Month: May 2009

Obama Announces The Ultimate Marvel Team-Up

Dana Hunter1 Comment

There’s been a lot of pants-pissing Con hysteria over the impending closure of Guantanamo. We liberals have been quick to dismiss their concerns, but we may have been a little over-hasty. A closer reading of history proves there’s good cause for concern:

Today, Glenn Greenwald makes a completely incorrect assertion:

Take note, Chris Cillizza and friends: while it’s true that “not a single prisoner has escaped from Gitmo since it was created,” it’s also true that no Muslim Terrorists have escaped from American prisons and our SuperMax prison “has had no escapes or serious attempts to escape.” Actually, the only person to even make an escape attempt from a SuperMax is Green Arrow, who hasn’t succeeded despite the help of Joker and Lex Luthor.

Greenwald clearly doesn’t remember the Magneto incident of 2003, in which the mutant supervillain escaped from his glass prison facility after Mystique increased the iron content in his guard’s blood, which Magneto extracted using his ferrokinetic powers and then used to destroy his cell. Obviously, we need to discover if Gitmo inmates do have mutant abilities, which will undoubtedly require more waterboarding, and this has to be done before the administration gets a dime to close Guantanamo. In fact, I’m pretty sure Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the subject in 2002.

Whether or not Nancy Pelosi was accurately briefed, the imaginary threat is real. We can’t dismiss the danger of terrorists being superpowered mutants just because there’s no evidence for it. That’s why it’s so heartening to see President Obama taking immediate action to counter this dire threat (h/t):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, DC – Seeking to quell fears of terrorists somehow breaking out of America’s top-security prisons and wreaking havoc on the defenseless heartland, President Barack Obama moved quickly to announce an Anti-Terrorist Strike Force headed by veteran counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer and mutant superhero Wolverine. Already dubbed a “dream team,” their appointment is seen by experts as a crucial step in reducing the mounting incidents of national conservatives and congressional Democrats crapping their pants.

“I believe a fictional threat is best met with decisive fictional force,” explained President Obama. “Jack Bauer and Wolverine are among the very best we have when in comes to combating fantasy foes.” Mr. Bauer said, “We’re quite certain that our prisons are secure. Osama bin Laden and his agents wouldn’t dare attempt a break-out, and would fail miserably if they tried. But I love this country. And should Lex Luthor, Magneto or the Loch Ness Monster attack, we’ll be there to stop them.”

[snip]

Some critics have expressed concerns as to whether Mr. Bauer is the best choice to counter the potential threat of a super-villain such as Magneto, a dinosaur stampede or an alien invasion. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded that while Bauer lacks conventional super-powers, he can withstand extreme amounts of pain, has near infallible judgment, can teleport across Los Angeles and Washington D.C. at will, and can go 24 hours without sleep or relieving his bladder.

Should the task of protecting the country prove too difficult for the super-agent and super-hero on their own, Crime-Fightin’ Jesus has offered to lend a hand “in a pinch,” although he says he would rather spend his time helping the poor “if at all possible.” Republicans insist that a law-enforcement approach to terrorism is ineffective.

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation, manufacturers of Depends adult diapers, has already come out strongly against the announcement of the Bauer-Wolverine dream team, claiming that their increased sales are helping spur the nation’s economic recovery…

These advances are always so difficult for major corporations to adjust to, aren’t they? But I’m sure there won’t be any reduction in demand for Depends. David Vitter’s still healthy enough for sexual activity, right? And sales of Kleenex brand tissues, another Kimberly-Clark product, have increased dramatically since the press release, possibly due to the equally dramatic increase in despairing tears as Cons realize their usual gloom-and-doom scenarios are impotent in the face of this Wolverine-Bauer team-up.

Prominent Cons could not be reached for comment. Sources say they’re meeting in an undisclosed location, frantically trying to manufacture the next Big Scare. We wish them luck with that.

Obama Announces The Ultimate Marvel Team-Up
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Happy Hour Discurso

Dana Hunter

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Note to Cons: the equine is thoroughly deceased. You can stop beating it any time:

Maybe it’s just me, but when I saw another story about a new round of Republican attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D), my first reaction was, “Wait, they’re still talking about that?”

A member of the House Republican Conference will offer a resolution on the House floor Thursday calling for a bipartisan investigation into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the CIA misled her on the use of waterboarding, two Republican sources tell CNN.

“The speaker has had a full week now to either produce the evidence or retract and apologize, and she’s done neither,” a senior Republican aide told CNN. “There is no choice now. A bipartisan investigation is needed to get to the facts.”

Just so we’re clear, if a Democrat says, in reference to credible allegations of widespread Bush administration wrongdoing, “There is no choice now. A bipartisan investigation is needed to get to the facts,” that Democrat is a bitter partisan, stuck in the past, anxious to undermine national security. If a Republican says the same thing about Pelosi, he/she is simply supporting accountability.

Riiight.

Most of you are probably aware that today was Dick’s day to try to upstage the President of the United States. It didn’t go all that well. For one thing, Cheney proved he has no idea what American values actually are:

From Dick Cheney’s remarks at AEI this morning:

Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

Anything is permissible in defense of the Fatherland Homeland.

Not according to the Constitution, Dick.

And as for comparison to the President, well, let’s just say that anyone who’s not a hopeless Con wasn’t too terribly impressed:

Most of Joe Klein’s take on this morning’s speeches struck me as persuasive.

“From the very first — the notion that those who oppose his policies saw 9/11 as a “one-off” — Cheney proceeded to mischaracterize, oversimplify and distort the views of those who saw his policies as extreme and unconstitutional, to say nothing of the views of the current Administration. This is the habit of demagogues. Cheney’s snarling performance was revelatory and valuable: it showed exactly the sort of man Cheney is, and the sort of advice he gave, when his location was disclosed. I hope he continues to speak out. We need his voice to remind us what we’ve happily escaped.

“Contrast that with the President. He spoke with reason and dignity. He treated his audience — the American people — as adults, capable of assimilating a difficult argument. He presented the views of his opponents, on both sides, fairly. His speech acknowledged the difficulty in balancing our democratic values against our very real national security needs.”

Now, when it comes to Klein’s take on the appropriate “balance” between security and values, I’d put the fulcrum in a different place.

But his larger point sounds right to me. Watching Cheney’s speech, the one phrase that kept coming to mind was, “He must think we’re idiots.”

Indeed he must. I suppose it’s what comes of having been stuffed away in an undisclosed location for so long.

Cheney does have one big fan, though. Mittens lurved him some ex-VP:

Blogging at The Corner today, Mitt Romney panned President Obama’s speech on national security, saying that Vice President Cheney’s “response” to Obama was “direct, well-reasoned, and convincing.” Romney mocked Obama’s speech condemning torture as being worse than Bush’s torture tactics:

He struggles to explain how he is keeping faith with the liberal advocates who promoted his campaign but in doing so, he breaks faith with the interests of the American people. When it comes to protecting the nation, we have a conflicted president. And his address today was more tortured than the enhanced interrogation techniques he decries.

Obama “said that the last thing he thinks about when he goes to sleep at night is keeping America safe. That’s a big difference with Vice President Cheney — when it came to protecting Americans, he never went to sleep,” Romney concluded. This would be news to Cheney. In October 2007, Cheney dozed off during a briefing on the California wildfires and also during his boss’s farewell address in January 2009.

So much for the Man Who Never Sleeps motif. And so much for the former Vice President convincing everyone that he’s right and Obama’s wrong. Repetition of tired old right-wing talking points only gets you so far.

In other news, some fuckwits think Huntsman’s ambassadorship to China is a prime opportunity to proselytize:

I knew this was going to come out of Utah as soon as I heard the announcement that Jon Huntsman was going to China. I emailed Howie about it.

Ben Smith:

This, from the blog of a Utah State Rep. Craig Frank, may not be quite what Huntsman and Obama were thinking:

This is a big deal for the Governor, Utah, the United States, and…the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

Although the LDS church’s missionary program has an ecclesiastical presence throughout many parts of the world, the countries with the largest population bases (China and India) are not currently open to the church’s missionary efforts. Huntsman served his LDS mission as a 19 year old young man in the Taiwan Taipei Mission in the early 1980’s. He has since been back to the Far East on a number of occasions. Huntsman not only takes to China his political acumen but also a lifetime of membership in the LDS church. This should bode well for the LDS church’s mission to spread the gospel throughout the world, since all members of the LDS faith are under divine mandate to…”Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…” (Matt 28:19)

Huntsman’s ambassadorship not only puts him in an excellent position to address US-China relations, it puts him in an even better position to teach the gospel…in Mandarin.

The blog has since been scrubbed, GOP 12 reports, but it lives on on Google.

Some folks seem to think there’s no such thing as separation between church and state, there. I hope Huntsman isn’t laboring under the same delusion.

And, finally, I can’t leave you without these pearls of wisdom from Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum:

Last night on Fox News, former senator Rick Santorum told Greta Van Susteren that the Republican party “has to stand up for conservative principles.” They h
ave to support the “patrimony” against “a guy named Barack Obama” who wants to upend “our social structure”:

SANTORUM: The other thing we have to do is we have to stand up and say, look, America — Conservatives believe in the stewardship of patrimony. In other words, there are things in America that are really good, that work, have worked for 200 years. And we have a guy named Barack Obama who’s trying to fundamentally rewrite everything, change our economy, change our social structure, change our economy to something new.

Santorum also praised the 75 percent of Californians who did not vote in yesterday’s special election, “because they knew enough that they didn’t know enough to vote.”

Rick hasn’t quite made Bachmann territory on the crazy, there, but give him points for trying.

Happy Hour Discurso

Methinks It's Time to Repeal DADT

Dana Hunter1 Comment

In case no one noticed, we’re in the midst of two fucking wars, here. The military’s so desperate they’re letting convicted criminals serve. But they’re still enforcing DADT – WTF?

Rachel Maddow’s introduction of the segment on Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Fehrenbach last night told a rather remarkable story.

“[Fehrenbach is] an F-15 fighter pilot, 18-year veteran of the United States Air Force,” Rachel explained. “On Sept. 11, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach was picked to be part of the initial alert crew immediately after the 9/11 attacks. The following years, in 2002, he deployed to Kuwait, where he flew combat missions over Afghanistan, attacking Taliban and al Qaeda targets. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach deployed there, flying combat missions in support of mission Iraqi Freedom.

“Over the span of his career, he has flown 88 combat missions, including missions that were the longest mission sorties in the history of his squadron. He’s logged more than 2,000 flying hours, nearly 1,500 fighting hours, 400 combat hours. Lt. Col. Fehrenbach is also highly decorated — he’s received nine air medals, including one for heroism. After 18 years of active duty in the Air Force, this experienced, decorated fighter pilot says he is ready and willing to deploy again. He’s ready to do what his country and the United States Air Force ask of him.”

Except, Fehrenbach will no longer able to serve, because the Air Force is kicking him out of the military because he’s gay. This genuine American war hero, who’s put his life on the line over and over again, and who the U.S. government has invested $25 million in training, is two years from retirement. Instead of thanking him for his extraordinary service, the country he’s served with honor and distinction is firing him for his sexual orientation.

Just once, I wanted to hear someone explain why the United States is stronger, safer, and more secure with Lt. Col. Fehrenbach out of the military.

So do I.

*crickets*

So if we’re not safer, can we just get the fuck on with repealing this bloody stupid law? Why are we coddling a handful of homophobes? Tell them to grow the fuck up or get the fuck out. And while we’re waiting for the repeal, Obama’s got plenty of options for end-runs around this bullshit. Steve’s got a short rundown at the above link.

It’s not like soldiers like Fehrenbach have to be drummed out. It’s time for Obama to stop pretending there’s no alternative.

Methinks It's Time to Repeal DADT

The Demands for Arlen Specter's Head Begin in 3…2…1…

Dana Hunter

Dear, oh dear. It looks like Arlen’s break with the Cons is nearly complete:

Yes, I’m glad that Arlen “the Scrapple formerly known as Haggis” Specter has come out in support of Nancy Pelosi’s suggestion that CIA misled her in her September 2002 briefing.

“The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say ‘candid’; that’s too mild — to honesty,” Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a lunch address to the American Law Institute. He cited misleading information about the agency’s involvement in mining harbors in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair.”Director [Leon] Panetta says the agency does not make it a habit to misinform Congress. I believe that is true. It is not the policy of the Central Intelligence Agency to misinform Congress,” Specter said. “But that doesn’t mean that they’re all giving out the information.”

Because of leaks that have come from Congress, Specter said, he understands the agency’s hesitancy to disclose all its information.

“The current controversy involving Speaker Pelosi and the CIA is very unfortunate, in my opinion, because it politicizes the issue and it takes away attention from … how does the Congress get accurate information from the CIA?” Specter said. “For political gain, people are making headlines.”

The howls for his blood, already loud, will shatter eardrums now. Because only Cons are allowed to call the CIA a bunch of liars. So either Arlen forgot he’s a Dem again, or he’s decided to hell with it and decided to take a flamethrower to a few bridges.

Either way works for me.

The Demands for Arlen Specter's Head Begin in 3…2…1…

Evolution in Action

Dana Hunter

So I’m watching Mythbusters, and they’re doing a myth about a skydiver falling on a seesaw. While gathering data for the experiment, they calculate the terminal velocity of a skydiver wearing a camera suit.

For those who have no fucking clue what the difference is between a regular skydiving suit and a camera suit, welcome to the club. I’d not known there was a difference either.

Normal suits, like those on the right, ain’t got wings. Camera suits, on the other hand, do. Well, flaps, anyway. And those itsy-bitsy wings have a measurable effect. The terminal velocity of a skydiver is roughly 124 mph. But the Mythbusters measured the terminal velocity of a skydiver in a camera suit as 114 mph. What good is a 10 mph difference? Well, it opens up some additional options:

If you plan on spending a great deal of time in the air, you should consider a skydiving suit called a camera suit. This kind of suit has an added feature: wings that give you more control to slow down your descent when desired. This is especially desirable if you decide to strap a camera on your helmet for videotaping the experience, since you can slow down and pan when you want to.

That makes skydiving in a camera suit a rather dramatic demonstration of the principles of evolution in action. Think of flying. The most usual objection raised is, “What good is half a wing?” Camera suits don’t even include half a wing. It’s a pathetic little flap that looks totally useless. Yet it conveys greater control over airspeed. And when you’re falling out of a plane trying to film other people falling out of planes, that’s a critical advantage. Extrapolate that to falling out of trees, and you can get a better understanding of the incremental change that can lead from skin flap to full wing and powered flight.

Richard Dawkins puts it this way in Climbing Mount Improbable:

The way to think of the gradual evolution of a flying squirrel is this. To begin with, an ancestor like an ordinary squirrel, living up trees but without any special gliding membrane, leaps across short gaps. However far it can leap without the aid of any special flaps of skin, it could leap a few inches further – and hence save its life when it encounters a gap of critical distance – if it had a very slight flap of skin, or a very slightly increased bushiness of the tail. So natural selection favours individuals with slightly pouchy skin around the arm or leg joints, and this becomes the norm. The normal leaping distance of an average member of the population has thereby been increased by a few inches. Now, any individuals with an even larger skin web can leap a few inches further. So in later generations this extension of skin becomes the norm. For any given size of membrane, there exists a critical gap such that a marginal increase in the membrane makes all the difference between life and death.

And what the fuck do flying squirrels have to do with birds, you ask? Excellent question. Meet Microraptor:

Some scientists believe that bird flight evolved when ground-dwelling dinosaurs began to take to the skies. In contrast to this ‘ground-up’ theory, the ‘trees-down’ camp believes that tree-dwelling dinosaurs evolved flight to glide from tree to tree.

And this is exactly what Microraptor did. It lacked the muscles for a ground take-off and couldn’t get a running start for fear of damaging its leg feathers. But a computer simulation showed that Microraptor could successfully fly between treetops, covering over forty metres in an undulating glide.

It is unclear if Microraptor could truly fly or was just an exceptional glider. Certainly, its body plan shows many features that would make its avian descendants such great aeronauts. It had a large sternum for attaching powerful flight muscles and strengthened ribs to withstand the heavy pressures of a flight stroke.

Its long, feathered tail acted a stabiliser and rudder and its tibia (shin bone) was covered in smaller, backwards-facing feathers. Modern birds of prey carry similar feather ‘trousers’ and Chatterjee believes that they helped to reduce drag by breaking up turbulent airflow behind the animal’s leg.

It could be that Microraptor’s biplane design was just a failed evolutionary experiment. But Chatterjee thinks otherwise. He believes that the biplane model was a stepping stone to the two-wing flight of modern birds. As the front pair of wings grew larger and produced more lift, they eventually took over the responsibilities formerly shared with the hind pair.

You can easily imagine the gradual progression. Dinosaur feathers evolved to keep the little buggers warm. Some of the little buggers hung about in trees. The little buggers who hung about in trees and developed feathered skin flaps were better gliders, meaning better hunters and escape artists. And so it goes, generation by generation, until you end up with something like this guy:


Pretty awesome, innit?

So we’ve gone from camera suits to squirrels to dinosaurs to falcons. Bet you never thought skydiving could demonstrate the principles of evolution so well (aside from in the strict Darwin Award sense, o’ course). Were I a science teacher, I’d be taking definite advantage of that. Talk about your sense of wonder!

Tip o’ the shot glass to the Discovery Channel for airing both The Dinosaur Feather Mystery and Mythbusters. They haven’t got clips of Grant and Tory’s adventures with camera suits up yet, but they’ve been kind enough not to have YouTube pull down the vids from their documentary on dinosaur feathers. Catch Microraptor on the wing at the 5 minute mark:

Evolution in Action

Happy Hour Discurso

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

For those of you who might be going through Michael Steele Dumbfuckery withdrawl, here’s your fix:

This past weekend, RNC Chairman Michael Steele made headlines when he delivered a speech at the Georgia Republican convention, in which he argued that same-sex marriage would be a huge burden on small businesses. But that wasn’t the only controversial claim Steele made in the speech. According to Human Events’ Martha Zoller, Steele also declared that “liberalism will kill you“:

He went on to say, “The Republican Party’s credibility as the reliably conservative choice has been damaged, and it’s up to us to fix it. Faith, freedom, personal responsibility, respect for life and prosperity” Then he added, “Like a bad diet, liberalism will kill you. It’s a drug we don’t need to be hooked on. We are what stand between an America of prosperity or dependency. Which one do you want?”

I’ll take liberalism, thank you. It’ll kill me a lot slower than Con ineptitude will.

For those of you going through Con hypocrisy withdrawl, I’ve got some hits of that, too:

The Nevada legislature has successfully passed two gay rights bills, one that outlaws job discrimination based on sexual orientation, and another that establishes domestic partnerships for gay couples.

But Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons has said he will veto the domestic partnership bill, which would give same-sex couples equal rights to married partners in areas like estate planning, medical decisions, community property and child custody.

“The governor believes that government has no business in your medicine chest or your bedroom,” spokesperson Daniel Burns said. With good reason: Gibbons who filed for divorce in 2008, allegedly had having an affair with playboy model Leslie Durant, as well as sending more than 860 text messages to another woman, Kathy Karrasch, from his state-owned cell phone. When Gibbons was running for governor, he was accused of sexually assaulting a cocktail waitress.

Yup. Just the man to defend “traditional” marriage. It’s a good thing the Cons have such upright defenders of the institution, innit?

In the Freudian Ballgown department, I’ve got this choice tidbit:

Today, conservative extremist Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) engaged in a one-man debate whether corporate America is good or evil. The Republican Party’s attempts to characterize the Waxman-Markey green economy legislation as economic catastrophe have been neutered, as the bill has gained the support of a broad coalition of corporate America, poverty advocates, labor unions, and environmentalists.

In a confused monologue, Shimkus attempts to follow new Republican talking points and portray himself as a defender of the little guy against corporate greed. But he can’t stop himself from also praising the corporations as his friends:

We’re fighting for the ratepayer. This debate is: “Who protects the ratepayer?” The corporate titans are my friends!

Now, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if you’re blathering about protecting ratepayers (i.e., regular ol’ people), the next sentence out of your mouth should not be “The corporate titans are my friends!” It rather damages the defender-o’-regular-folk illusion.

In fact, it’s kinda like a guy making $10 million a year yawping about how middle-class he is. Does not compute.

In other talking points that don’t compute, there’s the “big bad unions” bullshit, which is rather dramatically contradicted by the fact that corporations are bigger, badder bullies:

We hear it again and again, big corporations like Walmart paying lobbyists a fortune and running campaigns about union thuggery on behalf of their fat corporate clients in an effort to defeat Employee Free Choice (EFCA). Because they care so very much about their workers.
If they’re worried about thuggery, maybe they ought to be looking in the mirror:

Compared to the 1990s, employers are more than twice as likely to use 10 or more tactics in their anti-union campaigns, with a greater focus on more coercive and punitive tactics designed to intensely monitor and punish union activity.
It has become standard practice for workers to be subjected by corporations to threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, and retaliation for supporting a union. An analysis of the 1999-2003 data on NLRB election campaigns finds that:

  • 63%of employers interrogate workers in mandatory one-on-one meetings with their supervisors about support for the union;
  • 54% of employers threaten workers in such meetings;
  • 57% of employers threaten to close the worksite;
  • 47% of employers threaten to cut wages and benefits; and
  • 34% of employers fire workers.

So… tell me again how awful unions are. Go on, I dare ya. I’ll believe that just about as soon as I believe Inhofe’s interesting description of terrorists held domestically as “just criminals”:

Today the Senate is expected to pass an amendment banning the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States, even U.S. prisons. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) explained yesterday, “Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.”

This morning on CNN, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), author of the amendment, declared that moving detainees to maximum-security prisons or military bases would make those facilities “magnets to terrorism.” He claimed that the U.S. is “not set up to handle terrorist detainees”:

CHETRY: You don’t think that those facilities could keep some of these detainees secure, at the same time, protecting the surrounding communities?

INHOFE: No, I don’t, Kiran. […]

CHETRY: There has been, though, here in the United States a number of people who have been convicted on terrorism-related charges in U.S. courts. … They’ve been held in our U.S. prisons. Why can’t that be replicated with the Guantanamo Bay detainees?

INHOFE: Because those individuals who are actually criminals, they actually committed crimes and were not involved in the type of — in the type of terrorist activity as we’ve been experiencing in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Try telling McVeigh’s victims he was “just a criminal.” Go on. I dare you.

Finally, in the double-dog dare you department, the Dems have come up with a cunning plan to defeat Con obstructionism on climate change:

Conservative Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have threatened to do everything imaginable, and perhaps a few measures beyond imaginable, to delay progress on a Democratic climate-change bill. Most notably, Rep. Joe Barton (R) of Texas, arguably Congress’ most enthusiastic fan of pollution, has raised the specter of forcing the committee to consider several hundred proposed amendments, all of which will fail, and all of which would be introduced solely to slow down the process.

To their credit, the committee’s majority came up with a clever idea.

Democrats in the House Energy and Commerce Committee have taken a novel step to head off Republican efforts to slow action this week on a sweeping climate bill: Hiring a speed reader.

Committee Republicans, who largely oppose the measure, have said they may force the reading of the entire 946-page bill, as well as major amendments totaling several hundred pages. So far, Republicans have decided not to use the procedural maneuver, but Chairman Henry Waxman of California is prepared. […]

A committee spokeswoman said the young man, who’s doing door duty at the hearing as he awaits his possible call to the microphone, was hired to help career staff. After years of practice, the panel’s clerks can certainly read rapidly, but she says the speed reader is a lot faster.

“A lot” is key here. Those of you who know me personally know that I tend to speak pretty quickly. But I’m a rank amateur compared to this guy, who speed reads professionally.

That’s just awesome. I hope they shoot a video and post it on YouTube. At least our leadership is finally coming up with creative ways to get around Cons.

More of this, please.

Happy Hour Discurso

Harry Reid, Craven Dumbfuck

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Can we please, please primary this son of a bitch? We’d be better off with Bozo the Clown as Senate Majority Leader:

Oh, and Harry Reid? Try showing some courage. Try leadership. You never know; it just might suit you. This certainly doesn’t:

“QUESTION: If the United States — if the United States thinks that these people should be held, why shouldn’t they be held in the United States? Why shouldn’t the U.S. take those risks, the attendant risk of holding them, since it’s the one that says they should be held?

REID: I think there’s a general feeling, as I’ve already said, that the American people, and certainly the Senate, overwhelmingly doesn’t want terrorists to be released in the United States. And I think we’re going to stick with that.

QUESTION: What about in imprisoned in the United States?

REID: If you’re…

(CROSSTALK)

REID: If people are — if terrorists are released in the United States, part of what we don’t want is them be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States.”

Um, Harry? Some Americans do want them around the United States:

A frequent attack on the closure of Guantanamo is the claim that no one in the U.S. wants detainees housed in their backyard. Last Sunday, Dick Cheney remarked, “I don’t know a single congressional district in this country that is going to say, gee, great, they’re sending us 20 Al Qaida terrorists.” But Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports that the town of Hardin, MT requesting that 100 detainees be sent to its empty prison:

Earlier this month, Hardin’s town council voted unanimously to offer the US government a deal: Send Hardin the detainees that most foreign countries and other cities the US are afraid to take.

“Why not us?” [Greg Smith, Hardin’s economic development director] asks. “They’ve got to go somewhere.” He dismisses security concerns over housing inmates former Bush administration officials famously described as “the worst of the worst”. “We have some very hardened criminals in our own country that have committed some heinous crimes, and they are in communities all across this country,” Smith argues. […]

[snip]

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) has said that detainees could be tried in his Alexandria, VA district.

There are plenty of Americans who aren’t the craven cowards that you and your Yellow Elephant friends are, Sen. Reid. Grow a fucking backbone already.

Harry Reid, Craven Dumbfuck

Torture Apologists on Parade: WWF Smackdown Edition

Dana Hunter

I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t have much respect for Jesse Ventura. Mind you, I rooted for him when he won the Minnesota elections and became a governor – mostly because the media et al had been such dismissive fucks, and it was fun to see them shocked that a lowly wrestler from a third party was now chief executive of a state. But still, didn’t really consider him to be anything more than a showman.

Opinions can change in the face of evidence (unless you’re a Con or creationist, o’ course). And there is something glorious about watching a former pro-wrestler and Navy SEAL who survived Vietnam slam pro-torture wingnuts into the mat:

Jesse Ventura’s been making the rounds lately by taking on all comers on the issue of torture, which has left little quivering wingnuts like Joe Scarborough having to resort to attacking him out of his immediate presence.

Because as Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends found out this morning, doing so in person can be extremely unpleasant. Especially if you try pulling the lamestain right-wing crap we’ve gotten accustomed to, namely, accusing their interlocutors of not wanting to keep us safe, you’re not patriotic enough, blah blah blah.

That’s what Kilmeade tries pulling right off the bat, and it makes for possibly the best of the Ventura smackdowns yet:

Ventura: I have been waterboarded. It is torture. I can speak from experience. It was part of SERE training that I went through as a Navy SEAL.

Kilmeade: And are you OK now?

Ventura: I’m fine.

Kilmeade: So is Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He’s about 60 pounds overweight, having a great time —

Ventura: It doesn’t matter. If it was OK, then why don’t we do it to criminals? Like, if we’ve got gang members in L.A., OK? We know that their gangs are gonna do bad things. When we arrest them, why don’t we waterboard them so we can get information out of them? Because it’s against the law.

Kilmeade: Do you want us not to be safe from attack?

Ventura: Don’t come after me with that nonsense.

[Debate over its efficacy — “ticking time bomb”]

Ventura: OK, why didn’t we waterboard McVeigh and Nichols, then? There were more people that they thought involved at Oklahoma City. Why weren’t they waterboarded to get more information? Because it’s against the law.

Wait — and if we’re not going to be a country that goes by the rule of law when it’s convenient or not convenient, then what do we stand for?

…

But what about the difference — you bring up Timothy McVeigh and maybe gang members, and maybe those threats weren’t as imminent as the threats —

Ventura: I don’t think these threats are imminent.

You didn’t think after 9/11, that America felt threats were imminent, that more could be coming?

Ventura: Maybe. But I think our behavior has caused us to be in more trouble. Now they won’t release these photos. Why? Because they know the Muslim world will go irate. They’re all after Nancy Pelosi — when did she know? When dah dah dah — Well, if we hadn’t of tortured, it would be a dead issue, wouldn’t it?

Let’s go to the real issue: It’s called torture.

I think I’m in love.

No wonder Joe Scarborough was too shit-scared to have Jesse in the studio when he launched this ridiculous rant (h/t):

This is unbelievable. Joe Scarborough, who publicly lectured/tattled on me for not engaging in civilized debate, talking about Jesse Ventura:

“Perhaps Jesse should stop smoking whatever Jesse’s been smoking and keep his mouth shut about things he knows absolutely nothing about. This is a guy who, by the way — I must continue to say this — that got paid two million dollars by this network, did one show and sucked so bad that they sent him back to Minnesota and said “we never want to see you again.”

I wish I was that bad. Perhaps I am. Maybe they’ll fire me and I’ll take my money and go to Florida. […] Seriously, that’s the sort of stupidity — it’s just — it should seriously be a crime to be that dumb and on TV. [mocking Jesse’s voice] We only waterboard Muslims. Oh God.

Let’s bring in Rudy Giuliani. Former Republican mayor of New York City, former presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani. This seems like a great place to start. [begin douchey sarcastic voice] Why is it that people like Jesse Ventura are so concerned about how we treat people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Why is that?”

Jesse Ventura was a Navy Seal who survived the SERE program and served in Vietnam. He “knows nothing” about torture and war, Joe? And you do? That’s rich.

Isn’t it awesome how all these Yellow Elephants think they’re more expert than veterans? I notice Sean Hannity still hasn’t set a date for his waterboarding-for-charity. We’ll have to add a Scarborough-dissing-Ventura-to-his-face watch to our calendars.

Speaking of smackdowns, Marcy Wheeler’s compiled a handy little guide to the CIA’s briefing list errors. Cons keep whining about that awful Nancy Pelosi being soooo mean to the CIA. This list gives them a choice: either the CIA’s a bunch of lying asshats, or the CIA’s a bunch of bumbling buffoons who can’t even compile a simple list. My question for the Cons is, which explanation do they prefer?

And when will they demand Pete Hoekstra apologize for impugning the CIA’s integrity?

Hoekstra’s repeated objections to Pelosi accusing the CIA of having lied to Congress is quite odd given the fact that he’s made nearly identical claims on multiple occasions. As Marcy Wheeler first noted, Hoekstra wrote a letter to President Bush in 2006 accusing the intelligence community of withholding information on their activities from Congress. “I have learned of some alleged Intelligence Community activities about which our committee has not been briefed,” Hoekstra wrote. He said that he believed the Bush administration’s failure to fully brief his committee could constitute “a violation of law“:

hoekstra_letter

Similarly, in 2007, Hoekstra described a closed-door briefing by representatives from the intelligence community (including CIA) on the National Intelligence Estima
te of Iran’s nuclear capability, saying that the members “didn’t find [the briefers] forthcoming.” More recently, in November 2008, Hoekstra concluded that the CIA “may have been lying or concealing part of the truth” in testimony to Congress regarding a 2001 incident in which the CIA mistakenly killed an American citizen in Peru. “We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress,” Hoekstra said of the incident.

My goodness, Pete. Who would have ever guessed you’re a ginormous fucking hypocrite? What a shock.

Why, it’s almost as shocking as learning the CIA would lie to cover their asses, and that torture apologists can get totally pwnd by a former SEAL. If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go to the hospital. I believe I’m having a heart attack from not surprised.

Torture Apologists on Parade: WWF Smackdown Edition

No Wonder There's Global Warming

Dana Hunter2 Comments
Shorter Joe Barton: Coke has carbon dioxide in it. Polar bears drink Coke. Therefore, carbon dioxide isn’t dangerous. Whee!

Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe Joe Barton wants to win the Most Fucktarded Congressman of the Year award:

Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began its markup of the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The work is expected to continue through the week, as Republicans plan to stall movement on the bill by offering more than 400 amendments.

Discussing the bill on C-Span’s Washington Journal this morning, Rep. “Smokey Joe” Barton (R-TX) defended his head-in-the-sand approach to climate change by fundamentally misunderstanding the science, misstating the reality of carbon dioxide emissions, and mocking fuel-efficient cars. Some highlights:

– “I would also point out that CO2, carbon dioxide, is not a pollutant in any normal definition of the term. … I am creating it as I talk to you. It’s in your Coca-Cola, you’re Dr. Pepper, your Perrier water. It is necessary for human life. It is odorless, colorless, tasteless, does not cause cancer, does not cause asthma.”

– “And something that the Democrat sponsors do not point out, a lot of the CO2 that is created in the United States is naturally created. You can’t regulate God. Not even the Democratic majority in the US Congress can regulate God.”

I’m at a loss for words. All I can say is, with reps like this, it’s no wonder we’ve got global warming problems. The burning stupidity alone is enough to raise the Earth’s temperature by at least 1° C.

No Wonder There's Global Warming