Hurry up and wait

This one’s for Kira!

Cheeseheads speak up: It's Wis-KAN-sen. Web site sets record straight on state's words including Oconomowoc.

Herefor more Wisconsin fun.

At last! A source for answers to pressing questions like these:

How do I use my new coffee mug? What if the cap on my ChapStick will not snap back on? If I take some raw popcorn kernels outside into the sunshine, will they pop? Can I eat this vanilla-scented candle? How do I screw the top back on this newfangled toothpaste? Can I wear these tube socks on my hands like cute little mittens and walk around like a funny Martian? Why, sure you can, sir.

A must-read!


Russ is at it again!

Sen. Russ Feingold said Thursday he will introduce an amendment to a spending bill requiring that U.S. troops leave Iraq by the end of the year.

For more

Are we there yet?

This is music to my ears:

It isn't easy being a Republican these days, either. Bush's approval rating is at an all-time low, gas prices are near an all-time high, and Iraq continues to burn. Voters have an even lower opinion of the GOP-controlled Congress. Ideological disputes within the party make it hard for believers to pick sides, and incompetence at the top makes it difficult to follow through on the agenda items Republicans do agree on, like reducing the deficit. Bad news from Iraq and any number of scandals tied to the GOP erupt regularly. A month ago, the Republican political class was merely worried. Now its members are talking about "avoiding catastrophic losses." Conversations about the state of the party used to have two parts: all the bad news followed by signs of hope. I'm just hearing a one-act play now.

Quite encouraging…I’ve spent some time lately exploring the state-level blogs for Feingold. Then I found this mapwhich gives a good idea of how Russ is catching on all over.


Wow, impeachment seems to be gaining momentum, around the country if not in DC…

Enter the blogs. On Jan. 24, well before the Illinois legislator Karen Yarbrough stumbled over this state legislature loophole, blogger arbortender of DailyKos had unearthed the rule that another writer dubbed "Jefferson's Revenge". Fellow blogger Kagro X took the baton, and the blogs have been pushing the story and building the momentum ever since, from Vermont's various town- and countywide resolutions to the Illinois bombshell, through California's and now Vermont's state-level proposals. According to Steve Leser, Democratic state legislators in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina are also considering either impeachment or censure proposals.
In any case, the three states already debating impeachment represent nearly 50 million Americans, or roughly 16 percent of the total U.S. population.

Full story here


Inside the Bubble

As the presidential motorcade moves north on Interstate 15 past the Strip, past the billboards for Danny Gans and the Chippendale dancers, an eerie silence envelops the highway, which is empty, save for the armored Cadillac limousines, the black Secret Service Suburbans, the press buses and vans and the massive police escort.

Continued


Real hypocrisy, surprise, surprise!

President Bush's retreat from the ambitious goals of his second term will proceed one small but fateful step further this Friday. That's when, after more than two years of stalling, the president will deliver a warm White House welcome to Ilham Aliyev, the autocratic and corrupt but friendly ruler of one of the world's emerging energy powers, Azerbaijan.
Here's why this is a tipping point: At the heart of Bush's democracy doctrine was the principle that the United States would abandon its Cold War-era practice of propping up dictators -- especially in the Muslim world -- in exchange for easy access to their energy resources and military cooperation. That bargain, we now know, played a major role in the emergence of al-Qaida and other extremist anti-Western movements.

Very interesting article about how in order to block his buddy Putin’s efforts to reassert control over former SSRs, Bush is more than ready to abandon his (alleged) principles, here


Consequences. Bush is so used to never having to face them, he probably doesn’t even consider that he has any responsibility for fiascos like the Chinese visit. Here’s some Asian perspective on that.

Considering how much time and effort was spent on the ceremonial details of Chinese President Hu Jintao's official visit to Washington last week, it is hard to understand how things could have gotten fouled up so badly.

This part is funny

Toward the end of the ceremony, President George W Bush was photographed grabbing Hu's jacket sleeve to guide him in the right direction. Hu looked down on Bush with obvious distaste as if to say, "Keep your mangy hands off me."

I saw that photo (sorry, no link) and that is exactly the look. for the whole sorry story

Busy, busy day!

The NY Times is repeating an argument I disagree with:

But the backlash against the president's critics ultimately benefited Democrats more than the embarrassment hurt them, Ms. Nichols added, just as some Republicans are hoping talk of impeaching Mr. Bush may help them this year.

Some people are arguing that this is a lesson that tells us not to rile people up about censuring or impeaching Bush. The difference is, Clinton was not hugely unpopular even at the height of the scandal, and the Republicans acted as if everyone was ready to hang him. Now, people are deeply angry with Bush, and the Democrats act as if he’s still hugely popular. I don’t think censure and impeachment talk are going to scare too many people, not nearly as many as it will energize.


Here’s something new: a recipe! This just plain intrigued me, so now I will share it…

Lime Pickle and Peanut Butter Sandwiches. Use a soft whole grain bread. Spread crunchy natural peanut butter thickly on the first slice. Spread a sweet or medium lime pickle thinly on top. Cover with the second slice of bread.

Background

Monday Blues

Monday morning started early today, dropped Marina off at the airport at 5 am. That's always kind of sad, then I had to go to work on top of it! So I was badly in need of some distraction....

I am fascinated by John Dean. I was paying pretty close attention to politics right up to the time Nixon resigned, so I am familiar with him from Watergate. Then I sort of lost interest in politics for about 25 years…until the threat of Bush getting elected scared me back into not just caring, but really paying attention. And lo and behold, here’s John Dean back again, trying to give us fair warning of another president run amok.

Barber's collective portrait of Wilson, Hoover, Johnson and Nixon now fits George W. Bush too: "He sees himself as having begun with a high purpose, but as being continually forced to compromise in order to achieve the end state he vaguely envisions," Barber writes. He continues, "Battered from all sides . . . he begins to feel his integrity slipping away from him . . . [and] after enduring all this for longer than any mortal should, he rebels and stands his ground. Masking his decision in whatever rhetoric is necessary, he rides the tiger to the end."

Read all about it!

Here’s some good news, that would tend to reveal the silliness of the Dem establishment in running away from censure.

Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush appears to have paid dividends for the senator's political action committee.
Feingold's leadership PAC, the Progressive Patriots Fund, pulled in $282,000 last month, according to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. In February, the PAC raised $105,000.

More details here

Russ has apparently been busy. I knew I should have mentioned my blog when I talked to him at the Progressive Patriots fund event!

Russ Feingold blew through town this weekend, and called on a few bloggers to meet him for lunch

Here’s Brad’s blog


Poor Scotty gets some (tepid) love from the Australian Press:

You had visions of him being asked by his children whether they could go to the beach this year: "Well, I think, as we have always made clear, the beach is certainly a possibility but right now we're keeping all available vacation options open."
In fairness to Scotty, the material he was given to work with wasn't the finest. Elaborating plausibly on the President's celebration of his handling of Hurricane Katrina would be a theatrical challenge of Olivier proportions. The task of spinning every setback in Iraq as a victory in the War on Terror would have made Tokyo Rose blush.

full story here


Donald Rumsfeld. Need I say more?

"There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity." ~~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We are now victims of a full-bore public relations assault. White House bullhorns and media mockingbirds are out in force, only too happy to be diverted from discussing the treasonous Bush/Cheney/Rove/Libby leak of an undercover CIA operative or from investigating the restless murmurings of an impending nuclear attack on Iran. The punditry brigade, including former military brass on media payrolls as "analysts" immediately began regurgitating talking points from a Pentagon memo hurriedly sent out when criticism began to gain momentum. They were then summoned en masse to the Pentagon for a briefing on the miraculous successes of Iraqi Operation Let God Sort 'Em Out.

This is pretty damning, Henry K isn’t exactly Mr Mild…

Henry Kissinger once said, " Of all the despots I've had to deal with, none was more ruthless than Donald Rumsfeld."

Interesting point, all four generals who defended Rummy in the WSJ had no involvement in Iraq war…details here

Russ is a genius!

Progreesive Patriots Fund has a fabulous commercial on the NSA scandal. Watch it! You’ll be glad you did!


The mind boggles. In an article about the latest White House changes, I learned a couple things I didn’t know about Karl Rove:

The administration's highest priority over the next seven months is to ward off what now looks like a Democratic victory in the November elections," said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at Washington's Brookings Institution, adding he did not see the change as a rebuff to Mr Rove. "It's hard to believe his stock has fallen that low with the president. Karl got him re-elected, and Karl was not a champion of war in Iraq."…Mr Rove's departure is not expected to lead to immediate changes in administration policy, but could influence a significant ongoing debate inside the administration. Mr Rove is reported to be an opponent of military action in Iran.

So Karl is a voice of sanity when it comes to these idiotic dreams of world domination? I just keep shaking my head, can’t get my mind around the idea that he could be a positive influence on anything. here’s the full story


Several bloggers are also speculating that the Rove change was actually due to some new developments in the Plame case.

It is reported that the Grand Jury began reviewing the latest Fitzgerald information today. Pursuing the speculation, one might wonder if today's removal of Rove as a policy advisor could possibly be in anticipation of his increasing legal vulnerabilities. Is this the first visible step in a necessary distancing? It may not be long before the reasons become abundantly apparent.

Here

AND

Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.
In an interview Wednesday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove remains a "subject" of Fitzgerald's two-year-old probe.

It’salmost too good to be true!


Oh my. This is just too easy to believe. Just like Chimpy McFlightsuit, some generals seem to have gotten caught up in the make-believe world….

JA Brtitish officer who worked in Baghdad in 2004 said there was a "strong streak of Hollywood" in the US military as officers tried to portray themselves as Sylvester Stallone or John Wayne.
Brigadier Alan Sharp made the comments in an academic report on Britain's influence on US foreign relations.
The 46-year-old, who worked alongside the US military, criticized "shoulder-holster" American generals for trying to emulate film stars.
He said an important part of being a success in the US Army was the ability to combine the "real and acted heroics" of World War II hero Audie Murphy, the "newsreel antics" of General Douglas MacArthur and the "movie performances" of actors.
This may make good television back home, but Brigadier Sharp said "loud voices, full body armour, wrap-around sunglasses, air strikes and daily broadcasts from shoulder-holster wearing brigadier generals proudly announcing how many Iraqis have been killed by US forces today" was no "hearts-and-minds-winning tool".

they call it John Wayne syndrome…


Really fascinating interview with Richard Clarke, here are some gems:

You have the realise that, yes, the United States can bomb things in Iran, but that's the beginning, not the end, of the escalatory cycle. Iran would respond. Iran has asymmetrical means, guerrilla forces, terrorist forces, it controls Hezbollah, the terrorist group in Lebanon and around the world, and the Bader Brigade in Iraq, it controls the El Kud's force, their special forces that have conducted terrorist attacks around the world, and they have a navy that could conduct some operations against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, all of which would drive the price of oil up. It's now at about US$70 barrel and would probably increase to over US$100 a barrel which would have an enormous negative impact on the American economy and the world economy.

Well, it's feasible to strike hundreds of targets with Stealth bombers and cruise missiles, even though some facilities are underground they could still be struck with earth penetrator war heads. I don't think the military option is infeasible. I just think it is inadvisable because it kicks off an escalatory campaign, a tit-for-tat exchange, where we don't know where it ends. We would pay a high cost because of the Iranian terrorist strikes and military strikes against the oil facilities in the Persian Gulf. The other question is really: have we exhausted all of the alternatives? This administration says it won't even negotiate directly with Iran because to talk to them would be rewarding bad behaviour. The Secretary of State says that she sounds like she's talking about a kindergarten class. Maybe in a kindergarten class you don't reward bad behaviour, but in the real world you negotiate with your enemy. We've always done that. We've negotiated with the Soviet Union. We've negotiated with Communist China. We negotiated with Japan right up until the beginning of World War II. It's absurd to say that we would not negotiate directly with the Iranian Government and would instead jump over that step and go straight to a military option.

Here is the rest of the interview.

Happy Birthday, Tracey!

I really like Garrison Keillor’s essays. So fanciful and yet so pragmatic.

However, knowledge does not predict behavior. Smart people can do dumb things. They can fall in love with vampires. Some cardiologists are chain smokers. Einstein unlocked the secrets of the universe, but he ran his sailboat up on a sandbar. I have met nutritionists with Ph.D.s who confessed that while driving alone late at night in strange cities and seeing the giant yellow arches, they have pulled in, ordered the double cheeseburger with bacon and the super-size fries, and parked in the shadows and slid down low in the seat and eaten the whole bucket of slops. Theologians have cashed in their pensions and flown off to Rio with Amber the cocktail waitress.

for the full effect


Think you know how bad Cheney is? Well, you’re probably wrong!

They [VP office] terrorize other government officials, and they’re so secretive that their names aren’t even revealed to a harmless federal employee directory. And they’ve helped ruin the country. Meet Dick Cheney’s staff.

But officials who have opposed Cheney believe that President Bush has “views” only about basic principles, and that in making dozens of complex decisions he relies on pre-determined staff papers. Says one insider deeply involved in U.S. policy toward North Korea: “The president is given only the most basic notions about the Korea issue. They tell him, ‘Above South Korea is a country called North Korea. It is an evil regime.’ … So that translates into a presidential decision: Why enter into any agreement with an evil regime?”

If you’re not easily frightened, read the full story here


Found this new word in a commentary on some blog, just really like the sound of it:

I’m reminded of a German word which I learned last year – ‘Amoklaufer’; ‘one who runs amok’. The usage was in a German newspaper in Summer, 1939; the country being described that way was Poland.

here’s "some blog"


Another new word: AmTaliban. Don’t think this is what the righties had in mind when they were calling Lind the “American Taliban”, but this is so fitting!

The whining bible beaters are not satisfied with the progress the Bush administration and Congress have made on implementing the theocracy. The AmTaliban has made it clear that if Congress doesn't act on abortion and gay marriage pronto, something bad (as in sheeple staying home on election day) is going to happen.

for your scarification…


It’s so entertaining to listen to Countdown, and this is a significant part of the entertainment value-

As if set on an elementary-school playground, the Olbermann-O'Reilly feud sets the sassy class wit against the bruising class bully.

That O'Reilly and Olbermann compete in the same time slot is pure gravy for Olbermann. That his ratings are up in recent months is a maraschino cherry on top of the gravy.

Gadzooks! First it’s Rob with his “gravy on the cake”, now we get a cherry on top?? keep reading here


Special event…

"Does an event like this encourage use? Every college in the U.S. struggles with student use of drugs and alcohol," said Jim Hoppe, associate dean of students. "But this is a group of students who feel really strongly about the issue and want conversation about it and to raise awareness about it. We have to encourage and provide a forum for the discussion — that's what higher education is all about.”

Higher education indeed!


There is a hilarious video to go with this, I didn’t have the sound on, you don’t really need it:

Joe Lieberman's best friend Colin McEnroe and AP Capitol Reporter, Susan Haighs, were on WTIC's Beyond the Headlines on Sunday and they explained why everyone should take Ned Lamont's campaign very seriously. They also go into why Joe's running scared and threatening to run as an independent (here's a hint: it's because there's a VERY good sign that Lamont will beat him in the primary)BTW: Colin's snoozing is an instant classic...

This could be a sleep aid…


I can’t wait for the new Neil Young album! This guy has some inside info…

He and Neil had a long talk about Bush's war in Iraq and what the Bush Regime has been doing to the U.S. The discussion helped Neil flesh out an idea that was germinating in his mind, a concept album about Bush's America, something he started getting at when he wrote and performed Greendale. From the time he started writing the songs until the album was recorded, 9 days passed. Neil can be fast, but that is really fast.

I spoke to some of my old comrades at Reprise today. They're still getting their heads around a marketing strategy for the album, although it looks like an early summer release, perhaps with songs streaming on the internet early and probably a single to radio "very soon."

Here’s the full scoop


More reasons to fear the coming theocracy..

Via Atrios we came across Digby's coverage of the so-called father/daughter "purity balls." Little Fundamentalist Christian girls pledge to "give themselves (meaning their virginity) as a wedding gift to their husband," while the dads vow "to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity ... as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home."

As the father of a wonderful grown daughter, may I say from the bottom of my heart: "Ewww!" Her mother and I (and later, her stepmother) raised her to respect herself, to have pride in her accomplishments, and to make her own decisions in life.

Read it and try not to weep


Andy Borowitz is another favorite of mine:

After stating that the U.S. had made thousands of tactical errors in the war in Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice restated that number upward today, telling reporters that the actual figure was "probably closer to a billion."
Dr. Rice apologized for initially low-balling the number of U.S. mistakes, explaining, "Quite frankly, I forgot about a lot of the mistakes that Rumsfeld made." [...]
The State Department today issued an official list of the billion mistakes made thus far in Iraq, but Dr. Rice warned that the list was far from complete: "We are currently making between four and five thousand mistakes a day, so this list is very much a work in progress." [...]
At a press briefing at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was mum on the list of mistakes issued by the State Department, but said that later in the week he would be issuing a list of mistakes made by Dr. Rice. "And that number is closer to a zillion," he said.

More via Daily Kos


Carl Bernstein doesn’t seem to have fallen under the Bush spell like his old partner has:

In terms of imminent, meaningful action by the Congress, however, the question of whether the president should be impeached (or, less severely, censured) remains premature. More important, it is essential that the Senate vote - hopefully before the November elections, and with overwhelming support from both parties - to undertake a full investigation of the conduct of the presidency of George W. Bush, along the lines of the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.

most of the Vanity Fair article is here


Molly Ivins explains it all…

If I understand what McClellan is saying, Bush leaked bad information from a classified intelligence report because there wasn't enough time for the contradictory DIA report to go through a declassification process. All of which would make more sense if we hadn't just gone through this Valerie Plame episode, where the White House says if the president leaked it, then it's legal to leak it. No problem, the president can declassify at will, they said. I don't know about you, but none of it is becoming clearer for me. Does anyone understand why we have to bomb Iran yet?

More fun here

I'm back

Advice for the Preznit….as if he’d listen to anyone outside the bubble!

CAN THIS PRESIDENCY be saved? President Bush's approval rating has plummeted to a dismal 38 percent, according to the latest Post-ABC News poll. Democrats will rejoice at their improving prospects of recovering a majority in Congress. But a damaged president governing for nearly three more years in a dangerous world is no cause for rejoicing. With that in mind, we offer Mr. Bush, at no charge, some advice on a fresh start.

Free advice here


And more advice hidden here:

Part salesman and part TV talk show host, President Bush chuckled and cracked one-liners with Medicare recipients Tuesday as he used a Missouri stage to encourage millions of seniors to sign up soon for a new prescription drug benefit.

Maybe you had to be there, but these jokes just don’t seem funny to me..


More hilarity from the Leaker-in-Chief:

…the process for getting a warrant doesn't count when you don't bother to get one.

Kind of makes my head hurt, but this provides a good explanation


The most amazing thing about this story is that it’s in the Salt Lake City paper!

Slowly this country has come to the realization that nothing the president and his minions say is believable, yet they still want us to just trust them. There hasn't been a more dangerous combination of incompetence, mendacity and arrogance since Lansford Hastings encouraged the Donner Party to diverge from the Oregon trail and take his ''shortcut.''

Here’s more


This is sooo ridiculous

It's the old "heads I win, tails you lose" deal, the ultimate sucker's bet. If President Bush leaks, he's just being, well, presidential. Hail to the chief. If others leak, and if any journalist catches the spill, then leaker and leakee are being unpatriotic and are endangering our troops. Shame on them.

It is not even clear that the security information was formally declassified. Libby argues, in apparent mimicry of the president and vice president, that the material was "effectively declassified by virtue of the president's authorization that it be disclosed."

This is all of a piece with this administration's astonishing and aggrandizing claim that, as commander in chief, the president can ignore laws and treaties he finds bothersome, imprison suspects at will and indefinitely, and spy on Americans' international communications without securing warrants.

Continued here , and a detailed timeline with references


A real problem, and I like the terminology…

Disease-mongering promotes non-existent diseases and exaggerates mild problems to boost profits, the Public Library of Science Medicine reported.

more mongering here


To compound the error of talking about politics, how about we start mixing religion in?

Right-wing church movements have been a staple of American politics since well before the 1692 witch trials at Salem. But only in the past few decades has the extremist church served as the grassroots base for a new breed of corporate totalitarianism. That unholy union has been nowhere more powerful than here in Ohio, and it has finally provoked a response from the state’s mainstream churches.

This is an excellent article


Seems like on “our” side of the battle, there’s no shortage of issues, or of people who pick one as THE issue. Of course, that must be true ont eh other side as well. So how do we make use of this insight?

First there are the Neocon Yuppies (anti-smoking and pro-sex) vs Redneck "Christians" (pro-smoking and anti-sex). Both these groups may be united on the war and taxes but they absolutely hate each other in every other aspect. Then there can be a huge difference between male Republicans and female Republicans in that the former are against victim feminism and the latter are actually more susceptible to victim feminist theory than Democrat women. Let's look at some big issues. Discuss any of the below issues on the airwaves, in campaign speeches and in the blogosphere...and you can be sure of causing disarray in the various Republican camps.

read on for some specific suggestions

Catch Up Monday

Good thing they’re getting new people involved in the Daily Show already looks like there won’t be many of the ones I’m used to left

Rob Corddry, the brilliantly deranged "senior analyst" and "God Machine" operator, is at the head of the queue, having been cast as the lead of "The Winner," a sitcom pilot for Fox executive produced by "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane.

But there’s more

It amazes me how the gap between reality and make believe is getting narrower and narrower. Guess it’s just the general trend toward truthiness. But for the media to go this far:

The National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing said the NBC network's "Dateline NBC" confirmed it was sending Muslim-looking men to a race, along with a camera crew to film fans' reactions. The NBC crew was "apparently on site in Martinsville, Virginia, walked around and no one bothered them," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Wednesday.
"It is outrageous that a news organization of NBC's stature would stoop to the level of going out to create news instead of reporting news," Poston said.

A news organization of NBC’s stature? You mean, not so outrageous if it’s a less exalted source? Not so sure that distinction really works, it’s kind of like unique, why do people say it’s the most unique? It either is or isn’t…Anyway, read the whole article>

The censure resolution is maybe not dead yet!

Censure might be no more than a slap in the face, but I am guessing that is as far as voters are prepared to go -- if that far. Telling voters that a vote for Democratic congressional candidates is a vote for censure could be the killer app for rebooting Congress.

That’s even from a relatively mainstream source>

Not to mention this cartoon>

IRA__? Here we go again!

Hersh says that President Bush now believes his historic purpose is to stop President Ahmadinejad, whom he is said to regard as a “new Hitler”, acquiring nuclear weapons.
The article suggests that Pentagon plans presented to the White House include the use of a “bunker-buster” tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground sites in Iran because of concerns that conventional strikes would not be “decisive”. Hersh says that some senior military officers are so alarmed about Mr Bush’s willingness to use nuclear weapons that they are ready to resign in protest.
Yesterday the Pentagon attempted to dismiss the report as being filled with “fantastical, wrong and unsubstantiated allegations”. Hersh pointed out that the Pentagon had used similar language initially to describe his revelations about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Will they never learn?>

Feingold seems to have made quite a splash with his press release about gay marriage…

As America begins to think about 2008 and how to steer the nation out of the blight of the Bush years, many will look for genuine alternatives. Should Feingold choose to run for president, he can credibly claim that with his past as prologue, he is looking with clear eyes to the future.

For more, go here>

Here’s an excerpt from an interview>

As you point out, you have been an ally for gays and lesbians for some time now. Oh, yeah, very strong, very consistently, very proud—25 years of consistent record. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of, because to me this is one of the real cutting-edge issues in our society: whether we’re going to be kind and decent to each other and be a community, or whether we’re going to try to divide ourselves. To me this is a real test for our society.

And I love this:

Some GOP critics suggested that Feingold's statement marks him as someone who is "out of touch with mainstream Wisconsin values."
"Clearly Russ Feingold is spending too much time in Hollywood raising money for his presidential campaign and not enough time listening to the people of Wisconsin," retorted state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau. Fitzgerald failed to recognize the irony of his words, since Feingold announced his stance in response to a question from a Wisconsinite at a listening session held in the Wisconsin community of Paddock Lake.
In fact, Feingold is very much in touch with the mainstream values of Wisconsin, a progressive state that more than 20 years ago led the nation in banning discrimination against lesbians and gays.

From an opinion piece>

Now, on to leaking!

Instead, sounding very Lewis Carroll, the White House claims that when the president leaks something secret, it's not secret anymore. It's the Immaculate Declassification: intelligence is declassified by passing it on to a friendly reporter.

The Bushies keep trying to manipulate reality, but reality bites back. That's not only crass politics. It's lethal politics. L'état, c'est mess.

As only Maureen Dowd can express it>

If Bush's word is enough to declassify classified information, why did the White House feel the need to "formally declassify" the material ten days later? Wasn't the deed already done, on Bush's sole verbal authority?

And a
And finally, the answer to one of the big questions, how can they continue to believe, well, anything the administration says?

After two decades of practice, American conservatives now seem to have the art of cognitive dissonance down to a science. They believe in smaller government, even as they make it bigger. They believe that cutting taxes will balance the budget, even as those tax cuts (once again) send the deficit soaring. They think of conservatism as a font of new ideas, even as they keep making the same mistakes pursuing the same old, tired ones

Read on…>

Er, that finally was as in, we’ve waited so long, not as in this is it for today. We haven’t covered food or sports yet!

Saturday night the men beat a very spirited Boston College 2-1 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee to capture the NCAA men's title, making Wisconsin the first team to have both its men's and women's teams capture the national title.

We only saw the last period, and it was a great ending! For details, go here>

And here’s something I never thought I’d see….

Twinkie Sushi©
Clare Crespo of Baton Rouge, Louisiana from The Twinkies Cookbook: An Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection from Hostess

If you can stomach it, there’s more>

I'm feeling antsy

Neo-con sense of justice? Here's a quote that helps us understand them:

Q: What is the biggest lesson you have learned from the Iraq war?
A: The ingratitude of the Iraqis for the extraordinary favor we gave them — to release them from the bondage of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. They have rapidly interpreted it as something they did and that we were incidental to it. They’ve more or less written us out of the picture.

Crikey! For more of this nonsense...

Al Franken v Ann Coulter...takedown!

When my daughter was six years old, her teacher asked all her students to write about how their parents had met. We told Thomasin that we met at a mixer freshman year of college. I saw Franni across the room, gathering up some friends to leave. I liked the way she was taking control and I thought she was beautiful. So I asked her to dance, and then got her a ginger ale, then escorted her to her dorm and asked for a date.
My daughter wrote, “My dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink, and then took her home.” Now all the facts were accurate, but what my daughter wrote was extremely misleading. Now my daughter wasn’t lying. She didn’t realize that what she wrote made her mom seem like a slut.
Ann, however, is not six years old. And she has developed her own techniques for misleading, by leaving out important facts. Let me give you an example of Ann lying by omission.

for the example and much more fun...

For Rob...tee hee

The Smart Car. In Europe and Canada, when will it come to America?

Everything you need to know

A friend just sent me this, from the Myers Briggs personality inventory.

INTP
Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.

So, if you know me, does that sound like me?

If you are interested in M-B, here's the link

Now, on to some scary stuff. For some reason, in Britain, they seem to think Condi is a serious presidential contender in 2008.

Few expected so many British protesters to treat the woman who may become the 44th President of the United States as if she were General Pinochet in Ferragamo heels. In Birmingham, she and Straw had walked from church holding the hands of little girls wearing lace-trimmed ankle socks. In Blackburn, a mosque shut its doors to Condi, and pupils picketed a school she visited.

From here , and this is interesting also

PET PEEVE
Electibility! Each time Russ does something great, people start moaning about how he's now not electible. I am so sick of hearing that! First of all, if you believe in all that crap about having to find someone with toned down beliefs in order to win, you haven't been paying attention, and you should never have thought Russ had a chance anyway.

Russ has never run away from his decisions, and since many of those decisions supposedly were political suicide, yet here he is, reelected, it's time to stop worrying about that. I'd be far more worried if he was suddenly backing off, that would be the thing that would doom him, I know it would change my mind.

I think that people will be attracted to his certainty, his consistency, and his plain speaking. He is a master of turning around the talking points that are spouted by most "news" people these days. He is not distracted by the straw man arguments or the red herrings thrown out so often. He stays focused and on message, and is starting to inject a little humor now and again.

Bottom line is, if we can't elect someone like Russ, I guess we don't deserve the kind of good government that would result.

Whew

Here's the headline: Man 'took 40,000 ecstasy tablets'
But, disappointingly, it turns out they weren't all at once! On the other hand,

At the height of his use, the man - known as "Mr A" - was taking 25 tablets a day, Psychosomatics journal revealed...When the doctors carried out tests on Mr A it was found he had memory impairment and "major behavioural consequences of his memory loss" such as repeating activities several times.

This meant that he could not concentrate well and had very poor short-term memory, forgetting the time or what he had put in his supermarket trolley.

Details, details!

Wisconsin wants out:

Twenty-four Wisconsin communities approved resolutions Tuesday calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, while eight others voted against such measures as voters in 32 communities weighed in on the war.

Wasn't on the ballot in Pleasant Valley. Just a few local races, and an unopposed Superior Court judge named Crooks!

Over in Minnesota, they had some weird customs.

"It was nothing to fill up huge washtubs of smelt," said Francisco, 54, who owns a marine supply store in Duluth. "We would literally fill up the back of pickups with smelt and give pails of them to all the old ladies in the neighborhood."

Not sure why they were picking on the old ladies. But all good things must come to an end!

So what happened to Minnesota's famed "rite of spring"?

It faded, then virtually disappeared.

The great smelt runs began declining in the 1980s, then dropped off dramatically by the 1990s. The crowds disappeared with the smelt.

Read all about it...



I used to think that John McCain was an honorable man, that he was principled and could be an advocate for people like me. I even thought he and Feingold could run together as mavericks for president/VP. But his shameful embrace of Bush in the 2004 election started a revelation. Now it is all too clear that he will do pretty much anything to get elected.

It's sad to see him so quickly abandon the right way for the way right.

How far right? When McCain himself once cited "pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and agents of intolerance," he mentioned Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

Guess who's giving the commencement speech next month at Falwell's institution, Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.?

Oh, sure, McCain declared he and Falwell had "agreed to disagree on certain issues, and we agreed to move forward." Move forward? With the "agents of intolerance"? Sure, if the destination is the White House, right?

This article covers it pretty well

More good news!

Once again, Feingold is leading the way!

“As I said at the Kenosha County listening session, gay and lesbian couples should be able to marry and have access to the same rights, privileges and benefits that straight couples currently enjoy,” Feingold added. “Denying people this basic American right is the kind of discrimination that has no place in our laws, especially in a progressive state like Wisconsin. The time has come to end this discrimination and the politics of divisiveness that has become part of this issue.”

Read the full statement here

I just can't stop today

Here's something amusing, under the heading How they see us:

Having interviewed 1001 North American inhabitants, they ascertained that three-quarters of those surveyed sometimes or often hear obscene expressions in public places. The “F-word” is used just as often in real life as in low-budget Hollywood movies. In the last 20 years moral barriers concerning bad language have become unstable, like a lop-sided fence on an abandoned ranch.

A demonstration of another big lie of capitalism! We have to give China special status, because opening up will result in....THIS?

"As long as the Dalai Lama makes clear that he has completely abandoned Tibetan 'independence', it is not impossible for us to consider his visit," State Administration for Religious Affairs director Ye Xiaowen told the China Daily. "We can discuss it."

(for complete story)

Big of them, huge concession, right? When will the US get back to caring about human rights? I mean, I know right now we're in the middle of an attempt to limit human rights in this country. The government is so hypocritical about freedon here and freedom on the march there, it really pains me.

Is New York a great place or what?

"It is clear that the President of the United States authorized a domestic surveillance program in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and intentionally mis led the American public about the existence of the program; now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Council of the City of New York supports Senator Russell Feingold's call for the censure of President George Bush for his domestic wiretapping program."

Read all about it!

OOOPS!

Didn't mean to end that last post, just hit the wrong button. Expect more of that.
You're just lucky I don't need to use a fax or copy machine in order to do this.

I was a philosophy major in college. That's why I like to contemplate things like this

In my opinion, the press is still way too easy on Bush. For example:

Page four of Sunday's Washington Post carried a story titled "The President as Average Joe," which described how George W. Bush is trying once again to cast himself as a regular fella so as to boost his anemic poll numbers. "As he takes to the road to salvage his presidency," reported the Post, "Bush is letting down his guard and playing up his anti-intellectual, regular-guy image."

Most of us, presumably, know enough "Average Joe" types to fill a room. Most of us, presumably, don't know a single "Average Joe" type who could pull off a trick like the one reported by the New York Times last week. The issue centered, once again, around a memo that was drafted before the invasion of Iraq.

Now, this article goes on to enumerate the lies and other deceptions, but too many times all they do is give examples of cutesy banter between Bush and reporters. If I was in the room with such an evil man, I wouldn't be able to accept his joking or take it as an example of his regular guy-ness. If you saw Russ on Faux News (may still be available here)
you know what a regular guy sounds like.

Speaking of the bravest man in the Senate, thisthis is an okay description of the hearings. Last word from Russ:

''The assertions that are being made by the White House here would probably have made the Nixon White House blush," he said. ''This matter can be alive for a very long time."

Giddy with delight!

I can't believe it!

Rep. Tom DeLay, whose iron hold on the House Republicans melted as a lobbying corruption scandal engulfed the Capitol, told TIME that he will not seek reelection and will leave Congress within months. Taking defiant swipes at "the left" and the press, he said he feels "liberated" and vowed to pursue an aggressive speaking and organizing campaign aimed at promoting foster care, Republican candidates and a closer connection between religion and government.

Nice start to the day!

And on the other hand, there's this:

A Senate Republican wants an Army general who drew criticism for church speeches casting the war on terrorism in religious terms to lead the U.S. special operations command.

This, of course is that nutcase Boykin. He should have been reprimanded or even
relieved of command for his ridiculous comments, so of course the Republicans want to promote him. For all the details, go here

This is guaranteed to make you feel old and out of touch, but it's also pretty cool.

I am extremely honored to be nominated for the Edublog Awards! My name is Bob Sprankle. I have been a 3/4 grade Multi-Age elementary teacher for 9 years at Wells Elementary in Wells, Maine, USA. My class Room 208 has had a blog for over a year and started podcasting last April.

I actually heard one of their podcasts on the radio. What will they think of next?

Monday way too early

"On a trip designed as diplomatic flattery, Rice also managed to make some unwanted headlines with an admission at a foreign policy forum Friday that the United States had made "thousands" of tactical errors in Iraq. " Sometimes the truth sneaks out in the strangest of ways.

This is getting kind of like Brett Favre's record for starting as QB-every time there's a game, it's a new record...While the President's position on illegal immigration is clearly resonating with many voters, it hasn't helped his sagging approval ratings. They sank to 37% in the poll, a new low.

Russ Feingold did a terrific job in the hearings on censure, and also on Faux News Sunday morning. "If we in the Congress don't stand up for ourselves and the American people, we become complicit in the lawbreaking." My favorite part of the hearings was when Russ responded to Arlen Specter's comment about how the censure document never mentioned bad faith on the President's part, and how could you havcensurere without bad faith. Russ basically said, Bad Faith? You want bad faith? I'll give you bad faith! Actually, of course, he was far more polite and eloquent, pointing out that though Arlen didn't help him draft the resolution, if he wanted it added, that was just fine with Russ. Russ came across as reasonable and calm,a s opposed to Lindsey Graham who came across as a rude grandstander.