Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

This fight is for everything.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

So very ready.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

How stupid are these people?

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

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Archives for 2009

A Happy Ending

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The good Captain is safe:

The American captain of a cargo ship held hostage by pirates jumped overboard from the lifeboat where he was being held, and U.S. Navy SEALs shot and killed three of his four captors, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the situation.

Capt. Richard Phillips was helped out of the water off the Somali coast and is uninjured and in good condition, the official said. He was taken aboard the USS Bainbridge, a nearby naval warship.

At the time of the shootings, the fourth pirate was aboard the USS Bainbridge negotiating with officials, the source said. That pirate was taken into custody.

Apparently, there are dozens of hijacked ships in that area right now.

*** Update ***

BTW- I found the whole notion (as advanced by a few simpletons) that this was somehow a test of Obama to be laughably absurd. Our military budget is a half a trillion dollars a year. If we can not handle a couple pirates without the hands on involvement of the President, we need to just disband the Navy. Is it going to be a test of Obama every time some criminal somewhere takes a hostage?

Seriously.

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Not so fast, Joe

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Joe Klein, in an excellent put-down of Charles Krauthammer, writes:

<blockquote><p>And there was–oh. my. God.–the failed North Korean rocket launch. The Gates Defense budget is cutting anti-missile defense systems in Alaska. More Obama wimposity! Except that Gates has decided not to spend tens of billions on an anti-missile system (that doesn’t work) to counter a North Korean rockets (that don’t work) carrying North Korean atomic bombs (that have, so far, fizzled when tested). The real North Korean threat, created by George W. Bush’s first-term ineptness, is the nuclear fuel that was produced in the past six years–fuel that the wildly impoverished North Koreans could sell to terrorists or rogue states (as they sold their nuclear plant design to the Syrians). That is a threat that doesn’t yield easily to the empty bluster of neocons–indeed, it was accelerated by US bluster.</p><p> The point is that Krauthammer’s nonsense–the whole neoconservative project–proved an utter failure during the Bush years and now exists well outside a vast, stable, liberal-moderate consensus on foreign policy that includes most Democrats, the Bush 41 realists and the leading strategists of the U.S. military.</p></blockquote>

He may be right about the foreign policy community, but it’s foolish to think that neocon tropes haven’t thoroughly infected our national dialog.  Broder’s comments about how Obama had to bomb or attack…or I’m not sure what, frankly…the pirates and the North Koreans are a case in point.

As happy as I am that Obama has put American diplomacy back on the right track, we need to admit that idiotic neocon ideas still have tremendous sway.  The idea that we can and need to “get somebody” the moment something goes wrong is still very powerfully ingrained in the punditocracy.

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Happy Easter

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Good morning and Happy Easter.

Looks like a beautiful day here in WV, so after the morning workout and CBS Sunday Morning, I might go get some prep work done on the garden. Here is a thread for you.

*** Update ***

Keeping up with the hard hitting news, it appears that the first dog has been selected.

It just occurred to me- they have their “in” now. I was wondering how the Malkins and the Red States were going to get their two minute hate on over a puppy, and now that Kennedy is giving it to the Obamas, they now have an excuse to hate… a puppy. Just watch.

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Saturday Night Open Thread

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Not sure what I am going to do with myself. I did a solid clean of the living room today and got rid of most of the evidence of Tunch, so I might just go relax in there for a while.

We were talking about podcasts earlier, and one that I really enjoyed recently was a This American Life episode about the extent to which some people will go to be remembered, and it started with the story of this clown who did what he could to get into as many yearbook pictures as possible. For some reason that really tickled me.

It really is amazing the quality of free av entertainment/information out there these days- I bet family vacations are a piece of cake with kids. I remember when as a kid we got a Chevy Caprice Classic wagon with a diesel engine and a 4 speaker stereo with a cassette deck, and it was just amazing in 1982 or 83 or whenever we got it. We could listen to talking books and the trips from WV to Maine or WV to the beach went by much faster.

Oh, well. I think I am settling in for some channel surfing and reading.

Question: All my cd’s have been imported into Itunes on the Apple and synced with the Ipod. However, I would also like to have those on the PC for backup. Is there any way to upload from the Ipod to the PC Itunes?

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Real World Records

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Just curious if any of you ever listen to any of the offerings from Real World Records or Water Lily Acoustics? I got turned on to them- sheesh, has to be closing in on twenty years ago, I guess, when I heard Passion Sources by Peter Gabriel. From there I just branched out and picked up a bunch of other stuff I really like- Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who most of you probably know from the soundtrack to Dead Man Walking, Sheila Chandra, the Drummers of Burundi, and a host of others.

No real reason I mention them, just I was out of podcasts for my morning walk and some Real World stuff came up on my shuffle, and I realized we hadn’t ever talked about that before.

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The Daily “How Obama Is Failing Us” Post

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Greenwald has the details.

It isn’t the least bit surprising that this is happening, but it really is irritating.

*** Update ***

From the comments:

Funny that Greenwald doesn’t seem to link to the actual filing. But the SCOTUS blog does here with a much more indepth explanation of the Justice Department’s stance

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/u…..at-bagram/

I love Glenzilla but he is just about ridiculous with his rhetoric in that post. If you look at the substance of the argument it has nothing to do with continuing Bush policy. It has EVERYTHING to do with

1. Waiting to see if the other Judge was right about extending Habeus rights to the prisoners at Bagram which would set a precedent that would extend to more than just the 3 plaintiffs.

2. To try to give the government time to finish their review of detainee policy at Bagram which they believed would be finished within 6 months when President Obama signed the executive order creating the Task Force to study it.

Basically what the government is saying is that they haven’t had time to review all of the cases at Bagram yet and it would be nice to have that opportunity before the courts say all of the detainees have habeus rights and we get a mountain of litigation from those detainees asserting those rights. If you go to the actual link to the court filing the Justice Department points out that just because a detainee was grabbed outside of the theater doesn’t mean they didn’t commit crimes in the theater and then leave. It also talks about the problems that would occur if we were to capture suspects in Pakistan and then not be able to detain them in Bagram (which is in Afghanistan) because of these rulings. Please remember that fighting terrorists isn’t just the same as fighting normal crimes. Especially in a war zone.

The key word in all of this is time. This isn’t Bush confident in his policies and telling the courts to get bent. This is President Obama reviewing the process so they can make changes going forward as soon as they have some recommendations. I understand that for whichever of those prisoners who might truly be innocent in Bagram and have been there for years that they want to be out yesterday. But on the other hand the government has to be careful not to open a pandora’s box whereby the bad get released with the good in the middle of what is truly a war zone.

I guess Glenzilla will end up on the cover of Newsweek and have an appearance on Morning Joe soon since he has now said effectively that President Obama is worse than Bush but he is just about to over play his normally spot on hand with his rhetoric. And thats real.

So I guess people have differing views on this…

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