Sorry for the lack of posting the past few days. But alas, this love affair between Galactica and the right was not to last: in its third season, the show has morphed into a stinging allegorical critique of America’s three-year occupation of Iraq.
I can't say for certain, but I'm fairly certain that this album cover from Butch Yelton and Upbound was the inspiration for the movie Frailty, in which Bill Paxton swings his own little gospel axe and sends a bunch of demons back to the fiery depths of hell. Or maybe it was Bill Pullman. Hard to say.Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn't regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview.I've been so brainwashed. I thought that the Khymer Rouge were a loathesome bunch of zealots that tortured and killed people. Thank you, Dick Cheney, for showing me what a humane hero Pol Pot was. We must rewrite our history books.
What's scarier than a SWAT team breaking into your house and treating you like a pedophile?Somehow, the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. Somehow, this is tolerated. Somehow, nobody is accountable for this.Kevin Tillman understood that the world changed after 9/11. He and his brother joined the Army in spite of jobs and lives. He sounds a lot like those crazy unpatriotic folks who have had the audacity to question this administration.
--Kevin Tillman, brother of Pat Tillman
Rick Santorum thinks he can pick up some dork votes by comparing Iraq to the eye of Mordor. This expose suggests he's barking up the wrong tree. (Disclaimer: LLPTN is not liable for any atomic wedgies you may receive from friends who catch you looking at these pics.)
This week's featured album was apparently the result of some Dadaist art collective, pulling random words out of a hat to produce the cover art ("... circus ... polka ... duck ... clown ..."), and then doing the same with the song titles. How else can you explain titles like "Slap Happy Polka" and "Meet the Missus Polka"? Kommersant’s version — citing the remarks in Russian — was cruder. “He turned out to be quite a powerful man,” the paper’s reporter in the official Kremlin pool, Andrei Kolesnikov, quoted Mr. Putin as saying. “He raped 10 women. I never expected it from him. He surprised all of us. We all envy him.”
Peter Graves, a spokesman for the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the congressional pension program, said same-sex partners are not recognized as spouses for any marriage benefits. He said Studds's case is the first of its kind known to the agency.
Under federal law, pensions can be denied only to lawmakers' same-sex partners and to people convicted of espionage or treason, Graves said.
CONRAD BURNS: I said we gotta win. He wants to pull out. He wants everybody to know our plan. That’s not smart. If you had a plan in order to win are you gonna tell the enemy? He’s not — the enemy’s not gonna tell us! That is absolutely unbelievable that anyone would take that approach! He says our president don’t have a plan. I think he’s got one. But he’s not gonna tell everybody in the whole world.It's even better when you hear the open laughter Burns' comments evoke from the crowd.
My job is to protect the American people. It used to be that we could think that you could contain a person like Saddam Hussein, that oceans would protect us from his type of terror. September the 11th should say to the American people that we’re now a battlefield, that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist organization could be deployed here at home.And, to contrast, here's the oath of office he's sworn twice now:
So, therefore, I think the threat is real. And so do a lot of other people in my government. And since I believe the threat is real, and since my most important job is to protect the security of the American people, that’s precisely what we’ll do.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.He's charged not with protecting the American people, but protecting the Constitution. Instead, he's ignoring it, altering it, and generally defiling it. Awesome.
So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.It was a not-too-subtle swipe at Bill Clinton, and one that played well to the conservative base. Still, it's important to note that, in fact, Bush did not swear an oath to uphold the honor and dignity of the office -- and thank God, because he's failed at that too -- but only swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Well, this is depressing:MIAMI - The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration’s military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.So, just to recap: The Navy assigned Swift to represent Hamdan, and to do so to the best of his ability. Swift did so, and, moreover, did so well that he actually managed to win the case for his client. In return for doing as he was ordered, in return for representing his client's interests -- and, in so doing, proving that our freedoms are more than a soundbite and a slogan, but are in fact actual vital principles that we live by even when they're inconvenient -- Swift is being forced out of the military. Fantastic.
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military’s “up or out” promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified he would not be promoted to commander.
He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House in the case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was Osama bin Laden’s driver. ...
Swift’s supervisor said he served with distinction. “Charlie has obviously done an exceptional job, a really extraordinary job,” said Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, the Pentagon’s chief defense counsel for Military Commissions. He added it was “quite a coincidence” that Swift was passed over for a promotion “within two weeks of the Supreme Court opinion.”
Washington, D.C., attorney Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said Swift was “a no-brainer for promotion.” Swift joins many other distinguished Navy officers over the years who have seen their careers end prematurely, Fidell said.
“He brought real credit to the Navy,” Fidell said. “It’s too bad that it’s unrequited love.”
Go poo in the woods, Topalov.Vladimir Kramnik has won the 2006 World Chess Championship match versus Veselin Topalov, 2 1/2 games to 1 1/2, in Elista, Russia, in an overtime playoff.
Nothing quite embodies the wild world of Dixieland jazz like a group of geriatric, white Shriners at a funeral. Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet (three metre) high marijuana plants.
Banlieue 13 (2004): This flick, also known in English as District B13, is a terrific French action film, written by Luc Besson and directed by some cheese-eating surrender monkey I've never heard of. As with any great action film, the acting is secondary (or tertiary, if we're talking about Jean Claude Van Damme). The real star of the film is parkour, a French discipline which involves climbing, vaulting, and jumping around an urban landscape and, when combined with traditional martial arts techniques, leads to some eye-popping fight scenes. Just mind-boggling stuff. Jackie Chan and Jet Li? Pussies by comparison.
Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006): I mentioned seeing and liking Metallica's Some Kind of Monster a couple weeks ago, but this is an even better musical documentary. It's very bare-bones, just two nights of Neil Young and friends playing at the beautiful old Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. I've only seen Young live during the metal Arc/Welder years, but this is him at his folksiest best. As an added bonus, Jonathan Demme directed it and did a hell of a job. Definitely worth a look, even if you're just a casual fan of Young.
Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog (1978): This is one of many great kung fu films that our own Inanimate Carbon Rod has steered me to, and once again, he didn't disappoint. The star here is Sammo Hung, who I vaguely remember starring on some CBS cop show in the '90s, but apparently had a thriving career in these films outside of my field of vision. This is solid, popcorn-fu, the kind of thing I rent when it's me and only me in front of the DVD. The words "Sammo Hung" and "date night" just don't mix.Most Surreal Moment - Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. I had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels.Again, lots more there so read the whole thing. It's nice to hear directly from the soldiers, without the filter of the media or politicians on either side of the issue.
Most Profound Man in Iraq - an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines (searching for Syrians) if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."
Biggest Hassle - High-ranking visitors. More disruptive to work than a rocket attack. VIPs demand briefs and "battlefield" tours (we take them to quiet sections of Fallujah, which is plenty scary for them). Our briefs and commentary seem to have no affect on their preconceived notions of what's going on in Iraq. Their trips allow them to say that they've been to Fallujah, which gives them an unfortunate degree of credibility in perpetuating their fantasies about the insurgency here.
Biggest Outrage - Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest offender - Bill O'Reilly - what a buffoon.
Biggest Ass-Chewing - 10 July immediately following a visit by the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Zobai. The Deputy Prime Minister brought along an American security contractor (read mercenary), who told my Commanding General that he was there to act as a mediator between us and the Bad Guys. I immediately told him what I thought of him and his asinine ideas in terms that made clear my disgust and which, unfortunately, are unrepeatable here. I thought my boss was going to have a heart attack. Fortunately, the translator couldn't figure out the best Arabic words to convey my meaning for the Deputy Prime Minister. Later, the boss had no difficulty in convening his meaning to me in English regarding my Irish temper, even though he agreed with me. At least the guy from the State Department thought it was hilarious. We never saw the mercenary again.
Best Chuck Norris Moment - 13 May. Bad Guys arrived at the government center in the small town of Kubaysah to kidnap the town mayor, since they have a problem with any form of government that does not include regular beheadings and women wearing burqahs. There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the bad Guys put down his machinegun so that he could tie the mayor's hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machinegun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can't fight City Hall.
In yet another foreign policy triumph from the brilliant team that brought you "Mess o'Potamia," "The Taliban: Back in Style," and "Where's Osama?", I'm thrilled -- thrilled -- to see that they've let the batshit craziest dictator alive develop a nuclear bomb. Awesome.President Bush came to office believing that Clinton's policy amounted to appeasement. Force and strength were the way to deal with North Korea, not a mix of force, diplomacy and aide. And with that premise, President Bush went about scuttling the 1994 agreement, using evidence that the North Koreans were pursuing uranium enrichment (another path to the bomb) as the final straw. ....How many more days to we have to live under the incredible combination of ignorance and arrogance that this crowd specializes in? Can we at least get some Democratic congressional oversight soon? Please?
All diplomatic niceties aside, President Bush's idea was that the North Koreans would respond better to threats than Clinton's mix of carrots and sticks.
Then in the winter of 2002-3, the US prepared the invade Iraq, the North called Bush's bluff. And the president folded. Abjectly, utterly, even hilariously if the consequences weren't so grave and vast.
Threats are a potent force if you're willing to follow through on them. But he wasn't. The plutonium production plant, which had been shuttered since 1994, got unshuttered. And the bomb that exploded tonight was, if I understand this correctly, almost certainly the product of that plutonium uncorked almost four years ago. ....
The Bush-Cheney policy on North Korea was always what Fareed Zakaria once aptly called "a policy of cheap rhetoric and cheap shots." It failed. And after it failed President Bush couldn't come to grips with that failure and change course. He bounced irresolutely between the Powell and Cheney lines and basically ignored the whole problem hoping either that the problem would go away, that China would solve it for us and most of all that no one would notice.
Do you notice now?
For the past five years, Sen. George Allen, has failed to tell Congress about stock options he got for his work as a director of a high-tech company. The Virginia Republican also asked the Army to help another business that gave him similar options.No word yet on whether any deer heads were involved.
Congressional rules require senators to disclose to the Senate all deferred compensation, such as stock options. The rules also urge senators to avoid taking any official action that could benefit them financially or appear to do so.
Bush and Foley. Some jokes just write themselves.
Part of me thinks that Claudar is just another fake foreigner dreamed up by our liberal media. Just looking at him, he seems to be equal parts Cousin Balki and Yakoff Smirnoff. ("In Soviet Russia, records play you!") In fact, the odds are good that the entire Borat Sagdiyev experience is just a rip-off of this earlier, more brilliant incarnation.
StudioDave caught this lovely image over at Inside Cable News -- and, no, I can't think of a scarier place to be than inside cable news -- and I thought we should pass it along.
I know this is low-hanging fruit, but sometimes that's the sweetest fruit of all.
After years of watching the Democrats turn on each other at the first sign of trouble, it's nice to see the House Republicans doing the same thing in the wake of Predatorgate.ABC's Teddy Davis reports: In a radio interview with 700 WLW radio in Cincinnati, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) placed responsibility for the Foley matter not being handled properly on House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL).Wow. That's the House Majority Leader squarely laying the blame for a pedophilia scandal cover-up at the feet of the Speaker of the House. (And, as the piece notes, flip-flopping in the process.)
"I believe I talked to the Speaker and he told me it had been taken care of," said Boehner. "And, and, and my position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility. The Clerk of the House who runs the page program, the Page Board—all report to the Speaker. And I believe it had been dealt with."
Please note that by saying that he talked with the Speaker about Foley, Boehner is reversing course and going back to his original position.
A 32-year-old man speaking Tamil and some English about a sporting rivalry was questioned at Sea-Tac Airport and missed his flight Saturday because at least one person thought he was suspicious.
The Port of Seattle dispatched its police officers to investigate the case, which occurred Saturday around noon, said Bob Parker, airport spokesman. The Chicago man was preparing to board an American Airlines flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
The man was speaking Tamil, a language largely used in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, on his cell phone at the departure gate and on the aircraft. An off-duty airline employee heard the conversation and informed the flight crew.
Shares in U.K.-listed online gambling companies including PartyGaming and 888 Holdings plummeted Monday after the U.S. Congress unexpectedly passed an act that could cripple the industry by cutting off its revenue flows.
PartyGaming and 888 Holdings both said they will shut down their U.S.-facing operations once the act is signed into law by President Bush, which is expected to happen in the next two weeks.
