the Dustbin of History, I'm glad it was in Vegas.

I, Old Media, came here to attend a New Media convention of progressive political bloggers aiming for a technological revolution that would dispatch mainstream media to the tumbrels. It was the journalistic equivalent of mingling with your own pod replicant in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

Old media and new circled each other "like kids at a seventh-grade dance," said Jennifer Palmieri, a Democratic operative.

Technology has enabled the not-meek to inherit the earth, and Democrats and others who refuse to drink the cyber-Kool-Aid will, Mr. Moulitsas said, go into the old "dustbin of history."

The fast-talking former Army artillery scout with the boyish demeanor and dark brown buggy eyes is no one to take lightly. Some may think the Internet messiah who put Mr. Dean on the map in 2003 is "a fame hound, a loudmouth nerd at the back of the room," as The Washington Monthly wrote. But others, including adoring conventioneers who called the scene at the debut YearlyKos gathering "magic" and "a rock concert," see him the way Ana Marie Cox, nee Wonkette, described him this week in Time.com: "He's the left's own Kurt Cobain and Che Guevara rolled into one."

If I were Kos I'd watch my back. Those guys are deader than a coupla carps!

Mr. Moulitsas assured me he didn't see himself as a journalist, only a Democratic activist. "I don't plan on doing any original reporting - screw that. I need people like you," he said, agreeing that since he still often had to pivot off the reporting of the inadequate mainstream media to form his inflammatory opinions, our relationship was, by necessity, "symbiotic."

Were the revolutionaries simply eager to be co-opted? Mr. Moulitsas grinned. "Traditionally it was hard to get your job," he said. "Now regular people can score your job."

Fine. I'll be at the Cleopatra slot machine pondering a career in blogging, which will set me up to get back into mainstream media someday.

I don't think blogs and bloggers need to 'replace' the old media. If we could wheedle, cajole, or shame them into doing what they're supposed to do, I'd be happier than a pig in shit. At least the blogosphere is finally on their radar as a force that needs to be recognized instead of pooh-poohed. That the MSM sent a lot of people to cover this convention shows that.

I did, however, detect a very slight odor of disdain and maybe a little sour grapes coming from my favorite b-t Irish redhead. Never fear, darlin', we still need ya.

Maybe when the Blogger Party takes the helm, she'd like to intern for the Secretary of the Interior...

The crux of the biscuit

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

What the fuck has happened...

To my Air Force?

It's hard...

For me to feel sympathy for a mercenary, though his arguments are all dead on.

Want ads

Bob Higgins:

If you are an American citizen with skills and expertise in any field relevant to the operation of the legislative, judicial or executive branches of the American government Uncle Sam wants you.

The People are currently seeking men and women with talent and competence in any area who are willing to work forty eight weeks a year at the People's business, keep their hands out of the cookie jar and themselves out of the beds of those who would corrupt the government to serve their own interests.

...

Great ad.

The Zarqawi Invitation

Today's recommended "must read". Greg Palast:

They got him -- the big, bad, beheading berserker in Iraq. But, something's gone unreported in all the glee over getting Zarqawi...who invited him into Iraq in the first place?

If you prefer your fairy tales unsoiled by facts, read no further. If you want the uncomfortable truth, begin with this: A phone call to Baghdad to Saddam's Palace on the night of April 21, 2003. It was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on a secure line from Washington to General Jay Garner.

The General had arrives in Baghdad just hours before to take charge of the newly occupied nation. The message from Rumsfeld was not a heartwarming welcome. Rummy told Garner, Don't unpack, Jack -- you're fired.

What had Garner done? The many-starred general had been sent by the President himself to take charge of a deeply dangerous mission. Iraq was tense but relatively peaceful. Garner's job was to keep the peace and bring democracy.

Unfortunately for the general, he took the President at his word. But the general was wrong. "Peace" and "Democracy" were the slogans.

"My preference," Garner told me in his understated manner, "was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can and do it in some form of elections."

But elections were not in The Plan.

The Plan was a 101-page document to guide the long-term future of the land we'd just conquered. There was nothing in it about democracy or elections or safety. There was, rather, a detailed schedule for selling off "all [Iraq's] state assets" -- and Iraq, that's just about everything -- "especially," said The Plan, "the oil and supporting industries." Especially the oil.

General Garner, watching the insurgency unfold from the occupation authority's provocations, told me, in his understated manner, "I'm a believer that you don't want to end the day with more enemies than you started with."

But you can't have a war president without a war. And you can't have a war without enemies. "Bring 'em on," our Commander-in-Chief said. And Zarqawi answered the call.

Those quotes are the beginning and end of the article. Like a sandwich, the good stuff's in the middle. Please read.

Thanks, Old White Lady.

When Santorum hates ya...

You know you've sunk pretty low.

Yeah, what about it?

Atrios has a good idea. Think it'll happen before Election Day?

If I were a potential presidential candidate looking for a way to jump start my campaign, get a bit of news, and get a bit of blogger support what I would do is be the first big name to endorse Ned Lamont.

...

Yeah, me neither. It would take character.

Interview with Ned over at My Left Nutmeg.

It's us...

If you were wondering if we're making a difference here in Blogtopia (y!sctp!) and not just shouting into the wilderness, this should give you some peace of mind:

A surge in small, individual contributions is lifting Democratic campaigns this year and is helping close a Republican fundraising advantage that has existed for years in national politics, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Democratic House and Senate candidates and their two major campaign committees are enjoying stronger grass-roots support than at any time since the GOP took over both chambers of Congress in the 1994 elections, according to strategists from both parties who have reviewed the most recent FEC data released this spring.

...

What you're seeing are our cumulative voices being heard by the Average Joe or Jane who've been coming to us to get some truth, what they can't get from the 'MSM'.

Blogger Party

Since I was kidding around with Shakes the other day about my being King of the World, or at least just of the United States, and I got to thinking. What if I were President, elected from the 'Blogger Party'? How would I arrange my cabinet? I picked bloggers I read regularly (generally at least once a day) and I think would rise to the occasion, even if they aren't necessarily an expert in the subject.

Vice President - Pam Spaulding
Secretary of State - Michael J.W. Stickings
Secretary of the Treasury - Brad DeLong
Attorney General - Christy Hardin Smith
Secretary of the Interior - Gordon
Secretary of Agriculture - Radical Russ
Secretary of Commerce - Mrs. Fixer
Secretary of Labor - DBK (Froggy)
Secretary of Defense - Cdr. Jeff Huber
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development - Scout Prime
Secretary of Transportation - 42
Secretary of Energy - Michael Hawkins
Secretary of Health and Human Services - Shakespeare's Sister
Secretary of Education - PZ Myers
Secretary of Veterans Affairs - Jo Fish
Secretary of Homeland Security - Larry C. Johnson
Press Secretary - Jane Hamsher
Ambassador to the U.N. - Roxanne

Advisers to the President:

For the Arts and Humanities - Mimus Pauly/Patrick
For High Technology - Badtux the Geeky Penguin
For International Relations - Eponymous/Juan Cole
For Womens Issues - Blondie (Blondsense Liz)/AOB
For Racial Issues - Steve Gilliard
For LGBT Issues - Genia Stevens
For Religious Issues - The Green Knight
On the Environment - Grannyinsanity

Now that's a progressive White House. Whatever you think, I'll betcha we do a better job than the bunch that's in there now.

The DeLay Principle

Paul Krugman on the estate tax, war, and politics.

So a more precise statement of the DeLay Principle would be that nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes for very, very wealthy people, like the tiny minority of Americans who are heirs to really big estates.

Americans from an earlier era might have been puzzled by the DeLay Principle. They still believed in the principle enunciated by Theodore Roosevelt, who called for an inheritance tax in 1906: "The man of great wealth," said T.R., "owes a peculiar obligation to the state."

But the DeLay Principle isn't really that hard to understand: it's just like the Roosevelt Principle, but the other way around. These days, the state - or rather, the political coalition that controls the state, and depends on campaign contributions to maintain that control - owes a peculiar obligation to men of great wealth. And nothing is more important than cutting these men's taxes, even in the face of a war.

Gotta take care of the Sugar Daddy so he'll keep takin' care of them, the whores.

A tip o' the Brain to Rozius.

More al-Z

I know I was a bit glib and cynical in my post about al-Zarqawi's deletion. Our good friend Lurch makes the point far better:

...

Interestingly enough, the alleged leader, A. M. al-Zarqawi was little known throughout the world until Bu$hCo suddenly proclaimed him the leader of a-Q in Iraq, which in fact had never been heard of before Bu$hCo and CENTCOM, imitating Col Tom Parker said, "C'mere, cat. Ah'm gonna make you a star" a la Bobby Bare. Needing to explain their inability to control Iraq after the short-sheet conquest, and bearing in mind that the next stop was Iran, it was necessary to introduce the concept of "foreign fighters" early and often.

Thus was born the legend of A. M. al-Zarqawi, the deadliest one-legged terrorist/assassin in the Middle East. We got to hear a lot about him for three years. Every audacious attack, each outrageous atrocity was blamed on him. Bombings, beheadings, exploding trucks at embassies, spoiled whipped cream at Carvels and Dairy Queens - all was chalked up to al-Zarqawi.

...

Al-Zarqawi was our creation, just as Osama bin-Forgotten was. My unit helped deliver weapons and advisers into Pakistan 20 years ago to support Osama and the Mujaheddin in their war against the Soviets in Afghanistan (I was only on one operation in that mission). At least I can understand our helping Osama at the time, though we should have killed the lot of them once the Russians left.

Al-Zarqawi, like Osama, was a product of his environment, created to fight a proxy war with an occupying army. Were it not for the Soviets in the '80s, Osama would be just another rich Saudi. Were it not for Bush and Cheney and their imperialistic misadventures, al-Zarqawi would be just another Jordanian. They are our Frankenstein's monsters.

That said, believing anything that comes out of Iraq or is related to the 'War on Terra' is difficult for me. There has been so much lying, disinformation, and ineptitude that taking anything at face value is naive and gullible. Not when everything about this war has been used (though not very successfully) to Bush's political advantage. Yeah, I'm cynical, but that isn't a slight of the troops who put their butts on the line to get this guy. The thing that really gets me is, they wouldn't be in the position in the first place were it not for the lies and deception perpetrated by this White House.

He gets my vote

If I could...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rep. John Murtha, an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq, unexpectedly announced on Friday he will run for the No. 2 leadership post in the U.S. House of Representatives if Democrats regain control of that chamber in elections this fall.

"If we prevail as I hope and know we will and return to the majority this next Congress, I have decided to run for the open seat of the majority leader," Murtha, a Pennsylvanian, said in a letter sent to House Democrats.

...

Remember when I said we need leadership at the top? I would follow Murtha into Hell any day. Sorry, Nancy, but you're no John Murtha. Hate to say it though, but this talk might be a bit premature. The Rethugs might have this election all 'fixed up' already.