(Click the strip for Part Two)
And let us not forget the 296 U.S. troops who have died in the "good" war...
May 28, 2006
May 26, 2006
R.I.P. Desmond
Click to play Desmond Dekker's biggest hit, Israelites, and go here for more about "The King of Ska."
May 25, 2006
I Guess We Get What We Deserve
via The Huffington Post:
Hicks Wins Idol After “63.4M Votes Were Cast This Season”...More Than Any US President In History Has Received...
May 23, 2006
May 21, 2006
May 19, 2006
10 Things I Hate About Commandments
The Year's Funniest Teen Comedy!
(NSFW or overly-sensitive types)
Shameless Self-Promotion
I did some work on the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert that's premiering this weekend on FUSE:
For more other airdates (plus clips and interviews), go here.
May 17, 2006
May 14, 2006
Tellin' It Like It Is
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to Wolf Blitzer:
"Every time (the Bush) administration screws up, whether it's with homeland security, after Katrina, a massive failure even though they spent billions of dollars to make sure that thing wouldn't happen, when they screw up along the border, when they get caught doing illegal surveillance of Americans, they say, well, but 9/11, 9/11.Well, I'd remind them 9/11 happened on their watch. I think Americans are getting fed up with simply using an excuse for your mistakes and classify everything else so that you can't talk about it.
I want us to be safe. I don't think that this administration is doing it the right way..."
(via Atrios)
May 13, 2006
"Too Much News"
That's the sentiment expressed by Tom Tomorrow over at This Modern World and I couldn't agree more. I've been knee-deep in editing a very cool project and haven't had any time to blog (writing mine OR reading others). When I came up for air at the end of yesterday I was just too overwhelmed by the amount of news to put anything together. So, I'm going to cheat (like I usually do, anyway) and borrow a cartoon from Tom Tomorrow which deals with what I think is obviously the nation's top story (I hope to get back into my blogging groove soon). Be seeing you...
P.S. - In non-news:
Plus: Drunk Monkeys!!!
May 11, 2006
Toast the Goat Dog
Our dog Toast has developed some behavioral problems of late (in addition to all of her past behavorial problems)
The other night, we came home to find this on our bed:
Trust me: We fed her before we left.
May 10, 2006
31
Maureen Dowd on "the lowest approval rating for any president in the last half-century, other than Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter":
One Bush did it by staying out of Baghdad, raising taxes and driving down the deficit.
The other Bush did it by going into Baghdad, cutting taxes and driving up the deficit.
But, perhaps inevitably, the father and son ended up in an Oedipal tango at the same spot: 31 percent.
After trying not to emulate his father's presidency in any way, W. emulated it in the worst possible way. He came out of a conflict with Saddam as a towering figure with soaring approval ratings and ended up as a shrunken figure with scalding approval ratings.
In the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, W.'s stunning implosion landed him in a tie with his dad's low point in July 1992, four months before the public traded in Poppy for Bill Clinton. As Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee noted in their Times article today, that is the lowest approval rating for any president in the last half-century, other than Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.
Even Hillary Clinton has a more favorable rating than W. — 34 percent. The president can draw some solace: John Kerry's at 26 and Al Gore's at 28 percent. And Dick Cheney is in the bunker at 20.
But in the new poll, even many of the party faithful are glum. Only 45 percent of evangelical Christians, 69 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of conservatives like the way W. is taking care of bidness. A whopping 70 percent deem the country pretty seriously on the wrong track, and two-thirds consider the nation in worse shape now than when W. took over.
On the issues that earned Karl Rove his nickname, Boy Genius — values and national security — the shift was notable. Fifty percent of respondents said Democrats came closer to sharing their moral values, compared with 37 percent who said Republicans did. And the G.O.P. retains a tenuous advantage on being seen as stronger on terrorism. The numbers for those who think we did the right thing by invading Iraq are steadily dropping, and the numbers are rising for those who believe we should have stayed out.
Many Americans have simply lost faith in the administration's ingenuity. Only a quarter of those polled had much confidence in W.'s ability to handle a crisis; a mere 9 percent are sure he can successfully end the Iraq war, and a paltry 4 percent think the administration has a clear plan to keep gas prices down. (But can triumphalist Nancy Pelosi lift their spirits?)
The Bush presidency has devolved into an assertion of empty will.
The White House blew off warnings from Republicans in Congress about appointing Gen. Michael Hayden as C.I.A. chief. You know you're in trouble when conservatives fret that the military is getting too much power.
If W. really cared about getting good intelligence for his war on terror, he would never have appointed Porter Goss. That wasted more than 18 months that could have been used fixing the dysfunctional agency, and drove out some good officials.
Mr. Goss, the Cheney toadie, was appointed because W. and Vice wanted him to do a hostile takeover at Langley to clear out suspected leakers (especially Kerry contributors), malcontents, critics of the war or anyone else who wasn't with the program.
Before the Iraq invasion, it was about fixing the intelligence around the policy. Now it's about appointing yes men and enforcing loyalty. The Bush warriors didn't want good intelligence in the first place because it would have told them they were wrong about Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda and W.M.D. And now they're still more concerned with turf battles than with truth-tellers and finding someone — anyone — who can tell us where Osama is. (Osama who?)
Even Denny Hastert, the Republican speaker, scoffed at the Hayden move as a Negroponte "power grab."
The general is a Cheney pal who stood up for the White House's right to be unconstitutional, going along with the heinous warrantless snooping. That makes him one of the team and ready for a promotion, or a Medal of Freedom. He will no doubt be accommodating when Darth Cheney comes over to Langley to lurk around the analysts and oversee the evidence building a case for sending bombs, rather than diplomats, to Iran.
Now that we're dealing with a crazed Iranian president, dreaming of nukes and writing an 18-page letter that sounds like an Israel-hating Islamic version of the Rapture, wouldn't it be great if our spooks could stop fighting and go spy on somebody?
May 09, 2006
May 08, 2006
R.I.P. Grant McLennan
The Go-Betweens frontman has passed away in his sleep. He was only 48. Very sad.
Here's their video for Bachelor Kisses:
May 07, 2006
"I'll take Unintentional Euphemisms for $500, Alex"
From The New York Daily News:
CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.
Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, could soon be indicted in a widening FBI investigation of the parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham, law enforcement sources said.
A CIA spokeswoman said Foggo went to the lavish weekly hospitality-suite parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels but "just for poker."
Intelligence and law enforcement sources said solid evidence had yet to emerge that Goss also went to the parties, but Goss and Foggo share a fondness for poker and expensive cigars, and the FBI investigation was continuing...
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