I remember seeing the prototype for the Osprey twenty or so years ago at North Island, I knew the Marine Colonel relieved over that Maintenance records incident ivolving the V-22 a couple of years ago, so I've always been a bit interested in the whole VTOL/Tilt rotor Osprey concept. The Osprey is basically the Undead Budget Item, no one can drive a stake through its heart and it just keeps on sucking out money, year after year.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your POV), it looks like the V-22 is going to be a production bird.

It took twenty years and $19 billion. But at 4pm today, I'm told, the Pentagon's Defense Acquisition Board will announce its recommendation to go ahead with "full rate production" of the once star-crossed, accident-prone Osprey V-22 tiltrotor craft.

The fate of the hybrid aircraft has been very much in question, ever since a pair of Ospreys crashed in 2000, killing 23. This decision "gets the program off probation. It can't be summarily cancelled now," a source close to the program says.

But Lehman was smitten. "It was very easy to fly," he says, "far more stable than a traditional helicopter, and simpler and safer than a Harrier. I was convinced it was what we needed." Lehman pushed the plane through the Navy's acquisition process.

It's been 22 years, and the skies aren't exactly crowded with Ospreys. After more than two decades and $16.4 billion, the history of the V-22 is a sorry tale of cost overruns, shoddy construction, and managerial incompetence. Thirty people have died in four Osprey crashes, making the V-22 one of the killingest experimental planes ever. The program has teetered on the brink of elimination since almost the beginning.

One other side note: anyone out there know what the Osprey's deck multiple is? Just curious.

Well, it's really the same fine mess, just looking a little more dismal now. As the days have turned into weeks have turned into months, Preznit Pinocchio has stepped up at almost every available opportunity to proclaim how the Iraqi Security Forces have been readying themselves to have it "Brought On" to them. Uh-huh.

The number of the Iraqi army's 86 battalions that can fight insurgents without U.S. and coalition help has dropped from three to one, top U.S. generals told Congress yesterday, adding that the security situation in Iraq is too uncertain to predict large-scale American troop withdrawals anytime soon.
...
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his commanders yesterday publicly hedged their forecasts of U.S. involvement in Iraq, leaving it unclear when troops will be able to come home or how long it will take before Iraqi security forces can defend their homeland.

And in the Day Late and Billions of Dollars Short Department, here are some of our noble republcian Senators either asking questions, or grandstanding for C-SPAN, you decide:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he believes the United States has not had enough troops to fend off insurgents permanently. McCain also chastised Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, who retires as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today, for being overly optimistic because "things have not gone as we had planned or expected nor as we were told by you, General Myers."
...
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was discouraged by the lack of readiness by the Iraqi security force. She said that it "contributes to a loss of public confidence in how the war is going," and that "it doesn't feel like progress when we hear today that we have only one Iraqi battalion that is fully capable."
...
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he doubts that U.S. commanders have a clear handle on the nature of the insurgency and said the war has been more difficult than he expected.

It's hard to give these folks any credibility now, not that I ever did before. McCain lost my respect when he went spelunking up Preznit Endless Anus' rectum, Lindsay Graham has been a tool and a half for years and Susan Collins, reliably wishy-washy...is she a moderate? Is she a conservative? Stay tuned, tomorrow she's something different!

The only sure facts in Mess O'Potamia, no one has fucking clue about what's going to happen when the sun comes up every day except for two things: it's gonna be hot, and the sun will set in the west. Hopefully.

Tom Delay's indictment ought to provide so much fodder for the DNC it's not funny. Howard Dean, yo, are you listening? And you know what? I don't give a rats-ass if the republicans are going to go tit-for-tat on "charging" Democratic members with "alleged" crimes. If our guys in fact did something wrong, fuck 'em. Regaining the public trust by casting out ignorant Democrats who held themselves above the law is more important than protecting the jobs they used to get their stupid asses into trouble in the first place.

The indictment points out one thing very, very clearly: the GOP-controlled Congress is unable to police itself. Yeah, what House Ethics Committee? Which leads to the inevitable question: how can they be watchdogs for the rest of the government? Especially the Executive Branch?

Preznit Cowardly Asshat's voluntary war has given them (and the courts) cover to grovel and whine and say "but we're at waaaar". No, we've been dragged into a conflict that Beloved Leader had fantasized about since before he was inaugurated after the stolen election of 2000. The War of Amorphous Syllogisms has been going on purely at the whim of the folks in the GOP who need to keep the level of fear up in this country to stay in power. If we're at War, why hasn't one Congressman, of either party stood up once a day and asked in the well of the House and Senate: "Where is Osama bin Laden today?" Why not, because gosh, we can't be mean to the Preznit...waaaah, we're at War.

What they've done with that power instead is to first pervert and then corrupt the republic for their own ends: enriching their friends, ending inconvenient civil liberties, abrogating the Bill of Rights and demagogery, lots and lots of demogogery to keep their "base" loyal.

So, it's not surprising that Tom Delay, the man who once told a restaurant employee "I am the Federal Government" so he could smoke in a smoke-free restaurant, got indicted. He did what he did, because he knew (in his mind) he'd never be called to account. Apparently it's rumored he's going to plead nolo contendre to that conspiracy charge, he's agreed to waive the statute of limitations on it to take the plea. Why would anyone do that? Because they're trying to avoid what the prosecutor really has in their briefcase.

I hope that at his plea hearing, they make Delay allocute to the charges and it's on camera, live. I also hope they sentence Mr. Law-and-Order Delay to all two years of his time in prison. After all, he's led many a charge to punish criminals. Now that he might be one, why should it be any different for him? Oh, he's a republican.

Remember the story a little while back about Mark Maida, a Marine who was killed in Iraq? His parents apparently joined Cindy Sheehan in her protest outside the White House, and here's what happened:

Madison's Ray and Diane Maida say they were treated to an example of how President Bush just doesn't get it as the participated in the anti-war protest in Washington.

The Maidas, who lost their son, Mark, to a roadside bomb south of Baghdad last May, were standing outside the White House Monday morning when they saw a motorcade approach. The quickly donned T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of their dead son as an act of protest.

The president, spying the couple on the sidewalk from his limousine, smiled and waved.

"He was waving like a maniac," Ray Maida said. "He thought we were there to support him. He was clueless that we were there to show him the face of war."

Damn incompetants. They can't even get Preznit Misinformed the right set of memos from his boss, Dick Cheney before he trots out to the Rose Garden and opens his yap.

President Bush on Wednesday warned there will be an upsurge in violence in Iraq before next month's voting, but said the terrorists will fail. "Our troops are ready for them," he said.

He's such a Hero. I'm just waiting for the press conference where he comes out and says he'd rather "have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy". Too late, I think.

Farnsworth over at One Pissed Off Vet has a pretty good account of his activities last weekend, and some wonderful pictures. Go check it out, if you've got a minute.

AssRocket:

The Democratic Party is committed to the view that there is no such thing as going too far.

Awesome.

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep.
Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that likely will force him to step down as House majority leader.

We have been touched by the noodly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster today, yea verily.

Man, sometimes you just wait for the stories to write themselves. Seems that Michael "Not Me!" Brown somehow managed to sign a deal for $236 million in cruise ship space on three Carnival ships for six months.

On Sept. 1, as tens of thousands of desperate Louisianans packed the New Orleans Superdome and convention center, the Federal Emergency Management Agency pleaded with the U.S. Military Sealift Command: The government needed 10,000 berths on full-service cruise ships, FEMA said, and it needed the deal done by noon the next day.

The hasty appeal yielded one of the most controversial contracts of the Hurricane Katrina relief operation, a $236 million agreement with Carnival Cruise Lines for three ships that now bob more than half empty in the Mississippi River and Mobile Bay. The six-month contract -- staunchly defended by Carnival but castigated by politicians from both parties -- has come to exemplify the cost of haste that followed Katrina's strike and FEMA's lack of preparation.

Coburn and Obama disagreed. "Finding out after the fact that we're spending taxpayer money on no-bid contracts and sweetheart deals for cruise lines is no way to run a recovery effort," they said in the statement.

Gee, sometimes those damned facts are just so inconvenient and shit, aren't they?

We're getting underway over at the new blog. Several of my buddies from out here on the Internets have posted their first posts. Drop on over. Featured will be Fixer from Alternate Brain, Terry from Nitpicker, and Lurch. It's Lurch's first time as a blogger, and he's got the first post up there. Go on over, check it out. We'll be adding more contributors over the next days and weeks. Thanks!!!

The fun starts in earnest next Monday.

Blogroll us and stop by often and tell your friends!

Gosh, they're compassionate over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They just can't stand to see a white guy out of work. Look at Michael Brown. Now there's perhaps another opportunity for more consulting work for the guy who was head of the FDA for two months.

Catherine W. Crawford, the wife of Lester M. Crawford, who resigned abruptly as commissioner of food and drugs last week, said on Monday that he had stepped down voluntarily and "was not fired."
...
Mrs. Crawford said she "knew everything" about her husband of 42 years, adding, "There could not be a more moral, upright person." She rejected suggestions by a government official that her husband had omitted material information from his financial disclosure statements.

She said it was not true that "we had stock that should have been sold quicker."

Dr. Crawford, 67, resigned on Friday, just two months after he was confirmed by the Senate, on July 18. He gave no reason. But a government official said on Friday that the resignation was related to Dr. Crawford's not fully disclosing information about his finances to the Senate.

A senior Republican senator told the White House on Friday that President Bush should cancel his plan to allow the director of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, to serve simultaneously as acting commissioner of food and drugs.

The senator, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, said that an acting commissioner must be willing to "dedicate 100 percent of his or her time and talent to the nation's public health and safety agency."

Mr. Bush said on Friday that he intended to name Dr. von Eschenbach to the position. Dr. von Eschenbach, a longtime friend of the Bush family, had been executive vice president of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

In an interview Saturday, Dr. von Eschenbach said he would keep his job at the cancer institute while running the Food and Drug Administration. He reaffirmed that plan on Monday in a memorandum to outside experts who advise the cancer institute.

Dr. Eschenbach is undoubtedly a qualified physician, but WTF, over? Are there no other qualified men or women who could the job of FDA boss, or is Dr. Eschenbach going to go all Porter Goss on the FDA and start hacking away at the disloyal FDA staffers on behalf of Preznit Nappy Time?

Even Chuck Grassely is starting to break from the party line and is opposing this guy for all the right reasons. FDA is not a part-time job, and running both large organizations is not fair to either of them, however easy it is for Preznit Shrunken Brain to make that decision.

Apparently a suicide bomber was stopped at a Marine checkpoint in the Green Zone before he could detonate his bomb. Officials in Baghdad are for some reason expressing surprise that it could have happened.

A car bomber penetrated the heavily fortified Green Zone in the center of the capital on Tuesday but was stopped by U.S. Marines at an "internal checkpoint" before he was able to detonate the vehicle, the military said.

U.S. troops destroyed the explosive-rigged car and detained the bomber, a military spokesman said.

Although the breach did not result in any deaths or injuries, it raised alarm about how the bomber was able to enter the most secured compound in Iraq.

And in other news.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, U.S. and Iraqi officials announced that Iraqi and American security forces killed the No. 2 al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abdallah Najim Abdallah Muhammad Juwari, also known as Abu Azzam.

I guess they must be warming up the auto-pen to sign that Medal of Freedom certificate for the Ol'Arabian. He's doing the Loyal Vassal dance even as we speak over on Capitol Hill, trotting out the 1600 Crew talking points, with enough deliberation that even the stupidest members of congress can get them written down.

The former head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, who resigned under a hail of criticism about the slow response to Hurricane Katrina, on Tuesday blamed local officials and said his agency had done a good job.

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing, by Saturday (before the storm made landfall), that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Michael Brown told a House of Representatives panel looking into the aftermath of the catastrophic storm.

"I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade (Louisiana) Governor (Kathleen) Blanco and (New Orleans) Mayor (Ray) Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together," he said. "I just couldn't pull that off."
...
"It's my belief that FEMA did a good job in the Gulf states," Brown said. He said most of the problems were due to a failure of state and local officials to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans earlier than Sunday, the day before the storm hit land.emphasis added

Another mistake, Brown said, was not setting up a system for media briefings to respond to all of the interview requests during the storm.

For a guy with no resume, he sure lies convincingly, gee he must be a hack attorney or something.

Well, at least no prize Arabian Horses were lost in the hurricane, so he's still got that going for him. Gotta have something to write on the MoF commendation certificate narrative.

After all, all this fuss about pictures of dead brown people shot up and mutilated. Those pictures traded for porn by troops in Iraq (and Others, I'm sure). Geez c'mon, Abu Gonzales is gonna protect us from the old in-out and some good old girl-on-girl tongue'n'titty action. As for the other stuff, heck, it's just quaint. Ask Alberto. He knows. He encourages it. He probably goes home and looks at that site, a kleenex in one hand and his pathetic little soldat in the other while moaning, "Quaint, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck the Geneva Convention, Arrrrrghaaaaa".

He'll be sad on the day that they take that site down. And it's gonna cost us all more, because he'll have to go to GITMO for some good old fashioned brown-person abuse, live and in-person. It's such a republican thing to do. Heck, it's almost like that frat initiation he never got to come...to.

What Fixer said over here. And what this OP-ED in the Post says:

It doesn't help any that the Democrats haven't been able to speak plainly in decades. Because if under George W. Bush the Republican Party has become heartless, the Democratic Party has become spineless. Republicans like my neighbors look at left-leaning candidates and see nothing but a blur. (I myself went hoarse last year during the presidential debates, screaming, "Stop hedging and say what you mean!" at the television set.) Or, as my friend Mark, a lifelong liberal, put it: "I'm so disgusted with the leadership from both parties that I'm going to become an anarchist."

Bye, bye DINO's. Bye Bye DLC'rs. It's time to Bring It. Or be doomed to being inconsequential forever and ever.

Another round of wasting taxpayer money in an effort to promote a state religion, the Constitution be damned.

Lawyers for a group of parents Monday challenged the teaching of intelligent design as nothing more than an old argument for God wrapped in new cloth, as a new legal front opened in the evolution wars.
...
"This clever tactical repackaging of creationism does not merit consideration," Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer for the parents, told a federal judge. "It's an old argument for God that's been around for centuries."
...
The school board, represented by the Thomas More Law Center, a religious-based nonprofit firm, took the position that this was about freedom of speech.

"Intelligent Design theory is really science in its purest form," said Pat Gillen, a lawyer for the board. "It promotes the search for knowledge that embodies the essence of a liberal education."

Not.

I guess that asking these idiots to spend more time in their respective Sunday schools teaching whatever fables they want is out of the question. That would require that they drag their asses out of bed on Sunday Morning and make it to church on a regular basis, you know, become practicing Xtians instead of practicing Xtian-Fascists.

From the man who loves getting a good hiney-lickin' from those who surround him...greatest (lyin') hits 2000:

in a calculated political move, has decided to tap crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. ...

But releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve also leaves our country even more vulnerable to foreign suppliers, including Saddam Hussein. Every barrel of strategic reserve we release today for political reasons is one less barrel we have for threats to our nation's security. The strategic reserve is meant for a foreign war, or a major I disruption in supply, not for national elections. It's a petroleum reserve, not a political reserve.

President Bush, saying "gas prices are on our mind," said today the government is again prepared to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to alleviate any gas shortages caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

He called on Americans to "pitch in" and conserve gas by reducing non-essential travel, teaming up in carpools and using mass transit.

"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

As I suspected, and I'm sure that many others did too, the oil companies cashed in big time after Katrina, especially those whose refinery and distribution networks were unaffected.

When the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline peaked at $3.07 recently, it was partly because the nation's refineries were getting an estimated 99 cents on each gallon sold. That was more than three times the amount they earned a year ago when regular unleaded was selling for $1.87.

The companies that pump oil from the ground swept in an additional 47 cents on each gallon, a 46 percent jump over the same period.

If motorists are the big losers in the spectacular run-up in gas prices, the companies that produce the oil and turn it into gasoline are the clear winners. By contrast, the truckers who transport gasoline, the companies that operate pipelines and the gas station owners have profited far less.

Because as the man who has his hand up Beloved Leaders rectum says, "Conservation...what a virtue, now back my armored SUV up here and get me out of this damn hospital".

Yo, all my vet buddies out there, and there seem to be a lot of you...anyone interested in starting a group blog by vets and soon-to-be vets?

I have some space on another domain, an installed and working Moveable Type install and it's idle right now. I'd be happy to talk to you.

You know where to reach me. If you have a blog now, and want to "cross post", that's fine too.

Karl Rove, like the Spanish Inquisition has three things going for him: Criticize, Terrorize and Demonize. Just think how the Democrats in Congress act when the ize of Rove are upon them: like whiny little children.

Well, you know, it's time for a little payback. Since Preznit KnowsOnly Nine-Eleven appointed him to be Lord God of the Disaster, it's time for Democrats to get onto Frank Lautenbergs' bandwagon. Why is the Roveulator out in North Dakota doing fundraising? And why, since he's a paid, full-time employee of the US Government, is he doing it on the Taxpayers Dime? He's got a job to do now that has nothing to do with fund-raising...in fact it's closer to Barn-Raising.

It's time to start turning the eyes of the Nation onto the ize of Rove, and rip away the facade of competance that has been imbued by the Poodle Media and their apologists everywhere.

Take back our country...indict Karl Rove for fraud, waste and abuse.

Commander of NORAD: Welcome Mr. President, we're honored to have you here at NORAD. Over there on those large screens on the wall, you can see the situation in real-time from geo-synchronous weather and intelligence satellites tracking the progress of Rita in the Gulf. The one on the left is the false-color infrared satellite which allows is to measure factors from the storm like windspeeds and cloud tops, as well as to see telemetry from surface-based weather stations. To the right is a live feed from NOAA, the NWS Hurricane Center in Miami, and to the right of that are real-time feeds from all the major news networks. In front of you is a headset that will allow you instantaneous real-time communication with Fleet assets currently deployed behind Rita in the Gulf as well as contact with the Hurrican Hunter personnel currently monitoring the storm on-station in the eye. Again, we're honored to have you here and look forward to helping you lead the response to Rita as it makes landfall in Texas. Do you have any questions for me, sir?

Preznit Facial Abrasion: Neat-O. Now, can I ride my bike in the halls? I wanna see if the bell echos when I ring it.

So a week later, and what is Times Select?

Just a way to become even less culturally relevant than before, if that was possible. Well played, y'all. NYT: Why Bother?

Probably not work safe. But pretty damn great. Thanks to AmericaBlog for the link.

It seems that everytime I manange to write about Ratzi the Nazi I get in trouble. Got unceremoniously booted off one blogroll for it. My bad, I guess. But you gotta look beyond the vista of the good, faithful, loving Catholics to see what their beloved Church is becoming. Let's face it, Catholicism is not exactly without its' own minor indiscretions over the centuries. But to be fair, it seems to have been able to chart a course towards improving (sometimes) the lives of many of its' adherents by the good works and faith of its leaders from the lowliest Priest trying to live his vows, to Bishops and Cardinals who have stood up to repressive regimes, sometimes at the cost of their own freedom and even lives.

So what's to be made of a man who was a Nazi? Who wears the hat of the leader of one of the major religions of this planet who seeks to use the training of his youth to marginalize men who share his alleged love of his god, but are gay? Here's where he came from:

Because some Nazis believed homosexuality was a sickness that could be cured, they designed policies to "cure" homosexuals of their "disease" through humiliation and hard work. Guards ridiculed and beat homosexual prisoners upon arrival, often separating them from other inmates. Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, wrote in his memoirs that homosexuals were segregated in order to prevent homosexuality from spreading to other inmates and guards.

Mat 5:10
Blessed [are] they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Mat 5:11
Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Gee, maybe they can call it "Auto-da-Fe 21". Real Catholic Torture for the 21st Century. No Comfy Chairs Provided.

This is from the "Hearts and Minds" department:

BASRA city authorities last night declared they would no longer co-operate with British forces in southern Iraq, as the row caused by Monday's confrontation between UK troops and Iraqi police escalated.
...
Speaking in London, John Reid, the Defence Secretary, insisted the dispute over the capture and forcible release of two SAS soldiers on Monday "will not affect the relationship between Iraq and Britain".

But a few hours later in Basra, the provincial city council held an emergency meeting and voted unanimously "to stop dealing with the British forces working in Basra and not to cooperate with them because of their irresponsible aggression on a government facility".

Will the the people that Preznit Completely Corrupt calls his base be asked to sacrifice their tax-cuts to pay for Mess O'Potamia? No.

Will the people that Preznit Sippin' Whiskey regales with tales of strolling with First Responders to have photo-ops with be considered as candidates for sacrifice in "Operation Offset"? No.

Then who will be asked to (once again) shoulder the burden of paying to continue the feeding frenzy at the tax-cut trough?

A group of House Republicans have proposed a plan to offset the costs of relief and rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina that includes trimming military quality-of-life programs, including health care.

Possible sources of funding cuts to free up money for Katrina relief include reduced health benefits, consolidation of the three military exchange systems and the closure of the military’s stateside school system.

It's against the law for many of them to say anything about this in anyway but to vote "with their feet" when (and if) they can. But how unconscionable is it for the republicans to put these folks in Harm's Way and then blithely assert that they need to sacrifice further for other Americans, when the richest 1%, who will get over 300 Billion in tax-relief over the next five years are being asked to sacrifice nothing?

One of the juiciest Canards of the Right is that we should not defend our opposition to American Soldiers being tossed into the meat grinder in Mess O'Potamia because they are all "volunteers". Well, no one joined the Army and "volunteered" to leave their family destitute, no one "voluneteered" to be treated as a Second-Class Citizen as the 1600 Crew does for the Guard and Reservists in terms of benefits, even though they serve on the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan with their regular Army counterparts.

No one but the fiscally insane, rubber-stamping one-party Congress would have ceded all their responsibilities to the 1600 Crew under the guise of this "War" of choice and then had the balls to ask for more sacrifice in the one place it shouldn't ever be made, in the paycheck of our servicemen and women who are not "volunteering" to be part of the Great Social Experiment in Supply-Side Economics and Government Accounting Trickery.

Jeff Huber's all over this too...

From the Self-Absorbed Boob Department:

What did we in the media talk about before we spent all our time talking about hurricanes? Before all the chatter was about Category 4 and Category 5 and levees and evacuations? Before we flooded the zone, to use Howell Raines's phrase, of Katrina and Rita and every storm in between?

Gee, did I forget anything?

Well, it was only paper. After all, if he were not the most "powerful" guy in the Senate, but instead Preznit American Idiot's Bitch, then we'd be having a different discussion now, wouldn't we?

The Baltimore Sun, Spiro Agnew's hometown paper, opined that the First Lady's adventures in the cow trade "certainly don't smell right, especially considering that Jim Blair represented a giant, influential agribusiness firm in Arkansas that later received what seemed to be favors from Gov. Clinton."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has maintained for years that his stock holdings in the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain posed no conflict of interest for a policymaker deeply involved in health care matters. He even received two rulings in the 1990s from the Senate ethics committee that blessed the holding of the stock in blind trusts.

So when Frist decided in June to dump all the stock, and later cited as the reason his desire to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, eyebrows went up among ethics experts and congressional watchdogs. Why did he do it at that time?

Precisely a month later, after the stock was sold, its price tumbled 9 percent when executives in the company -- HCA Inc., which was founded by Frist's father and on whose board Frist's brother serves -- disclosed that hospital admissions of insured patients were lower than expected, depressing profits in the second quarter.

Oh yeah, a stock sale that the benficiary knew nothing about, gee anyone want to give Bill Frist Martha Stewarts phone number? I'm sure she'd be happy to give him some advice on how to talk to the investigators when they come a-visitin'.

Well, here's your all-purpose Clenis cover.

A new line of condoms is grabbing headlines in China even as its sparks a debate about trademark law and promotion campaigns. The products' brand names: "Clinton" and "Lewinsky."

The condoms are sold in boxes of 12, with the brand named after former President Bill Clinton priced at $3.70 and that of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky at $2.25.

Guangzhou Haojian Bioscience Co. said it registered both trademarks and is pricing the brands differently to reflect the higher quality of the Clinton line.

Do we get a 70 million dollar congressional report on the failures of these Clintons?

Jeebus.

So there's another Big-Ass Storm heading for the US. And baby, it's gonna be a doozy...

Remember when gas spiked to $3-plus a gallon after Hurricane Katrina? By this time next week, that could seem like the good old days.
...
We could be looking at gasoline lines and $4 gas, maybe even $5 gas, if this thing does the worst it could do," said energy analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover. "This storm is in the wrong place. And it's absolutely at the wrong time," said Beutel.

I hope that the warnings of the National Weather Service are heeded by the residents of the Texas Gulf Coast. I feel bad for the New Orleans evacuees who are having to bolt twice in less than a month because of the wrath of Mother Nature.

My thoughts are with the East Texans about to have their lives up-ended by nature. I hope that the Government treats you better than the folks north and east of you over the next 96 or so hours and beyond.

Interesting take on PNAC. It's significant that both Bush Pere and Clinton virtually ignored the entreaties of PNAC for a dozen or so years. The events of 9/11 allowed PNAC to foist its ambitious agenda onto a President who was spoiling for an excuse to beat up Saddam. With many PNAC insiders sitting in the catbirds seat, well, it's history. Now it looks like a little tension in the household over there at NeoCon Central...

It was four years ago this week that a little-known group called the "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) published an open letter to President George W Bush advising him on how precisely he should carry out his brand-new "war on terrorism".

In addition to ousting Afghanistan's Taliban, the letter's mostly neo-conservative signatories called for implementing regime change "by all necessary means" in Iraq, "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the (September 11) attack". It also urged "appropriate measures of retaliation" against Iran and Syria if those countries refused to comply with US demands to cut off support to Hezbollah, which they considered part of the terror network.
...
So, four years later, how is the PNAC is doing? The short answer is not so well. Because it represents a coalition of different, although like-minded varieties of hawks, its own influence - or at least the perception of that influence - is highly dependent on the coalition's unity.
...
But the breakdown in the coalition's unity and coherence resulted at least as much from external factors, as well, beginning with the tenacity of the Iraq insurgency. In bogging down US land forces, it has put paid to the coalition's original dreams of the armed forces being prepared to intervene in any crisis - anytime, anywhere.
...
While realists within the administration argue in favor of engaging Syrian President Bashar Assad, if only because the alternative could be so much worse, the hawks, particularly the neo-conservatives who often refer to Damascus as "low-lying fruit", appear determined to prevent any weakening of their policy of isolation and economic pressure on the assumption that the regime will soon collapse.

I wonder if they are trotting this news into the Oval Office now, or are going to wait until some time next week to send the info to Preznit Vacations'r'Me.

As many as 1 million people were ordered to clear out along the Gulf Coast, and hospital and nursing home patients were evacuated Wednesday as Hurricane Rita turned into a Category-5, 165-mph monster that could slam Texas by the weekend and inflict more misery on New Orleans. Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plow into the U.S. mainland.

Let's see...this sure sounds like a good idea:

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether gasoline prices were illegally increased after Hurricane Katrina and if oil companies have constrained refinery capacity to keep fuel prices high, an agency official told Congress on Wednesday.

"We are continuing our intense scrutiny of conduct in the petroleum industry in the aftermath of Katrina," John Seesel, FTC associate general counsel for energy, told the Senate Commerce Committee at a hearing on gasoline prices.

Pat Leahy has now said he's gonna allow French Fries on the Bench. I am disappointed beyond belief at this. I have always liked and admired Pat Leahy as being a pricipled, progressive, smart guy. Truly a leader in the Senate. But Pat Leahy just got his ass rolled by the 1600 Crew. Big Time.

he senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday he will vote to confirm John Roberts for chief justice of the United States after leading senators met with President Bush to discuss candidates for a second high court vacancy.
...
Leahy, D-Vt., said he still has some concerns about Roberts.

"But in my judgment, in my experience, but especially in my conscience I find it is better to vote yes than no," he said.

"Judge Roberts is a man of integrity. I can only take him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda."

In fact, there's probably a picture of you up on Karls bulletin board with the caption:

PUNK'D

All your previous good deeds: For Naught. Thanks for the Legacy. Thanks for Nothing.

I guess ICE can be more than one kind of trouble for the 1600 Crew these days...with an unqualified crony appointment to the Immigration and Customs goatfuck going on, check out this latest FEMA Fuck-all:

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of ice meant for the Gulf Coast arrived yesterday not in storm-ravaged New Orleans or Mississippi but in Gloucester, where almost two dozen tractor-trailers spent the day parked on Rogers Street with their engines running.
...
Johnson said he picked up an oversized load of ice in Sandwich last Tuesday. From there, he drove to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., where he spent eight days waiting to unload. All the while, his truck's engine continued to run in order to keep the ice from melting.

And after those eight days - he made around $900 per day, with some truckers earning in excess of $2 per mile - Johnson said he got the news his load was needed in Gloucester.

"I guess they sent us up here because of the big ice crisis you're having in Gloucester," said Dan Hanson, who picked up his 44,000 pounds of ice in St. Paul, Minn., before traveling to Maxwell and spending "eight days and seven minutes" waiting.
...
Truck driver Paul Kite said he never would have agreed to pick up the ice had he known it was a job for FEMA, because government orders on shipments often change, he said.

"Once you pick up a load from FEMA, you're stuck," he said. "We've done jobs for FEMA before, but never to this extent where you sit and sit and sit. I just drove 1,300 miles to dump ice in Gloucester. This has to be the stupidest thing I have ever done."
...
A frustrated Kite - only 200 miles from cities that he said were on television nightly pleading for help - offered to pay $1,500 for his load of ice so that he could drive it down to the Gulf Coast himself, he said. The offer was refused by FEMA, he said.

Three weeks later, Kite's truck is still carrying the same load of ice.

"Every man standing here will tell you," he said. "Yes, we're enjoying the money we're making. But, it's (expletive)."
...
Memhard said his Gloucester company tried to send ice to hurricane-ravaged regions after the storm but could not get permission from FEMA.

"We've been on the Internet and on the phone talking to as many people as we could," said Memhard. "We haven't succeeded in getting on the A-list yet."

Goddamn, that Preznit'n is HARD WORK!

Well, it helps when your uncle is the Chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff. I helps when you're married to the guy who works up there with Ming the Merciless Chertoff. Mostly, I'm sure it depends on if you know what to kiss, and when and how loyally you can kiss...then you get rewarded with a big job in the retinue of the 1600 Crew, no matter how unqualified you are.

The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts.

Do we expect any less anymore? Qualified? That's so 20th Century.

Nine-Eleven.

With all the vigor of the terminally righteous the GOoPers regularly remind us that the gubmint of Beloved Leader is wholly and completely Holy and Righteous. Yeah, as if.

The Bush administration's top federal procurement official resigned Friday and was arrested yesterday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government. It was the first criminal complaint filed against a government official in the ongoing corruption probe related to Abramoff's activities in Washington.

The complaint, filed by the FBI, alleges that David H. Safavian, 38, a White House procurement official involved until last week in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, made repeated false statements to government officials and investigators about a golf trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002.

It also contends that he concealed his efforts to help Abramoff acquire control of two federally managed properties in the Washington area. Abramoff is the person identified as "Lobbyist A" in a 13-page affidavit unsealed in court, according to sources knowledgeable about the probe.

Our goal is to get the work done quickly. And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely -- so we'll have a team of inspectors general reviewing all expenditures.

This is going to ratchet up the Abramoff-Delay game like never before. This guy was threatening OMB and GAO people with "Hill" pressure for not being nice to his buddy Jack, gee wonder who he might have been talking about? Apparently the word was that the US Attorney in Miami was not interested in hearing Abramoff sing in relation to anything he might have had on Delay, unless Delay was somehow connected to selling pr0n. [That's the man-date of the US Attorney there: Porn, not drugs, terrorism, bank robberies, white collar crime...nothing but Porn. Our tax dollars haaard at work for Abu Gonzales' agenda. How quaint.]

I have to wonder what the headline are going to say the day that Patrick Fitzgerald announces his indictments. It might be the equivlent of the Carny in the Capital! Coming soon to a blog near you!

I gotta wonder, how are these folks going to be counted when it comes time to vote? If they're still in Texas, will they be voting as Texans in the next election (2006)? What kind of shift will this represent for Democrats in newly-gerrymandered Texas?

''What we are seeing across the state is that each city is handling the situation differently," Williams said. ''The largest city is Houston, which probably has 100,000 to 200,000 new friends and new Texans. They are handling it and they are doing it day by day."

Worth keeping an eye or two on, I think.

Shorter Richard Cohen: Beloved Leader is a reg'lar guy who drinks beer and eats hot dogs and loves African Americans. Rich African Americans.

Cohen makes a compelling case that Preznit Trouser Trout really isn't a racist. He trots out a bushel of arguments why Preznit Demographically Dependant is not a racist. He blames LBJ for the hateful bigotry of republicans of Dixie. Cohen has every argument on the planet why Dearly Beloved Leader should not be called a rascist.

I have two problems with all this. The first is not just that it's unfair -- Bush, in this case, was an equal opportunity bungler -- but that it rests on a stereotype: Republicans tend to wear lime green pants in the summer and dislike black people all year round.
...
But Bush is not cut from that cloth. He is a contemporary Republican, a person of another generation who, you may have noticed, has a black woman as secretary of state and had a black man before her. Under him, the GOP began an outreach to black Americans, and unless the Democrats wake up it will ultimately succeed.

Feel like crap. Migraine. Back later tonight or tomorrow. Sorry.

Preznit Criminally Liable is a moron. That made me feel a little better.

OK, it's one anecdotal example, but hey if this is true then it's Right On Schedule, and As Expected

I'm listening to WWL-AM in New Orleans. They have thus far received several calls from local contractors who say that FEMA is not allowing them to help with the recovery effort, that only out-of-state contractors are on the ground. One guy reports that the only way he can get hired as a subcontractor is to give a kickback to the contractor hired by FEMA.

In other words, as predicted, the recovery effort appears to be being conducted to benefit Bush campaign contributors, rather than the people of the area. But then, why should we be surprised? Everything about the Bush Administration has been calculated to enrich Bush cronies at the expense of the American people...

In an interesting, if sometimes not quite legal (a few have been overturned) trend in sentencing among judges has been the use of "novel" sentencing of offenders for various crimes.

Shawn Gementera must have known that he would face some kind of punishment after a police officer nabbed him and a friend in the act of stealing letters from mailboxes along San Francisco's Fulton Street four years ago. While jail or probation might have crossed Gementera's mind, U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker had a more creative idea. Walker sentenced Gementera to stand outside a post office while wearing a sign that read: "I stole mail. This is my punishment." Where the judge saw a novel way of conveying society displeasure with mail theft, Gementera's lawyers saw a violation of the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decided, however, that while the humiliating sentence might be unusual, it wasn't cruel.
...
· In Kentucky, Judge Michael Caperton recently allowed drug and alcohol offenders to skip drug counseling if they agreed to go to 10 church services. A pastor, like a divinely ordained probation officer, signs off on the completion of this obligation.

· In Texas in 2003, Judge Buddie Hahn gave an abusive father a choice between spending 30 nights in jail or 30 nights sleeping in the doghouse where prosecutors alleged the man had forced his 11-year-old stepson to sleep.

· In Georgia last year, Judge Sidney Nation suspended almost all of Brenton Jay Raffensperger's seven-year sentence for cocaine possession and driving under the influence in exchange for his promise to buy a casket and keep it in his home to remind him of the costs of drug addiction.

· In Ohio, a municipal judge, Michael Cicconetti, cut a 120-day jail sentence down to 45 days for two teens who, on Christmas Eve 2002, had defaced a statue of Jesus they stole from a church's nativity scene. In exchange, the pair had to deliver a new statue to the church and march through town with a donkey and a sign reading "Sorry for the Jackass Offense."

· In North Carolina in 2002, Judge James Honeycutt ordered four young offenders who broke into a school and did $60,000 in damage to wear signs around their necks in public that read "I AM A JUVENILE CRIMINAL." One, a 14-year-old girl, appealed and Honeycutt was reversed.

EJ Dionne Gets It. Why don't our Blue State Democratic Senators not wholly owned by the DLC and their own craven cowardice?

If senators simply vote "yes" on Roberts, they will be conceding to the executive branch huge power to control what information the public gets and doesn't get about nominees to life positions. The administration has stubbornly refused to release a share of Roberts's writings as deputy solicitor general. This is a dare to the Senate, and the administration is assuming it will wimp out. A "yes" on Roberts would be a craven abdication of power to the executive branch.

Fuck that the republicans say, we'll own them too, we double-dog dare you to do anything about it. We're stealing those too, so that even if we lose Congress and Presidency one day we'll own the courts for decades and fuck with you from our political graves. Nyahhh Nyahh.

When they say it's not Vietnam, they're right. And they're wrong.

Using enemy body counts as a benchmark, the U.S. military claimed gains against Abu Musab Zarqawi's foreign-led fighters last week even as they mounted their deadliest attacks on Iraq's capital.

Wandering around the internet I'm reading more and more about this avian flu, H5N1 I think it's called. It has a 55% mortality rate apparently, and it's on its way here epidemiologists think.

And apparently, the 1600 Crew have done nothing to prepare for it. We know its coming, have known for a while it seems, but Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid that the Department of Health and Human Services start working with drug companies to get vaccines out, or preventatives like Tamiflu, which is made by Roche Laboratories in mass quantities. Roche, quite likely wants to be compensated for their research and manufacture of Tamiflu. But with a Pandemic of this nature coming they need help manufacturing it if they don't have the capacity. So here's the deal, how about on a one-time basis, they release the drug from patent protection i.e. make it generic, and in return, because of the emergency they get a one-time five-year exemption from paying any Federal Corporate Taxes on everything and every subsidiary they own on the day they sign the deal. No taxes in return for a drug that might save tens of millions of people. They get paid, we stay healthy. Sounds fair to me, because on the day that you get sick with this bug, you'd probably be willing to pay anyone anything to get better.

Thoughts?

I have had a few requests to list all the names I've come up with for Our Beloved Preznit. Well, I did. Man, that was Hard Work!

So here in the Spirit of Immaturity and Joyful, Child-like abandon, I give them to you (as many as I could find)...Enjoy, I know I did! :)

Preznit Their Blood His Gutz
Preznit Kissin' Condi
Preznit Rexall Wrangler
Preznit Economic Disaster
Preznit Dangerous Pretzel
Preznit Illiterate
Preznit Yellow Stripe
Preznit Turd Smoker
Preznit Buggered and Beholden
Preznit Corporate Cum Licker
Preznit Purely Psychotic
Preznit "C" I Graduated
Preznit Texecution
Preznit Incredibly Irrational
Preznit Sucha Fuckin' Liar
Preznit Rubber Rectum
Preznit Defective Lucky Sperm
Preznit Constantly Failing Upwards

-continued after the jump -

Preznit Snot Licker
Preznit Gooey "Santorum"
Preznit Corporate Whore
Preznit Failed Intellect
Preznit Intellectually Inferior
Preznit Fascist Friendly
Preznit Man-Date
Preznit Wasted Semen
Preznit Perpetual Failure
Preznit Coprolith Brains
Preznit Corrupt DNA
Preznit Snot Gobbler
Preznit Reznit Doper
Preznit Rhetorical Retard
Preznit Wasted Days
Preznit Incredibly Insane
Preznit Bad Ideas
Preznit Coke Addled
Preznit Fry'em
Preznit Inherently Evil
Preznit Nitwit
Preznit Corporate $2 Whore
Prezint Prostrated4Dollars
Preznit Absurd
Preznit Unoriginality
Preznit Hides Everything
Preznit Cognitively Challenged
Preznit Lucky Sperm
Preznit Scripted Questions
Preznit Mission Accomplished
Preznit Openly Deserted
Preznit Slime Licker
Preznit Bunnypants
Preznit Turd Slurper
Preznit Gassed'n'Ready
Preznit KravenKristian
Preznit Culture of Life Vulture
Preznit Down Low
Preznit Runnin' Away
Preznit Loves Sum JimmyJeff
Preznit Assclown
Preznit $2 Crack Whore
Preznit Abysmally Amoral
Preznit Pathological Prevaricator
Preznit Wasted Blow
Preznit Morally Bankrupt
Preznit Waste o' Time
Preznit Horse Cranker
Preznit Horse Cock
Preznit Mission-still-not-Accomplished
Preznit Brush Hacker
Preznit Drippy Dick
Preznit Crapfest Commando
Preznit Equine Stroker
Preznit Equine Ejaculation
Preznit Fortunate Embryo
Preznit Unclean Urine
Preznit Completely Cowardly
Preznit Press Avoider
Preznit Intellectually Impaired
Preznit Horse Fluffer
Preznit Whale Shit
Preznit John Bircher
Preznit American AWOL
Preznit Ding-Dong
Preznit Spineless Invertebrate
Preznit Bought N. Paidfor
Preznit No Balance
Preznit Oedipal
Preznit Habitual Offender
Preznit Criminally Culpable
Preznit Deserting Fratboy
Preznit Never Responsible
Preznit Lies Forever
Preznit Minimal Intellect
Preznit Prevaricating Pendejo
Preznit Utterly Incapable
Preznit Stolen Election
Preznit Peter Principle
Preznit Slip'n'Fall
Preznit Business Failure
Preznit Oedipal Obsession
Preznit Mile-Wide Yellow Stripe
Preznit Eternal Ball-licker
Preznit Yeller-Bellied Coward
Preznit Bad Officer
Preznit Elephant Sucker
Preznit Pencil Dick
Preznit Equine Fluffer
Preznit Ball Licker
Preznit Cant B. Bothered
Preznit Cognitively Impaired
Preznit Cant Function
Preznit Swallow Not Spit
Preznit Strategery
Preznit Pickle Licker
Preznit All Hat No Cattle
Preznit Bonesman's Boner
Preznit Jawbone ... of an ASS
Preznit Record Vacations
Preznit Blow
Preznit Distracted by Shiny Things
Preznit C. Noe Evil
Preznit No Lie 2Big
Preznit Eternal Vacation
Preznit Long Vacations
Preznit Piltdown
Preznit Dickless Vacationer
Preznit DryDrunk
Preznit Pickle Humper
Preznit Fear Everything
Preznit Cant B. Blamed
Preznit Never Responsible
Preznit Fluffing Arabians
Preznit Dry Hole
Preznit Wholly Incompetant
Preznit Fumble Fuck
Preznit Always AWOL
Preznit Apron Strings
Preznit Nap Time
Preznit Avoids Accountability
Preznit Lifelong Failure
Preznit Legally Insane
Preznit Hates The Poor
Preznit Disenfranchise Blacks
Preznit Pond Scum
Preznit Election Fraud
Preznit Bubble Boy
Preznit Never Accountable
Preznit Insular Idiot
Preznit Potty Break
Preznit Deserting Coward
Preznit Endless Deficit
Preznit Compassionate Clownshoes
Preznit Platitudes
Preznit Abnormal Psych
Preznit Helpin' Rich Folks
Preznit Rubber Bloomers

via TBogg, the insane Michelle Malkin claims that the picture of Preznit Rubber Bloomers was photoshopped. Now "photoshopped" in our culture has come to mean "changed" and usually not for the better, especially out here in blogtopia. But as with all thing reality based, Malkin gets it wrong.

Update: A defensive Reuters photo editor explains who's responsible and also admits how the image was Photoshopped.

The white parts of the picture were overexposed, so a Reuters processor used Photoshop to burn down the note. This is a standard practice for news photos, Hershorn says, and the picture was not manipulated in any other way.

The Duchess on the budget...

That's what the annual federal deficit will be by 2015 on the current Bush course. Merely to balance the budget by then, we'd need a 37 percent tax hike. Or we can cut spending. We should cut spending. The test of today's GOP will be over which path they take in the future. God knows, this president won't make the hard calls. It's up to the Congress.

Nothing new to see here folks, it's the THC hard at work, coupled with the testoserone and the Kool-Aid. Move on.

In his continuing effort to look like more of a moron than he already is, Falafel O'Loofah has decided that all us "sek-u-lar" progressives want to have sex with ducks. Hmmmph, goes to show what he knows, Canadian Geese are much better, because a little rough goes a long way...and nothing says rough like a pissed-off Goose!

From the September 14 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: The secular progressive movement would like to have marriage abolished, in my opinion. They don't want it, because it is not diverse enough. You know, that's what this gay marriage thing is all about. But now, you know, the poly-amorphous marriage, whatever they call it, you can marry 18 people, you can marry a duck, I mean --

LIS WIEHL (co-host): A duck? Quack, quack.

O'REILLY: Well, why, you know, if you're in love with the duck, who is the society to tell you you can't do that?

This is not the first time that O'Reilly has expressed concern about the threat of marriage with farm animals. He has repeatedly warned that in the future, "[y]ou'll be able to marry a goat."

Hedley Lamarr: There might be legal precedent! Of course, Landsnatching . . . land, land, Land, see Snatch. Ah, Hailie vs. United Sates. Hailie: 7, United States: nothing. You see, it can be done!

The vultures are eyeing New Orleans because of the "belief that hundreds of billions of dollars in government aid is going to create a boomtown." And tonight the vulture-in-chief will promise them just that -- "the largest reconstruction effort ever on U.S. soil,"

So I added a few folks to the Fish Pond this week...let's see if I got them all here:

Julie with a B. you have to go read her Friday Joke...appropriate for the Great Rovian Reconstruction about to get underway. And I never knew that I had such a cute linkee...[blush]

Blog on the Run - long time commenter extraordinare here at DV

The Otter Side - Doc Otter, a fellow Navy Vet (of the Blackshoe variety) now practicing Medicine and he's just returned from NOLA where he was fixing up the practically psycopathic (no not Preznit Abnormal Psych) with meds and Dixie beer PRN (if indicated).

Drop by, enjoy their offerings and make them regular stops on your daily run through the wilds of Blogtopia! (y!sctp!)

Been out hunting quotes from folks who watched the speech:

"A day late and a dollar short," said 18-year-old Wayne State University student Rachel Aviles in Detroit. "I think he's more responding to the negative media than responding to fix the problem."

Jason Sawyer, 30, added his sarcasm as he watched at the Eastlake Zoo tavern in Seattle. When the president offered toll-free help numbers, Sawyer responded: "Oh yeah, pick up that cell phone that doesn't work and call FEMA."

What's sort of ironic, the operators who would answer the calls all have to get lengthy background checks for the DHS jobs; however similar BI's don't seem to apply to political appointees who can fuck up the situation, but do nothing to mitigate it -Michael Brown-. Really, who did the investigation on him? If it takes more credentialling to anwser the phone than to run the store, then there's a bigger problem than just the 1600 Crew. No, on second thought, there isn't.

For what it's worth, the Democratic Senators who are getting ready to allow John Roberts to become a Supreme Court Justice, er...Chief Justice should answer one question: If you are not going to filibuster this guy, then why should you be returned to office? This goes back to the aw-shit/attaboy maxim... one aw-shit (a vote for Roberts) wipes out 10,000 attaboys (their Senate careers).

Pass it on.

It's gonna just be fun to sit back and watch this go on. With The Mayberry Machiavelli running the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, you have to wonder how well he'll be able to do it from a prison cell, unless of course he gets a Preznitial Pardon (!). The republicans are continuing apace with their usual destruction of America...

"Some new measures are already taking shape. In the past week, the Bush administration has suspended some union-friendly rules that require federal contractors pay prevailing wages, moved to ease tariffs on Canadian lumber, and allowed more foreign sugar imports to calm rising sugar prices. Just yesterday, it waived some affirmative-action rules for employers with federal contracts in the Gulf region.

"Now, Republicans are working on legislation that would limit victims' right to sue, offer vouchers for displaced school children, lift some environment restrictions on new refineries and create tax-advantaged enterprise zones to maximize private-sector participation in recovery and reconstruction."

Well, it was morbid curiosity that made me want to watch Preznit Endless Deficit get on the teevee. Should have listened to Donna, she had the right idea. Ignore the fucker. Oh well. 23 minutes of my life I'll never get back again...but anywayz...

Was it just me or was that opening scene, walking across that lawn in the mis-buttoned shirt just a little too Leni Riefenstahl? I kept expecting to hear some Wagner softly in the background from some of those speakers that look like rocks. And the smirk. Tonight was absolutely a smirk-a-thon extraordinaire. The Mrs walked in to the room and said "he looks like he's three and has one of those three year-old jokes he's just can't wait to finish." She's so perceptive sometimes.

For part of that speech I was pretty sure that Preznit Leave No Dollar Unspent was channeling FDR ... did we just witness the New Deal for New Orleans? Or was this just an egregious effort to buy votes for the upcoming election cycles that are sure to carry some bad news for the republicans. Then he got to channeling something, not sure what, maybe his inner zen-monkey or something. I'm pretty sure that when he either leaves or gets kicked out of being Preznit, he's got a gig waiting at the 700 Club invoking the Flying Spaghetti Monster for cash money on the installment plan.

Again, he's managed to bring more issues to the table with vague and stupid statements than he's got answers for. That whole thing about the military becoming first responders for an event like this, what's that all about? For logistics, sure. For medical support, sure. For law enforcement and fire-fighting and a score of other tasks. No. Unless of course he's planning to do away with Posse Comitatus, and move law enforcement to the military. No, Fuck no. If the DHS and FEMA worked as they were supposed to, there would be no need to ask the military for assistance much beyond the functions of the National Guard. But no, DHS and FEMA are as fucked up as can be, and the National Guard, why aren't they somewhere, ummmm... dry right now?

And money. Oh yeah. Everyone is convinced that they are not going to raise taxes to pay for any of this, it's all going on the big huge Government Platinum Card. Ah, where is the fiscal backbone to finally call bullshit on that? If they wanna pay, they gotta have the money first, and not get it by de-funding other programs that will leave the most needy in this country vulnerable, while the top 1% pay no taxes at all.

Was anyone else thinking while he was spouting off about how the good jobs rebuilding the Gulf Coast were going to put money back into the region, ah, hey buttfucker you just slashed the wages of every construction worker in the Gulf Coast for the forseeable future. Service sector jobs are next on that chopping block. Nice move, Preznit Compassionate Clownshoes.

And ah, excuse me, but which labor union folks outside of the Gulf Coast was he talking to? I seem to recall that unions in the Gulf Coast region don't exactly flourish, and they aren't going to be too happy with that whole wage thing... just a guess on my part.

I'm sure that Pegaloon has super moist knickers tonight...she's probably right now writing a paean to a Preznit.

Well, fine, but I'm down with a soliliquy to a shithead. Seems fair and balanced, right?

Oh, crap I almost forgot to mention it, but we got at least one Nine-Eleven and one WMD in there. How could he have a complete speech without mentioning either of those?

This kids, is talent. I am not worthy.

... and George Bush will address the nation tonight from New Orleans, cradling a black baby in each arm.

If you believe the crap that Beloved Leader is about to go off and spout, then hey I got a bridge across Lake Ponchartrain I'd like to sell you. A really long, low bridge.

Bush stopped in Pascagoula, Miss., where he toured a nearby Chevron refinery. Accompanying him were Sen. Trent Lott and Rep. Chip Pickering, both Mississippi Republicans, and several senior White House officials.

In his text, Bush, who was to speak from a New Orleans park, said the federal government would work with state and local authorities "so they can rebuild in a sensible, well-planned way."

"Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone, from roads and bridges to schools and water systems. Our goal is to get the work done quickly. And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely — so we will have a team of inspector generals reviewing all expenditures."

Three major polls released today showed large segments of the public opposing key items on the president's agenda.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll, more than 60% of those surveyed said they did not share Bush's priorities, roughly 10 percentage points higher than when he was reelected in November. About 50% approved of the war on terrorism. More than 6 in 10 expressed unease about the president's ability to make right decisions on Iraq, and just 1 in 3 approved his handling of the economy. Overall, 41% approved of Bush's job performance.

Dan Bartlett, the 1600 Crew chief mouthpiece, was making the rounds of the morning shows to prep them for beloved leaders monologue in mea culpa (as if). Bartlett, if you remember was the tool who claimed back in the days of yore that Preznit Deserting Coward's personal physician was in Houston, which is why he missed his mandatory Flight Physical...Bartlett's lips moving...Bartlett lying.

A pinstriped Dan Bartlett made the morning show rounds today, appearing on ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, to preview the President's prime time speech.

On GMA, Bartlett responded in the negative to Charlie Gibson's suggestion that the "astronomical" cost of Katrina plus Iraq plus health care might require the nation to raise taxes.

"It unfortunately requires us to deficit spend," Bartlett said. "The worst thing that we could do is raise taxes. It would only hurt the economy."

For not going over to The Otter Side and reading Otter's Journey to NOLA. Added Otter to the blogroll, and also the Veterans blogroll (newly established).

Go read. A doc without peer.