RUH-ROH
Australian radio broadcast (link here):
United States President George W. Bush has failed in his effort to get the Saudi Government to increase oil production in the near term.
In a meeting at his ranch in Crawford Texas the President sought the help of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to ease the pressure on the world price of [...]

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WHEW
I’ve been jumping around the blogosphere, and consensus is that Reid’s offer of a compromise on Bush’s judicial nominations was nothing more than a ploy to make the Republicans look even more extreme. (Which it did.)
Thank God. ‘Cause I’m really starting to like Harry, and I’d hate to be mad at him.

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NOBODY WANTS TO BE ON A LOSING TEAM
The more money they offer, the fewer take the bait:
For at least the third time in eight months, the U.S. Army again has raised enlistment bonuses to all-time highs in an attempt to reverse a national recruitment shortage, a strategy some are calling misplaced.
Pinkerton, 26, enlisted Friday [...]

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All hail, King Karl! 

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MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE TOUR 2005
Talk about a recipe for success:
CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush is adding a helper to his Social Security road tour: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is facing allegations of ethical improprieties but is seen by the White House as crucial to pushing Bush’s plans through Congress.
In Galveston, Texas, [...]

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RALLY
An announcement from Philly for Change:
Philadelphia Rally to Stop Judicial Takeover!
Wednesday, April 27, at noon
Green Federal Courthouse, on 6th Street, between Market and Arch
An emergency rally to stop the right-wing judicial takeover! With your help, we’ll be able send a clear message Wednesday to Senators Specter and Santorum. The rally will be located [...]

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Day dawns. 

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THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
I’m sorry, I can’t stop laughing:
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans without health insurance — one of the most watched and worrisome indicators of economic well-being — may be overstated by as much as 20%, according to research conducted for the government.
That could mean 9 million fewer uninsured, reducing the total to [...]

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LIARS
Oh yeah. Remember the alleged reason for this awful war?
U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday.
Although Syria helped Iraq evade U.N.-imposed sanctions by shipping military and [...]

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ETHICS ARE SO CLINTON ADMINISTRATION
As Cher would say, “If I could turn back time…”:
Members of Congress are rushing to amend their travel and campaign records, fearing that the controversy over House Majority Leader Tom DeLay will trigger an ethics war that will bring greater scrutiny to their own travel and official activities.
Some offices have sharply [...]

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JIMMY JEFF ON TOP
Although it’s not very lengthy, Jimmy Jeff Gannon’s White House adventures did at least merit an AP blurb.

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MORE GOOD CLEAN FUN
Oh, come on. A couple of harmless frat boy pranks - what’s the big deal?
A British resident has claimed he was tortured by US guards at Guantanamo Bay, suffering violent sexual assaults, near drowning and an attack in which he was blinded.
The Independent on Sunday has been given a detailed account from [...]

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RULE NO. 1: NONE OF THE RULES APPLY HERE
So you can see why we need John Bolton in the UN:
The UN’s top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced out under American pressure just days after he presented a report criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret [...]

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CH-CH-CHA-CHANGES
My dad wears these huge old-man glasses that take up most of his face, a la “The Sopranos” Uncle Junior.
Or should I say, used to.
He had cataract surgery last week and now he only wears glasses for reading. He’s been wearing those glasses so long, I thought they were part of his face.
Weird. I can’t [...]

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SULLIED
Oh dear, oh dear. From Will:
Now we know what the 1993 Phillies were really all about:
They were cheaters.
Frauds.
And liars.
The revelation that the keystone of that ‘93 squad — centerfielder Lenny Dykstra, the No. 2 votegetter for National League MVP — was juiced for that (NL) championship season is not a great shock. Indeed, it’s been [...]

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BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG
I tortured yet another member of the medical establishment last Friday when I finally went for my cardiology consult. The cardiologist (who really is a very nice man) was whining just a little about how you used to be able to make a quarter million in a year, how many loans [...]

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‘STRAIN AT A GNAT BUT SWALLOW A CAMEL’
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous [...]

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RANDOM NOTES
What’s up with these exploding toads?
It is like “a science fiction film”, according to Werner Smolnik of a nature protection society in the northern city of Hamburg, where the phenomenon of the exploding toad has been observed.
“You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding,” he said.
He said the [...]

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LOVES TO LOSE
You know, I’ve changed my mind. Joe Biden isn’t a whore, because he gives it away for free. He’s a slut:
Meanwhile Sunday, there were hints of a possible compromise. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, told ABC News’s “This Week”: “I think we should compromise and [...]

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WELCOME BACK
Hi, kids! Did you miss me?
I have to admit, there were days last week when it was oh so exceedingly difficult not to sit down and blog. But even the small amount of writing I’ve done this morning is already hurting my hands, so I’m going to take it slow for a while.
A big [...]

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IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES
Krugman:
According to John Snow, the Treasury secretary, the global economy is in a “sweet spot.” Conservative pundits close to the administration talk, without irony, about a “Bush boom.”
Yet two-thirds of Americans polled by Gallup say that the economy is “only fair” or “poor.” And only 33 percent of those polled [...]

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FIELD TRIP
We had a great time at Vietnam Palace the other night. It was nice to finally meet Chris from Rowhouse Logic, the oh-so-shy techie who is helping me plan my escape from Blogger. Guest blogger Maya from Genexhibitionist was there with her beau; among the other guests were a corporate librarian, a civil service [...]

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MORE TROOP SUPPORT
How do you tell people their son or daughter died because the money went to Halliburton instead?
Sergeant Valerio and others had to scrounge for metal scraps to strengthen the Humvees they inherited from the National Guard, which occupied Ramadi before the marines arrived. Among other problems, the armor the marines slapped together included [...]

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DON’T MIND US, WE’RE JUST THE WHORE OF BABYLON
My guess is, most Catholics are largely ignorant of what the wingnut evangelicals (or mainstream Baptists, for that matter) think about their church. From Media Matters:
Appearing on Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson defended anti-Catholic statements by a [...]

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NOBODY HERE BUT US RIGHT-WING CHRISTIANS
“Justice Sunday“:
At Highview, the made-for-TV event was part prayer rally and part civics lesson. It was designed to reach the conservative, Christian, Red-state base that the GOP relied on for victory in the November election.
Journalists from around the nation came to cover the event, but were warned, under threat of [...]

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LOVE FOR SALE
Jane over at firedoglake tells us little Ricky is whoring himself out - er, fighting hard to cut the taxes on beer, to the loss of $1.75 billion in federal revenue. There aren’t any beer manufacturers in Pennsylvania, so why?
As suds savior Rick would have us believe, the consequences of doubling the excise [...]

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DELAY MUST STAY
Jonathan Alter and I agree:
If DeLay goes down, his shamelessness will go with him, which will make it harder to see the GOP’s true agenda. Take the assault on federal judges. DeLay first asserted that they must “answer for their behavior” in the Schiavo case. His “apology” consisted of adding: “We set up [...]

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MORE CULTURE OF LIFE
Yet another story about John Bolton:
In the letter, Finney said she was an attorney-adviser in the General Counsel’s Office working on policies involving the UN Development Program when Bolton called her into his office in late 1982 or early 1983. She wrote that Bolton asked her to persuade delegates from other countries [...]

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HOW INCONVENIENT
And yet, they said they didn’t have a clue:
In 2000, amid rising concerns that its painkiller Vioxx posed heart risks, Merck overruled one of its own scientists after he suggested that a patient in a clinical trial had probably died of a heart attack.
In an e-mail exchange about Vioxx, the company’s most important [...]

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THE OWNERSHIP SOCIETY
BushCo would like you to be responsible for funding your own job:
The Bureau of Reclamation scrapped a new performance evaluation standard for certain scientists this week, days after a watchdog group said the policy compromised ethical standards.
The unusual sequence of events, which unfolded over 48 hours, illustrated the difficulty of translating the government’s [...]

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