This sounds so reasonable but it’s such horseshit:
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania school district violated the free-speech rights of a parent who was prevented from reading the Bible to her son’s kindergarten class, an attorney for the woman said on Monday.
The parent, Donna Busch, has filed a lawsuit against the Marple Newtown School District near [...]

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Hey, whatever happened to “You lost, get over it“?
WENATCHEE, Wash., May 23 - Republican lawyers insisted on Monday that the election that put Christine Gregoire in the governor’s office in January was stolen from the Republican candidate and riddled with error and fraud, as a highly anticipated trial began here.
Lawyers for the state’s Democratic [...]

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From the New York Times series on class:
It is not just that the American economy has shed six million manufacturing jobs over the last three decades; it is that the market value of those put out of work, people like Jeff Martinelli, has declined considerably over their lifetimes, opening a gap that has left millions [...]

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Don’t be silly - why would they tell anyone? It would only decrease shareholder value, after all:
A medical device maker, the Guidant Corporation, did not tell doctors or patients for three years that a unit implanted in an estimated 24,000 people that is designed to shock a faltering heart contains a flaw that has caused [...]

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There’s a Zen parable about a farmer whose wife gives birth to a healthy baby boy. “How lucky you are!” the villagers exclaim. “You’ll have a strong son to help you work the farm.”
The farmer shrugs. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
The son grows and helps his father. One day, he runs over his own foot with [...]

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Isn’t this special? I was wondering when they’d get around to hitting my bank:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - More than 100,000 customers of Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp. have been notified that their financial records may have been stolen by bank employees and sold to collection agencies.
So far, Bank of America has alerted about [...]

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We’re supposed to be thrilled to allow votes on these three clowns? I’ve has a long, exhausting day and maybe I’m too tired to understand why this is a good thing:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Averting a showdown, centrists from both parties reached agreement Monday night on a compromise that clears the way for confirmation votes [...]

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Oh, shut the fuck up:
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama congressman says comedian Bill Maher’s comment that the U.S. military has already recruited all the “low-lying fruit” is possibly treasonous and at least grounds to cancel the HBO show.
Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus takes issue with remarks on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” first aired May [...]

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So Michael Moore was a liar?
Since September 11th, 2001, there has been intense speculation regarding Bush administration negotiations with the Taliban regarding this very project prior to the attacks. American petroleum giant Unocal very much wanted this project for years, but it was stymied in 1998 after bin Laden blew up two American embassies in [...]

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I keep telling you this is all showbiz:
The development of a permanent successor to Dan Rather on the “CBS Evening News” has been shrouded in secrecy, but a meeting last Tuesday at the headquarters of the network’s parent company, Viacom, suggests that CBS is canvassing opinions from people well outside the news division.
One of the [...]

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Dwight points out why it’s a bad idea to use these judicial nominees to measure “extraordinary circumstances”:
I can conceive of no set of circumstances in which I would favor a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench for Janice Rogers Brown. As I have noted before, Justice Brown does not believe that the Bill of Rights [...]

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Let them drink bottled water:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is projected to run out of surplus nonfat milk powder later this year, which is a good sign for dairy farmers but will cut into food aid programs for the poor.
***
As a result, the Agriculture Department estimates that 45,000 older people will be cut off [...]

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Oh, come on. Why is everyone always picking on Big Pharma?
May 23 (ABC7) — A company that makes silicone breast implants is facing allegations that it tried to cover up a defective product.
The allegations are contained in a lawsuit a woman filed against the Mentor Corporation. She claims her implants caused health problems.
The [...]

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There’s a very simple way to fix this. Businesses should train their own employees to do the work:
SAN FRANCISCO — The number of undergraduates signing up for computer degrees is falling fast, making IBM and other tech companies worry that there soon won’t be enough skilled U.S. workers to meet demand.
New enrollment in North American [...]

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Just use and throw away:
Three years ago, President Bush offered accelerated citizenship to any green card holder who has served in the military since Sept. 11, 2001.
Instead, the bereaved father tells would-be recruits, they could wind up like Marine Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez, killed at age 20 after he stepped on an unexploded cluster [...]

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Krugman:
After November’s election, the victors claimed a mandate to unravel the welfare state. But the national election was about who would best defend us from gay married terrorists. At the state level, where elections were fought on bread-and-butter issues, voters sent a message that they wanted a stronger, not weaker, social safety net.
I’m not just [...]

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Adam Nagourney’s version of Howard Dean on Meet the Press:
He offered bruising attacks on Mr. DeLay, President Bush and Rush Limbaugh, among others, and freely expressed his opinion on almost every issue he was questioned about. “I’m proudly willing to say anything,” Dr. Dean said as he sidestepped a question about whom he viewed [...]

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Four years to get $100,ooo? Taco Bell spends that on one ad run. They should be ashamed:
The celebration marked a hard-fought, unlikely victory by the workers, a coalition of mostly Guatemalan and Mexican tomato pickers, over one of the nation’s fast-food giants, Taco Bell.
They led a four-year boycott against the chain until it agreed in [...]

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You don’t think they’d suppress bad news about something on which they’ve staked their profits, do you?
Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.
The Independent on Sunday can today reveal details [...]

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One of the commenters is all pissed at Howard, saying he lied about the internet survey to Tubby Tim, flubbed the answer to a comment about Clinton’ s judicial nominees and generally done us wrong.
Here’s my reply:
You don’t get it. Because all I want Dean to do is what the Republicans have done so successfully: [...]

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Michael Bérubé just had an emergency appendectomy on Thursday and apparently it was a little scary. Send good thoughts to Michael and his family…

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Howard Dean’s on Press the Meat with Tubby Tim. He just smacked him down after Tubby threw up a Pew survey saying that Dean supporters were more secular and liberal than most Democrats.
Howard said the methodology was in question, because it was an internet survey. And then he started swinging: “I’m a committed Christian, and [...]

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Priscilla Owens was just rated “poor” by the Houston Bar Association by almost half of the respondents. She had the lowest rating on the Texas Supreme Court of any justice.
Yoo hoo, L.A. Times?

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You don’t have to have actually watched the achingly bad “Revelations” (thank God! Or Satan, or whoever produced the thing…) to enjoy World O’Crap’s brilliant summation:
As you may recall, Haden, the head Satanist, is a reptilian demon creature who can only be killed by the Magic Steak Knife of Doom that Bill found in a [...]

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The man who murdered my friend Yvonne last year has pleaded guilty, The news story included some details I hadn’t known, like this:
Ncula said he did not know what had happened because he had been overcome by anger.
After he had stabbed Welman, she turned around and looked at him. He then pushed her hard and [...]

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Author and doctor Robin Cook says the mapping of the human genome presents a very compelling reason for national health insurance:
As a doctor I have always been against health insurance except for catastrophic care and for the very poor. It has been my experience that the doctor-patient relationship is the most personal and rewarding for [...]

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Geeze, here I go ranting about the press sleeping through the right-wing coup, and Will already has this pointed deconstruction of the New York Times Magazine love letter to Rick Santorum.
From the article:
Santorum’s energy, intelligence and self-confidence — he is a man of convictions, not doubts — all serve to enhance his power. His leadership [...]

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Have you adopted your embryo yet? Via Echidne, we learn the federal government is actually inviting grant applications for this purpose.
I read this and thought, how about this? Before we start bombing Iran, what if we all start adopting Iranian infants and toddlers - you know, the ones we’re going to kill?
These people are plain [...]

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Isn’t this great? It doesn’t even work, and they’ll approve it anyway:
The Food and Drug Administration may soon approve a medical device that would be the first new treatment option for severely depressed patients in a generation, despite the misgivings of many experts who say there is little evidence that it works.
The pacemaker-like device, [...]

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