A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Bushcronium." Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311. These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. The symbol for Bushcronium is "W". Bushcronium's mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass". When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an ele- ment that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

With the elections and the newly Democratic congress about to be seated in a couple of months, it seems that the republicans are not so interested in fighting for Preznit Ima Diktator and his Imperial Agenda.

Republicans who limped back to Washington for a lame duck congressional session last week found a host of marching orders from President Bush, but perhaps none more urgent than this: Before Democrats take control of Congress in January, they must pass legislation authorizing the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program.
...
...The response: deafening silence. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist quickly dispatched aides to put out the word on Bush's request: Not gonna happen.

The eavesdropping program, launched in secret after the 9/11 attacks, was revealed last December by the New York Times. The newspaper also reported that the government failed to get surveillance warrants from a secret court that monitors domestic spying. During the ensuing uproar, the president defended the program as targeting only domestic communications that originate overseas. His lawyers have argued that the president's executive wartime authority precludes his having to seek surveillance warrants. Says Todd Gaziano, director of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies: "Every president has engaged in the equivalent of warrantless wiretapping and surveillance-the only difference is that this administration is being far more sensitive to civil liberties."(my emphasis)

It defies belief that the republicans and their cronys are still trying to spin the illegalities of the 1600 Crew. I suspect that as subpoenas come out, the number of shredders sold at office-supply stores will go up ... in fact, I'd be willing to be there's going to be a statistically significant correlation.

Chicken wings for that midnight shredding party, Mr. Secretary?

Jose Padilla. He might be unsavory, he might not be the guy you'd want to have a beer with, or be dating your daughter; but he's an American Citizen. Except to the adminstration.

Jose Padilla. Toss the Bill of Rights into the shredder, baby. The Enlightnment is Ovah.

After he was arrested in 2002, Jose Padilla was considered so dangerous that he was held without charges in a military prison for more than three years -- accused first of plotting a radiological "dirty bomb" attack and later of conspiring with al-Qaeda to blow up apartment buildings with natural gas.
...
Padilla, now 35, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and had a history of criminal trouble as a teenage gang member in Chicago before moving to Florida and converting to Islam in the 1990s. He was first thrust into the spotlight in June 2002, when then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft made a television appearance from Moscow to announce Padilla's arrest and designation as an "enemy combatant" by President Bush.
...
James B. Comey, then the deputy attorney general, detailed Padilla's alleged travels around the Middle East from 2000 to 2002, including a trip to an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, meetings with senior al-Qaeda leaders and preparations for blowing up apartment buildings inside the United States.

Comey characterized many of these allegations as based on admissions by Padilla, and was candid in saying that much of the information could not be used in a criminal court -- a fact that has greatly complicated the government's position in the current case.
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Padilla's attorneys say that his voice is heard on only eight of about 50,000 FBI wiretap recordings in the case, and that there is no mention of violence or jihad on any of the recordings connected to him.

In a motion to dismiss the case in October, federal public defender Michael Caruso and his team also alleged that Padilla "was tortured for nearly the entire three years and eight months of his unlawful detention. ...

Among other things, the defense alleges that Padilla was held for 1,307 days in a 9-by-7-foot cell, isolated for days or weeks at a time, physically assaulted and threatened with execution and other violence, kept awake with lights and noises, and forced to take mind-altering drugs, possibly PCP or LSD.

The government counters that Padilla offers no evidence to back up the allegations and that, besides, his treatment by the military is irrelevant to the criminal case against him.

All of what was done to Padilla was done before the "Military Commissions Act" was passed before the election (because it would not have had a hope in hell of passing afterwards).

Jose Padilla is an American Citizen. Look at what has been done to him, and whether you are a republican or a Democrat, be afraid, be very afraid of the powers that have been granted to the Government because Dear Leader has played the fear card so effectively.

How much more scared/terrified/apprehensive will you be of our government if Padilla is acquitted in open court of any crimes?

Trust the 1600 Crew to use the troops.

A blood-coagulating drug designed to treat rare forms of hemophilia is being used on critically wounded U.S. troops in Iraq despite evidence it can cause clots that lead to strokes, heart attacks and death in other patients, The (Baltimore) Sun reported for Sunday's editions.
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The Food and Drug Administration said in a warning last December that giving Factor VII to patients who don't have the blood disorder could cause strokes and heart attacks. Its researchers published a study in January blaming 43 deaths on clots that developed after injections of Factor VII.

However, the Army medical command considers it a medical breakthrough that gives front-line physicians a way to control deadly bleeding. Physicians in Iraq have injected it into more than 1,000 patients, reported The Sun, which makes its first Sunday edition available Saturday afternoon.

"When it works, it's amazing," said Col. John B. Holcomb, an Army trauma surgeon and commander of the Army's Institute of Surgical Research. "It's one of the most useful new tools we have."

Military medicine in combat is always a challenge, and I certainly want to see injured troops getting the best care, but I don't think that means getting an off-label treatment that could potentially cause them problems greater than the injury they are getting treated for.

If the military wants to use this drug, then they ought to get together with NIH and fund a long-term study of the effects of the drug on the population they are using it on. It would not be fast, and it might make the drug less available, but it might save more lives in the long run than not.

Our soldiers do not deserve to become guinea pigs in this war just for the sake of expediency; and make no mistake that's what's going on here when over 1,000 doses have been administered with no idea of the long-term effects of the medication and a record of ill-effects are being found.

Nothing about this misbegotten war shocks me much anymore, but this is just another facet of 'what in the fuck are they thinking'. I really don't know anymore. You would think that the the Preznit would say "don't do that", but in administration that hates science and scientific fact look for the inevitable attack on critics as "hating the troops" etc etc ad nauseum.

I detest Joe Biden almost as much as Joe Lieberman. Biden, whose allegiance to MBNA and the Bankruptcy Abortion makes him as unviable as presidential candidate could ever be, at least in a progressive and fair Democratic party is now trying to look and sound like presidential material.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee aides debated last Tuesday whether to call deposed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to the hearing table for a public flogging. The decision was no -- at least for now. Later that day, I bumped into the incoming committee chairman, presidential hopeful Joseph R. Biden Jr. He said that while there was "extraordinary malfeasance" born of the Iraq crisis, he was planning to stay clear of all that. "That's looking backward," he said. "I'm in the 'action plan' department."

Biden expressed concern about the inquisitorial zeal of some of his "friends in the House," stressing that the key for both chambers will be "attaching all investigations to the broadest public purpose."

I'm wondering if MBNA Joe's "action plan" might have been you know, plagiarized, from the notes of the 1600 Crew, you know, do nothing; sound Preznitial, and hope the media fawns all over you for your "resoluteness". After all, Bought-and-paid-for Biden is no stranger to stealing ideas and calling them his own, even if they're proven to be bullshit, or bat-shit crazy.

And while all this proceeds, what about those show horses? Well, they'll steer clear of the hearings and, as one senator recently quipped, "stay away from past-tense words like 'woulda, coulda, or shoulda' " as they develop their action plans. But once the 2008 campaign season heats up, they'll choose among the coming year's subpoena fest for the sharpest disclosures, and wield them in electoral battle.

1. Funny
   
2. The Spin they're In
   
3. He's an American Citizen
   
4. When Lab Rats are unvailable...
   
5. Fuck-You America, Love, Joe Biden