Transcript from last night:
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Glad to have you with us tonight.
Has controversial Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson finally gone too far or is he on to something?

Why, yes, Paula. He’s onto the only logical way to deal with our country’s problems: Keep killing anyone who doesn’t agree with [...]

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The New York Times newspaper might as well admit the so-called facts are flexible:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 23 - Some secular Iraqi leaders complained Tuesday that the country’s nearly finished constitution lays the groundwork for the possible domination of the country by Shiite Islamic clerics, and that it contains specific provisions that could sharply curtail the [...]

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I forgot to mention - my younger brother and his mate just bought a house in Tampa.
Which means I get to go to spring training next year! Yee haw!

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“God. What’s wrong with your voice?” Cos said when she called me from the road this morning.
“I was at Drinking Liberally last night in all that smoke,” I croaked.
“Boy. You sound the worst I’ve ever heard you,” she said.
“Yeah. And that was with me being outside half the night,” I said. “People think I’m just [...]

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Catch.com via Duncan (do click to see the art):
The Great Liberator on March 12, 2004 celebrating “global women’s human rights”:
PRESIDENT BUSH: I want to thank my friend, Dr. Raja Khuzai, who’s with us today. This is the third time we have met. The first time we met, she walked into the Oval Office — [...]

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Robert Scheer:
Miller is still in jail, refusing to talk, even though one of her purported sources, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, supposedly has signed a general waiver freeing journalists to speak to the grand jury about their conversations with him. But the biggest problem with Miller is that her [...]

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We had some visitors at Drinking Liberally last night - the amazing Roxanne and Anne Bartow from Sivacracy. Very cool folks, glad to meet them. Jim Capozzola came in, dragging a favorite reader of both our blogs, who’s visiting East Coast schools with her son. It’s always fun to see what the readers actually [...]

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Gary Hart has a great call to arms for the Democrats in today’s WashPo:
But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping [...]

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Following the NY Times model, WashPo’s David Ignatius raises the alarm about a Post reporter cited in the indictment of two AIPAC lobbyists (you know, the case I keep saying looks like it could be bigger than the Plame case?):
And that’s the essential point: We don’t have an Official Secrets Act in America that bars [...]

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MoDo:
Just as he took his beloved feather pillow on the road during his 2000 campaign, now he takes his beloved bike. An Air Force One steward tenderly unloaded W.’s $3,000 Trek Fuel mountain bike when they landed in Boise.
Gas is guzzling toward $3 a gallon. U.S. troop casualties in Iraq are at their highest levels [...]

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Well, there you go. If Bubble Boy says it’s true, it must be:
President Bush, in an appearance in Idaho on Tuesday, asserted that the Iraqi document guaranteed women’s rights and the freedom of religion in a country that in recent decades had only known dictatorship.
Labeling the Iraqi constitution an “amazing event,” he said, “We [...]

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Good:
Officials in New York and eight other Northeastern states have come to a preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their current levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, according to a confidential draft proposal.
The cooperative action, the first of its kind in the nation, came after the Bush administration decided [...]

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Yeah, and people will acclaim this as a solution - instead of the short-term fix it is:
WASHINGTON - Republicans next month may try to open new US offshore areas to oil and gas drilling in a move that would bring in billions of dollars in new revenue and let politicians claim progress in boosting domestic [...]

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Pacific Views:
Not content to destroy small businesses and devastate downtowns in the rural US, Wal-Mart is asking the feds to let it open a bank.
But there’s more: Not only does Wal-Mart want a bank, they want it to be exempt from the Community Reinvestment Act — the federal law that requires lenders to reinvest [...]

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Interesting. Arlen Specter apparently intends to make a point about Roe v. Wade:
Specter warned Roberts at the beginning of the month that he’d be questioned about the Supreme Court’s attitudes toward Congress. In Tuesday’s letter, Specter said he wants the nominee to talk to him about “manufactured rationales used by the Supreme Court to exercise [...]

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Talking Point Memo:
Yesterday I mentioned an intriguing angle to the Jack Abramoff-Tom DeLay relationship that hasn’t gotten very much attention. The House Ethics Committee is set to dig into the Abramoff-related allegations against DeLay this fall, and I’m curious to know how carefully the panel will explore the shadowy NaftaSib angle.
NaftaSib is a Russian oil [...]

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Via Political Wire:
Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) has formed a band with a few other members of Congress called the Second Amendments, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The band, with just one Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), plays covers of the Beatles, Eric Clapton and Chuck Berry.

Yeah? If Weldon’s musical taste is anything like his medical [...]

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Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher, spells it out:
It’s time for newspapers, many of which helped get us into this war, to consider using their editorial pages as platforms to help get us out of it. So far, few have done much more than wring their hands, or simply criticize the conduct of [...]

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For those of you who are as disturbed as I am about that Utah rave bust, here’s some contact info, courtesy of Queviva:
Gov. John Huntsman, Jr. (R) 801-538-1000
Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R) Fax: 202-228-1168
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R) Fax: 202-224-6331
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-1) Fax: 202-225-5857
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-2) Fax: 202-225-5638
Rep. Chris Cannon (R-3) Fax: 202-225-5629
Utah [...]

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As opposed to how strong we are now, he means:
DONNELLY, Idaho - President Bush charged Tuesday that anti-war protesters such as Cindy Sheehan, who want the troops brought home immediately, are “advocating a policy that would weaken the United States.”

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So far, nothing:
The Pentagon said yesterday that Defense Department investigators have found no evidence to support allegations by a GOP congressman and others that a secret program had identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta more than a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The findings by the Pentagon further challenge assertions by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) [...]

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I have a second interview for a very interesting job this afternoon. Here’s hoping.

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Don’t forget - Drinking Liberally tonight at Tangier, 18th & Lombard, 6 - 9 p.m. Prominent bloggers will autograph cocktail napkins for a small fee.

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Quietly scary:
Nearly every Monday for six months, as many as a dozen congressional aides — many of them aspiring politicians — have gathered over takeout dinners to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy debates about tax rates, foreign aid, education, cloning and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
Through seminars taught by conservative [...]

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Pen and Sword is a relatively new blog written by a retired Naval commander and it’s an informed, balanced look at the war and related issues. Do check it out and tell Jeff I sent you.
Plus, I really like the insider bits like this:
As an aside, naval aviators disliked that Carter had ended the practice [...]

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We’re only seeing the beginning of the hidden costs to come:
The wheels on the bus aren’t the only things going round and round.
The dials on the fuel pump are spinning, too, for school districts that face soaring costs just as 25 million children get back on the bus for a new school year.
Most buses use [...]

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James Wolcott comments on what neocon asshat Michael Ledeen posted to the National Circle Jerk Review Online after Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel compared Iraq to Vietnam:
“RE: HAGEL [Michael Ledeen]
Senator Hagel has certainly earned the Jimmy Carter Appeasement Award for 2005. As I’ve noted before, the man has never met a tyrant he didn’t want to [...]

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Billmon:
I have to say, of all the stories I’ve not been following closely this summer, the strange saga of Operation Able Danger (and Roger Wilco Over and Out) is probably the one I’m most glad I’ve not been following closely.
Curt Weldon is my congressman — for reasons known only to the voters of Delaware County, [...]

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Feeling safer yet?
About 33,000 Air Force personnel, almost all of them officers, have been exposed to potential identity theft after a security breach involving an online personnel system.
Personnel records in the Air Force’s Assignment Management System for about half of the service’s officer corps were accessed by an unidentified person, the Air Force said [...]

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I have to wonder if this is a dress rehearsal for martial law. Just take a look at this video of a SWAT team shutting down an outdoor rave in Utah last night - a rave for which they had all the necessary permits. Here’s an eyewitness account:
At about 11:30 or so, I was standing [...]

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