Corrente

I'm not naive enough to believe that Canada's courts are going to hand Stephen Harper a political IED by granting American soldiers asylum here, but any publicity about soldiers who are refusing to fight in Iraq helps bring this depraved war closer to an end. It should be abundantly clear by now that everything that's happening in Iraq right now is about protecting Bush and the Republicans politically--it cetainly isn't about saving Iraq--so even if once upon a time it was possible to imagine one was fighting for a freedom and democracy, that fairy tale is now standing crucified on a box in Abu Ghraib, and the soldiers fighting and dying aren't doing so for a mistake, they are doing so for a squalid band of thieves and liars. The only question is whether they admit it to themselves. If they do, their course of action is pretty clear. Read below the fold...

Absolutely delightful column from Garrison Keilor today. Of course that is "delightful" only in the sense that it is pleasant when somebody else cleans up the cat puke on the carpet so you don't have to: Read below the fold...

It’s not exactly a compliment to be called a "Christianist.” The Portland Indymedia website posted a rant a while back against "Christianist ayatollahs." But the term looks like a useful way to denote the political Christians of the right. And it has a certain symmetry with "Islamist": If Muslims of a political slant are "Islamist," then perhaps it makes sense to call Christians of a certain political slant "Christianists."

- Ruth Walker, Christian Science Monitor Blog

Read below the fold...

Via (a remarkably good piece in) NYT:

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Read below the fold...

Sen. Don McLeary
Tennessee State Senate Building
Nashville TN

Dear Sen. McLeary,

Welcome to the Repubican Party! Your announcement that you were leaving what we like to call the "party of loosers" came as a great joy to us. It also came as something of a surprise to us--but probably not as much of a surprise as it was to your (former) fellow Democrats, since you were telling people as recently as last week that you had no intention of doing any such thing. Read below the fold...

What could we do, in our various cities, to pass impeachment resolutions? Philly, Los Angeles, Chicago... San Francisco's done it already.... St. Louis? Chattanooga?

UPDATE Why would Bush disobey FISA? Blackmail (long article; search on "blackmail". Read below the fold...

Inspired by ReddHedd, I went and read John Dickerson's articles about how the White House outed Valerie Plame. I thought it would make things simpler if I made a scorecard that shows the players in the story that Dickerson tells, and the nature of their contacts with the press, as Dickerson describes them: Read below the fold...

It's nice to be right. Reuters, today, 2006-02-07:

A Senate committee will look into discrepancies in accounts of how dogs came to be used to abuse detainees at a U.S. prison in Iraq, after a general who testified to the committee then declined to testify in military court, senators said on Tuesday.

Read below the fold...

After handing out billions in tax cuts to those who have billions, the Bush [cough] domestic policy arm gets down to bidness. AP

President Bush's budget calls for elimination of a $255 lump-sum death payment that has been part of Social Security for more than 50 years and urges Congress to cut off monthly survivor benefits to 16- and 17-year-old high school dropouts.

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Amy Goodman, covered (of course) by a British paper, here.

Ms Goodman said in the run-up to the Iraq war a study of NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS newscasts over a fortnight recorded 393 interviews on the conflict, of which only three reported the anti-war movement.

Read below the fold...

Yet another Republican is caught lying on his resume -- and this goober is the public spokesperson for NASA no less. Read below the fold...

And that's one sign of a truly hard-core weasel, isn't it? Boston Globe:

Gonzales forcefully repeated the administration's defense of its wartime powers...

[Senator Diane] Feinstein also asked if the president had used these powers to bypass other laws.

Read below the fold...

LA Times:

"What the administration has said is that when it comes to national security, the problem is that the Democrats have a pre9/11 view of the world," [Senator Russell] Feingold said. "Well, let me tell you what I think the problem is…. The real problem is that the president seems to have a pre-1776 view of the world.

Read below the fold...

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(Jivester News, Lmtd.) In yet another example of how sloppy and just plain stupid some people can be, Al Qaeda has once again forgotten to get the one thing we needed from the store: milk. How many times have we said "Why don't you just write it down? You know, make a list of the items we need?" But no, Mr. Al, too stubborn to listen to anyone, just goes la-la-la all the way down to the market like some school girl high on licorice, and once again wastes all of our time. Oh, and he forgot we were wiretapped. Again. 'Cause that's a hard one to remember. I wish I could quit him. Read below the fold...

Psst. Hey, player, check this out. I got some fabulous merchandise right here. I know you're going to want this. Fifty bucks.

- What is it?

I can't tell you what it is: It's a black box special. It's the newest and latest but I can't tell you any details. That's why it's fifty bucks, know what I'm saying?

- Why am I going to buy something if I can't see it?

You're not understanding the black box special. It's a closed box. No questions asked. But you get something that's worth like a hundred times more than fifty bucks. Trust me. Read below the fold...