God, Please Save These Troubled States

And I'm very proud of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

I blogged about Dennis Prager's ironic appointment to that council a couple of weeks ago. Well, now the council has responded, and they're not too happy.

Resolution

WHEREAS, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the governing body of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is charged with implementing the mission of the Museum as a living memorial to the victims of the Holocaust devoted to teaching the lessons of the Holocaust for the benefit of all mankind; and

WHEREAS, Dennis Prager, a member of the Council, has recently publicly expressed and disseminated certain statements which have been widely interpreted as being intolerant;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Executive Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, while recognizing that Dennis Prager has the right to express his personal views freely, disassociates itself from Mr. Prager’s statements as being antithetical to the mission of the Museum as an institution promoting tolerance and respect for all peoples regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity.

That's right. Sock it to 'em.

I have a high tolerance level. I'm patient. But not with people like this.

If you remember, Virgil Goode got into a bit of trouble after sending out a letter to his constituents outlining his belief that we need to stop allowing Muslims to emigrate to the United States. So, after the shit hits the fan and Americans across the country demand an apology, what is Goode's response?

To continue being a racist.

He refuses to apologize for his comments...because he actually believes them.

Sigh.

Really. And he's serious about it too.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson gave qualified support yesterday to renewing the draft - a suggestion that rattled the White House.

"I think that our society would benefit from that, yes, sir," Nicholson said of replacing the all-volunteer force with a tough draft purged of the deferments that allowed many to avoid service in Vietnam.

"I think if we bring back the draft, there should be no loopholes for anybody who happens to be drafted," he said. "If it's a random system, it ought to be an honestly random system."

Nicholson's remarks came a day after President Bush said he was seeking new recruits to expand the Army and Marine Corps, and the secretary was quickly reined in by the White House.

"The administration is not considering reinstating the draft," a White House spokesman said.

Nicholson later said his remarks had been "misconstrued," and he issued a statement saying, "I strongly support the all-volunteer military and do not support returning to a draft."

Nicholson spoke on the draft in answer to a question at an event with Mayor Bloomberg at the Borden Ave. Residence Center in Queens, where they announced a program to put 100 homeless vets in housing in 100 days. They also said a task force would be set up to boost services to vets.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem), an Army vet who served in Korea, has introduced a resolution in recent years to bring back the draft and has said he will introduce another in the new Congress next year.

Fuck you, dude.

I should really wait until December 31st to pick the most disturbing news story of 2006, because....well. Fuck. This seriously is upsetting me.

Author of the unique wax figure collection Viktor Zharkovskiy invited our special correspondent to check out his final piece – Marilyn Monroe. As soon as we arrived to the artist’s workshop we discovered a horrifying scene: Marilyn’s disfugered body lay on the floor in a shameless pose. She was completely naked, her arms torn off, her legs broken…

We called the police immediately. Investigators carefully examined the place of crime. Then they took the broken lock out of the door and collected the fingerprints. Afterwards the specialists examined Monroe. Her artificial body was covered in semen. Men’s sperm was also discovered on the figure’s dress lying nearby. According to the police the workshop had received teenage visitors. 

“These perverts were acting in an extremely rude manner,” Viktor Zharkovskiy belives, “It is very difficult to take off the clothes from a fragile wax statue. Even we professionals must spend quite a bit of time to complete this process when we relocate (and we relocate often because of our frequent traveling exhibitions). These were in a hurry and one of them was trying to spread Marilyn’s legs apart. As a result there is now a huge crack that formed at her pubis. They damaged her arms and legs while they were trying to lay her on the floor. Now they need to be recreated. In fact, the whole figure will have to be re-made. On top of everything these fetishist freaks stole Monroe ’s expensive lace panties.

Zharkovskiy worked on Monroe’s figure for almost 6 months. He studied hundreds of her pictures. He bought he lingerie in a prestigious shop “Wild Orchid.” Her special dress was custom-made. And now he must start all over again.

Mentioned crime assumes penalty according to the two Criminal Codex paragraphs: 214 “Vandalism” (sentenced to up to 3 months) and 161 “Burglary” (3 to 7 years in jail).

WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY

WHY do you think it would be fun to try to have sex with a wax figure?
WHY would you try to spread her legs?
WHY would you then ejaculate all over her?

Click the link above to see the crime scene photos.

Big surprise, right?

Many of you may have missed this story around election time, but on the afternoon before the August 8th primary, Joe Lieberman's site. www.joe2006.com, failed to load. At all. Dan Geary, the guy who helped built the site, characterized the crash as a "denial of service" attack.

What does that mean? Someone (or some people) "attack" a site by overwhelming the server with traffic. This causes the server to overload, which then restricts access to anyone trying to visit the site. Of course, the media hopped on this and soon Lieberman was claiming that Joe Lamont (his opponent) supporters were responsible for the site's failure.

And then, today, the U.S. Attorney General and the state attorney general have cleared the Lamont camp of any wrongdoing. How so?

Because his site went down because he didn't pay for it.

Yep. It costs money to run a site, Joe. Shit ain't free.

AH. I HATE PEOPLE WHO FABRICATE SHIT IN ORDER TO SLANDER PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY DOING THINGS CORRECTLY.

And I recall this happening here in the states. And it was fought, ignored, and, even though the evidence is overwhelming that the reasons we were given for invading Iraq were false, it's still accepted as a legitimate battle.

Let's see if our brothers and sisters across the big pond deal with this more reasonably than we have.

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed)," he said.

"At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."

He claims "inertia" in the Foreign Office and the "inattention of key ministers" combined to stop the UK carrying out any co-ordinated and sustained attempt to address sanction-busting by Iraq, an approach which could have provided an alternative to war.

Mr Ross delivered the evidence to the Butler inquiry which investigated intelligence blunders in the run-up to the conflict.

The Foreign Office had attempted to prevent the evidence being made public, but it has now been published by the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs after MPs sought assurances from the Foreign Office that it would not breach the Official Secrets Act.

I don't expect much from him or his cronies anymore. I don't hope for last-minute epiphanies. And I'm certainly not surprised whenever he says something stupid. Or does something irrational. Or spews out some more conservative talking points that don't really mean anything.

He's at his lowest approval rating ever. The Pentagon's bleak outlook on the war and the growing violence in Iraq seemed to be the final straw that might break Bush's straw back.

Yet, despite all of this, and despite that his Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously do not support an increase in troop levels, Bush is going to do it anyway.

Seriously. Is this just to spite our national interests?

Shit like this makes me feel that all of my political science education doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

I don't think I can get through this blog without my obvious bias against the recording industry screaming through. So I won't even try.

In another mind-boggling move by the recording industry, an Australian court has ruled in favor of big business: mere hyperlinking to copyrighted content is now illegal.

Meaning that this

and this

and this

puts me in jail or gets me fined.

Someone please tell me what I just did wrong.

Easy. Just click here to read the 282 page counterinsurgency manual.

That's right. Our own lovely Pentagon has publicly released the manual through the internet. That's rather thoughtful of them, don't you think? I mean, they're actually informing the US population about what they're doing in defense of our nation!

Nevermind that the internet is a public forum. You know. www.pickanywebsiteintheworld.com (HEY PENTAGON: THAT STANDS FOR WORLD WIDE WEB. THAT MEANS ANYONE WHO HAS THE INTERNET CAN READ IT. MEANING THE INSURGENTS.)

But really, that's not such a big deal, right? The internet is just a bunch of tubes anyway. Those damn terrorists can't figure it out. (Especially if our own government can't!)

All too often, liberal thinkers tend to use slippery slope arguments to assert the danger of our current administration. Don't get me wrong, though; things are certainly escalating in the wrong direction and have been for quite some time. But I'd like to think that we, as a nation, aren't dumb enough to allow our government to just randomly arrest and detain who they please. (US citizens, I mean. They're already doing it to foreigners.)

I missed this story yesterday and reading it today caused goosebumps to rise on my arms and a shudder to run down my spine. If the government can make such a glaring oversight, especially one that so greatly affects a loyal and patriotic citizen, are all those slippery slope arguments actually reasonable?

Back in 2004, Donald Vance secured a position at a Baghdad-based securities firm and soon began to observe very odd interactions between the company and local militia. Even further, he soon realized that American weapons were falling into enemy hands, sometimes directly from Americans themselves.

That's when, in 2005, Vance contacted the FBI and began to have regular correspondence with his contact there about the actions at the security firm in Baghdad. By the time April of 2006 rolled around, Vance felt so completely uncomfortable and unsafe at his job that he resigned and let the US Embassy know about where the weapons caches were located.

April 15th, 2006. Vance and his fellow employee spent the night at the US Embassy. They were awakened in the middle of the night, handcuffed with zip ties and forced to wear goggles with duct tape over the lenses. (Presumably to obscure vision.)

I'll let the NY Times article explain the rest in full detail:

They were driven through dangerous Baghdad roads and eventually to Camp Cropper. They were placed in cells at Compound 5, the high-security unit where Saddam Hussein has been held.

Only days later did they receive an explanation: They had become suspects for having associated with the people Mr. Vance tried to expose.

“You have been detained for the following reasons: You work for a business entity that possessed one or more large weapons caches on its premises and may be involved in the possible distribution of these weapons to insurgent/terrorist groups,” Mr. Ertel’s detention notice said.

Mr. Vance said he began seeking help even before his cell door closed for the first time. “They took off my blindfold and earmuffs and told me to stand in a corner, where they cut off the zip ties, and told me to continue looking straight forward and as I’m doing this, I’m asking for an attorney,” he said. “ ‘I want an attorney now,’ I said, and they said, ‘Someone will be here to see you.’ ”

Instead, they were given six-digit ID numbers. The guards shortened Mr. Vance’s into something of a nickname: “343.” And the routine began.

Bread and powdered drink for breakfast and sometimes a piece of fruit. Rice and chicken for lunch and dinner. Their cells had no sinks. The showers were irregular. They got 60 minutes in the recreation yard at night, without other detainees.

Five times in the first week, guards shackled the prisoners’ hands and feet, covered their eyes, placed towels over their heads and put them in wheelchairs to be pushed to a room with a carpeted ceiling and walls. There they were questioned by an array of officials who, they said they were told, represented the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“It’s like boom, boom, boom,” Mr. Ertel said. “They are drilling you. ‘We know you did this, you are part of this gun smuggling thing.’ And I’m saying you have it absolutely way off.”

The two men slept in their 9-by-9-foot cells on concrete slabs, with worn three-inch foam mats. With the fluorescent lights on and the temperature in the 50s, Mr. Vance said, “I paced myself to sleep, walking until I couldn’t anymore. I broke the straps on two pair of flip-flops.”

Asked about the lights, the detainee operations spokeswoman said that the camp’s policy was to turn off cell lights at night “to allow detainees to sleep.”

This is how Vance was treated. For telling the truth. For trying to protect his country. This is how he was rewarded for his loyalty to the United States.

Motivated by the camp psychologist, Vance began to take notes he hid inside a Bible provided to him by the guards:



It was 3 months before Vance was released. He was denied an attorney. He was only given one chance to defend himself. He was locked in that 9" by 9" cell everyday for nearly 100 days.

“It’s really hard,” [Vance] says. “I don’t really talk about this stuff with my family. I feel ashamed, depressed, still have nightmares, and I’d even say I suffer from some paranoia.”

I hope that Vance wins his civil suit against Rumsfeld. It's a total longshot, but this man should have never experienced this. (And how many more are still suffering in America's secret prisons around the globe?)

Terrifying.

I read www.ThinkProgress.com daily for my dose of political insight into the world around. (Filtered, of course, through a lovingly ordered set of categories.) And this story, about a university in Dallas rejecting the construction of an official Bush library, definitely caught my eye.

Apparently, President Bush wanted to build a $500 million presidential library and think tank on the campus of Southern Methodist University, both to create a permanent legacy to the President, but also to help foster conservative ideals.

How would the library "foster conservative ideals"? Easy. According to one presidential advisor, Bush would actually pay scholars to write papers and books that are favorable to the president's policies, even after he's done with his term. (I was unaware that libraries could pay to have certain ideologies written into their collections. Bizarre.)

And yet, despite the school being First Lady Laura Bush's alma mater, and despite being located in Bush's home state, members of the Perkins School of Theology are protesting the construction the library:

We count ourselves among those who would regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends.

Besides what I've pointed out already, I think that this is such a significant because this group of scholars recognize that having such an institution seems to fly in the face of history and scholarship. Re-writing history is not the purpose of a library. (Especially from a group of conservative scholars who write the gospel politik that the voters just rejected as a failure.)

As other students and staff at the school, as well as those in the surrounding community, find themselves at odds with the President, I look forward to seeing how this turns out.  

In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm a huge fan of insensitive humor. It's certainly a coping mechanism of mine, but, beyond that, part of me is eternally 10 years old. (But more on that in another blog I'll post later today.)

So I came across this today:  The War on Terror Board Game.

It combines Risk and insensitive humor. Pretty much the best thing in the world.

There's only one week left until Christmas. Get on this.

Yikes. I'd normally not give a shit about this, especially because I believe that drug laws in this country mainly exist because we haven't found a way to profit off of them. But looks like Miss Teen USA really blew it on this one.

Miss USA Tara Conner is on the verge of losing her crown after testing positive for cocaine, lustily kissing Miss Teen USA in public and sneaking men into their Trump Place apartment, sources tell the Daily News.

"Tara was a party animal," said a source who knows Conner, 20, and Miss Teen USA Katie Blair, 18, from some of the city's top nightspots. "I've seen them kiss before. They always dance all sexy on the tables. ... They definitely get close."

Conner packed her bags and left the bachelorette pad Thursday, and canceled a scheduled Miami charity appearance tonight. Pageant sources said she has no other public appearances this year.

Pageant boss Donald Trump scheduled a Tuesday news conference to announce her fate.

"First and foremost he is concerned about Tara and wants to do what is best for her," Trump's office said. "Then he will think about what is best for the very successful Miss USA pageant."

One clubgoer described for the Daily News seeing Conner snort cocaine in one of the nightclubs where she drank regularly despite being underage, and The News learned she recently failed a drug test.

The Miss USA runner-up, Miss California USA Tamiko Nash, would inherit the crown if Conner can't finish her reign.

Conner was named Miss USA just eight months ago, but quickly started blazing a trail through New York's late-night club world, scenesters told The News.

"She really is a small-town girl. She just went wild when she came to the city," one nightlife veteran said. "Tara just couldn't handle herself. They were sneaking those [nightclub] guys in and out of the apartment."

Conner and Blair shared a Trump Place apartment with Miss Universe Zuleyka Rivera, 19, but sources say Conner and Blair got in hot water with pageant bosses for getting Rivera drunk on her birthday.

Rivera cleaned up her act, sources said, but Conner still brought boyfriends home.

Conner grew up in a tiny town in rural Kentucky, trying her luck in regional pageants before winning the Miss USA title.

Soon she broke up with her hometown fiance and started dating around in the Manhattan nightclub world - when she wasn't traveling all over the country for pageant obligations.

Ironically, when she was competing for the title, she complained that celebrities like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were bad role models, TMZ.com reported.

"I think that they're getting a little bit too much edgy. I think that they are a little bit too risque," Conner said. "I think they need to tone it down a little bit."

Hahaha, I don't care what they say. These girls rule.

My only commentary is:

What. The. Fuck. Dude.

Story:

A student at Wheaton North High School is accused in a vulgar case of food tampering. Police say he put his bodily fluid into salad dressing in the school cafeteria.

CBS 2 news partner The Naperville Sun had the tip on the story. CBS 2's West Suburban Bureau Chief Mike Puccinelli reports a letter is going home to parents warning about the possible health hazard.

The student, a senior, is not in school at this time. School officials first learned of the case of food tampering late Tuesday.

At Wheaton North High School the mission is to create self-directed students who make sound decisions. Last week one of those students decided to do the unthinkable when officials say he spiked a container of cafeteria salad dressing with his own semen.

Police say an attempted aggravated battery arrest is imminent.

"An act occurred that could have physically harmed someone at the school, but no one was physically harmed," said Commander Joseph Eversole of the Wheaton Police Department.

Police were called into the investigation by District 200 superintendent Gary Catalani. He did not want to talk on camera and asked us to hold the story so parents would learn what happened in letters that were put in first class mail today.

But students say it's too late, and everyone knows about the incident already.

And everyone is universally repulsed.

"The whole school is disgusted," said senior Brian Corcoran.

"That's got to be the sickest thing I've ever heard in my life," said Nick Anderson, also a senior student.

"It's just pretty gross that someone would actually do that," said senior Edward Lee.

"It's been going on for a month. That's what we've all been hearing," said senior Katie Muir, but school officials say their investigation has shown that it happened just once, last Wednesday.

They say the student admitted he put the semen into a container of ranch dressing in the student commons dining area. And officials have determined that the contents could have been ingested during the last lunch period on Wednesday and during all five lunch periods on Thursday.

The superintendent sought to reassure saying, "We want to make sure every precaution is taken and we're doing that. We've changed protocols with food service containers to ensure this never happens again."

From now on the condiments in all 20 schools in the district will only be available in individual packets or in large containers, making them very difficult to tamper with.

The district notified the DuPage Department of Health, who did not return calls for comment Thursday. Many of the students are concerned, as ingesting semen can spread HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases.

GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS.

And this form of irony is easily the most hilarious.

A Southern California firm hired to build fences around companies, housing projects, military bases, and was hired to help construct that massive border fence down south, has been fined nearly $5 million for:

Wait for it.

Wait

for

it........



Hiring illegal immigrants!

Oh boy. My favorite part of the story:

Golden State Fence's attorney, Richard Hirsch, admits his client broke the law. But he says the case proves that construction companies need a guest-worker program.

I think it proves a little bit more about the immigration situation here in America. Perhaps it suggests:

1) The American economy has become dependent on immigrant labor.
2) Outlawing immigrant workers isn't going to solve the problem.
3) This proves that illegal immigrants support our economy. No. Really. I bet some of them were building the very fence meant to kept them out. And I bet they thought it was the funniest fucking thing they'd ever done.

Wow. I don't even know what to say about this, except that I'm gleefully surprised.

While many may view the fact that the Assembly refused to call it "marriage" as a failure, I see things differently. I've always felt that we should leave marriage to the Christians. I don't care what it's called. I want the rights everyone else has. You could call it "Fuckfaceshithead" and I wouldn't care.

Ok. Maybe not, but you get the point.

And even beyond this, New Jersey will now add "gender identity or expression" to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. Advances like this are few and far between, but I applaud the assembly for being progressive, rational, and reasonable. More states should follow in their footsteps.  

I'm not a fan of internet drama.

Except when it's totally hilarious.

Enjoy. And remember that everything on the internet follows you.

I get this IM about 30 minutes ago:

4:29:13 PM falloutnerds: hey are you one of the many people going to the az show from clai?

[A bunch of us are roadtripping to Tucson to see AFI.]

4:29:51 PM falloutnerds: cali*
4:31:49 PM chrstofthemoment: Yes
4:31:51 PM chrstofthemoment: :)
4:31:57 PM falloutnerds: Are you roadtripping?
4:32:56 PM chrstofthemoment: Possibly
4:33:04 PM chrstofthemoment: But it may have just warped into a bigger trip
4:33:09 PM falloutnerds: Or who are you going with because I'm trying to find someone from LA that I can go with.
4:33:09 PM chrstofthemoment: Literally
4:33:19 PM chrstofthemoment: Well I might be flying out of LAX with Ian
4:33:29 PM falloutnerds: I dont know Ian so haha.
4:33:35 PM chrstofthemoment: We're going to the Tulsa, Alburquerque, and Tuscon shows
4:33:40 PM falloutnerds: Damn!
4:33:44 PM falloutnerds: Thats crazy.
4:33:47 PM falloutnerds: And expensive!
4:33:53 PM falloutnerds: I'm trying to find someone to just get me a ticket.
4:34:20 PM chrstofthemoment: Can't you buy one online?
4:34:33 PM falloutnerds: Dont have a credit or debit
4:35:29 PM falloutnerds: So i probably can't go
4:36:02 PM falloutnerds: so yeah.

[There is a long pause here. I know it's coming and she's set this up to "guilt trip" me into buying her a ticket.]

4:36:40 PM falloutnerds: i thought an afi fan would be nice enough to help me out so
4:36:51 PM chrstofthemoment: Ok perhaps
4:37:01 PM chrstofthemoment: But you've yet to even introduce yourself to me
4:37:04 PM chrstofthemoment: Or anything
4:37:09 PM falloutnerds: I'm Amanda.
4:37:17 PM chrstofthemoment: I'm not just going to buy an expensive ticket for some random person
4:37:26 PM falloutnerds: I'm dreamchilddream on the board
4:38:30 PM falloutnerds: been an afi since 91
4:38:43 PM falloutnerds: really want to go to this show haha
4:39:19 PM falloutnerds: trying to win the trip to ny by entering 12,000
4:39:21 PM falloutnerds: times
4:40:11 PM falloutnerds: would be interested in going to all 3 dates with you guys

[I feel I need to point out the obvious here.]

4:40:52 PM chrstofthemoment: Ok let me get something straight
4:41:02 PM chrstofthemoment: You've been a fan of AFI since BEFORE they played?
4:41:10 PM chrstofthemoment: I don't think they played a show in 1991
4:41:25 PM falloutnerds: They didn't. I knew of them in 91 from friends.
4:41:56 PM chrstofthemoment: Wait. How old are you?
4:42:19 PM falloutnerds: 21. So i was a young child when my friends told me about them
4:42:48 PM chrstofthemoment: 6.
4:42:53 PM chrstofthemoment: You were 6
4:42:55 PM falloutnerds: Yep.
4:42:57 PM chrstofthemoment: When you heard about AFI
4:43:03 PM falloutnerds: Yes, sir.
4:43:06 PM chrstofthemoment: Excuse me if I find that incredibly hard to believe.
4:43:10 PM chrstofthemoment: Where do you live???
4:43:13 PM falloutnerds: Thats fine.
4:43:23 PM falloutnerds: I used to live in Nor Cal, now i live in LA
4:43:41 PM falloutnerds: my first show they ever did was at the palladium back in 97
4:43:53 PM falloutnerds: but its fine i guess, you told me to introduce myself i did.
4:43:58 PM chrstofthemoment: No no
4:43:59 PM falloutnerds: its fine if you dont believe me
4:44:02 PM chrstofthemoment: That's not what I mean
4:44:05 PM chrstofthemoment: But you have to admit
4:44:11 PM chrstofthemoment: That's kind of a ridiculous cl..18 PM falloutnerds: Believe what you want.
4:44:20 PM chrstofthemoment: Would you believe it if some random person told you that?
4:44:27 PM falloutnerds: People have told me that.
4:44:33 PM chrstofthemoment: I'm just saying it's not weird for me to think that
4:44:39 PM falloutnerds: No no its fine.
4:44:44 PM falloutnerds: I understand completely
4:45:43 PM chrstofthemoment: Ok
4:45:51 PM chrstofthemoment: I'm not trying to just flat out call you a liar
4:45:57 PM chrstofthemoment: But my brain almost exploded, ha.
4:46:12 PM chrstofthemoment: What kind of friends did you have that knew about some shitty hardcore band from Ukiah?
4:46:40 PM falloutnerds: my friends that were friends with davey
4:46:56 PM chrstofthemoment: Oh ok.
4:47:11 PM chrstofthemoment: Ha, I can't get over that you knew about AFI in kindergarten
4:47:35 PM falloutnerds: but my first show wasn't until 97 so, i only knew about them in kindergarten
4:47:56 PM chrstofthemoment: oh ok
4:48:43 PM falloutnerds: yeah
4:49:32 PM falloutnerds: but if you cant get me the ticket i totally understand, if you dont believe anything of what i'm saying. I'm a really BIG fan and i do travel to see the guys when i can

[At this point, I decide to do some e-research. I look up her board name. She's put her MySpace link there. I click on it and I instantly realize I know Amanda. A few years back, when I was living in Downey, she wrote many of my MySpace friends, including my roommate Bianca, asking personal questions about AFI and generally being annoying as hell. I told her off and told her never to talk to me again. Now we cut back to the scene.....]

4:51:02 PM chrstofthemoment: You know
4:51:07 PM chrstofthemoment: The internet is a wonderful thing
4:51:09 PM chrstofthemoment: Really
4:51:16 PM chrstofthemoment: Because it's like a giant fingerprint at times
4:51:27 PM chrstofthemoment: And its easy to leave a giant trail behind of where you've been
4:51:37 PM falloutnerds: so im guessing thats a no haha
4:51:43 PM chrstofthemoment: http://www.myspace.com/takealookatmygirlfriend
4:51:48 PM chrstofthemoment: Amanda, Amanda.
4:51:52 PM chrstofthemoment: I totally know who you are.
4:51:59 PM falloutnerds: How?
4:52:14 PM chrstofthemoment: And I distinctly recall telling you to never, ever, ever message me again
4:52:24 PM falloutnerds: Wow...
4:52:26 PM chrstofthemoment: After you stalked people on my MySpace and sent a billion of them creepy messages
4:52:30 PM chrstofthemoment: I'm not retarded
4:52:36 PM chrstofthemoment: I remember faces quite well
4:52:41 PM falloutnerds: Um okay?
4:52:43 PM chrstofthemoment: So even though you have a new board name
4:52:50 PM chrstofthemoment: I still know who you are
4:53:00 PM falloutnerds: Okay then
4:53:04 PM chrstofthemoment: I will make sure that atleast my direct circle of friends doesn't get you to Tucson
4:53:07 PM chrstofthemoment: Get there yourself
4:53:14 PM chrstofthemoment: And don't treat me like I'm retarded.

[It's at this point the conversation gets truly absurd.]

4:53:21 PM falloutnerds: I dont even know who the fuck you're
4:53:29 PM chrstofthemoment: Not true
4:53:33 PM chrstofthemoment: Or why would you IM me?
4:53:36 PM falloutnerds: And AFI fans shouldn't be treated like shit.
4:53:39 PM chrstofthemoment: And ask about the trip to Tucson
4:53:42 PM chrstofthemoment: No they shouldn't
4:53:43 PM falloutnerds: I found your AIM on your public profile.
4:53:48 PM chrstofthemoment: So don't treat me like I'm shit
4:53:53 PM falloutnerds: I'm
4:53:54 PM falloutnerds: not
4:53:56 PM falloutnerds: I'm asking a favor.
4:54:15 PM chrstofthemoment: IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO I AM, WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU ASK ME TO USE MY CREDIT CARD TO PURCHASE YOU SOMETHING?
4:54:20 PM chrstofthemoment: HOW WOULD YOU KNOW IF YOU EVER GOT IT?
4:54:33 PM falloutnerds: ITS ONLY WILL CALL, AND YOU JUST THREATENED ME
4:54:44 PM chrstofthemoment: I don't appreciate retarded logic
4:54:46 PM chrstofthemoment: Go away

[I'm using Adium so it takes about 20 seconds to find the "Block" function. I block her. Literally 5 seconds later (look at the timestamp!), she IMs me again.]

4:55:12 PM falloutnerds: I probably know your circle of friends, and they like me.
4:55:37 PM chrstofthemoment: HAHAHAHAHAHA
4:55:39 PM chrstofthemoment: NOT ANYMORE
4:55:53 PM falloutnerds: Well I got to hang with them at the awards on friday so

[Wait a second. How does someone who doesn't know me know of my circle of friends?????]

4:56:36 PM falloutnerds: but i will leave you alone, but talking shit about me will get you no where
4:56:49 PM chrstofthemoment: Maybe not, but it will certainly get you nowhere.
4:56:56 PM chrstofthemoment: Now stop IMing me.

[How hilarious is it that my Block function doesn't work and I have to tell her to go away? Total LOLercoaster.]

4:56:56 PM falloutnerds: How do you know?
4:57:07 PM falloutnerds: Explain who you're and then i'll stop IMing you
4:57:17 PM chrstofthemoment: Hahaha oh shit.
4:57:18 PM chrstofthemoment: I love this
4:57:24 PM chrstofthemoment: YOU found MY AIM name
4:57:29 PM falloutnerds: yes.
4:57:30 PM chrstofthemoment: Shouldn't you have an idea?
4:57:38 PM falloutnerds: on your df profile!
4:57:39 PM falloutnerds: on the board
4:57:45 PM chrstofthemoment: There ya go
4:57:49 PM chrstofthemoment: That's all you need to know
4:57:51 PM chrstofthemoment: Now go away
4:57:55 PM falloutnerds: And I still have no clue who you're!
4:57:58 PM falloutnerds: Or IAN
4:58:04 PM chrstofthemoment: Who cares?
4:58:23 PM falloutnerds: Well you're fucking assuming i sent creepy messages and you "know" me and not explaining
4:59:36 PM chrstofthemoment: Go away.
4:59:40 PM falloutnerds: Okay.

The end.

I keep having to read over this again and again. It seems so impossible, but he said it.

In his first interview since resigned as the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld speaks with Cal Thomas of Townhall.com. I suggest you read the entire transcript, as it's interesting. But here's the part that threw me for a loop:

Cal Thomas: With what you know now, what might you have done differently in Iraq?

Donald Rumsfeld: I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently.Why do I say that? Because the word "war" conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and anending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a "war on terror." Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So 'war on terror' is a problem for me.

I've worked to reduce the extent to which that [label] is used and increased the extent to which we understand it more as a long war, or a struggle, or a conflict, not against terrorism, but against a relatively small number of terribly dangerous and violent extremists. I say violent extremists because an extremist who goes off in a closet is extreme, but he's not bothering people. An extremist who has those views and insists on imposing them on free people strikes at the heart of who free people are. There are people who want to be able to get up in the morning and go where they want, do what they want and that is exactly the opposite of the vision of violent extremists.

People who argue for more troops are often thinking World War II and the Weinberger Doctrine, which is valid in a conflict between armies, navies and air forces. The problem with it, in the context of a struggle against extremists, is that the greater your presence, the more it plays into extremist lies that you're there to take their oil, to occupy their nation, stay and not leave; that you're against Islam, as opposed to being against violent extremists.

People who argue for more, more, more, as I would in a conventional conflict, fail to recognize that it can have exactly the opposite effect. It can increase recruiting for extremists. It can increase financing for extremists. It can make more persuasive the lies of the extremists that we are there for the oil and water and want to take over their country. There is no guidebook, no map that says to Gen. Abizaid or Gen. Casey what they should recommend to the secretary of defense or the president as to numbers. It is a fact, whether or not it flies in the face of the popular media, that the level of forces we have had going into Iraq, and every month there after, are the number of troops the commanding generals have recommended. I have not increased them or decreased them over the objections of any general who is in a position of authority with respect to that decision.

He did not say that. It must have been a robot or something.

Despite being defeated, embarrassed, and slaughtered by the blogosphere for his arcane and bizarre opinions (Fetus hugging, anyone?), Rick Santorum just won't go away. I'd like to think he's the herpes of the political world. Just without a pill to make the breakouts go away for a while.

So, Rick wants to go on FOXNews to be an analyst. Right. I guess that makes sense....sort of. But, as bogus and ridiculous as FOXNews can be, something leads me to think that perhaps Santorum is just a bit too nuts for FOX. I mean, this is what they're going to have to deal with:

"I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts."

"Isn't that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?"

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."

"And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution."

"The audacity of some members to stand up and say 'How dare you break this rule' -- it's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying 'I'm in Paris, how dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city. It's mine.' This is no more the rule of the Senate than it was the rule of the Senate before not to filibuster. It was an understanding and agreement, and it has been abused." -In response to Democrats' filibustering of appointing nominees.

"I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

On second thought, he'll fit in just nicely. Damn.

2006 was a great year for me because I've gotten over my intense paranoia of flying. The idea of a giant metal thingy in the sky somehow staying afloat is terrifying. Couple that with an incredibly traumatic flying experience when I was 8 and any sane person will be brought to hysterics at the mention of having to board a plane.

But I'm older and I understand the general physics of how a plane stays up in the air. I also know it's incredibly rare for anything to happen. Plus, I was on plane many times this year; you get used to it. However, despite my newfound courage, I still don't like to fly.

I hate waiting. I hate lines. I greatly dislike law enforcement figures. (This would take a separate blog just to trace that mindset. Another time.) And, above all things, I highly dislike absurd obligations. Like having to throw away toothpaste because I might use it to blow up a plane. Or ditching deoderant because I somehow am going to use that fine-smelling product to conduct my subversively violent missions while also trying to limit my body odor.

Not a fan.

And then, as if this world is specifically plotting to rot my brain, the BBC News reports this morning that the exact case that spawned this terrible monster has been virtually dismissed.

Not a fan of this either.

The anti-terrorism court that heard the case threw out any accusations that Rashid Rauf had conspired to exact a terrorist attack on transatlantic flights. They "found no evidence that he had been involved in terrorist activities or that he belonged to a terrorist organization."

Sigh. So, this entire media blitz that in-turn caused airports to become even more annoying isn't even a reality? The parallels between this and the War on Terror (specifically in Iraq) are startling.

We never learn.

One of the (many) unfortunate side effects of war (Are there fortunate side effects?) is the forced and voluntary migration of people in order to escape violence. And, despite the lack of coverage, it's happening again.

The Washington Post released a story this week about just such an emigration; however, we'll soon be seeing the effects here in the states. Thousands upon thousands of refugees of Iraq will be seeking refugee status here in the U.S. The problem? Strict Bush administration policy limits the number of Iraqi refugees that will be allowed to emigrate to the US: 500 Iraqis for the entire 2007 calendar year.

500.

If that doesn't cause your mind to reel, perhaps I shall put it into context.

Let's use www.iraqbodycount.org for the basis of this. As of 11:25 this morning (PST), the minimum reported count is 50,429 civilian deaths. The maximum possible? 55,926. (Did you even know this many civilians had died? Or that nearly 2,500 US troops have perished too?)

If over 50,000 civilians have died in the Iraq war, how many more are fleeing for their lives? How many are spreading about the Middle East and Europe, looking for safety? Even if the number is half that, we're only going to allow 500 out of 25,000 refugees to live her? Just barely 2%?

From the article:

Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for refugees and migration, said that while the Bush administration does not think resettlement is needed for most refugees, its policy could rapidly change.

"It is quite possible that we will in time decide that because of vulnerabilities of certain populations that resettlement is the right option," Sauerbrey said. While acknowledging that the administration originally set a quota of no more than 500 Iraqi refugees, she said the president has the legal authority to admit 20,000 additional refugees.

I'd love to know why this administration feels that resettlement isn't needed. My guess is that they don't know what it's like to live in Iraq. Perhaps an extended field trip is needed.

As I try to recover from banging my head repeatedly on the table in front of me, this headline keeps jumping out at me:

"A devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals."

What is that devil food? You're probably asking yourself just that very question. What food is so very evil that it actually plots to turn our children into flaming homosexuals?

Are you ready for this?
















 Soy. Soy milk. Soy beans. Tofu.

Ok. Let it settle in for a second. Try not to analyze it too much; it's best not to produce any rational thought on the subject. (It's quite apparent from the article that a state of complete irrationality is best.)

Soy. Soy is the devil. Soy is making our kids and adults gay.

Alright. While I won't dispute that soy isn't good as baby formula, let's take a nice stroll through Jim Rutz' colum for WorldNetDaily and rediscover what's it's like to reason like an 8-year-old.

Estrogens are female hormones. If you're a woman, you're flooding your system with a substance it can't handle in surplus. If you're a man, you're suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your "female side," physically and mentally.

Hold on a second. I'm choking.

There. Took care of that. Unfortunately, I just supressed my masculinity by having vanilla soy milk with my cereal this morning. Fuck. If only I'd known ahead of time that soy was making me less of a man! Then, perhaps I wouldn't have worn this cute pleated skirt to the office today. (Though I really think it brings out my eyes; don't you?)

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products.

I don't see any proof of this (do you know what a source is, Rutz?), but, for the sake of discussion, let's assume this is correct. (Excuse me while I cough up some more of my soy-laden breakfast.)

I fail to see the correllation between a decrease in the size of the penis and homosexuality. Is this just a threat thrown in to scare men from soy? (Or perhaps it's to encourage women to take more soy in case they fear they are growing a penis.)

The biggest fallacy I see isn't even necessarily that scientific. Or complicated. If soy opens up my feminine side, wouldn't my sexuality stay the same while my behavior changed? Just because I may act like a girl doesn't mean I want dudes. (I realize the massive irony in the fact that I am both gay and vegan, but I didn't start eating soy products until well after I developed.) I think Rutz fails to see that sexuality is more than just what gender role someone's behavior fits into. Not only is it more complicated than what he presumes, but it's far more complete than action. If this is the case, then perhaps Jim Rutz should take a look in the mirror:



You know, it's funny. I get a strange sense of deja vu when I stare at this promotional photo of our fine Jim Rutz. He's got a nice suede rodeo jacket on, which is contrasted nicely with that stark blue button-up underneath. Actually, I think it's safe to say that he's got such a nice sense of style. Most definitely!

Actually, I seem to remember where I've seen such stunning cowboy regalia displayed in this kind of proud fashion:



Mmmm, some nice hairy cowboy meat. That what you like, Rutz? Gettin' a rough ride from a buckin' cowboy?

(That's right. I play dirty. I don't care.)

Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.

First off, I resent you telling me how I should have came out. I actually enjoy the fact that I like dudes. I wouldn't have it any other way. Secondly, we can debate the semantics of deviation or the biology or the psychology. Either way, your final statement is ludicrous. It's based of a fact you already failed to prove and then jumps to a complete red herring. In fact, I don't even know if it's that. Your argument simply just doesn't make sense. Are you saying that I can't remember every time I had too much estrogen in me? Can you? Hell, does it even matter? Who's to say my body didn't deal with it properly?

Doctors used to hope soy would reduce hot flashes, prevent cancer and heart disease, and save millions in the Third World from starvation. That was before they knew much about long-term soy use. Now we know it's a classic example of a cure that's worse than the disease. For example, if your baby gets colic from cow's milk, do you switch him to soy milk? Don't even think about it. His phytoestrogen level will jump to 20 times normal. If he is a she, brace yourself for watching her reach menarche as young as seven, robbing her of years of childhood. If he is a boy, it's far worse: He may not reach puberty till much later than normal.

I'm glad that you consider homosexuality to be a far worse disease than CANCER AND HEART DISEASE. And fuck, you'd rather starve people than make them gay. God forbid that some poor, third world infant gets to eat and survive life and then grows up to suck dick. His life is not that precious if he's gay; take it away from him!

PS: I reached puberty incredibly early. Am I hypermasculine? No, I must be. I am totally more man than you can handle. Really. Look:



Do you even remember a time when you could grow that much facial hair? At all? The forest that resides on my face is certainly not the result of an overload of estrogen. In fact, I would say it suggest the opposite: that my testosterone levels are not only normal, but perhaps even more elevated than yours.

Who's the homo now?

Research in 2000 showed that a soy-based diet at any age can lead to a weak thyroid, which commonly produces heart problems and excess fat. Could this explain the dramatic increase in obesity today?

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA. Oh, Rutz, it won't be long until everyone around you is laughing at the complete absurdity that is your suggestion that soy products made us fat. If this is the case, why do you insist on eating so well? (You know, your "bias" you mention in the beginning of your column.)

But seriously! Tell me some more jokes.

P.S.: Soy sauce is fine. Unlike soy milk, it's perfectly safe because it's fermented, which changes its molecular structure. Miso, natto and tempeh are also OK, but avoid tofu.

Fuck you. Don't tell me what to eat.

"WAHHHH WAHHHH! IF WE CAN'T GET MORE MONEY, NO ONE ELSE SHOULD GET IT! ESPECIALLY THOSE SUFFERING FROM AIDS! WAHHWAHHHHHHH!!!"

I've come to expect this sort of childish vitriol from FOTF. This is the same group who believes that homosexuality truly is a destructive force to the American family. Which, you know, is totally true. Homos killed my father and raped my mother.

But this, while not surprising, still isn't any less disturbing. The newly Democratic-controlled Senate is considering raising the amount contributed to the Global AIDS Fund. $700 million. That's how much they want to contribute. While I don't necessarily feel that monetary aid is all that people should rely on, it's a big chunk of change that the Fund could definitely benefit greatly from.

However, FOTF feels ignored. Rightly so, I guess. They're not getting the $700 million. Some other group dedicated to helping end the plight of AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis is. (We all know that the strict Christian fanaticism of FOTF is definitely more important than global suffering.)

"There's cancer in the fund," said Peter L. Brandt, senior director of government and public policy at the Christian group Focus on the Family. "It does such an unbelievable job in discriminating against faith-based organizations."

…

Brandt said he wants the government to eliminate all spending on the Global Fund's HIV programs because it is not providing sufficient money to faith groups and has given little support to abstinence messages. Brandt said the government could continue to support the fund's tuberculosis and malaria programs.

Some other Christian activists, such as Raymond Ruddy, president of the Gerard Health Foundation in South Natick, which gives about $2 million annually to anti abortion and abstinence programs worldwide, want all US money cut from the fund.

Yep. All of the money. Not just part of it. He doesn't want it split up. They want all of it or nothing.

It's times like these that I wish Focus on the Family would focus on keeping their god-awful opinions to themselves. We've got enough blockheads telling us what we should do each day. We don't need a pack of money-hungry Christians telling us that their doctrines are more important than ending the AIDS epidemic.  

Oh wait. I forgot. The news has a liberal bias. My bad.

I posted a video about Glenn Beck in the past. Suffice to say, I don't think too highly of him and his completely ludicrous attack on Keith Ellison. However, in just a few short minutes, he manages to actually offend me. Trust me. It's incredibly difficult to do such a thing.

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) reports today that not only does Glenn Beck hold increasingly disturbing and violent opinions about Muslims, but CNN hired him with full knowledge of the hateful views he has.

Take this, for example, which he said on his radio show on August 10 (distributed by Clear Channel. Surprise!):

All you Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time and have not been marching in the streets and have not been saying, 'Hey, you know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head.' I'm telling you, with God as my witness... human beings are not strong enough, unfortunately, to restrain themselves from putting up razor wire and putting you on one side of it. When things—when people become hungry, when people see that their way of life is on the edge of being over, they will put razor wire up and just based on the way you look or just based on your religion, they will round you up. Is that wrong? Oh my gosh, it is Nazi, World War II wrong, but society has proved it time and time again: It will happen.

I bolded the "but" at the end because it's inclusion in Beck's thought signifies that he seems to feel that moral relativism is ok when it comes to Holocaust.

This is from less than a month later, and was not broadcast on his radio show. Rather, he said this on the air (CNN):

Since 9/11, Americans have gotten so fed up with the "yes, but" Muslims. The "yes, but" Muslims are the ones who show up on talkshows and in the media and say, "Yes, terrorism is bad, but"—and then they go through a list of reasons on why we should try and sympathize with people who fly planes into buildings.... If, God forbid, there's another attack, we won't have anymore patience for the "yes, buts." The Muslim community better find a spokesman who isn't a "yes, but" Muslim. They shouldn't even understand the word "but," because if they don't, when things heat up, the profiling will only get worse, and the razor wire will be coming.

You want the profiling to stop? Then, here's an idea. Stop murdering innocent people. Stop excusing the people who do. You do that for a while, and I guarantee you won't have any more problems at the airports. Stop blowing stuff up and the world just might be your oyster. Otherwise, it's going to be like that movie, The Siege. You remember that movie? The Muslims will see the West through razor wire if things don't change.

Look, I'm not saying all Arabs and Muslims are anti-American. Far from it. We should get to know these people and embrace the good Muslims, and eliminate the bad ones. Here's what I don't know. I don't know if the Muslim community will ever step to the plate like the Japanese-American community did during World War II. You know, it was absolutely disgraceful how we rounded innocent people up then and, sadly, history has a way of repeating itself no matter how grotesque that history might be. The Muslim community can prevent this if they act now.

So that's where the burden lays then, Glenn Beck? You can spout your wildly contradictory rhetoric and claim that an entire group of people are to blame for the actions of just a tiny handful of radical terrorists, but then make the statement that, "We should get to know these people and embrace the good Muslims..." as if everything you just said wasn't the complete opposite of that?

I don't understand how this is ok. I don't understand how someone can make such statements on what's supposed to be the most trusted source for news. (Isn't CNN synonymous for that?)

Why is it that a fashion magazine seems more concerned with Mark Foley's predatory behavior than the House Ethics Committe?

The article is long -- 8 pages -- but I suggest anyone who is interested read it.

I'm not going to quote long passages and take things out of context. What's so striking about the article is that it details Foley's history (which, apparently, wasn't much of a secret) from his youth to his recent political past and sheds a whole lot of light on perhaps why he did the things he did. Even more fascinating (and massively disturbing) are the red flags seemed to spring up so frequently, yet were ignored in favor of the interests of the Republican party.

So take a gander at the link above and it may help you to understand this whole fiasco better.

Hopefully this kind of kick in the ass will produce a more productive Congress than this past one.

Story:

Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January.

The horror.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.

"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th."

The reporters groaned. "I know, it's awful, isn't it?" Hoyer empathized.

For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon -- and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn't in recess.

Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.

Businesslike image
With the new calendar, the Democrats are trying to project a businesslike image when they take control of Congress in January. House and Senate Democratic leaders have announced an ambitious agenda for their first 100 hours and say they are adamant about scoring legislative victories they can trumpet in the 2008 campaigns.

Hoyer and other Democratic leaders say they are trying to repair the image of Congress, which was so anemic this year it could not meet a basic duty: to approve spending bills that fund government. By the time the gavel comes down on the 109th Congress on Friday, members will have worked a total of 103 days. That's seven days fewer than the infamous "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948.

Hoyer said members can bid farewell to extended holidays, the kind that awarded them six weekdays to relax around Memorial Day, when most Americans get a single day off. He didn't mention the month-long August recess, the two-week April recess or the weeks off in February, March and July.

He said members need to spend more time in the Capitol to pass laws and oversee federal agencies. "We are going to meet sufficient times, so the committees can do their jobs on behalf of the American people," he said.

‘Keeping us up here eats away at families’
For lawmakers within a reasonable commute of Washington, longer weeks are not a burden -- although they are likely to cut into members' fundraising and campaigning activities. But for members from Alaska and Hawaii, the West Coast, or rural states, the new schedule will mean less time at home and more stress.

"Keeping us up here eats away at families," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. "Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says."

Time away from Washington is just as important to being an effective member of Congress as time spent in the Capitol, Kingston added. "When I'm here, people call me Mr. Congressman. When I'm home, people call me 'Jack, you stupid SOB, why did you vote that way?' It keeps me grounded."

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), who had intended to retire this year, only to be persuaded to run again, wondered whether the new schedule was more than symbolic. "If we're doing something truly productive, that's one thing," he said. "If it's smoke-and-mirrors hoopla, that's another."

Senate leaders have not set their schedule, but the upper chamber generally works a longer week than the House, though important votes or hearings are usually not scheduled on Mondays or Fridays.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), one of the architects of the lighter workweek, put the best Republican face on Hoyer's new schedule.

"They've got a lot more freshmen then we do," he said of the Democrats. "That schedule will make it incredibly difficult for those freshmen to establish themselves in their districts. So we're all for it."

Another headache
The new schedule poses a headache for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who runs her 7-year-old daughter's Brownie troop meetings on Monday afternoons in Weston, Fla. "I'll have to talk to the other mothers and see if we can move it to the weekend," she said.

Setting a calendar that satisfies 435 members is impossible, said the current majority leader, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who will become minority leader in January. "Between the travel issues, the members' work schedules, the family and district issues, it was a Rubik's cube," he said.

But most Democrats, some still giddy from their election victories, seemed game.

"It's long overdue," said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), who lives in Napa Valley and will have to leave his home at 3 a.m. on Sundays to catch a flight to Washington in time for work Mondays. "I didn't come here to turn around and go back home."

The few bolded items are important, especially Kingston's home state: Georgia. Not the West Coast. Georgia to DC ain't that bad.

So will it be all smoke and mirrors?

Holy hell, this is so goddamn depressing. I was rooting for him to be found alive; alas, Kim made the ultimate sacrifice to save his family.

Story is this link.

I don't have much else to say. What a downer. My condolences to the Kim family. :(

This took me by surprise this morning when I opened my Gmail.

Story:

A citywide ban on trans fat cooking oil approved Tuesday may force many of New York's smaller restaurants to raise menu prices or cut wages, restaurant owners and trade groups say.

The ban, which was approved unanimously by the city's board of health, limits the amount of trans fats in prepared food to a half gram per serving. Trans fats, an artificial preservative used in deep fryers to prepare French fries, fried chicken, and other fried goods, has been linked to heart disease.

The board of health is giving the city's 24,000 restaurants 18 months to phase out the use of trans fats, which it calls an unnecessary and dangerous ingredient.

"New Yorkers are consuming a hazardous, artificial substance without their knowledge or consent," Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, said in a statement. "Like lead paint, artificial trans fat in food is invisible and dangerous, and it can be replaced."

The health department wants restaurants to switch to heart-healthy oils, such as corn, canola, and soy.

Chuck Hunt, the executive vice president of the local chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association, has called that a "recipe for disaster."

"The Department of Health clearly has not considered the impact to the small businesses of New York City, the small restaurants that are the backbone of many communities with our city," Hunt told city health officials at a public hearing on October 30.

He said smaller restaurants, like local diners, delis, and family-owned outlets, have fewer resources than their larger competitors, and as such face "dramatic changes to their menus, their pricing and their business models" as a result of the ban.

All this just by changing the oil? I could understand larger restaurants that serve processed food (McDonald's, Burger King, etc) would freak out over this, but isn't easier to eliminate trans fat from food that you prepare yourself?

I think the fallout from this shall be interesting to follow.

If you remember, I blogged recently about how Dennis Prager, among many others, flipped out about how newly-elected Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) was going to swear in on the Koran, equating the book to Hitler's Mein Kampf.

And, just as I've come to expect from this administration, Prager has now been appointed by President Bush as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Yep. You read that correctly.

If you take a quick jaunt over to the Council's website, you can read their wonderful mission statement:

The Museum's primary mission is to advance and disseminate knowledge about this unprecedented tragedy; to preserve the memory of those who suffered; and to encourage its visitors to reflect upon the moral and spiritual questions raised by the events of the Holocaust as well as their own responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.

Chartered by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1980 and located adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, DC, the Museum strives to broaden public understanding of the history of the Holocaust through multifaceted programs: exhibitions; research and publication; collecting and preserving material evidence, art and artifacts relating to the Holocaust; annual Holocaust commemorations known as Days of Remembrance; distribution of educational materials and teacher resources; and a variety of public programming designed to enhance understanding of the Holocaust and related issues, including those of contemporary significance.

A statement as meaningful and direct as this leads me to wonder if a man who can't tolerate the Muslim faith is fit to hold a position on the council.



My sources say no.

Let that sentence wrap around the wrinkles in your brain. Get up. Go get a glass of water. Read that sentence again. Before you read the details of this story and you soon rupture veins in your forehead, and before you die of an aneurysm from trying to figure out how this is possible, just remember this:

Only in America.

Let's talk a trip down Absurdity Road, shall we?

In a shocking display of parenting prowess, a Rock Hill, S.C. woman reportedly called police and had them arrest her son after he was caught opening a Christmas present early. After receiving the call, police arrested the boy and charged him with petty larceny.

The Rock Hill Herald reported that the child's great-grandmother had warned him repeatedly about opening his present early, protestations that he apparently ignored. The present in question was a Game Boy Advance.

"He took it without permission. He wanted it. He just took it," the 63-year-old great-grandmother told the Herald.

When the boy's mother found the package lying unwrapped and empty under the tree, she immediately approached the child, who proceeded to lie to her. After threatening him with calling the police, the boy apparently returned the toy to his begrudging mother, who then called the police anyway. Although he was not jailed, the two officers responding to the call did charge him with petty larceny.

The boy's mother told the Herald that she had reached the end of her rope with the child, and no longer knew what else to do with him. She claimed that she has been struggling with his constant behavior problems for a while now, and could no longer handle his misconduct.

"I'm trying to get him some kind of help," the 27-year-old mother told the paper. "He's the type of kid who doesn't believe anything until it happens."

According to the boy's mother, he had already been caught shoplifting, stealing money from her, and punching a police officer. She told the Rock Hill Herald that she hopes this arrest will put a stop to his errant ways, because she is worried about his safety. The newspaper reported that the mother plans on having her son placed in the custody of the state Department of Juvenile Justice in Colombia at his court appearance.

Now. I realize the context of this incident. The kid acts up. Apparently he's stolen and punched a police officer. (How the fuck is he not in juvenile hall for that????) Ok. She wants an intervention.

But holy hell, she busts him for taking something that's actually his? What the......

I'm just at a loss for words.

While it wouldn't be right to apply this to the entire army, I have a feeling that this isn't the only case like this.

Read on:

Soldier Tyler Jennings says that when he came home from Iraq last year, he felt so depressed and desperate that he decided to kill himself. Late one night in the middle of May, his wife was out of town, and he felt more scared than he'd felt in gunfights in Iraq. Jennings says he opened the window, tied a noose around his neck and started drinking, "trying to get drunk enough to either slip or just make that decision." (NPR)

1 in 5 Iraq vets are coming home with a serious mental health problem like anxiety, depression, or PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Experts believe that over time, the number will reach almost 1 in 3.

How has the military responded to these wounded warriors? A new investigation by National Public Radio looked at troops diagnosed with mental health disorders, and concluded that "officers at Ft. Carson punish soldiers who need help, and even kick them out of the Army."

Five months before, Jennings had gone to the medical center at Ft. Carson, where a staff member typed up his symptoms: "Crying spells... hopelessness... helplessness... worthlessness." Jennings says that when the sergeants who ran his platoon found out he was having a breakdown and taking drugs, they started to haze him. He decided to attempt suicide when they said that they would eject him from the Army. (NPR)

Besides the obvious overtones of Vietnam (Do we really want a repeat of that?), I can't even imagine why soldiers are treated this way. So much for supporting the troops.

Paul Reickhoff is right, though. Soldiers should be provided with free and thorough counseling upon returning from duty to help alleviate possible problems like those experienced by Tyler Jennings.

FOR 20 YEARS.

WHAT THE HELL.

Um. Ok. Continuing on....the story:

For nearly 20 years — ever since Pete Costello was 8 — his mother has collected disability benefits on his behalf. In meetings with Social Security officials and psychologists, he appeared mentally impaired and unable to communicate. His mother insisted he couldn't read or write, shower, care for himself or drive.

But now prosecutors say it was all a huge fraud, and they have video of Costello contesting a traffic ticket to prove it.

"He's like any other person trying to get out of a traffic ticket," Assistant U.S. Attorney Norman Barbosa said Tuesday.

Pete and Rosie Marie Costello were indicted in September on charges of conspiracy to defraud the government and Social Security fraud. The Vancouver, Wash., pair pleaded not guilty in federal court in Tacoma on Tuesday after the case was unsealed.

Barbosa filed with the court two videos of Pete Costello taken this year: In one, he allegedly feigns a mental impairment during an interview with Social Security workers by slouching unresponsive in a corner, picking his nose; the other is of him contesting the traffic ticket in a courtroom earlier this year.

Pete Costello sat in court Tuesday, saying nothing, but showing no outward sign he is mentally impaired. He works as an auto-body repairman and lives with a girlfriend and two of her children, prosecutors said.

"Obviously his mother did get him involved in this ... but he's been an adult for many years," Barbosa said.

Attorneys for the Costellos declined to comment. Barbosa said the fraud came to light after Social Security workers became suspicious.

The indictment accuses Costello of faking — or at least exaggerating — a mental impairment since August 1997, because that is what prosecutors are confident they can prove, Barbosa said. But the pair first received benefits 10 years before that.

Court documents indicate prosecutors believe his mother, 46, pulled the same trick with a daughter, whom officials have been unable to locate. All told, she raked in $222,000 on their behalf, court documents said.

Barbosa said the government does not know whether Costello is impaired to some degreebut clearly has been "exaggerating."

Both Costellos remained in custody.

I would love to sit down with this family and interrogate the shit out of them. Questions that might be asked:

-Were you retarded in private to stay in character?
-Did you have mentally retarded sex with your wife and father two kids? Are you worried about passing your exaggerated disease on to them?
-Was it fun?
-Did you really pick your nose to get disability payments for 20 years? I mean, seriously. Picking your nose?

I can't even hate him for that. It's so ingenius, in a diabolical and subversive way. I have to give him credit where it's due.  

Especially when you are sick and delirious.   

True story. I swear.

I read this article once. Then again. Then I asked someone else to read it. I asked if they were as disturbed as I was. (And still am.)

Let's take a moment to break this down.

The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you've been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards -- and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.

You've just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq -- even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects.

According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force's Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games.

The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves -- 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven.

The longer waves are thought to limit the effects of the radiation. If used properly, ADS will produce no lasting adverse affects, the military argues.

HEY AIR FORCE. IT'S STILL RADIATION, YOU FUCKTARDS. RADIATION. NOT FLUFFY FEATHERS. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU??

And who's to say that it will be "used properly"? And what happens if it's used improperly?

Pressing on..

Documents acquired for Wired News using the Freedom of Information Act claim that most of the radiation (83 percent) is instantly absorbed by the top layer of the skin, heating it rapidly.

The beam produces what experimenters call the "Goodbye effect," or "prompt and highly motivated escape behavior." In human tests, most subjects reached their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and none of the subjects could endure more than 5 seconds.

"It will repel you," one test subject said. "If hit by the beam, you will move out of it -- reflexively and quickly. You for sure will not be eager to experience it again."

But while subjects may feel like they have sustained serious burns, the documents claim effects are not long-lasting. At most, "some volunteers who tolerate the heat may experience prolonged redness or even small blisters," the Air Force experiments concluded.

Right, right. It doesn't matter what the subjects feel. It's what your documents say.

The reports describe an elaborate series of investigations involving human subjects.

The volunteers were military personnel: active, reserve or retired, who volunteered for the tests. They were unpaid, but the subjects would "benefit from direct knowledge that an effective nonlethal weapon system could soon be in the inventory," said one report. The tests ranged from simple exposure in the laboratory to elaborate war games involving hundreds of participants.

The military simulated crowd control situations, rescuing helicopter crews in a Black Hawk Down setting and urban assaults. More unusual tests involved alcohol, attack dogs and maze-like obstacle courses.

In more than 10,000 exposures, there were six cases of blistering and one instance of second-degree burns in a laboratory accident, the documents claim.

Unpaid? You're kidding me. Over 10,000 exposures? Someone got the shitty end of the deal. (And it wasn't the inanimate object.)

The ADS technology is ready to deploy, and the Army requested ADS-armed Strykers for Iraq last year. But the military is well aware that any adverse publicity could finish the program, and it does not want to risk distressed victims wailing about evil new weapons on CNN.

Of course! It would be detrimental to your self-serving needs if one of your test subjects actually sustained lasting injuries. Nevermind that person's health and well-being! We've got a war to fight!

The development of a truly safe and highly effective nonlethal crowd-control system could raise enormous ethical questions about the state's use of coercive force. If a method such as ADS leads to no lasting injury or harm, authorities may find easier justifications for employing them.

And this sums up my eventual point on this subject. How soon after this weapons use will it then be used here in the United States? Will law enforcement be able to displace protestors through use of such a "nonlethal" weapon?

Frightening, to say the least.

I first started following this story about one of the editors at CNet disappearing with his family in the Oregon wilderness when it popped up on BoingBoing. While it's certainly a relief that they were found alive, it's a bummer that James Kim has yet to be found.

Read on for more information about how this mother kept her children alive and saved the three of them, all with some amazing ingenuity.

They ran the heater in their station wagon until the car was out of gas, then burned all the tires in a desperate attempt to keep warm. When the food ran out, Kati Kim breastfed her two young daughters to keep them alive.

Hope was running low for the Kim family nine days after they became stranded in the snowy mountains of southwestern Oregon while making their way toward home in San Francisco. Then, at 1:45 p.m. Monday, Kim spotted a helicopter her family had hired to help in the search. She waved an umbrella on which she had taped reflective striping, and soon she and the girls were saved.

Now they are hoping that her husband, James Kim, is still alive. The 35-year-old Kim left the family to look for help Saturday morning dressed in a jacket, sweater and blue jeans and carrying snowshoes, and he never came back. Searchers spotted his tracks in the snow and were looking for him Monday night.

Kati Kim, 30, and her daughters, 4-year-old Penelope and 7-month-old Sabine, were found with the family car just off Bear Camp Road, a treacherous, little-used mountain route that runs across the Coast Range from Grants Pass along Interstate 5 to the coastal town of Gold Beach. The car had become stuck in snow.

The three were taken to Three Rivers Community Hospital in Grants Pass, where they were in good condition. Sabine was being kept overnight for observation, and her mother and sister were spending the night beside her.

"They are in remarkably good shape for spending nine days in the wilderness,'' said Undersheriff Brian Anderson of Josephine County, Ore.

Absolutely unreal. My hopes are that they find James Kim alive. I'd love for him to know how his wife saved their children.

I'll keep you posted.

Yeah, it took a few minutes for that to sink in with me too.

Story:

Daniel Craig has revealed that he is pressurising producers to include a gay scene in the next James Bond film.

The 'Casino Royale' star is riding a wave of popularity following the success of his first turn as the legendary superspy and is intent on revolutionising the franchise by making its lead character more unpredictable.

In addition to pushing for a gay scene in 'Bond 22', the British thesp has assured bosses that he is more than prepared to do a full frontal nude scene to please his male and female admirers.

He said: "Why not? I think in this day and age, fans would have accepted it.

"I mean, look at (British TV series) 'Doctor Who' - that has had gay scenes in it and no one blinks an eye."

I had already respected Craig for his work in Spielberg's Munich. (Which is a fantastic film, by the way.) I loved him in Infamous (which used to be called Have You Heard? back when I first caught a screening of it last year).

And this? The final straw, I guess. Daniel Craig rules.

Well, I just got home from the screening at the lovely (see: enormous) Cal State Northridge Campus. Suffice to say, I had a blast. The DVD itself is unreal and I'm still surprised how good it actually is. Great shots, near-perfect editing, nice effects, and A+ sound. (It's nice to hear the crowd throughout every song. That's what makes an AFI show.)

Despite being at the wrong screening room (even though we were right where the directions told us to be), my buddy Ramon and our friends Tricia, Eddie, Andrew, and Jess managed to score great seats right in the center. Like everything AFI related, we had a sense of humor about the entire thing. We agreed to pass along high fives everytime any of us appeared onscreen. (We have an obsessive habit of showing up to AFI shows early and scoring spots along the barricade.)

Plenty of kids showed up and it was nearly a full house. Nice to see. The DVD was started at around 7:05pm and hearing the Long Beach crowd sing, "Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep," was pretty rad. All of the instruments sounded fantastic, especially Jade's tone. (Take a hint, Jade: Record with a deeper tone like that on the DVD!)

Highlights of the DVD:

-The kid who jumped in front of the camera near the end. Gold.
-Davey's freak out dance right at the beginning of the breakdown for "A Single Second."
-SSSSSSSSSSSouthern California.
-The sound
-The crowd vocals.
-Lots of high fives.
-Making fun of the MANY awkward crowd shots. All hilarious.
-Jess and Karen singing along and clapping as if they were there. SO ANNOYING. But funny!

I probably missed a bunch but it's 11:00pm and I'm exhausted. Ramon will probably think of more.

Get the DVD. Not because Universal is gonna market the shit out of it. It's actually well-made and captures the intensity of an AFI show quite well. Get it because it's fun.

Atleast that's how I feel, unfortunately.

Story:

St. Paul Travelers Cos. Inc., Louisiana's largest commercial insurance provider, plans to cancel all its commercial property policies in the New Orleans area next year, sparking fears that other insurers will follow and slow the region's economic recovery.

While the St. Paul, Minn., company refused to say how many commercial policies will be affected or specify where the cuts will be in South Louisiana, two insurance brokers who were briefed by the company this week say Travelers will not renew any property insurance for businesses in Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and eastern St. Tammany parishes. Cuts will also affect individual businesses in other parts of South Louisiana, including St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes.

"I said, 'May I tell anybody who asks that Travelers is withdrawing from the commercial property insurance market in southeast Louisiana?' " said Anderson Baker, president of the New Orleans agency Gillis, Ellis & Baker, who met with the company Wednesday. "The answer was, 'Yes.' "

Travelers spokeswoman Jennifer Wislocki said the company has "a high concentration of commercial policies in the hurricane-prone areas of Louisiana" and will not renew many commercial policies when they expire.

"To keep future losses to a more acceptable level for continued financial stability, we are reducing our exposure in some of these areas by non-renewing a number of small to mid-sized commercial properties," Wislocki said.

Crisis summit called State Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, who was tipped off about Travelers' plans Wednesday night by the Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region, said he was stunned by the news. When he met with Travelers on Thursday, he was equally stunned by the stated reason for the company's retrenchment.

"They cited the state of the rebuilding of our levee system as the primary reason for their decision," Donelon said.

Why is this important? Without financial support, there is no levee to be rebuilt. If other companies follow suit, New Orleans will be doomed.

Such is life under the capitalist pursuit. I hope the CEOs of Travelers can sleep well.

Bolton gets PWN3D. About time.

Story!

Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday. Bolton's nomination has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans. Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record), a moderate Republican who lost in the midterm elections Nov. 7 that swept Democrats to power in both houses of Congress, was adamantly opposed to Bolton.

Critics have questioned Bolton's brusque style and whether he could be an effective public servant who could help bring reform to the U.N.

President Bush, in a statement, said he was "deeply disappointed that a handful of United States senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate."

"They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time," Bush said. "This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country, and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation."

Bush gave Bolton the job temporarily in August 2005, while Congress was in recess. Under that process, the appointment expires when Congress formally adjourns, no later than early January.

The White House resubmitted Bolton's nomination last month. But with Democrats capturing control of the next Congress, his chances of winning confirmation appeared slight. The incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, said he saw "no point in considering Mr. Bolton's nomination again."

While Bush could not give Bolton another recess appointment, the White House was believed to be exploring other ways of keeping him in the job, perhaps by giving him a title other than ambassador. But Bolton informed the White House he intended to leave when his current appointment expires, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

Bush planned to meet with Bolton and his wife later Monday in the Oval Office.

Bush said he accepted Bolton's decision with deep regret.

"He served his country with extraordinary dedication and skill, assembling coalitions that addressed some of the most consequential issues facing the international community," the president said. "During his tenure, he articulately advocated the positions and values of the United States and advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty."

Hold on, wait a second. I'm pretty sure, President Bush, that if you watch this video, I think Bolton advocated ONLY the values of the United States. The asshole didn't give a shit about anyone else.

Get the fuck out of our country, Bolton.

And this is just how we treat people accused of terrorism. I can't imagine what we'll do to those who may be convicted.

Story:

Lawyers for alleged "dirty bomber" and Bush-declared enemy combatant Jose Padilla have filed a new salvo in his Miami federal court terror case with new details of the torment and physical deprivation to which he was subjected during his three years in the South Carolina military brig.

Here's how he got taken to the dentist for a root canal:

Several guards in camouflage and riot gear approached cell No. 103. They unlocked a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door and Mr. Padilla’s bare feet slid through, eerily disembodied. As one guard held down a foot with his black boot, the others shackled Mr. Padilla’s legs. Next, his hands emerged through another hole to be manacled.

Wordlessly, the guards, pushing into the cell, chained Mr. Padilla’s cuffed hands to a metal belt. Briefly, his expressionless eyes met the camera before he lowered his head submissively in expectation of what came next: noise-blocking headphones over his ears and blacked-out goggles over his eyes. Then the guards, whose faces were hidden behind plastic visors, marched their masked, clanking prisoner down the hall to his root canal.

To Mr. Padilla’s lawyers, the pictures capture the dehumanization of their client during his military detention from mid-2002 until earlier this year, when the government changed his status from enemy combatant to criminal defendant and transferred him to the federal detention center in Miami. He now awaits trial scheduled for late January.

Together with other documents filed late Friday, the images represent the latest and most aggressive sally by defense lawyers who declared this fall that charges against Mr. Padilla should be dismissed for “outrageous government conduct,” saying that he was mistreated and tortured during his years as an enemy combatant.

They argue that he has been so damaged by his interrogations and prolonged isolation that he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to assist in his own defense. His interrogations, they say, included hooding, stress positions, assaults, threats of imminent execution and the administration of “truth serums.”

....Dr. Angela Hegarty, director of forensic psychiatry at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, N.Y., who examined Mr. Padilla for a total of 22 hours in June and September, said in an affidavit filed Friday that he “lacks the capacity to assist in his own defense.”

“It is my opinion that as the result of his experiences during his detention and interrogation, Mr. Padilla does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness, i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder, complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation,” Dr. Hegarty said in an affidavit for the defense.

And if that doesn't upset you enough:

Federal prosecutors have asked the judge to forbid Mr. Padilla’s lawyers from mentioning the circumstances of his military detention during the trial, maintaining that their accusations could “distract and inflame the jury.”

But defense lawyers say it is unconscionable to ignore Mr. Padilla’s military detention because, among other reasons, it altered him in a way that will impinge on his trial.

....“During questioning, he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements and contortions of his body,” Mr. Patel said. “The contortions are particularly poignant since he is usually manacled and bound by a belly chain when he has meetings with counsel.”

It almost feels like I would be pointing out the obvious in trying to extrapolate on what this story tells us, but it needs to be said. This is no way for any prisoner to be treated, no matter what they've done. Whatever happened to, "Innocent until proven guilty," Mr. President?

Oh, the irony is so overwhelming. I love it.

Story:

Outside his aqua-colored concrete house here, Rene Alvarez Rosales paused under an almond tree to answer questions about a subject with which he has surprising familiarity: Governor Mitt Romney's Belmont lawn.

For about eight years, Rosales said, he worked on and off landscaping the grounds at Romney's home, occasionally getting a "buenos dias" from Romney or a drink of water from his wife, Ann.

"She is very nice," said Rosales, 49.

About 6 miles away in Copado, a 37-year-old man who recently returned to Guatemala from the United States told a similar story, describing long days tending Romney's 2 1/2-acre grounds.

"They wanted that house to look really nice," said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous. "It took a long time."

As Governor Mitt Romney explores a presidential bid, he has grown outspoken in his criticism of illegal immigration. But, for a decade, the governor has used a landscaping company that relies heavily on workers like these, illegal Guatemalan immigrants, to maintain the grounds surrounding his pink Colonial house on Marsh Street in Belmont.

The Globe recently interviewed four current and former employees of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, the tiny Chelsea-based company that provides upkeep of Romney's property. All but one said they were in the United States illegally.

The employees told the Globe that company owner Ricardo Saenz never asked them to provide documents showing their immigration status and knew they were illegal immigrants.

"He never asked for papers," said Rosales, who said he had paid smugglers about $5,000 to take him across the US-Mexican border and settled in Chelsea.

The workers said they were paid in cash at $9 to $10 an hour and sometimes worked 11-hour days.

Romney never inquired about their status, they said.

In addition to maintaining the governor's property, they also tended to the lawn at the house owned by Romney's son, Taggart, less than a mile away on the same winding street.

Asked by a reporter yesterday about his use of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, Romney, who was hosting the Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, said, "Aw, geez," and walked away.

Several hours later, his spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, provided the Globe with a statement saying that the governor knows nothing about the immigration status of the landscaping workers, and that his dealings were with Saenz, who is a legal immigrant from Colombia.

Fehrnstrom said that Romney would look into the matter further.

Hahaha, wonderful. When crazy right-wing pundits hold unreasonable ideals, it's nice to see them destroyed so quickly and thoroughly. Joy to the world.

I. FUCKING. LOVE. ZOMBIES.

And this story is so ludicrous and hilarious that I had to write about it.

Read on!

A group of zombies have risen up to claim the city of Minneapolis and Hennepin County violated their free rights and discriminated against them.

The six adults and one juvenile who were arrested while impersonating the undead in July filed their lawsuit Thursday.

The ragged group were arrested for "simulating weapons of mass destruction" during a dance party near the Minneapolis entertainment district.

Police alleged that wires protruding from the zombie's backpacks could have been bombs or were meant to imitate bombs. It was later learned the wires were actually radios.

The adult zombies were jailed for two days before police and city attorneys said there was not enough evidence to charge them.

The lawsuit claims the zombie event was intended to "satirize contemporary commercial culture" and the arrests violated the partygoers rights to free speech.

City officials did not return a call to the St. Paul Pioneer Press seeking comment on Wednesday. City offices were closed on Thanksgiving.

I have to address one thing before I continue. I have a question for Marie Katyanne Kibbe:

So. Why does your zombie costume suck so much? Everyone else's make-up is pretty bitchin'. You look alive!

Anyway, I hope that something positive comes out of it. Their rights were definitely violated. 

Both as humans and zombies, obviously.  

I'm not a fan of the Motion Picture Association of America. They tell me how I should enjoy movies that I pay for. They tell me that even if I purchase a movie legally, I can't convert it to any other form of media in order to enjoy it. And now they're telling us that they can lie to us and fraud the consumer to serve their own interests.

Pretexting - a term most of us have never heard - is actually a simple concept to explain. In fact, I bet most of us have done it. We lie about who we are to get information and it sometimes works. Hardly moral or ethical, it's a common usage of those who believe the ends justify the means. I happen to be one of those people who thinks differently.

Story:

A tough California bill that would have prohibited companies and individuals from using deceptive "pretexting" ruses to steal private information about consumers was killed after determined lobbying by the motion picture industry, Wired News has learned.

The bill, SB1666, was written by state Sen. Debra Bowen, and would have barred investigators from making "false, fictitious or fraudulent" statements or representations to obtain private information about an individual, including telephone calling records, Social Security numbers and financial information. Victims would have had the right to sue for damages.

The bill won approval in three committees and sailed through the state Senate with a 30-0 vote. Then, according to Lenny Goldberg, a lobbyist for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the measure encountered unexpected, last-minute resistance from the Motion Picture Association of America.

"The MPAA has a tremendous amount of clout and they told legislators, 'We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading,'" Goldberg said.

Consequently, when the bill hit the assembly floor Aug. 23, it was voted down 33-27, just days before revelations about Hewlett-Packard's use of pretexting to spy on journalists and board members put the practice in the national spotlight.

Legislature records confirm that the MPAA's paid lobbyists worked on the measure. An aide to Bowen, who was forced out of the legislature by term limits and was elected Secretary of State, said the MPAA made its displeasure with the bill clear to lawmakers.

"The MPAA told some members the bill would interfere with piracy investigations," the aide said. The association "doesn't want to hamstring investigators."

The MPAA declined to comment for this story.

And once again, it becomes obvious that big business is vastly more important to our leaders than the people who put them into office.

And not in the sense you may think.

Waiting in long lines to get on flights and having to deal with disrobing, probing, and other forms of annoyance isn't my favorite part of flying. (Honey roasted peanuts used to be, but no one hands them out anymore.)

So, when I say that airport security sucks, I don't mean so in a personal way. According to a report released a month ago by the Transportation Security Administration, screeners at the Newark Liberty International Airport failed 20 out of 22 tests to catch concealed guns and bombs.

Let that sink in for a second.

That means they passed with a wonderful score of 2 / 22.

The story:

Screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the starting points for the Sept. 11 hijackers, failed 20 of 22 security tests conducted by undercover U.S. agents last week, missing concealed bombs and guns at checkpoints throughout the major air hub's three terminals, according to federal security officials.

The tests, conducted Oct. 19 by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents, also revealed failures by screeners to follow standard operating procedures while checking passengers and their baggage for prohibited items, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We can do better, and training is the path to improved performance," said Mark Hatfield Jr., the Newark airport's federal security director. The poor test results at Newark come after heightened security procedures that the TSA put in place at U.S. airports in August.

One of the security officials familiar with last week's tests said Newark screeners missed fake explosive devices hidden under bottles of water in carry-on luggage, taped beneath an agent's clothing and concealed under a leg bandage another tester wore.

The official said screeners also failed to use handheld metal-detector wands when required, missed an explosive device during a pat-down and failed to properly hand-check suspicious carry-on bags. Supervisors also were cited for failing to properly monitor checkpoint screeners, the official said. "We just totally missed everything," the official said.

Well, that's reassuring.

Bruce Schneier makes a good point:

Airport screeners have a difficult job, primarily because the human brain isn't naturally adapted to the task. We're wired for visual pattern matching, and are great at picking out something we know to look for -- for example, a lion in a sea of tall grass.

But we're much less adept at detecting random exceptions in uniform data. Faced with an endless stream of identical objects, the brain quickly concludes that everything is identical and there's no point in paying attention. By the time the exception comes around, the brain simply doesn't notice it. This psychological phenomenon isn't just a problem in airport screening: It's been identified in inspections of all kinds, and is why casinos move their dealers around so often. The tasks are simply mind-numbing.

To make matters worse, the smuggler can try to exploit the system. He can position the weapons in his baggage just so. He can try to disguise them by adding other metal items to distract the screeners. He can disassemble bomb parts so they look nothing like bombs. Against a bored screener, he has the upper hand.

So how do we resolve this? If acts of terrorism and violence are possible (and I'd be a fool to deny that they are), how can we actually make the skies safe?

It's certainly a tough proposition, especially given the human limitations to the entire process. Do we turn to technology to solve our problems? (Methinks this will just cause more.)

I'm bummed I missed this story the first time around, but it's still just as important.

They're so quick to shed their religious "values" of love and acceptance in order to hate someone who is different.

Story:

Before he became the nation’s first Muslim elected to Congress, Democrat Keith Ellison was called “unfit” for Congress by his Republican opponent. And that was just the beginning.

Ellison is setting yet another precedent in January when he takes the oath of office on the Koran, Islam’s holiest book—an event that evoked conservatives to accuse him of deviating his allegiance from the Constitution to Allah.

On Tuesday, conservative radio talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager wrote: “America is interested in only one book, the Bible.” Directly addressing Ellison, he added “If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress.”

Ellison said that he’s not changing his mind about the sacred text he’s swearing on.

“The Constitution guarantees for everyone to take the oath of office on whichever book they prefer,” he said in a telephone interview. “And that’s what the freedom of religion is all about.”

According to Roll Call, the Capitol Hills’ newspaper, swearing on a particular sacred text is a symbolic, optional affair for House members who would like a photo-op with the Speaker of the House at the end of the mass swearing-in ceremony, which has no specific religious denomination.

In his scathing article, Prager barely stopped short of calling Ellison a racist, but he said that allowing Ellison to  swear on the Koran is akin to allowing a “racist” to choose “the Nazis’ Bible for his oath.”

And though he suggests that the Bible is the exclusive book, in which Americans should swear on, plenty of elected officials locally and nationally have taken their oath on the Torah.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, who’s Jewish, refused to use a Christian Bible in her swearing-in ceremony in 2005. Eventually, she borrowed a Hebrew Bible from a colleague. Others officials, including four U.S presidents have skipped swearing on the Bible all together.

The foray into Ellison’s oath on the Koran, led by Prager and a cadre of conservative bloggers, is seen rapacious by Muslims and tendentious by most experts.

“It’s a clear double standard in our society,” said David Landry, professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. “There’s a lot of anti-Muslim bigotry in it.”

Rev. Meg Riley, director of Advocacy and Witness Programs at Unitarian Universalist Association, said that “Ellison is swearing on the Koran to uphold the Constitution of this country.”

“He’s not swearing on the Constitution to uphold the Koran.”

And by doing that, she said, he’s just using his desired sacred text to affirm his allegiance.

For Muslims, Prager’s column not only rekindles old wounds sustained during the campaign, but reflects a faith that is increasingly becoming a public prey.

“It’s ridiculous and utterly offensive,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of Muslim American Society’s Freedom Foundation, based in Washington D.C. “But what’s more saddening is that no prominent person is able to respond to those conservatives, because Muslims are easy targets.”

Asked if he’s disappointed with the criticism that seems to be glued to each step he takes, Ellison said that this particular outcry will eventually wane down.

I personally find it quite courageous of Ellison to do as he pleases in the face of so much criticism (and to do so with such a good attitude).

I think the importance of this story is recognizing how willingly the constitution can be trashed by so many conservatives, especially when it serves their own interests. Disturbing, yet, unfortunately, not surprising.