No more steak for me:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Tests have confirmed mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy; BSE) in a US cow previously cleared of having the brain wasting illness, the Agriculture Department said Friday. It is the second case of BSE in the United States.
An internationally recognized laboratory in Weybridge, England, confirmed the case of [...]

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It’s just not all that unusual these days, is it?
President Bush has nominated as chief of enforcement for the Environmental Protection Agency a partner in a law firm defending W.R. Grace & Co. against criminal charges in a major environmental case. EPA employees were told late Thursday that Bush had nominated Granta Nakayama to lead [...]

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I don’t know if I’ve been in such a good mood because my luck is turning, or my luck is turning because I’m in such a good mood. Anyway, last night a friend and I were out to dinner and when we returned to my car, I discovered (to my chagrin - I always wanted [...]

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Here’s the statue of Billy Penn in Penn Treaty Park. Notice anything, you filthy pervs?

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Something like justice:
An Italian judge ordered the arrests of 13 people in the purported CIA abduction of an imam, who then was sent to Egypt, the Milan prosecutor’s office said Friday. An Italian official said earlier the 13 were CIA officers involved in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.
The 13 are suspected of seizing Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, [...]

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Right now, I’m posting from work. There’s something really screwy with my home computer (mouse not working, windows opening and closing by themselves, etc. - yes, I already ran virus and spyware scans) and my Tech Sensei can’t confer with me until tomorrow.
So if I simply disappear until then, I wasn’t taken into custody. [...]

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I suppose we hurt their feelings:
WASHINGTON — A White House official said Friday the administration finds it “somewhat puzzling” that Democrats are demanding presidential adviser Karl Rove’s (search) apology or resignation for implying that liberals are soft on terrorism.
“I think Karl was very specific, very accurate, in who he was pointing out,” communications director [...]

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Man, E&P just keeps cranking ‘em out:
Yesterday, after a week of serious criticism, and mockery, for claiming that the insurgency in Iraq was in its “last throes,� Cheney refused to back down, even after Gen. John Abizaid, our top military commander for the Middle East, proclaimed that the insurgency, in fact, was as strong as [...]

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Rumblings…
SAN FRANCISCO - California has a housing bubble, but it may not pop with a bang, UCLA researchers said in a quarterly economic forecast.
“There is no reason that a house should be worth 40 percent more today than it was two years ago,� UCLA Anderson Forecast economist Christopher Thornberg wrote in a report. “This is [...]

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Krugman:
On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its “last throes,” says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who [...]

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If you’re okay with this, you’re just not thinking:
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department yesterday began working with a private marketing firm to create a database of all U.S. college students as well as high-school students between ages 16 and 18, to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment.
The program [...]

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The House voted to restore funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but it ain’t over yet:
But Elmo and Big Bird remain at risk. The House did not restore all of the public broadcasting funding cuts proposed for 2006. Although yesterday’s amendment — sponsored by Reps. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) and [...]

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Let’s see: Who has the better track record on this WMD stuff? Why, that would be Scott Ritter, wouldn’t it?
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Thursday it would take many years for Iran to achieve the capability to produce highly enriched uranium needed for an atomic bomb.
Blix also dismissed worries [...]

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Where’s the money
Why you never, ever give me some?
- Dan Hick & His Hot Licks, “Where’s the Money”
If they keep “supporting the troops” like this, no one will ever want to join the military again:
The Bush administration, already accused by veterans groups of seeking inadequate funds for health care next year, acknowledged yesterday that [...]

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con·tra·dict (kÅ?n’tra-dÄ­kt’)
v.tr.
To assert or express the opposite of (a statement).
To deny the statement of. See synonyms at deny.
To be contrary to; be inconsistent with.
v.intr.
To utter a contradictory statement.
Would it be too much to ask that Paper of Record acknowledge that Abazaid didn’t “seem” to contradict statements, he actually did contradict Cheney?
Why so timid, boys? [...]

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See, now, this isn’t anything like what Dr. Mengele did. Nope. Because - uh, give me a minute here - oh yeah, because our doctors never actually laid hands on the inmates to torture them.
They only directed it. So that’s okay. We’re Americans, we have standards. I’m sure they’re around here somewhere…

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Billmon:
In other words, nearly 60% of the American people are now willing to say, flat out, that they oppose the war in Iraq. That’s a remarkable statement. I’m not sure 60% ever opposed the war in Vietnam, even after it had been lost. You don’t turn those kind of numbers around with PR spin — [...]

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Howard Dean:
“Once again, Karl Rove is going back to the most reliable of his cynical political attacks: dividing the country over the war on terror. Americans deserve more than this kind of outrageous cheap trick.
Unfortunately, given the miserable failures of Bush’s foreign policy, its no wonder Rove would launch this desperate attempt to deflect [...]

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I could try to explain this, but why? We already know they’re evil, amoral bastards.
Me? I’m a proud member of the 57% who proudly tells BushCo “Fuck you and your stinking war.”

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I had an absolutely wonderful day at the ballpark and then drinks at Johnny Brenda’s after. God, I love this city.

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This is my ninth sick day this semester. It’s getting pretty tough coming up with new illnesses. If I go for 10, I’m probably gonna have to barf up a lung. So I better make this one count. - Ferris Bueller
I’m taking a Bueller this afternoon (cough cough) and going to see the Phillies [...]

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Here’s my standard retort to those who would codify flag worship:
James H. Warner, letter to Washington Post, 11 July 1989
As I stepped out of the aircraft [after being released from captivity in Vietnam], I looked up and saw the flag. I caught my breath, then, as tears filled my eyes, I saluted it. I never [...]

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Patrick Doherty on the housing bubble:
What is confusing, however, is just when the housing bubble will actually burst. Greenspan’s Federal Reserve has tried gradual pin pricks but interest rates have stayed both stable and low. Most analysts agree that this is in large part due to the persistent foreign demand for American debt, led by [...]

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Bob Herbert:
Whatever term is used, the governor’s continued pursuit of Mr. Schiavo in the absence of any evidence that he has done anything wrong is a clear example of government power being used as a club to punish someone for political reasons. The unwarranted harassment of an ordinary citizen by the most powerful political [...]

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Shorter David Brooks: The glass is half-full.

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How convenient:
A Pentagon inquiry’s finding of no overt religious discrimination at the Air Force Academy strains credibility, considering the academy superintendent has already acknowledged it will take years to undo the damage from evangelical zealots on campus. Indeed, amid its thicket of bureaucratese, the report by an Air Force investigative panel goes on for page [...]

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Howard summarizes the Ohio voting study:
But Dr. Dean said the volume of problems reported by blacks and young people suggested that Republicans had tried to suppress the vote in heavily Democratic districts. The report called on state legislatures to enact rules that would improve voting; for example, by issuing clear standards for allocating voting machines, [...]

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The latest on the Abramoff case:
The testimony showed in much more detail how closely Mr. Abramoff worked with Mr. Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, who received some money from tribes that participate in casino gambling to run a campaign to shut down rival casinos. Mr. Reed, now a candidate for lieutenant governor [...]

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They have to be trained to be extremist Republicans because thinking is so hard to suppress:
Muench, like eighty-five per cent of the students at Patrick Henry, was homeschooled, in her case in rural Idaho. Homeschoolers are not the most obvious raw material for a college whose main mission, since its founding, five years ago, has [...]

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I love me some obstructionist Democrats:
The senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee has warned the Pentagon that he may block the nomination of a new defense policy chief unless documents involving the departing policy head — Douglas J. Feith — are turned over for review.
The action by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) threatens [...]

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