Monday Morning Coming Down

It's Depressing

So Very Cheney
Our Vice President (In Charge of Evil) has no respect for the public he claims to serve.

Seriously. He's willing to say so.

Informed during a Good Morning America interview broadcast Wednesday that two-thirds of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, Cheney said: "So?"

"So you don't care what the American people think?" ABC's Martha Raddatz asked.

He added: "I think we cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations of the public opinion polls. There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That's a huge accomplishment."

Cheney added that the economy was going through a "rough patch, there's no question about it."

The White House later released a transcript which shows that Cheney's first response wasn't "so" as ABC presented on its broadcast.

When first informed by Raddatz that "two-thirds of Americans say [the Iraq war] was not worth fighting," the vice president responded, "They ought to go spend time, like you and I have, Martha. You know what's been happening in Iraq. You've been there as much as anybody. There has, in fact, been fundamental change and transformation, and improvement for the better. I think even you would admit that."

They think the second quote makes them look better. He's saying that his critics should have to go to Iraq, a place where the sewage runs in the streets and five car bombs go off a day in public.

He's either insane or a complete sociopath, or both.

Source: Raw Story

Dear Abby is a Bitch
So Dear Abby answered a strange reader's letter asking about how to deal with his wife's rape by one of his brothers by, err, calling the wife a lying slut. More or less.

But when you decided to forego any sort of censure of the offending brothers and get straight to your real suspicion about what happened: that the wife is a lying slut who needs an AIDS test and a strict talking-to. "Please do not accept as gospel that your wife didn't have an inkling that it wasn't you," you wrote. "It's time to have a serious chat with your wife and get chapter and verse on what happened that night."

It's not like advice columnists have an obligation to print every letter they get; "Dear Abby" thought this was a response worth publishing to millions of idiot readers.

People wonder why 90% of rapes go unreported; it's due in no small part to people like Abby here. Jerk-ass.

Source: Jezebel

I Hate the South
They apparently think cars are toys in South Carolina. Or to be precise, the cops think cars are toys, and suspects are targets.

Federal authorities are looking into possible civil rights violations following the release of videos showing misconduct by South Carolina State Highway Patrol troopers.

The controversy began a month ago, when the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus came forward with a video from 2004 in which a trooper told a suspect, ""You better run, n**, because I'm fixin' to kill you."

Now a freedom of information request has produced video from dashboard cameras showing two incidents in which troopers used their patrol cars to deliberately ram into suspects fleeing on foot. Both those suspects were also black.

In one video, a patrol car chases a man through the parking lot of an apartment complex, then follows him between buildings and across footpaths and lawns where children are playing before running into him.

In the other, a patrol car hits a suspect as he tries to cross in front of it on a back road. The man flips over the side of the car and then off the road. "Hey, I nailed the fuck out of him," the trooper proclaims. "He went flying up in the air. ... I was trying to hit him."

Both officers remained on duty. The one who boasted of deliberately hitting the suspect was given a three day suspension. The other officer, who admitted to poor judgment but said he hit the man accidentally, received only a reprimand.

And people wonder why I say we should write off, then wall off, the South.

They don't deserve the fruits of our civilization. They can't even use cars without turning them into a form of sick racist attack.

Source: Raw Story

ORLY, O'Reilly?
(ORLY == Oh Really in net-speak)

So Bill-O is up to his usual hijinks, trying to literally dispose of all of his enemies.

Summary: On his radio program, Bill O'Reilly called the "people" at Media Matters for America "the worst Americans in the country" and stated, "If I could, I would deport them." O'Reilly also asserted: "But this Media Matters, this disgusting, despicable, far-left website, they do it all the time. And MoveOn and all these people, that's what they do. They disagree with you, and they brand you a racist."

Hey O'Reilly; fuck you. How dare you call for the deportation of American citizens who disagree with you? Racist scumbag thug. Utterly disgusting.

If anyone's getting deported, it should be him, the creepy sexual deviant.

Source: Media Matters

Shock and Awe
Here we go again. Sigh.

Lamperd, a "firearm training system" company, has patented a bracelet that delivers debilitating shocks when remotely triggered. Their killer app for this is aviation safety: they're proposing that the TSA could force everyone who flies to wear one of these and then flight-attendants could zap us into a stupor if we turn out to be Al Quaeda.

That's right; they want to force everyone on a flight to wear a shock-collar, like a damned aggressive dog.

Fat chance. I'd love to see them try it though; we'd have a working mass transit train system six months after the first flight of these monstrous devices.

Source: Boing Boing

Ashes, Ashes...
Gee, yet another faulty bridge almost ready to collapse at rush hour. Big surprise.

CHICAGO — A 51-year-old steel truss bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Cloud, Minn., was abruptly shut down on Thursday after inspectors found that its gusset places were bending — a problem similar to the one believed to have critically weakened the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis in August.

Meanwhile, it looks like the Bush controlled NTSB is trying to whitewash this obviously serial neglect in Minnesota for their friend, the Republican governor.

Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau was removed from her post as transportation commissioner last month after years of concern about the department’s performance, but also because of the acute negative attention she received in the aftermath of the collapse. Democratic legislators criticized Ms. Molnau, a Republican, for ineffective leadership.

They have also tried to lay responsibility for the collapse on Mr. Pawlenty, another Republican, because he vetoed a tax increase shortly before the collapse. That money would have been used for highway repairs.

The National Transportation Safety Board has not yet established the overall cause of the collapse in Minneapolis, which killed 13 people and injured 145 when cars plunged into the Mississippi River.

But earlier this week, the board said the bridge was stressed after workers had put 99 tons of sand on the roadway directly over two of the bridge’s weakest points. Stress at one of the two weakest points was 83 percent more than the bridge could have handled, according to an interim report released earlier by the Federal Highway Administration.

Yeah. Because it really turned out to be an isolated incident... oh wait, no, not so much.

Jerks.

Source: The New York Times

Yet More Heartland Values
In this case, where a family tortured a woman to death over several weeks with BB guns and hot glue.

Banished to the basement, the 29-year-old mother with a childlike mind and another baby on the way had little more than a thin rug and a mattress to call her own on the chilly concrete floor.

Dorothy Dixon ate what she could forage from the refrigerator upstairs, where housemates used her for target practice with BBs, burned her with a glue gun and doused her with scalding liquid that peeled away her skin.

They torched what few clothes she had, so she walked around naked. They often pummeled her with an aluminum bat or metal handle.

Dixon — six months pregnant — died after weeks of abuse. Police have charged two adults, three teenagers and a 12-year-old boy with murder in the case that has repulsed many in this Mississippi River town.

Once again, never let anyone tell you how wholesome and wonderful the flyover states are without taking a grain of salt. Bible-thumping doesn't make a society moral. In my experience, it just makes it cruel.

Source: Raw Story

Pope Pokes Muslim Community With Stick
Hardly an uncommon occurrence these days.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict led the world's Catholics into Easter on Saturday at a Vatican service where he baptized a Muslim-born convert who is one of Italy's most famous and controversial journalists.

...

One of the seven adults he baptized on Saturday night was Magdi Allam, 55, an Egyptian-born journalist who, as deputy director of the leading newspaper Corriere della Sera, is one of Italy's best-known intellectuals.

Allam, a fierce critic of Islamic extremism and a strong supporter of Israel, is protected by a police escort because of threats he has received.

...

Allam defended the pope in 2006 when the pontiff made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that many Muslims perceived as depicting Islam as a violent faith.

The Vatican statement announcing Allam was joining Catholicism said all newcomers were "equally important before God's love and welcome in the community of the Church."

Allam, who has been living in Italy for 35 years, has said he was never a very devout Muslim. Still, his conversion to Christianity came as a surprise.

"What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion," Yaha Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community, told Reuters.

Defending the pope when nobody else will, wow. He really would make a great Catholic in the current power structure. Maybe he can get on the fast track to being a Bishop.

Source: Raw Story

Dana, Dana, Dana
For a bit of lighter news, here's Dana Peroxide, defending El Presidente's idiot position that if we leave Iraq, Al-Queda, not Al-Queda in Iraq, the spinoff, but the actual Al-Queda, will conquer the entire country and start selling Iraqi oil on the global market.

Reeeeeeeeeeeally.

Me: The President warned of the danger that al Qaeda could gain access to Iraq's oil resources. But I don't understand how a fragmented, clandestine, non-Iraqi terrorist organization could produce and sell Iraqi oil on the global market, especially when the majority of Iraqis have turned against al Qaeda. Could you describe a plausible scenario?

Dana: The purpose of what the President said is that al Qaeda should not be allowed to have safe haven in Iraq and take over --

Me: How can they take over Iraq's oil reserves?

Dana: Well, if we were to leave we would certainly ensue chaos and not be able to -- if we were to leave too soon, it would certainly be chaos and it would be terrible for not only the innocent Iraqis, but the entire region and, in fact, our own national security. That's what the President --

Me: So the Iraqis would let a foreign terrorist organization take over their oil?

Dana: You're missing the point, and I think that you should go back and read --

Me: No, I --

Dana: Yes, actually, I think you are missing the point. And I call on you because I see what you write about how you come here and you really want to have questions asked. And I'm calling on you and I'm providing it to you, but I suggest that you read the President's speech and read it in context, because that's -- what you're suggesting is not what the President said.

Me: That's what he said.

Indeed it is.

It all started when I came across the following line in the President's Iraq War Birthday speech:

"An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq's oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations."

Check that out. Bush thinks a small cadre of foreign terrorists will conquer Iraq, rebuild its infrastructure, government, export facilities, quell sectarian unrest and start selling their oil, all of which we have been unable to do with 140,000 US troops.

Wow, sounds efficient. Maybe we should let them have a crack at it!

Source: Raw Story