News of the Day

Because life goes on, no matter how much it sucks.


Department of Dana Peroxide
From the woman who had never heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis:

The White House on Thursday slapped back at Nobel laureate Al Gore saying he was wrong to call the United States the obstable to success at the Bali climate change conference.

"I think he is incorrect," spokeswoman Dana Perino said of Gore's remarks in Bali when he said the United States was the main obstacle to a climate change deal.

No, Dana, you don't think. You never think.  That's the whole problem. Honestly, you should try it sometime.

Source: Raw Story

Fresh from the Ministry of Love
The people who brought you the Taser torture device have been working on a version that fires more like a shotgun, with no pesky wires and a longer range. Oh, and four times the duration of the agony.

With the new "extended range electronic projectile," or XREP, the Taser has been turned into a kind of self-contained shotgun shell and can be fired, wire-free, from a standard shotgun, which police typically have in their arsenal already.

The first electrode hooks on to the target, the second electrode falls and makes contact elsewhere on the body, completing the circuit and activating the shock. It can blast someone as far as 30 metres away, and, unlike the current stun guns, whose shock lasts five seconds, the XREP lasts 20 seconds...

Isn't that lovely. Now they can fire round after round of debilitating torture into crowds of people.

But what if you want to hit an entire group of people with your lightning weapon? Have no fear, the mad scientists have a solution!

Besides the XREP, the company has developed a device meant to keep someone from approaching a certain area – a tactic called "area denial." "What if you could drop everyone in a given area to the ground with the simple push of a button?" asks a dramatic promotional video for the "Shockwave."

Taser has turned its weapon into a connected series of six darts arranged in an arc. The company says the device can be extended in a chain or stacked "like Lego," depending on the needs of the user.

Won't it be nice when they can just floor the entire flag waving, banner holding bunch of peaceniks from a distance?

Source: The Star

The Department of Unbelievable Gluttony
My friend split this with his girlfriend. Amazingly enough, they're both still in stable condition. Though I'd put my name on the wait-list for a pancreas if I was him. (do they transplant pancreases?)

Join the Club Department
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to hold two top aides to President Bush in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate in its probe of fired federal prosecutors.

I've been holding them in contempt for years.

Of course, nothing will come of it.

As with many of Bush's battles with the Democratic-led Senate, the president may ultimately prevail since his fellow Republicans may be able to block the citations with a procedural hurdle.

Source: Raw Story

News Update

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Pineapple Conspiracy but were afraid to ask.

Ok, so nothing on the PC; it's too dangerous. Instead, have some news.

Scientology is Bad for You, Mmmkay?

A German official is pushing to have Scientology, which is already considered a for-profit enterprise and swindle machine in the country, banned. Presumably from the country. Initially that strikes me as being a bit much, but then again, we ban the Mafia and other criminal organizations that have killed innocent people for money.

Source: The Associated Press

Brains, the Other White Meat

So a mysterious neurological illness is sweeping the employees at a meat processing plant who, until recently, were charged with removing the brains of pigs with compressed air guns. A lovely task I'm sure. Doctors are baffled, but the symptoms match a more or less incurable autoimmune disorder; the patients seem to recover, which leads them to conclude it isn't likely a prion disease like Mad Cow (though I think it's a bit soon, really; the proper incubation period on some of those prion diseases is several years, so these people might all drop dead half a decade from now).

Of course, the plant is still operating and selling to the public. Because, you know, we can't take any proactive health measures whatsoever. Mystery plague in a meat packing plant? No positive ID on cause? Could be a contagion wending its way through the food supply? NO PROBLEMS!

God.

Source: AP Features/Raw Story

Golden Compass Movie Removes Troublesome Atheism

So the author of the Golden Compass and its two sequels is a public Atheist. His books are full of bitter religious critique, against Christianity in particular. Hollywood wants to make them into a Narnia style blockbuster. The solution: remove all his ideas on religion!

Yeah. Ok. That doesn't smack of crass conformism at all. Meanwhile we have Dominionist whackos who scream bloody murder if they can't put their nativity scene on the courthouse lawn, and who fret endlessly about there being enough Christ in Christmas.

Gag me. Not the way Pullman's being gagged, but gag me nonetheless.

PS: Note the way CNN sells this story. Golden Compass Selling Atheism to Kids? GASP. SOMEONE MIGHT SELL AN INTANGIBLE BELIEF TO YOUR CHILDREN. IT IS AKIN TO AMPHETAMINES. ATHEISM IS THE METH OF THE MASSES
Source: CNN.com

Middle East Roundup

Let's see. Helen Thomas took Dana Peroxide to task a few days ago, and the video has been making the blog rounds. Basically Thomas had the gall to ask our Press Secretary if we'll ever be out of IraqIranWherever, and it led to a nasty spat. Thomas got off the best line by far of course, a simple statement about the Administration's supposed regret over civilian casualties:

'Your regret doesn't bring back a life'

That should go on bumper stickers.

Source: RawStory

In other news, a reporter covering Lebanon for The National Review Online, a right wing lunatic site attached to a right wing lunatic magazine, has been outed as a fabulist and hoaxer after a series of his wild stories were debunked or came into question. Amongst the questionable items? That Hezbollah had developed a 'delayed-acid' bomb that when detonated would make a car's chassis melt in half and the back fall off, Loony Tunes style.

Seriously. They published this.

Sources:

The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post (Specifics on the Acid Bomb)
Jesus' General

Finally, Harry Reid is supposedly considering yet another vote on Iraq, presumably to force El Presidente yet again to dash the hopes of everyone in uniform right before Christmas. This is the right track; I'd say, in fact, don't hold votes on anything else. Just Iraq, every day, all through December and January. People are sick of this insanity, and if they're reminded of it often enough, they just might do something about it. Now's the ideal time, the pro-GOP media conglomerates are running out of TV shows to dull the collective wit.

Source: The Hill

Reid to Bush: Suck on THESE

Over the last few years El Presidente has abused the recess appointments process in ways that were, well, completely unprecedented. Quite innovative too, if you hate democracy and all it stands for. Have a right wing radical bomb-thrower who could never, ever get approved by the Senate? Have a bunch of cronies you want to put into power without any qualifications whatsoever? Just want to piss off the legislative branch by bending them over a chair? Well, then, use an outmoded procedure in the Constitution, intended for use in emergency situations to fill vacant, and vital, positions in government, while the Senate is on vacation!

The idea of appointing during a recess isn't really such a strange one when you think about the time the Constitution was written. Traveling back to your home state was a long and arduous trek for a lot of Senators, I mean, would you like to travel a few hundred miles, in winter, along muddy rutted roads in a horse drawn carriage with wooden wheels and no shocks? At the same time, Americans sort of expect their representatives to live in their districts part of the time, and before telecommunications, it was hard to talk to them without having them around at least every once in a while. Plus they might have actual human reasons for going home, holidays with families and the like.

So they put in a way for the President to fill posts if somebody dies while the Senate isn't in town. Logical, really. It could take a substantial amount of time in the old days to call them back, even to inform them they NEEDED to come back to DC. You can't really go without a Secretary of State for a month. Remember how the last battle of the war of 1812 was fought 2 full weeks after the war was over? Yeah. We're talking about that sort of nonsense.

However, in recent political epochs, recess appointments have traditionally been used to squeak nominees who would otherwise have a dubious shot at confirmation through, as well as occasional lowly flunkies that nobody really cared about. Bush took that to a whole new level, appointing grandiosely unpopular and unfit people via recess appointments, even if the Senate had made it perfectly clear they were NOT approved for the job.

So Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, has had enough. He plans to prevent recess appointments by removing recesses from the calendar. Simply put, the Senate will never shut down for more than 10 days in a row. He's going to get a local Senator, say someone from next door in Delaware or what not, to drive in once every 10 days, open and close the Senate, and thus close the loophole that our Little King has been abusing these last 7 agonizing years.

Harry Reid, whatever else you can say about him, has a lot of balls. He didn't let the mob intimidate him with assassination attempts back home, and he doesn't let Georgie intimidate him in DC. Bush will be feeling this pimp slap for a long time.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/20/reids-plan-to-block-bushs-recess-appointments/