Breaking with the party line, Sen. John Warner is calling on Bush to start withdrawing the troops from Iraq by Christmas.
Yeah, whatever.

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This is as funny as a Monty Python sketch but it’s real. A FAKE Australian senator is interviewed about a massive oil spill from a tanker:
Australian Senator Discusses Oil Spill - Watch more free videos

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Not as if the rest of us couldn’t see it coming, but it’s always strange to hear them admit these things in public:
Calling the current credit crunch “one of the greatest panics I’ve ever seen in 55 years of financial services,” Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo said Thursday that the ongoing housing slump will likely [...]

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Boy, and I thought I hated nature:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 — The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams.
It has been used in Appalachian coal country [...]

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Juan Cole:
A rumor is circulating among well-connected and formerly high-level Iraqi bureaucrats in exile in places like Damascus that a military coup is being prepared for Iraq. I received the following from a reliable, knowledgeable contact. There is no certitude that this plan can or will be implemented. That it is being discussed at high [...]

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Wherever you are, Keith.
Keith Moon, one of rock’s greatest and most influential drummers:

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If it wasn’t for blogs, I swear I’d never know anything. Oh yeah, great big earthquake… remember?
Go over to Wampum and donate to UNICEF or Catholic Relief Services to help earthquake relief in Peru.

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I can’t help but wonder - does this…
WASHINGTON - The Iraqi government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months and its security forces have not improved enough to operate without outside help, intelligence analysts conclude in a new National Intelligence Estimate released Friday.
Despite uneven improvements, the analysts concluded that the level [...]

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Andrew Sullivan. Congrats!

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Toll Brothers, whose owner happens to be one of the owners of the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

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Do you live in California? Have you signed up yet?
SACRAMENTO, CA–(Marketwire - August 22, 2007) - Upon announcing their intentions of putting Al Gore on the California ballot for the state’s primary election, California Draft Gore has seen a surge of Gore volunteers and positive support for the statewide initiative which joins a national effort [...]

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Now, this is scary. Apparently it’s bad enough that Bush is actually considering letting a government program help people!
Now, as the era of easy money yields to a credit crunch, the Bush administration is considering broadening the FHA’s mandate to help borrowers avoid foreclosure. The administration is studying the possibility of allowing the FHA to [...]

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Time will tell if this is enough:
Bank of America Corp. threw home-loan colossus Countrywide Financial Corp. a $2-billion lifeline Wednesday in a vote of confidence that could stabilize the reeling mortgage company.
The deal came as cash-starved sub-prime mortgage lenders across Southern California announced more than 4,000 layoffs nationwide.
But we also have this:
It is a tale [...]

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This is the one big thing that bothers me about living in the city. I feel as though I’m constantly assaulted by noise, and yes, it does seem to have a physical effect:
Thousands of people in Britain and around the world are dying prematurely from heart disease triggered by long-term exposure to excessive noise, according [...]

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I talked a co-worker into coming along for Vietnamese food at lunchtime. She was wary. “How do I know what’s in it?” she said.
“It’s fine. You’ll really like it,” I said.
I was right. Most people really do like Vietnamese food (once you’ve had their spring rolls, it’s hard to go back to the Chinese version). [...]

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Mr. Sobell over at Television Without Pity, whose job is was to recap John from Cinncinnati each week, has this to say:
Well. Everyone gets the right to weigh in with their opinion about a show when it shuffles off stage right, so I suppose this ought to be my chance. There’s a tendency, I think, [...]

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Juan Cole explains how Ronald Reagan started the reign of terror. This is really, really good - and easy to understand.

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Brad’s gone:
Bradley Schlozman stepped down from his position as a counsel in the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, a branch of the Department of Justice, last week, a Justice spokesman confirmed Wednesday.
Schlozman, a key figure in several political controversies, is under investigation by the department’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility for allegations he [...]

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I really liked Emma Goldman and her blog, “War on Error,” which shut down a while ago. I used to have her email, but that was several hard drive failures ago. Emma, honey, are you out there? I was wondering how you were doing.

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Duncan:
About to lose your home? You may be able to tell your lender to piss off for a bit. You’ll still owe them money, but they’ll have to just get in line.

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In Australia, and of course we can count on that great public-health infrastructure we have here in America, right?
Right?

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Even though their own internal documents list the office as subject to FOIA, but you know how flexible rules are with these people:
(AP) WASHINGTON Opening a new front in the Bush administration’s battle to keep its records confidential, the Justice Department is contending that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the [...]

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This might explain that persistent 25% who think George Bush is doing a great job.

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Jimi Hendrix, “Are You Experienced?”

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You’ve got to admit, Republicans are good for the economy:
LOS ANGELES — Foreclosure filings rose 9 percent from June to July and surged 93 percent over the same period last year, with Ohio among the states that saw the heaviest foreclosure activity, a research firm said Tuesday.
[...] In all, 179,599 foreclosure filings were reported during [...]

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Ah, the return of the inimitable Roger Stone!
ALBANY, Aug. 21 — Lawyers representing Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s father, Bernard Spitzer, say a prominent political consultant who has been working for State Senate Republicans threatened the elder Mr. Spitzer this month in an anonymous, invective-laced phone message.
The allegations against the consultant, Roger J. Stone Jr., were laid [...]

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Those of us who have been paying attention to the signs aren’t as surprised as the “experts”:
WASHINGTON — Mortgage defaults were roiling the thrift industry even before the recent turmoil in the subprime-loan market, government data show.
Troubled assets — loans that were 90 days or more past due or had been repossessed — at federally [...]

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Professional TV toady Tucker Carlson harrumphs his way through an attack on the members of the 82nd Airborne who wrote that NY Times op-ed this Sunday:
Speaking with retired Col. Jack Jacobs, Carlson said he was “a little bit uncomfortable with” the op-ed because he says “weighing in on a political question such as this” may [...]

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Despite the clear evidence that the violence in Iraq is actually getting worse, the insanity goes on and on:
Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the [...]

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BAGHDAD — A helicopter went down in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing all 14 U.S. soldiers aboard, the military said, the deadliest crash since January 2005.
Things like this happen because Democratic manly men like Heath Shuler are more worried about their reelection than they are about ending this war.
Glenn Greenwald:
Since Democrats took over Congress in [...]

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