The results are in amigo

Chiniqua called it. While I was all, I'd be cynical not to believe the guy who confessed to killing JonBeNeT, she was on some, there's no way he did it. And do it he did not. Now the question becomes: just another psycho out for infamy? Or the newest mutation of Jeff Gannon running interference for the white house???

Vacation!

Off to the woods for a week. Happy Labor Day!

This is bullshit

I don't care what the stupid astronomers say, Pluto is a fucking planet. Free Pluto! Viva Pluto libre! Hasta la Pluto siempre! El Pluto unido jamas sera vencido!

Time to Pony Up

Hey! You there!
Do you want to send the shitbags in Washington back to their oil rigs and underground slime dens? Want to wake up one morning and not fear the newspaper?

It's all a lot of fun to sit around and bitch about how much we hate them, but hating isn't going to win any elections. I know I don't need to say this, but once again, we must win the midterm elections. There is no way to say this strongly enough. So go give some of your time and work on a race.

What?
You say that's not too likely?
That, like, the chances of you getting your ass down to some campaign office and then banging on doors like an idiot are pretty damn slim? That you totally care but dude, let's be realistic?

OK. That's cool. No, really. It is.
Because then all you need to do is donate some money. That's right! Talk your talk and let your dollars do the walking for you. It's a beautiful thing.

Now look - I am the epitome of all talk no action. I'm like the queen of letting someone else do it. I can justify eight ways to Thursday. I can cheerfully spend $30 on some damn Old Navy shit that I don't need (ooh! another pair of capri pants!) and then complain my ass off about the Chimp-in-Chief and ugh all the rest of ugh them and how someone should really fucking do something about them and not see the disconnect. But these are desperate times my friends, and sacrifice may be necessary. Live without that cute (but admit it - it's vinyl - not even real leather) bag or the 3rd season of Gilmore Girls on DVD. Do something with your money that counts.

Or hell, do what I did and do something with Mastercard's money that you may, someday, pay them back for.

What I'm saying here is that if I can take a break from my (almost) relentless devotion to obtaining every purchasable item in the known world, then god knows you can too.

This link is to the Netroots combined fundraising page. It's a one-stop shop where you can give to all the blogosphere's favorite candidates. Choose one, choose all, pick a few you like. Give $5.01 to each. $10.01 to one. Whatever you like. Just do it. Wondering about the $.01? It's tradition that if you're a netroot/bloggy type you give an extra cent - it's our way of letting the candidates know where the money came from.

And thanks, in advance.

Lazy Day

I'm too sleepy to write anything (staying up late watching those yankee games...wheee!) so here'e Frank Rich's great Sunday column. He is so clear and full of sense. Let's just hope he's right.

Five Years After 9/11, Fear Finally Strikes Out
The results are in for the White House’s latest effort to exploit terrorism for political gain: the era of Americans’ fearing fear itself is over.

In each poll released since the foiling of the trans-Atlantic terror plot — Gallup, Newsweek, CBS, Zogby, Pew — George W. Bush’s approval rating remains stuck in the 30’s, just as it has been with little letup in the year since Katrina stripped the last remaining fig leaf of credibility from his presidency. While the new Middle East promised by Condi Rice remains a delusion, the death rattle of the domestic political order we’ve lived with since 9/11 can be found everywhere: in Americans’ unhysterical reaction to the terror plot, in politicians’ and pundits’ hysterical overreaction to Joe Lieberman’s defeat in Connecticut, even in the ho-hum box-office reaction to Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center.”

It’s not as if the White House didn’t pull out all the stops to milk the terror plot to further its politics of fear. One self-congratulatory presidential photo op was held at the National Counterterrorism Center, a dead ringer for the set in “24.” But Mr. Bush’s Jack Bauer is no more persuasive than his Tom Cruise of “Top Gun.” By crying wolf about terrorism way too often, usually when a distraction is needed from bad news in Iraq, he and his administration have long since become comedy fodder, and not just on “The Daily Show.” June’s scenario was particularly choice: as Baghdad imploded, Alberto Gonzales breathlessly unmasked a Miami terror cell plotting a “full ground war” and the destruction of the Sears Tower, even though the alleged cell had no concrete plans, no contacts with terrorist networks and no equipment, including boots.

What makes the foiled London-Pakistan plot seem more of a serious threat — though not so serious it disrupted Tony Blair’s vacation — is that the British vouched for it, not Attorney General Gonzales and his Keystone Kops. This didn’t stop Michael Chertoff from grabbing credit in his promotional sprint through last Sunday’s talk shows. “It was as if we had an opportunity to stop 9/11 before it actually was carried out,” he said, insinuating himself into that royal we. But no matter how persistent his invocation of 9/11, our secretary of homeland security is too discredited to impress a public that has been plenty disillusioned since Karl Rove first exhibited the flag-draped remains of a World Trade Center victim in a 2004 campaign commercial. We look at Mr. Chertoff and still see the man who couldn’t figure out what was happening in New Orleans when the catastrophe was being broadcast in real time on television.

No matter what the threat at hand, he can’t get his story straight. When he said last weekend that the foiling of the London plot revealed a Qaeda in disarray because “it’s been five years since they’ve been capable of putting together something of this sort,” he didn’t seem to realize that he was flatly contradicting the Ashcroft-Gonzales claims for the gravity of all the Qaeda plots they’ve boasted of stopping in those five years. As recently as last October, Mr. Bush himself announced a list of 10 grisly foiled plots, including one he later described as a Qaeda plan “already set in motion” to fly a hijacked plane “into the tallest building on the West Coast.”

Dick Cheney’s credibility is also nil: he will always be the man who told us that Iraqis would greet our troops as liberators and that the insurgency was in its last throes in May 2005. His latest and predictable effort to exploit terrorism for election-year fear-mongering — arguing that Ned Lamont’s dissent on Iraq gave comfort to “Al Qaeda types” — has no traction because the public has long since untangled the administration’s bogus linkage between the Iraq war and Al Qaeda. That’s why, of all the poll findings last week, the most revealing was one in the CBS survey: While the percentage of Americans who chose terrorism as our “most important problem” increased in the immediate aftermath of the London plot, terrorism still came in second, at only 17 percent, to Iraq, at 28 percent.

The administration’s constant refrain that Iraq is the “central front” in the war on terror is not only false but has now also backfired politically: only 9 percent in the CBS poll felt that our involvement in Iraq was helping decrease terrorism. As its fifth anniversary arrives, 9/11 itself has been dwarfed by the mayhem in Iraq, where more civilians are now killed per month than died in the attack on America. The box-office returns of “World Trade Center” are a cultural sign of just how much America has moved on. For all the debate about whether it was “too soon” for such a Hollywood movie, it did better in the Northeast, where such concerns were most prevalent, than in the rest of the country, where, like “United 93,” it may have arrived too late. Despite wild acclaim from conservatives and an accompanying e-mail campaign, “World Trade Center” couldn’t outdraw “Step Up,” a teen romance starring a former Abercrombie & Fitch model and playing on 500 fewer screens.

Mr. Lamont’s victory in the Connecticut Democratic senatorial primary has been as overhyped as Mr. Stone’s movie. As a bellwether of national politics, one August primary in one very blue state is nearly meaningless. Mr. Lieberman’s star began to wane in Connecticut well before Iraq became a defining issue. His approval rating at home, as measured by the Quinnipiac poll, had fallen from 80 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in July 2003, and that was before his kamikaze presidential bid turned “Joementum” into a national joke.

The hyperbole that has greeted the Lamont victory in some quarters is far more revealing than the victory itself. In 2006, the tired Rove strategy of equating any Democratic politician’s opposition to the Iraq war with cut-and-run defeatism in the war on terror looks desperate. The Republicans are protesting too much, methinks. A former Greenwich selectman like Mr. Lamont isn’t easily slimed as a reincarnation of Abbie Hoffman or an ally of Osama bin Laden. What Republicans really see in Mr. Lieberman’s loss is not a defeat in the war on terror but the specter of their own defeat. Mr. Lamont is but a passing embodiment of a fixed truth: most Americans think the war in Iraq was a mistake and want some plan for a measured withdrawal. That truth would prevail even had Mr. Lamont lost.

A similar panic can be found among the wave of pundits, some of them self-proclaimed liberals, who apoplectically fret that Mr. Lamont’s victory signals the hijacking of the Democratic Party by the far left (here represented by virulent bloggers) and a prospective replay of its electoral apocalypse of 1972. Whatever their political affiliation, almost all of these commentators suffer from the same syndrome: they supported the Iraq war and, with few exceptions (mainly at The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard), are now embarrassed that they did. Desperate to assert their moral superiority after misjudging a major issue of our time, they loftily declare that anyone who shares Mr. Lamont’s pronounced opposition to the Iraq war is not really serious about the war against the jihadists who attacked us on 9/11.

That’s just another version of the Cheney-Lieberman argument, and it’s hogwash. Most of the 60 percent of Americans who oppose the war in Iraq also want to win the war against Al Qaeda and its metastasizing allies: that’s one major reason they don’t want America bogged down in Iraq. Mr. Lamont’s public statements put him in that camp as well, which is why those smearing him resort to the cheap trick of citing his leftist great-uncle (the socialist Corliss Lamont) while failing to mention that his father was a Republican who served in the Nixon administration. (Mr. Lieberman, ever bipartisan, has accused Mr. Lamont of being both a closet Republican and a radical.)

These commentators are no more adept at reading the long-term implications of the Connecticut primary than they were at seeing through blatant White House propaganda about Saddam’s mushroom clouds. Their generalizations about the blogosphere are overheated; the shrillest left-wing voices on the Internet are no more representative of the whole than those of the far right. This country remains a country of the center, and opposition to the war in Iraq is now the center and (if you listen to Chuck Hagel and George Will, among other non-neoconservatives) even the center right.

As the election campaign quickens, genuine nightmares may well usurp the last gasps of Rovian fear-based politics. It’s hard to ignore the tragic reality that American troops are caught in the cross-fire of a sectarian bloodbath escalating daily, that botched American policy has strengthened Iran and Hezbollah and undermined Israel, and that our Department of Homeland Security is as ill-equipped now to prevent explosives (liquid or otherwise) in cargo as it was on 9/11. For those who’ve presided over this debacle and must face the voters in November, this is far scarier stuff than a foiled terrorist cell, nasty bloggers and Ned Lamont combined.

Weekend to do:

Snakes on a Plane
Warrentless wiretapping smackdown
Lieberman leading in polls, ensuing punditorial clusterfuck
JonBenet (btw: i don't think this dude did it. But he sure as shit looks like an ill toucher.)
Yankees/Sox series this weekend! The battle for 1st place! Let's go Yankees!

Discuss.

Chiniqua to FOX News: Drop Dead

Some asshole on FOX news wants to have "muslims only" lines at the airport. I told you these fuckers weren't kidding. What an ass.
Anyone who tells you this is ok is a racist.
Anyone who accuses you of being too PC or "soft on terror" is an idiot. They don't know security from shinola. Point out the white fucking elephant in the airplane safety wars, which is economics.

How so?
Let's start with cargo. Did you know that in every commercial plane there is an enormous amount of crap down in the hold that is being shipped from one place to another? Not luggage but unaccompanied cargo. And 90% of it is unscreened. The security around it is loose. No one seems to be especially motivated to do anything about this. Look - they say bullshit all the time about how it would be "impossible" to screen all the cargo. Of course it's possible. They screen all the damn people, don't they? And we move around and get all ornery and shit.

OK, next: Notice that in England they banned electronics from flights (for the time being). Apparently (and my chemistry skills are pretty much non-existent, so I'm just parroting here) the terrorists need some sort of electronic circuitry to make a detonator for their little bombs. Now I have some questions about that - like, if they're just gonna blow themselves and the whole plane up, why bother with a detonator? But anyway. So you can't bring on your laptop, your ipod, your camera etc. on board. Here at home, while we were only too happy to get rid of liquids, electronics remained fine.

Or how about a pretty decent suggestion - do the check against terror watch lists before boarding, like when the passenger buys the ticket - so that by the time they get the the airport they're already 80% cleared. That's what they do in Israel, I'm told. It works like this: you provide slightly more information when you buy your ticket (birth date, passport number) (and no, I'm not wild about that but it seems at least egalitarian, you know?) and all the computer checks and stuff are done in advance. This requires (obviously) purchasing your tickets a little ahead of time. For those that don't, fear not! You can still go, but you will be subjected to an extra level of scrutiny. Sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it?

So why don't they screen cargo, ban electronics and do pre-airport checks?

Because the bulk of the money that airlines make is from business travel and cargo transportation. You, Madam Tourist in your Expedia.com restricted ticket bought last month, are a place holder - you staunch the bleeding. The money comes from Mr. Road Warrior jetting off to that important meeting in Portland. His secretary got his ticket yesterday and it's business class and it probably cost five or six times what yours did. And he needs his computer on board and he needs to get on and off that plane toute de fucking suite. Time is money after all. And the cargo? They can't use that space down in the hold for people. Filling it with stuff means $$. But the reason why stuff gets shipped via air is because it's fast. There's no point flying crap somewhere if it has to sit around and be screened for a day or two beforehand.

So if they implemented these measures, ones that might have a demonstrable effect on safety (although I'd like to go down on record as saying: you will NOT take my ipod away from me - I am not advocating electronics confiscation, just pointing out logical fallacies) it would seriously affect their bottom line, and that's not gonna happen. So instead we get our bullshit shoe X-rays and our redonk war on toothpaste.

I am running out of expletives

But "what the fuck you godamned piss-ass pansy waisted incompetent shit-for-brains cover your won asses at the expense of the fucking world" is sort of the direction I would like to go in.

I don't have a link, but this is from this morning's amNY (the lovely free paper I get every morning. It's a real paper, I swear. It is, in fact, "Manhattan's most-read daily" and is pretty awesome with all kinds of articles on transportation alternatives and affordable housing issues etc.)

Report: X-rays can't detect shoe bombs
X-ray machines used to screen passengers' shoes are unable to detect explosives, according to a Homeland Security Department report on aviation screening. Findings from the report did not stop the Transportation Security Administration from announcing Sunday that all airline passengers must remove their shoes and run them through X-ray machines before boarding commercial aircraft.

I am not making this up.

This is what racism looks like

Ok, not literally - like, not white words on a blue background on a light emitting screen. But this is (figuratively) what racism looks like. That's right - ARAB MEN (oh no!) doing something totally legal, arrested for terrorism and then still held despite no evidence.

My question: how the fuck can you be arrested for buying too many cell phones? Wouldn't that have to be, like, against the law or something first?
Are there other things that we shouldn't buy alot of for fear of getting Gitmo'd? Like pantyhose, or maybe toner cartridges? Perhaps there could be some sort of list of items that if you try to buy you will be labelled (along with your age and hometown, in the national media) as a terrorist.

Do you see the fucking problem?

For the record, I am totally outraged by this. This is bullshit. This is harassment. Fuck Michigan AND Ohio. I'm calling you out.

Orange you glad?

And now, five toothpaste-free days later, the US-UK threat level has been reduced from critical to severe, which means the attack is still highly likely but no longer imminent or, as John Reid, British Home Secretary, says, "eminent."

Paul Krugman speaks for me (today)

Hoping for Fear, from behind the iron curtain of the most select of Times. What I think is important about all of this is the immediate push-back we've been getting from the Dems and the media. The fearmongering may still work, but it is being noticed and commented upon.

Just two days after 9/11, I learned from Congressional staffers that Republicans on Capitol Hill were already exploiting the atrocity, trying to use it to push through tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. I wrote about the subject the next day, warning that “politicians who wrap themselves in the flag while relentlessly pursuing their usual partisan agenda are not true patriots.”

The response from readers was furious — fury not at the politicians but at me, for suggesting that such an outrage was even possible. “How can I say that to my young son?” demanded one angry correspondent.

I wonder what he says to his son these days.

We now know that from the very beginning, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress saw the terrorist threat not as a problem to be solved, but as a political opportunity to be exploited. The story of the latest terror plot makes the administration’s fecklessness and cynicism on terrorism clearer than ever.

Fecklessness: the administration has always pinched pennies when it comes to actually defending America against terrorist attacks. Now we learn that terrorism experts have known about the threat of liquid explosives for years, but that the Bush administration did nothing about that threat until now, and tried to divert funds from programs that might have helped protect us. “As the British terror plot was unfolding,” reports The Associated Press, “the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology.”

Cynicism: Republicans have consistently portrayed their opponents as weak on terrorism, if not actually in sympathy with the terrorists. Remember the 2002 TV ad in which Senator Max Cleland of Georgia was pictured with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein? Now we have Dick Cheney suggesting that voters in the Democratic primary in Connecticut were lending aid and comfort to “Al Qaeda types.” There they go again.

More fecklessness, and maybe more cynicism, too: NBC reports that there was a dispute between the British and the Americans over when to make arrests in the latest plot. Since the alleged plotters weren’t ready to go — they hadn’t purchased airline tickets, and some didn’t even have passports yet — British officials wanted to watch and wait, hoping to gather more evidence. But according to NBC, the Americans insisted on early arrests.

Suspicions that the Bush administration might have had political motives in wanting the arrests made prematurely are fed by memories of events two years ago: the Department of Homeland Security declared a terror alert just after the Democratic National Convention, shifting the spotlight away from John Kerry — and, according to Pakistani intelligence officials, blowing the cover of a mole inside Al Qaeda.

But whether or not there was something fishy about the timing of the latest terror announcement, there’s the question of whether the administration’s scare tactics will work. If current polls are any indication, Republicans are on the verge of losing control of at least one house of Congress. And “on every issue other than terrorism and homeland security,” says Newsweek about its latest poll, “the Dems win.” Can a last-minute effort to make a big splash on terror stave off electoral disaster?

Many political analysts think it will. But even on terrorism, and even after the latest news, polls give Republicans at best a slight advantage. And Democrats are finally doing what they should have done long ago: calling foul on the administration’s attempt to take partisan advantage of the terrorist threat.

It was significant both that President Bush felt obliged to defend himself against that accusation in his Saturday radio address, and that his standard defense — attacking a straw man by declaring that “there should be no disagreement about the dangers we face” — came off sounding so weak.

Above all, many Americans now understand the extent to which Mr. Bush abused the trust the nation placed in him after 9/11. Americans no longer believe that he is someone who will keep them safe, as many did even in 2004; the pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina and the disaster in Iraq have seen to that.

All Mr. Bush and his party can do at this point is demonize their opposition. And my guess is that the public won’t go for it, that Americans are fed up with leadership that has nothing to hope for but fear itself.

Now I realize that it's one thing to say that they're just trying to keep us scared in general so that we vote for security before everything else, and yet another to say that this is, in some way, a smear campaign against Ned Lamont. It seems obvious that Lamont and the weensy Connecticut senate seat is too small for all these big pans to bother frying. And you know for the most part I think that's true.

But then I see shit like this.

And I have to remember that it isn't Ned Lamont that they're fighting, it's the very viability of the anti-war message. They understand that a majority, a large majority, of the country is against the war now. Is so far against the war that they (for better or worse) don't really give a rat's ass about what happens to Iraq or the Iraqis after we leave, they just want the fuck out. It is only through fear and ostracization that they have managed to keep the anti-war viewpoint - the view held by the majority of Americans - politically marginalized. So if even one candidate can win on that platform, it could turn into an emperor-has-no-clothes-type situation for them.

You know, it wouldn't hurt for you to give to the Lamont campaign. Whatever you can afford - $10 is fine. It'd be a great fuck you to Chimpy & friends if Ned gets a surge of donations after their smears, and believe me this race is going to be expensive.

I hate airport security

and I have for a while. It's annoying and useless for the most part. There has to be a better way. The War on Toothpaste is absurd.

But more than the TSA screeners and arbitrary carry-on rules and demeaning questions, I hate people who think that the answer is allow passenger profiling. It seems so obvious to me, and yet I never see it explained. If we resort to racial profiling in airports or any other kind of official, government security, then we're losing the fundamental basis of our system of beliefs - that we are all equal. Remember that? The self-evident truths part? That we're all created equal? That's our whole jam, folks. That no one is better or worse because of who they were born. It may not be practically applied very often, but it is the basis of our country. And if we lose that - no - if we legislate specifically to take that away, then the terrorists really have won.

Harry Reid says they are too!

Dear Elizabeth,

Yesterday's arrests of terror suspects in Britain offered a stark reminder of the threat that America continues to face from Islamic fundamentalists.

It is at times like these when every leader in Washington, regardless of party affiliation, should be united behind the singular goal of keeping this country safe. But Republicans don't see it that way.

Once again, GOP leaders are using terrorism and our national security as a political wedge issue. It is disgusting - but not surprising.

This week, after Ned Lamont won the Connecticut Democratic primary, Dick Cheney said his victory would embolden "al-Qaeda types." Is this the type of country we're going to live in? Where the Vice President of the United States can blatantly suggest that Connecticut voters are aiding the terrorists?

Even more disgraceful is that when Cheney made those comments, he had been briefed on the Britain terror plot. There are simply no boundaries for these people. In their minds, our national security and their continued hold on power are one and the same. And they will stop at nothing to keep it that way.

Click here to tell Dick Cheney and Republican leaders to stop playing politics with our national security.

During the 2002 and 2004 elections, Republicans tried to sow fear in the American public by claiming that they were the only ones who could keep America safe. This, from the same crowd that has driven Iraq to the brink of disaster, left Osama Bin Laden on the loose to attack again, and continues to ignore our security needs at home. Ask any foreign policy pro, and they'll tell you we're less safe now than we were five years ago - and that the Bush crowd is largely responsible.

I've had it. This cruel joke has gone on for too long. Tell Republicans in Washington that you won't put up with their fear-mongering any longer.

It is time for Americans to take back our country back. I hope I can count on your support.

Sincerely,
HR

See what I mean?

Tony Snow at yesterday's briefing re: Ned Lamont:

Take a look at the blogs today, they’re pretty hot. And the real question for the American people to ask themselves is, do you take the war on terror seriously? With all the developments around the world — and, if so, how do you fight it to win? There seems to be two approaches, and in the Connecticut race, one of the approaches is ignore the difficulties and walk away. Now, when the United States walked away, in the opinion of the Osama bin Laden in 1991, bin Laden drew from that the conclusion that Americans were weak and wouldn’t stay the course and that led to September 11th.

Nice, huh?
Not convinced?
Do you know about Karl Rove's whole theory that you should play your weakesses as strengths? And that you turn your opponent's strengths into weaknesses? (Think Kerry's war record)
Well their biggest weakness is this godammned war, and yet they've publicly admitted that they are planning to run on a war/terrorism/security platform.
Need more?
OK, howsabout The New York Times? Yesterday:

The attacks came in searing remarks from, among others, Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and Vice President Dick Cheney, who went so far as to suggest that the ouster of Mr. Lieberman might encourage “al Qaeda types.”

“It’s an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy,’’ Mr. Cheney said in a telephone interview with news service reporters.

And then looky here! Here's Joe Lieberman in today's Times:

If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England,” Mr. Lieberman said at a campaign event at lunchtime in Waterbury, Conn. “It will strengthen them and they will strike again.

Wow, and who did we just hear offered Joementum help?
So you see why I feel like the hype over THE BIGGEST TERROR PLOT EVER is a little bit, well, interesting.

For the record, I believe there were some guys and they were planning something nefarious. But Bush gave the OK to raise the terror alert to red on airplanes (or whatever the fuck it is) yesterday. How do I know? Well the White House said so. Tony Snow at today's gaggle:
Q: But the President, himself, approved the red alert?
MR. SNOW: Correct. It was a recommendation by the Homeland Security Council, by Secretary Chertoff and others.
Q: When did he approve it?
MR. SNOW: Yesterday.

So Bush has just been hanging out knowing that THE BIGGEST TERROR PLOT EVER was about to go down? An imminent threat? And Tony Blair, who had been talking to Bush and obviously knew as much as he did or more, was on vacation in the Caribbean. The same Tony Blair who delayed that same vacation last week to try and work out some more steps in the Israel/Lebanon negotiations. But for this he wasn't worried about being on vacation. But BushCo had a nice day to get the lovely messages above out.

And if I can't brink some fucking water on a fucking plane anymore, I'm fucking going postal. No fucking eyedrops? They're talking about these new fucking rules as permanent. This will not stand, people.

Oh and ps, I'm waching Keith Olberman and he's saying the exact same thing, which is cool but dammit! I thought of this myself.

I'm saying: they're fear mongers

Please oh please American public let's not fall for it this time. (Not that some of us ever fell for it, but that's another post...)

Terrorism, yawn

Isn't it interesting that there hasn't been a change in the terror alert level since before last year's elections, and now the day after a strong anti-war Democrat won in a closely-watched primary, the day after anti-war became electorally viable, the day after a poll came out that said that 60% of the American people are against the war, all of a sudden we have this KILLER PLOT TO CREATE CARNAGE ON AN UNIMAGINABLE SCALE AND MUST RAISE ALL OF OUR ALERT LEVELS TO RED RED RED BECAUSE WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE? And how suddenly Ned Lamont and people powered politics are off the front pages?

Just wondering.

Interesting that the republican talking points on Lamont are that he's part of the fringe left of the cut-and-run Democrat party and that another 9/11 will happen if this sort of democrat gains office.

Interesting that they seem to be licking their chops about painting anyone against the war in Iraq as soft on terrorism, and then they have this big terrorist scare.

Interesting that apparently Karl Rove, the Turdblossom himself, called Joe Lieberman and offered The Boss's help in his independent run.

Especially interesting if you read the actual facts known (so far) about this airplane terror OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE PANIC plot. For example, the attack was not scheduled for today. They don't know when it was scheduled for. According to Michael "Skeletor" Chertoff, "They [the suspects] had accumulated the capability necessary and they were well on their way." Well on their way? Wow, that sounds really...dangerous? But gosh it doesn't sound like "today."

Also interesting is this part:

Britain's Home Secretary, John Reid, said that "we think that the main players are already in custody."

"But we should always err on the side of caution," he added, explaining why the threat level remains elevated.

Mr. Stephenson said that "a critical point" was reached last night that indicated "an urgent need to take action," but he declined to say what information led to that decision.

Mr. Chertoff said that "some threads had been pursued for some time," by investigators in Britain, but that in the last two weeks or less evidence had arisen suggesting that the plotters were targeting American carriers.

They've known about this for two weeks but decided last night, even though they apparently knew the locations (since they were able to arrest them) of what they believe (but are not sure) are all the suspects, to raise the terror level in some areas to red, meaning an attaack is "immenent." Which means that while they were sitting on the information and the suspects were loose, no raised threat level or heightened security. But once the suspects are in custody the word goes out for everyone to panic. Hm.

Interesting in light of the fact that Tom Ridge, the original head of Homeland Security, stated after resigning that the terror threat level was raised unecessarily (in his view) and at the urging of the Administration in the run-up to the 2004 election. Or as he put it, "... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?'"

Interesting that this is happening just as we gear up for the 1st anniversary of Katrina. Katrina? What's that?

Interesting that this happens as we approach the 5th anniversary of the World Trade Center - a time when you might start asking things like, "what ever happened to that bin Laden fellow?" but instead will be thinking "TERROR IN THE SKIES."

Look, I ain't saying they're fear mongers, but...

War is Over if You Want It

Ned Lamont Wins!!

The election was a nail-biter but in the end Ned won, 52% - 48%. In May he was no one and now he'll be the next Senator from Connecticut! People powered politics, y'all.

The shock waves from this are going to be felt for a long time.

What you must do today is contact your Democratic Senators and Congressman and tell them to pressure Joe Lieberman NOT to run as an independant. In addition, they should fully and openly support Ned Lamont and respect the wish of the voters of Connecticut. (Click here for an interactive guide to contact information)
This is fun because everyone can play. Even those of us in blue districts in blue states need to do this. Especially us! The Democratic party needs to be unified behind Lamont and Lieberman needs to think about someone other than himself and drop out. Other dems need to know that this is about them too. This is how we end the war, people. We make supporting the war and the failed policies of the Chimp a political liability.

Why are you still reading? Go! Email or call now! And enjoy the day. Can you feel the winds of change?

Time doesn't always fly

Can you believe that Cindy Sheehan was only a year ago? Only a year ago for Camp Casey, Katrina, the beginning of a real anti-war movement. It seems like so long ago, but it was only last summer that things started to go so assuredly south for the chimp.
I think that should be a lesson in how much things can change. Don't think that they can't be back on top a year from now, despite wildly optimistic and completely ungrounded speculation from uninformed bloggers (see below).

Two items - I was in Connecticut over the weekend and I feel good about Lamont but I don't think it's a lock. The latest poll has Lieberman back within striking distance. I spent a lot of time resisting the Lamont bandwagon, but I've realized that this race (I know I'm not the first to say this) is vital in charting the future of the Democratic party. If Lamont wins, the Dems are going to come out as the anti-Iraq war party. Already you see rumblings of this. It seems crazy that one primary in one small state could do that, but it's a bellweather if ever there was one. So the people that are fighting for Lamont are not just fighting for him, but because it is finally a chance to change the base line position of the party, to make the war an issue that we are willing to go to the mat over. If Lamont loses? Well, let's just hope, ok?

Item the second, also about me coming late to what the rest of the world knows. I just bought George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant, his slim, readable book about framing, and it is totally blowing my mind. Az was reading it last night and was so engrossed she couldn't even pay attention to Best Week Ever. It explains how the GOP is winning the war of ideas not because their ideas are better and not because they have values and we don't, but rather because they know how to put their ideas into "frames" that people already understand. Lakoff calls them frames, but you could also say trope or archetype. It's brilliant, cogent, and gives a plan of action of sorts. Check it out.

Knock on wood

I'm a pessimist, and I've been assuming/thinking all along that the Dems were not going win a majority in the midterms this year. I want it, I crave it, I pray for it, but I didn't really think they could do it.

But just now, for no good reason at all (seriously - I'm sitting here at work doing, ick, actual work, and reading some emails once and a while - not exactly doing any deep political thinking) I just sorta had this feeling that it was gonna happen. I wouldn't put any money on it, and I don't want to jinx anything so I'll qualify and say that a lot could go wrong between now and November but...

I think we're going to take back Congress.

A little Sunshine

It's been sort of doom and gloom around here lately, so I thought I'd spread a little happiness for a change.

First, run do not walk to go see Little Miss Sunshine. It's the best movie in forever and everything about it fucking rocks. Go see it the minute it comes out near you. Go see it if you have a family you would sometimes be happy to see eaten by wild dogs but that you love not just despite their craziness but maybe even because of it. The acting and directing are filled with amazing tiny moments and the dialogue is sharp as tacks and the story is fantastic and the cinematography is beautiful and I am in love with this movie. You know how Brokeback Mountain left you all sort of haunted and sad for days afterwards? This is like the opposite. I have a joy hangover and just thinking about the movie sends me to my happy place.

You can thank me later.

Second, the Yankees are back in first place. Ahh, that's more like it.

Third, Yao Ming has announced that he will no longer eat shark's fin soup because he cares about the animals. I love Yao.

Last, and this is exciting, it looks like evolution will return to Kansas. That's right, the crazies on the School Board who decided that creationism should be taught in schools and made Kansas the laughing stock of the world have been voted out (by a wide margin!). Proving, perhaps, evolution.

Oh and a note - if you hate to register for websites (like the Times) try bug me not. You enter the url of the site you want and it gives you registration codes. You can thank me later.

Ok, now go forth and be happy (until the next post).

Am I taking Crazy Pills?

The rundown:

- It's about 246 degrees here in NY. I have taken to making bottles of ice and packing them in my pits while waiting on the subway platform (although: shout out to the MTA - air conditioned trains are the greatest thing in the history of ever).

- Mel Gibson: The Collapsening! So much fun I can hardly stand it.

- Lindsay Lohan: The Smackdownening! If you haven't read the the letter that the head of the production company of her current movie sent, I urge you to do so now. Oh joy. Joy joy joy. And BTW, "partying" = "cocaine snorting."

- Did I mention it was hot? Apparently yesterday it was 112 in Bismarck, North Fucking Dakota. Think about that for a second.

- Fidel has an ulcer. They're partying in Miami like this is the end of Castroism, but that's just plain silly. No matter one's views on the Bearded One (and I fall somewhere in the middle, although the middle of the progressive/far left spectrum - been to Cuba a few times, respect a lot of what the revolution has done, appreciate that there is someone still talking smack about us so close to home, want to make mad love to the young Che, believe that many of the migrants from Cuba are seeking economic freedom, not political freedom and don't understand why they are more special than Hatians, thought Elian should be with his father, but still recognize that there are layers of stench and disregard for human rights that I could not begin to fathom) the man will live on just to spite Bush.
I don't know why it's good news that he's sick, since Raoul is next in line and we are chomping at the bit to get down there. Cubans might not like Castro, but hot damn if our military (or CIA or special ops or paid mercenaries or 3rd party soldiers) step one foot on that island they will defend it like whoa. You want to see some badass motherfuckers going all the hell out? Then invade Cuba.

- Ugh. Lebanon. Ugh ugh ugh. I can't think about it right now.

- Ugh, Iraq. Shit, Iraq. Remember Iraq? Your fine Democratic congressmen do! The Dem Congressional leaders have all written a letter to the Chimp-in-Chief outlining an actual direction for the war. No timeline for complete withdrawal but troop reductions beginning December and a pledge to not make permanent bases there. Go dems! Read more about it here.

- Ugh, Iran. Seriously.

- Have you heard? The North Koreans and the South Koreans were shooting at each other yesterday. The Somalis and the Ethiopians are on the brink of war. The Taliban is basically back in control of a lot of Afghanistan. Get your war on, folks.

- Floyd Landis doped. Dammit. You mean you can't win the Tour de France with one hip?

And to top it off, Starks got ejected.