WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: “Just My Luck,” Kim Richey,
I got tired of losing So I covered my tracksI left love behind meIt was a thing of the pastAnd I got back on my feet again With something new in my strideWell I was just [...]

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Body & Soul via Slacktivist.

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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
I’ve been nominated in another Koufax category - Best Post, Part 3 for “A Dog Chasing A Car.” I guess you know the voting drill by now?
If you haven’t read the post, well, I hate to say I told you so, but I was right.
UPDATE: Doh! I forgot to include the link [...]

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Major news - Gonzales is added to war crimes complaint:
CCR filed new documents on January 31, 2005, with the German Federal Prosecutor looking into war crimes charges against high-ranking U.S. officials including Donald Rumsfeld: one includes new evidence that the Fay investigation into Abu Ghraib protected Administration officials – it is a comprehensive and shocking [...]

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MONDAY SICK BAY UPDATE
I was up at 4 a.m. and out of the house by 6:30 this morning to get some blood work done, the kind where you have to fast for 12 hours first.
When I got there, they told me my appointment isn’t until tomorrow. Arghhh… I’m so tired, I can barely keep my [...]

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SAME AS THE OLD BOSS
Ah Jesus, here we go again:
What that “Pentagon-led group” (shorthand for Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle and Wolfowitz) appears to be imposing is their version of a Tammany-style patronage clubhouse, fronted by the U.S. military. For years now, the neocons have wanted to replace the Baathists with the Iraqi National Congress and their [...]

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SO IT WAS REALLY ONLY A PRETEND ELECTION, JUST LIKE OURS
Duncan:
Last night’s little quote from The Queen of All Iraq wasn’t just about the usual Miller-bashing, it was actually a bombshell revelation. Here we have a New York Times reporter going on the record saying that according to a source, the Bush administration was in [...]

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PUTTING THE BRAKES ON
Why do they hate the free market in Florida?
TALLAHASSEE — Rocked by scandals and shoddy results, Gov. Jeb Bush’s drive to turn over many state services and millions of taxpayer dollars to private companies appears certain to be slowed by the state’s newly minted Republican leaders.
House Speaker Allan Bense of Panama City [...]

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WHAT’S FOR LUNCH TODAY

It’s a Philadelphia thing, you wouldn’t understand.

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STEER, DAMMIT
People keep asking, “But what can I do?” Here’s what: call your state Democratic committee members and tell them you support Howard Dean as DNC chairman. TODAY. Now.
Dean is so clearly the right choice at the right time. Do this small bit to put the Democratic Party back on the right track - because [...]

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WHAT I HEARD ABOUT IRAQ
Powerful:
I heard that the Pentagon was now exploring what it called the ‘Salvador option’, modelled on the death squads in El Salvador in the 1980s, when John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras and when Elliott Abrams, now White House adviser on the Middle East, called the massacre at El Mozote ‘nothing [...]

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GUANTANAMO BAY TRIBUNALS RULED ILLEGAL
Breaking news:
Washington Post (1/31/2005)–A federal judge ruled this morning that special military tribunals the Pentagon has used to determine the likely guilt of most of the 500 men held at a prison in Guantanamo Bay — and to justify their continued imprisonment — are illegal.
U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green. [...]

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BRAVE NEW WORLD
The shredding of the safety net continues:
WASHINGTON — Emboldened by their success at the polls, the Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress believe they have a new opportunity to move the nation away from the system of employer-provided health insurance that has covered most working Americans for the last half-century.
In its place, [...]

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AN APPLE A DAY
Good piece in today’s Salon on Apple’s resurgence. Useful insights from Any Hertzfeld, one of the original Mac design team:
The problem with the modern personal computing environment is that, in some fundamental sense, it’s a broken business. “There’s a poison in the computer industry,” Hertzfeld says, “and that is the fact that [...]

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UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
I don’t know if you’ve been following this, but a new book alleges Sirhan Sirhan was hypnotized into shooting Bobby Kennedy - and that Ari Onassis was behind it.

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William Raspberry:
I’ve been talking to Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University law professor who is thoughtful, liberal, incredibly decent — and alarmed over the national budget President Bush will shortly propose.
“For virtually all of my adulthood,” he said, “America has had a bipartisan agreement that we ought to provide some basic framework of programs and [...]

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OY
Is alert and wasted really a good combination?
America’s largest brewing company, Anheuser-Busch, released its latest product last week — a beer that contains caffeine.
Obviously, this is a monumental cultural milestone and it raises important questions that we as a society must answer. For instance: Is adding America’s favorite stimulant to America’s favorite alcoholic beverage [...]

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CONTRADICTION
It’s not available online, but the new Vanity Fair features interviews with many Iraqis who were arrested and tortured after we caught “a few bad apples.” (And, of course, after we said those things wouldn’t go on anymore.)
One of the interview subjects is the man thought to be the person in that famous photograph with [...]

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EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
It’s as if we’re living in an alternate universe and we can’t get out:
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote:Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3– United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in [...]

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I’m not sure how I missed this, but Liberal Oasis didn’t
:But Senate Democratic leaders did not attempt to rally their ranks to vote against Rice.
Instead, the Democratic leadership was reserving its political capital for a stand against…Alberto R. Gonzales.
“Frankly, there is much more angst over Gonzales, and there comes a practical choice: Having been (branded) [...]

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RUNNING GOVERNMENT LIKE A BUSINESS
Liberal Oasis has a good piece on the imminent gutting of the civil service:
In 2002, the much-derided Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle led the Dems, standing for good government and union rights, refusing to rubber-stamp Bush’s proposal, trying to pass a decent bill.
While Bush gave veto threats and the GOP filibustered, [...]

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SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL HIGHWAYS
From Scamboogah!:
Like most of you (fuck, I hope all of you), my first reaction was that this sign located just outside of Salem, Oregon was just fucking awful, but then I thought of trying to find a solution. Fuck fighting them in court, any victory against them would just be a victory [...]

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MATH IS FUN
Although I am a big fan of numbers, I don’t do math. But if I did, I’d probably enjoy this.

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SUNDAY SICK BAY
The lung noises are minimal now but I get quite winded if I bend over to pick something up, or have to carry anything (i.e. bag of stinky trash downstairs to the dumpster).
Which sort of puts a damper on my plan to go to the laundramat today. Oh well. Maybe I’ll feel better [...]

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HOME-GROWN FASCISM
Robert Kennedy is only one of many mainstream figures who are starting to use the “F” word:
This week Kennedy declares war on this new “enemy within” — the term his father applied to the Mafia lords who were subverting American politics, business and labor — with a passionate, sweeping indictment of the Bush-sanctioned rape [...]

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SUNDAY SHOWS: A PRIMER
Occasionally a reader wants to know why I don’t write about the Sunday talking heads.
Well, I don’t watch ‘em. (I will occasionally watch an exceptional clip over and Crooks & Liars, but I don’t otherwise.) I finally realized these shows aren’t for viewers - they’re for the same circle jerk of [...]

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THOSE WHO CAN, DO
From President Unwarranted Self-Esteem, the proud papa of two drunken sluts:
Regarding the Florida [gay adoption] law, the president responded, “I don’t know this particular case.”
He continued by focusing on the “ideal in society” of children being raised by a man and a woman. “And I believe children can receive love from gay [...]

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HISTORIC DAY FOR IRAQIS
Christopher Albritton, live from the Iraqi elections:
The polling stations were housed in schools, by and large, and several rooms were taken over for the balloting. In each, the cardboard screens were held together with red tape, and then the ballot was dropped in those plastic bins you see on television. The ones [...]

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WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: “It Hasn’t Happened Yet,” Roseanne Cash, “Retrospective” (music & lyrics, John Hiatt):
You said that I would be sorry if you went awayYou said I wouldn’t be happy without hell to payYou said the teardrops would fallBetween the bedroom wallsYou said that I would regretWell it hasn’t happened yet
Your friends come [...]

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