Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

People are complicated. Love is not.

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Archives for 2008

Meet Your Meat

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I made a decision this weekend after:

a. Reading Matthew Scully’s excellent, mind-opening, heartbreaking book, Dominion, and
b. Seeing this video

that I will never again eat meat. Not fish. Not pork. Not chicken. Not beef. Nothing that ever breathed will ever go into my body again. I’m just sick of seeing abuses like this, and I should have made the decision a long time ago. Today, we live in the era of factory farms – places where pigs, chickens, cows, and other animals are penned up in conditions so deplorable that they have zero – ZERO – quality of life, places where the lucky animals die shortly after birth or are stillborn. The ones that make it never see the light of day. And because we never get to see them, it’s easy to buy a package of chicken or beef and not know what had to suffer horribly for it – and every, single one of them suffers.

I’m done. If humanity can be judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, then we’ve failed miserably. It’s sickening.

And what pisses me off equally is this statement from Dick Durbin:

“The treatment of animals in this video is appalling, but more than that, it raises significant concerns about the safety of the food being served to our nation’s children,” Durbin said. “The apparent slaughter of sick and weak animals not only appears to violate USDA regulations, but could be a danger to our nation’s food supply.”

I’m sorry, but I think the needless, hideous suffering of a cow walking on broken legs and being rammed with a forklift is what’s most important. I think dipping live chickens and turkeys in scalding water to de-feather them is what’s most important. I think sending a sow to a rendering plant because she doesn’t produce enough offspring while penned in a cage she can’t even move in is what’s most important.

I can’t recommend Scully’s book highly enough. You can read the reviews here. He’s not a person that many Republicans and conservatives would deride as a “bleeding heart liberal”, either – he was a speech writer and senior advisor to Bush and an editor at National Review. He makes an excellent case for showing compassion and mercy that’s so self-evident that you wonder why you had to read the damned book in the first place.

(I updated the last paragraph to clarify the whole “bleeding heart” comment. See 1st and 2nd comment.)

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Fun With Balloon Animals

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Further evidence if you twist numbers like a mobius strip you can come up with anything.

Apparently, if you only count votes up to Super Tuesday, discount every state that had a caucus, only go by the exit polling, and eliminate any voters who weren’t registered Democrats, then Hillary Clinton*actually has the popular vote lead. In other news, based on exit polling and early voting from 2004 President Kerry will be running for reelection.

I’m fine with the superdelegates reflecting the will of the voters in the Democratic Primary — whoever they may choose in the coming weeks. I am, however, more than a little sick of the meme that Democrats in certain states don’t matter. Clinton’s disastrous decision to ignore her party’s representation in half the country is not the fault of committed Democrats in Georgia or South Carolina, nor can one say a person moved to vote for either candidate should have their vote discounted because they didn’t register for the right party beforehand.

CORRECTION: In the original draft, I only referred to Hillary Clinton by her first name. To preempt the inevitable sexism accusations, I’ve added the Clinton surname above.

COMPLETELY UNRELATED UPDATE: After posting, I stumbled across Kristol’s latest opus in the NYT. It closes with the funniest line I’ve read in days:

To govern is to choose, a Democrat of an earlier generation, John F. Kennedy, famously remarked. Is this generation of Democrats capable of governing?

This is no longer a question when it comes to Republicans. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt what they are capable of.

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Shockingly, We Are Still All Alive

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As noted in the comments, it is going on 12 hours since the PAA has expired, and shockingly enough, we are all alive. Could it be that our President and his lackeys in the right-wing blogosphere and conservative media have been full of shit and were lying to us? These experts think so:

Many intelligence scholars and analysts outside the government say that today’s expiration of certain temporary domestic wiretapping laws will have little effect on national security, despite warnings to the contrary by the White House and Capitol Hill Republican leaders.

With the Protect America Act expiring this weekend, domestic wiretapping rules will revert to the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires the government to obtain a warrant from a special court to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance in the United States.

The original FISA law, these experts say, provides the necessary tools for the intelligence community to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists.

And that isn’t the liberal media saying that. That is the Moonie Times.

Bush is so credibility free that even the Washington Times won’t carry his water any more, and the wimpy Democrats in Congress are for once defying him. Can you say “lame duck?”

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Slobber, Drool, Slobber

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According to Nicholas Kristoff, McCain’s penis tastes like chicken:

What sets Senator McCain apart isn’t so much his physical courage in Vietnam; many of his fellow prisoners also showed immense bravery under torture. But the United States Congress tends to be a courage-free zone, so Mr. McCain’s orneriness toward Republican primary voters makes him a lionheart in the political world.

It’s a pleasure to see candidates who don’t just throw red meat to the crowds but try to offer vegetarian options.

Consider torture. There was nary a vote in the Republican primary to be gained by opposing the waterboarding of swarthy Muslim men accused of terrorism. But Mr. McCain led the battle against Dick Cheney on torture, even though it cost him donations, votes and endorsements.

And then he promptly failed to vote for banning it last week.

The rest of the piece goes downhill from there, if you can believe that.

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