Brad Pitt gives wedgies to himself

Light posting this weekend, so here’s a little fun:

Brad Pitt gives wedgies to himself

What kind of idiotic crap is this in the top fold of CNN.com?

It’s so sad…

…just how very simple and hateful conservatives can be.  This is downright shameful.

Argentina charges Iran, Hezbollah in 1994 Jewish center bombing

It only took them 12 years. . ..They even name the mysterious Mugniyah (Moughnieh)

Iraq Roundup - 10/25/2006

Michael Yon rightfully blasts incompetency within military information channels.

Michael Fumento laments the gulf of perceptions between Green Zone-based journos and those actually chasing stories by toughing it alongside troops.

The conflict’s dynamic is in flux-
Worldwide jihadists sour on the suicide martyrdom requirements and mostly sectarian strife in Iraq and turn again to fighting the Coalition in Afghanistan. Do they think they’ll have more success against the French in Afghanistan?

A related assessment from Gen. Casey’s today:

Since the Iraqi elections in December 2005, the nature of the conflict has evolved “from what was an insurgency against us, to a struggle for the division of political and economic power among the Iraqis,” Casey said.

Casey believes more of the current violence in Iraq is aimed at dividing political power at the tribal level rather than directed at fighting the presence of US troops. This suggests a realization of perceived inevitability–the Iraqi government cannot be displaced and should likely be enjoined.

Also. . .

What happens when all attempts to bring Al-Sadr to justice fail politically and his militia is on a continual unabated show of strength?—roll out the pretense of attempted genocide. But who can tell us who the victims are? Don’t expect major media to help answer. There will be years of settling scores, after decades of targeted sectarian violence by a supposedly secular Hussein regime.

Meanwhile, Nibras Kazimi’s view on the overall picture.

Lost in Translation

What the Iraqi government says about President Bush’s timetable.

Have you no decency, sir?

Ken Mehlman delights in the Republicans pandering to racists.

Alex P. Keaton’s Nemesis

Rush Limbaugh said what?  Is Rush’s answer for everything - take more pills?

The Republican logic never ceases to disgust me.  Swift-boating - fine.  Talking about one’s illness and politics - not ok.  What?

“Staying the Course” No More?

Wow, Brownie, that’s one heck of a FLIP-FLOP!

Linking the leaks

This week, Rep. Jane Harman’s staff member is suspended and stripped of access to classified data as concerns about his alleged involvement with leaking bits of the still-classified NIE assessment to the NYT.

On the heels of this development, the NYT has second thoughts on another of their stop-the-presses disclosures of the international SWIFT program from a while back.

Some linkage in the timing of these events?

A common sarcasm

A Ben Affleck argument:

When you confront terror, you only inflame it:

Iran’s nuke capability has increased tenfold despite Western pressure to roll back its atomic program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday.

Now, our adversarial stance against Iran’s nuclear program has only agitated them and has generated significant damage to our otherwise noble peacemaking efforts. We’ve misused our moral capital and squandered the outpouring of international goodwill we earned on 9/11.
Why confront Iran, when there are so many other countries developing nuclear capabilities?  Heck, there’s Saudi Arabia. Israel, Pakistan. Even North Korea, who’s actually detonated an actual nuclear bomb!
You can’t just go around confronting every single country that shows up at the nuclear nightclub.

/sarc.

Oh, no. . .No-No-No!

It may not have taken a lot to get me to vote for somebody like Rep. Harold Ford, Jr (D) in Tennessee  (the man who will say just about anything to get you to lean his way), as I’ve admired him as somebody from my generation who was poised to make his mark in Washington as a new Senator.  But, H-Dog, today was just awful.

(see second video clip)

That was quick! A CNN Jihad video the whole family can enjoy!

It only took a day — one day! — after Tom Friedman confirms the existence of jihadist literature that says:

The jihadists follow our politics much more closely than people realize. A friend at the Pentagon just sent me a post by the Global Islamic Media Front carried by the jihadist Web site Ana al-Muslim on Aug. 11. It begins: “The people of jihad need to carry out a media war that is parallel to the military war and exert all possible efforts to wage it successfully. This is because we can observe the effect that the media have on nations to make them either support or reject an issue.“

It then explains that for jihadist videos of attacks on Americans to have the biggest impact, “Some persons will be needed who are proficient in the use of computer graphics including Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, or other programs that the people of jihad will need to design … video clips about the operations.”

Finally, the Web site suggests that jihadists flood e-mail and video of their operations to “chat rooms, television channels, and to famous U.S. authors who have public e-mail addresses … such as Friedman, Chomsky, Fukuyama, Huntington and others.” This is the first time I’ve ever been on the same mailing list with Noam Chomsky.

. . . for CNN to step in the poop pile with their sniper videostory. We’ve known such videos are out there (YouTube, Google, Metacafe, etc), so why does CNN feel the need to mainstream these propaganda films right now, before an election? Oh, see above.
As CNN editors try to explain here, they feel that it is their journalistic responsibility to present the unvarnished truth, however gruesome it is. Or however ORCHESTRATED it is. Do these editors have any sense? It is not unreasonable to ask where these people’s loyalties reside.
Why not show some footage of our guys blasting away some jihadists holed up in a latrine? They can’t because that would be, well, propaganda, of course. Woudn’t want to be engaged in cheerleading, because it’s improper to take sides.

(h/t to Mudville)

Mike Tyson Campaigns For Michael Steele

Just what the GOP ordered–an endorsement from Mike Tyson, who is campaigning For Michael Steele in Maryland. Tyson also said this week that he woudn’t walk away from a Vegas-style boxing match with a top professional boxer Anne Wolfe nor would he rule out working as a stud in a Heidi Fleiss brothel.

Subsidizing religion

The NYT editorial board examines certain follies of state-subsidized religion.

Ney : Admits guilt but refuses to resign

The Republican Party scrambles to get out the message:  Bob Ney does not represent the Republican Party…

Really????  He doesn’t???

He rather strikes me as the Republican archetype these days.

Shays (R-CT) declares Abu Ghraib “not torture”

but instead a “sex ring.”

I think we’d be doing this jackass a service to refer to him as ‘crazy.’

Guilty plea for terror suspect

Raised threat levels in NYC over the last couple of years were apparently well-advised despite the inconvenience caused for New Yorkers.

Dhiran Barot, 32, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to bomb high-profile targets in the United States including the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington and the New York Stock Exchange. . . . Other alleged targets in the plot, which was foiled by Barot’s arrest in 2004, included the World Bank headquarters in Washington, the Citigroup building in New York and the Prudential building in Newark, N.J.

The big question now is if US prosecutors can get their hands on him.

Al Qaeda’s publicity unit

How AQ reaches out to the American people.

FedSpending.org is online

“You have a right to know how the federal government spends its money.”

This website, created by OMB Watch, is a free, searchable database of federal government spending. It will be interesting to see how tools like these enable the public to hold politicians accountable.

Site upgrade possible soon

I will be upgrading the site soon, so it may mean you can’t post anything.  Don’t worry, it’s no conspiracy to restrict your freedom of speech.

Defense Tech: NORK Nuclear Test: It’s A Dud

Defense Tech: NORK Nuclear Test: It’s A Dud

I don’t know which worries me more - norK with nukes or norK with nukes with incompetent nuclear scientists.

Soros’ parting shot

Sept 28: George Soros:

“In the future, I’d very much like to get disengaged from politics,” Soros said at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting on the Upper East Side. “I’m interested in policy and not in politics.”

Yeah, right.  I might even put this up on the quote board.

Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio… WTF???

Ken Blackwell, the anti-gay bigot, dominionist (Christian version of radical Islamist for the unfamiliar), malevolent electioneer of 2004, and Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio campaigns with Larry Pratt, the christian theocrat / anti-semitic gun nut with ties to the white-supremacist movement.  If Ohioans elect this joker I may have to renounce my buckeye roots.

Democrats: The “New” Moral Authority

According to Newsweek, a recent poll shows that the majority of American voters now agree that Democrats are the real “authority” on both “values” and on waging the “war on terror.”

And this is not merely thanks to Mark “Pedophile” Foley.  Republican blunders abound, and for once, the American public seems to be taking note.

Remains of Ancient Reptile Are Found-in Arctic

The remains of a huge dinosaur were discovered waaaayy up north. Was the climate in the arctic back then much warmer or did the earth’s every-shifting tectonic plates carry the bones northward, away from more temperate climes?

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