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Polite Society Means Not Discussing Politics At Dinner
Even if you're the President, it seems.

President Bush followed up a mild lecture about expanding democracy among the Mideast's comfortable dynasties with an opulent picnic at the desert playground of one of the region's wealthy leaders.

Bush traded his suit for a casual jacket and took a helicopter as close as he could get to this remote encampment where Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Sheik Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, raises horses and prize falcons.

...

Bush has avoided any direct criticism of human rights or political freedoms in the governments hosting him in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the Arab world, although U.S. allies surely knew who he meant when he decried the treatment of opposition political candidates and dissidents in the region.

Yeah, he meant 'Those people that you can round up and shoot for all I care, so long as there's seconds on that tasty lamb.'

Source: Raw Story

Drug Resistance Spreads
While Bush dines at his rich oil patrons' expense, we have some rather serious emerging problems here at home that a less anti-science administration might be tempted to deal with.

First, a new, tougher and quite nastily contagious strain of MRSA, or Multiply Resistant Staphyloococcus, has emerged, centered on the gay community in San Francisco. So expect to hear a lot more of that special right-wing gay bashing rhetoric we get with regard to AIDS (you know, the 'gay plague' stuff).

Source: BBC News

Meanwhile, a much more dangerous and agressive form of an Adenovirus, the wimpy little common cold bugs, has broken out, hitting the military community amongst others. It causes a nasty form of pnuemonia, and has led to a few deaths already. Since adenoviruses are normally so non-threatening, there really isn't anything medicine can do to treat it if it gets out of hand. We're not talking Captain Trips here, of course... but, you know, two serious disease outbreaks might prompt attention from a slightly more competent government. Instead, we have Bush trying to appoint a rabidly anti-gay minister as the Surgeon General. So it goes.

Source: CNN.com

The War on Terror Never Comes Home
So we're committed to fighting terrorists, world-wide, whenever they rear their ugly heads, right El Presidente?

Unless of course, they're Cuban terrorists plotting to overthrow Castro.

Tristam Korten and Kirk Nielsen, writing for Salon.com, profile a group of Cuban exiles who are believed to have plotted attacks against Cuba and continue to operate in Florida with virtual impunity.

"[O]ther than an occasional federal gun charge, nothing much seems to happen to most of these would-be revolutionaries. They are allowed to train nearly unimpeded despite making explicit plans to violate the 70-year-old U.S. Neutrality Act and overthrow a sovereign country's government," they write.

"In Greater Miami, home to the majority of the nation's 1.5 million Cuban-Americans, the presence of what could credibly be described as a terrorist training camp has become an accepted norm during the half-century of the anti-Castro Cuban diaspora, Alpha 66 and numerous other paramilitary groups -- Comandos F4, Brigade 2506, Accion Cubana -- are so common they've taken on the benign patina of Rotary Clubs with weapons."

Ahh, Miami. What a cesspit.

The article also brings up the long-running outrage that is the U.S. giving sanctuary to an anti-Castro terrorist by the name of Posada Carriles, who is wanted for a series of hotel bombings and the downing of a plane in 1976 that killed 76 people. He's also implicated in an assassination attempt in Panama, and was tied up with our gun running in Central America during Iran-Contra. He recently fled into this country to avoid prosecution, and the Americans fudged Venezuela's extradition request so that he can stay here, indefinitely. He won't even be prosecuted for that pesky illegal immigration.

Border fence? Only for the dirty Mexicans, not bloodthirsty bombers.

Source: Raw Story (from a Salon article)

Thin is In
So Apple has a new laptop in the works that is about three quarters of an inch thick at the thickest point. It's absurdly slim, weighs 3 lbs, and costs about 2 grand.

Think of it as the extremely high-priced cousin of the EEE PC from Asus, or, alternately, the laptop so thin you have to worry about breaking it in half all day long.

Either or.

Source: Macworld

Ahh Fox, Is There Any Corporation Not Your Master?
Except for GE of course, because they let that mean old Olbermann on the air.

This time it's Fox Noise berating John Edwards, Nurses, and humanity in general for being too hard on Cigna, who denied a woman the liver transplant she needed and her doctors wanted, until of course, she died.

I'd wonder how they sleep at night, but I suspect they don't get much rest, as they're all on day-leave from Hell.

Source: Raw Story

Countdown to Armageddon

So El Presidente is going for a high level trip to Israel, and while there the Israelis are essentially going to present him with a wish-list of places in Iran they'd like bombed.

Israel security officials are set to brief President Bush on their "Iran file" regarding the country's alleged nuclear weapons program "and how it could be destroyed - when he begins a tour of the Middle East in Jerusalem this week," the UK Times Uzi Mahnaimi reported Sunday.

"Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is said to want to convince him that an Israeli military strike against uranium enrichment facilities in Iran would be feasible if diplomatic efforts failed to halt nuclear operations," the paper added. "A range of military options has been prepared."

Gee, thanks Israel. Thanks a load.

Sigh. Sometimes you just want to crawl back into bed when doing morning news like this. But that's not for me; I must learn to feed on my rage, hone it into a sharp, evil implement with which to maim my many enemies.

Bring on the pain!

Bush League Fakery

This one deserves its own special post.

Folks, Bush is officially trying to get us into a last-minute war with Iran. He's not even original enough to come up with a new excuse; he wants to reuse something from LBJ's Greatest Hits Collection:

(CNN) -- The U.S. military reported Monday on a "significant" confrontation involving five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats that "harassed and provoked" three U.S. naval ships in international waters over the weekend.

U.S. military officials said the incident occurred early Sunday morning in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping channel leading in and out of the Persian Gulf.

The five Iranian ships made "threatening" moves -- in one case coming within 200 yards of a U.S. ship, the U.S. officials said.

In one radio transmission, the Iranians told the U.S. Navy: "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes," the U.S. military officials told CNN.

When the U.S. ships heard that radio transmission, they took up their gun positions and officers were "in the process" of giving the order to fire when the Iranians abruptly turned away, the U.S. officials said.

Firing on the ship of a sovereign nation is a cause for war, folks. Err, for them, not so much us. Random and completely undocumented radio transmissions, not so much.

Gulf of Tonkin Part Deux! Onward to Tehran!

God this is going to be a slaughter. We can't even handle Iraq, how they think we can do Iran at the same time is completely beyond me.

Source: CNN.com

Getting It Out of the Way

Gee, one big assassination and all the regular news goes on the back burner...

Let's try to go on with our news. It's, err, what she would have wanted.

With a Name Like Huckabee..
See, cause it sounds like Huckster... oh forget it.

Basically, Mike Huckabee is continuing to collect big money speaking fees while he's campaigning for President. This is generally seen as a big no-no, as it's both crass and potentially shady. I mean, are you paying to hear the guy speak, or The Guy Who Might Be President speak? A bit dodgy, which is why nobody does it. Well, except for the Huckster.

Compounding the issue is the fact that he gives most of his speeches on his 'signature issue' of personal weight loss. First of all, that's what our wannabe Preznit thinks is a pressing issue to deal with on the national stage at the moment. Secondly, his recipe of 'pray, exercise, and await miracles' for better health has struck more than a few doctors as suspicious.

In fact, it seems quite likely that his entire weight loss platform is a complete and total sham. There is a body of anecdotal evidence and medical conjecture, along with a suspicious timeline, to suggest that in fact his much vaunted weight loss had nothing to do with prayer, and everything to do with a Gastic Bypass surgery.

He then wrote a bestselling book and made a career out of fleecing people on how to lose weight the good old Baptist way. In other words, a classic snake-oil salesman.

Ahh, Republicans. Find a low, and they'll stoop to it.

Sources: Politico.com
Firedoglake

Ohio Again Innovates In Vote-Fraud
So Ohio has decided to remove their shame-of-the-nation touch screen voting machines. Good on them. Unfortunately, they plan to replace them with a system that takes hand-scored ballots to a central location and then optically scans then. Your ballot can't be read? They *say* it can't be read?

Too bad.

The ACLU is on this one, fortunately. If it was another state I might be less suspicious, but this is Ohio we're talking about here.

Source: Raw Story

What the Holy Fuck is Wrong With You People?
Sweeney Todd is fifth at the box office for the weekend, despite starting on Friday when I'm pretty sure some of the others only started on Christmas.

Seriously. More people by far went to see GODDAMNED NATIONAL TREASURE TWO than Sweeney.

What was it that turned you people off? The quality acting? The gorgeous cinematography? The classic story and musical adaptation?

Are people just that in love with Nicolas Cage's hamfisted acting? Is Family Friendly all that matters anymore?

I Am Legend did three times Sweeney's business, despite being a week old AND having terrible word of mouth. In a sure sign of the Apocalypse, ALVIN AND THE GOAT RAPING CHIPMUNKS did huge gross.

Even a little known political movie, admittedly staring Tom Hanks, did better money.

Sweeney only showed on half as many screens as some of the others and did a very nice per theatre take, but still. This is just wrong.

Source: The Associated Press

Bush Is a Complete Moron, Part 8930 of an Endless Series
I stole that title joke from The Rude Pundit. I'm in a hurry here, so call it an homage.

So anyway, it turns out that our national stem cell 'policy', the non-research research position that will surely slow medical progress and condemn millions to horrible premature deaths, was concocted after a right wing idiot read Bush a passage from a 1932 science fiction novel.

First, our 'President' has to have story time and be read to like a goddamned child. I wonder if he has a sippy box of juice on the floor of the Oval Office before naptime too.

Second, he's basing his real world science policy on decades old sci-fi. Admittedly, in this case it's A Brave New World, but still. Take a gander.

In a new piece in Commentary magazine, Jay Lefkowitz — who advised Bush on stem cells — reveals how the President formulated his 2001 policy. While Bush heard from a variety of groups on both sides of the issue, the turning point appeared to come when Lefkowitz read from Aldous Huxley’s fictional novel, Brave New World, and scared Bush:

A few days later, I brought into the Oval Office my copy of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley’s 1932 anti-utopian novel, and as I read passages aloud imagining a future in which humans would be bred in hatcheries, a chill came over the room.

“We’re tinkering with the boundaries of life here,” Bush said when I finished. “We’re on the edge of a cliff. And if we take a step off the cliff, there’s no going back. Perhaps we should only take one step at a time.”

It’s unclear what passage Lefkowitz read, but Brave New World opens with a scene at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where embryos are turned into full human beings — often dozens of pairs of “identical twins” to ensure “social stability.”

Which of course has nothing to do with what we're actually doing in the field of stem cell research. Clone armies are strictly confined to the Star Wars universe, you right-wing pinheads.

This story made me want to vomit in my mouth.

Source: Think Progress

PS: For a truly delightful interpretation one need only look to the first comment on that page.

Apparently no one has taken a copy of “1984″ into the oval office.

-G

Comment by GSD — December 26, 2007 @ 8:27 pm

Well said.

At Least They Look Nifty
So apparently the NYPD is looking to phase out their fossil fuel scooters in favor of an electric model. Quiet, sneaky and cleaner. All well and good, I suppose, if they work.

It took forever, but I found a site with pictures of the vehicle in question. Shockingly, it doesn't have the usual POS electric vehicle aesthetic. The photos look a tad touched up for dramatic effect though. Either a blur filter or someone has need of a tripod.

Then when I went to find the original story I found a CNN.com article with a picture. Sigh.

It turns out, not shabby at all, though.

Sources: Greener Machine
CNN.com