CALLING GEORGE ORWELL
“Camp Redemption“?

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THE MAN IN THE MOONI just don’t know what to believe, because it’s Andy Kaufman and that means anything is possible. But apparently (according to Yahoo! News), he faked his own death and has returned. He even has a blog.
UPDATE: The P.R. wire service that released the press release says the piece is now in [...]

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FUNFrom the New York Observer: Write your own Thomas Friedman column!

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ENDURANCEThey just called from the computer repair place: “It’ll cost $120 and take two to three days,” the man said. “Unless you don’t care about keeping the data on there. Because if you don’t, I can just wipe the hard drive and do a clean install.”
Oh no, why would I care about all the [...]

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REFORMATIONAs I thought, American Catholics aren’t taking too kindly to the bishops acting like the Taliban. Via Atrios.
I can’t cut and paste, so I can’t post any quotes. Sorry.

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ONE OF THOSE FRICKIN’ DAYSOkay, I got up at 5:30 this morning to finish a proposal that might earn me gainful employment. And what to my wandering eyes should appear? No, not a miniature sleigh…
Another fucking virus. Yes, despite running an antivirus program, NEVER clicking on email attachments and disabling VB scripting, I have yet [...]

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REMEMBER THE COMMANDMENT ABOUT LYING?
They really are shameless, aren’t they?
Like many of its predecessors, the Bush White House has used the machinery of government to promote the re-election of the president by awarding federal grants to strategically important states. But in a twist this election season, many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess [...]

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TIN HAT WEDNESDAY
My favorite Daily News link whore alerts me to this:
THE STRANGE life and brutal death of Nick Berg, the 26-year-old radio-tower repair whiz from West Chester, has prompted a din of Internet conspiracy chatter. Without endorsing anything, here’s a guide:
Theory: Video was fakeWhat they’re saying: If Berg was beheaded on live video, as [...]

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WHAT FREEDOM LOOKS LIKE
Do we see a pattern here?
Fresh allegations have emerged in Iraq regarding the alleged mistreatment of Iraqi detainees by US troops.
The Reuters news agency says three of its local staff were subjected to sexually degrading treatment after being detained in January.
***
Baghdad-based cameraman Salem Ureibi, Falluja-based freelance TV journalist Ahmad Mohammad Hussein al-Badrani [...]

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TIME TO THIN THE HERD
Well, Jesus H. Christ… Has anyone checked the Texas water for lead?
Via Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged:
Unitarian Universalists have for decades presided over births, marriages and memorials. The church operates in every state, with more than 5,000 members in Texas alone.
But according to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a [...]

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There’s a new Get Your War On.

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THE MEMORIES THEY CARRY
Via The Sideshow, this interview with a Marine returned from Iraq:
Q: How many times were you involved in checkpoint “light-ups”?
A: Five times. There was [the city of] Rekha. The gentleman was driving a stolen work utility van. He didn’t stop. With us being trigger happy, we didn’t really give this guy much [...]

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FUCKING A
Kevin Drum gets it exactly right on Jonathan Alter:
My problem is that Alter presumably sees the Bush administration up close on a daily basis and is paid to express his opinion about them, but he’s not really doing it. His column is typical column stuff: thoughtful, nuanced, critical of the administration but still optimistic [...]

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DEPARTMENT OF WHAT?
Check out this editorial from the Des Moines Register:
The denial of retraining assistance to workers laid off in small bunches (see editorial above) prompts a question we’ve been wondering about lately: On whose behalf is this U.S. Labor Department working anyway?
The department was created by Congress in 1913 and charged with enforcing laws [...]

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SWAP MEET
This is kinda cool. If you have a Gmail account from Google, congratulations! There are people who will swap some cool stuff to get an account of their own.

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A NATION OF McWORKERS
From the Guardian (thanks, J.A.):
But the main purpose of the “Yes, American can” bus tour, of course, was to shift the attention of US voters away from the Iraq prison scandal towards the recovering job market. According to a US labour department report, 288,000 jobs were created in April. Bush’s campaign has [...]

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WHO’D A THUNK IT?
Here’s some of what the Harry Potter and the Left Behind series have in common:
Finally, they both have a theology. It’s not, as one might expect, that Left Behind is Christian and Harry Potter pagan, but rather that Left Behind is Protestant and Harry Potter is Catholic. One of the chief theological [...]

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INMATES RUNNING THE ASYLUM
From the Village Voice:
It was an e-mail we weren’t meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that “the [...]

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PLAYING GAMES WITH PEOPLE’S LIVES
These people are fucking despicable. Look at someone like me - who can’t get a job, has two unemployment checks left and is in serious financial jeopardy, and all these bastards can think about is scoring political points:
The one-vote defeat of an extension of unemployment benefits last week has sparked fear [...]

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WHO LET THE SAUDIS OUT?
That’s such an interesting question:
The Bush administration has refused to answer repeated requests from the Sept. 11 commission about who authorized flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden’s family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of 2001.
Former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), vice chairman of the [...]

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ON THE SCENE
Josh Marshall hears from a friend (former military intelligence) who’s working as a security contractor in Iraq:
About the Army - Man, it hurts my heart to write this about an institution I dearly love but this army is completely dysfunctional, angry and is near losing its honor. We are back to the Army [...]

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HOWLING
Counterbias asks the Daily Howler’s Bob Somerby eight questions:
Al Gore recently purchased a news channel. Will he give you a show (say, “The Education Of A Common Rube, With Bob Somerby”) or a regular spot somewhere?I have no idea what Al’s plans are for the station. I doubt that he would have any such thoughts. [...]

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THE ‘OWNERSHIP SOCIETY’ HAS BUYER’S REMORSE
How high does it go?
“Do you see a pattern?” asks Tauscher, who raised concerns last year about the administration’s top-down pressure to produce a certain kind of war intelligence. It was the same type of pressure that led Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who oversees the U.S. fighting force in Iraq, [...]

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WITHOUT A NET
These well-paid political scum are really masters of the small, unobtrusive rule changes that end up screwing the little guys:
Across the country, thousands of laid-off workers — many of them from smaller companies in thinly populated states — stand to lose job-retraining opportunities because of a little-noticed change in the way the government [...]

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CUTTING OFF THE SPIGOT
Finally:
The United States government has decided to halt monthly $335,000 payments to the Iraqi National Congress, the group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, an official with the group said on Monday.
Mr. Chalabi, a longtime exile leader and now a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, played a crucial role in persuading the administration [...]

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CUTTING OFF THE SPIGOT
Finally:
The United States government has decided to halt monthly $335,000 payments to the Iraqi National Congress, the group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, an official with the group said on Monday.
Mr. Chalabi, a longtime exile leader and now a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, played a crucial role in persuading the administration [...]

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CATCH 22
Krugman:
Before the war, officials refused to discuss costs, except to insist that they would be minimal. It was only after the shooting started, and Congress was in no position to balk, that the administration demanded $75 billion for the Iraq Freedom Fund.
Then, after declaring “mission accomplished” and pushing through a big tax cut — [...]

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How about this for a quid pro quo? The insurance industry made more than $41 million in campaign contributions in 2000, of which 65% went to Republicans. For this current election cycle, the insurance industry has made $16 million in campaign contributions, of which 68% has gone to Republicans.
And that might explain why [...]

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HOT HOT HOT
The New York Daily News has some hot gossip:
Could Bruce Springsteen be plotting to rain on the Republicans’ campaign parade?
Democratic operatives are buzzing that the Boss has been talking about staging a free concert somewhere on Sept. 2, when President Bush is due to address the Republican National Convention.
Besides getting out the vote, [...]

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HANDING IT OVER
Via Eric Alterman:
Last week, Yochi J. Dreazen and Christopher Cooper of the Wall Street Journal published a terrific article (subscription only) demonstrating that the June 30 deadline for the alleged hand-over of power to the Iraqis is essentially a hoax. The article, entitled “Behind the Scenes, U.S. Tightens Grip on Iraq’s Future; [...]

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