Is Anyone Suprised

Bush Drove Drunk, Gonzales helped to hide that fact.

Questions about Gonzales's willingness to shade the truth on Bush's behalf came to prominence in the 1996 episode in which Bush was excused from Texas jury duty in a drunken-driving case. Bush was then the state's governor, and Gonzales was his general counsel. If Bush had served, he probably would have had to disclose his own drunken-driving conviction in Maine two decades earlier.

His willingness to do almost anything to cover-up Bush's acts makes is stream of lies told to congress even more disturbing.

I Thought Lying To Congress Was A Crime

Bust based on the actions of our Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, it must now be an accepted behavior.

he tripped himself up repeatedly during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee -- quite possibly entering perjury territory.

At lease a few Senators are unhappy with his lying

Bill Kristol, A Dishonest Repubican Gasbag

I know, it is nothing new, but the last few days have presented him as shining example of what is wrong with our current class of talking heads.

Of late he has been busy trying to redefine the activist left, and attacking one of the founders of Daily Kos for a comment made 3 years ago.

This from a man who as said some of the dumbest and more disgusting things that any self professed respectable pundit has ever uttered.

About Abu Ghraib
“It is insane for this country to be obsessing … about a small prisoner abuse scandal,”

Yes, gross violations of international law (some still not publicly disclosed), done in the name of the US should just be ignored.


When Sen. Reid expressed the view that the war in Iraq was lost (a view that is quite rational and supported by many in the officer corp), Bill said;

“is much more disgraceful than anything Trent Lott said”

So it is better to look back fondly on segregation and racial oppression than it is to consider one of the possible (and in this case most likely) outcomes of warfare.

On Sen. Barack Obama, he was describes a:
“sort of the opposite of Lincoln. He would have been with Stephen Douglas in 1858″

Sure, I can see how he could think that Barak Obama would be big supporter of slave holders.

Yet, this man who has said so many stupid, offensive and just wrong things, is pretending to be mad because someone was not that upset that mercenaries ( you know, people who get paid great deals of money to do life threatening work in a war zone, up to and including combat ) were killed in a war zone.

It is amazing that people this dishonest, this stupid, are still given airtime by our news media.

Just for a laugh here is a look at some of the other wonderful pearls of wisdom that Billy has shared can be found in the Washington Post

I Am Still Not Much Of A Hand Raiser

Your Score: Hand-Raiser

You are 85% Rational, 57% Extroverted, 14% Brutal, and 42% Arrogant.

You are the Hand-Raiser, that annoying kid in class who always had an answer for everything. No doubt, as a child you probably sat in the front of the class, anxiously waving your hand back and forth in the air while your teacher desperately tried to avoid calling on you because you were the ONLY fucking kid that answered her questions. Clearly, the key traits of your personality are your rationality and your extroversion. You are like a little talkative calculator, in other words. You also tend to be rather gentle and less arrogant than most people. Your presence is a bane to everyone's existence, because you are too nice for your own good and you absolutely will not shut up. So what is your defect, then? Well, you're boring, and when you're not boring, you are just plain annoying with your ultra-logical responses and constant need to talk to others. So keep waving that hand in the air, son. I'm still not calling on you. You are too logical, you talk too much, and your humility and gentleness only makes me hate you more, because they make me feel like I almost SHOULDN'T hate you. But I do. Big time. And by the way, the more you wave your hand in class--your extended hand becoming nothing more than a blur as you insanely wave it, thinking we can't see it--the more smug satisfaction the teacher takes in watching the look of excrutiating pain cross your face as you agonize over not being called on, and the longer we'll wait to call on you, just because we absolutely love torturing you so.

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more EXTROVERTED than introverted.

3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.

4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Brute.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Braggart, the Haughty Intellectual, and the Robot.

*

*

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

About Saint_Gasoline

I am a self-proclaimed pseudo-intellectual who loves dashes. I enjoy science, philosophy, and fart jokes and water balloons, not necessarily in that order. I spend 95% of my time online, and the other 5% of my time in the bathroom, longing to get back on the computer. If, God forbid, you somehow find me amusing instead of crass and annoying, be sure to check out my blog and my webcomic at SaintGasoline.com.

Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

American Media, Clueless

In the Senate there was an effort to force a vote on establishing a time table for troop withdrawal from Iraq. The Democrats wanted this, and the Republicans did not. Democrats had enough votes to win, but the Republicans were filibustering it to block the vote.

So how does the St. Louis paper report this?

"Filibuster Fails to Force Iraq Vote."

To many of the media are just dumb and lazy. So a quick note for the Paper's editors.

It was the Republicans who were filibustering to block the Iraqi vote.

And, yes there is great irony is seeing all the Republicans who moaned, whined and cried for 5 years about how cruel the Democrats were for blocking up or down votes, now proudly blocking up or down votes

Haircuts, Makeup, and Media Reaction

John Edwards got a lot of less than favorable media attention when it was noticed that his presidential committee paid for what many consider grossly overpriced haircuts.

It makes me wonder how much notice will be paid to Mitt Romney's presidential committee paying at least $300.00 for beauty tips and services.

Mr Romney listed the fees as “communications consulting” to a California company that describes itself as “a mobile beauty team for hair, makeup and men’s grooming and spa services.”

I say at least $300.00 because it is clear that someone on his staff tried to hide the expense by using a creative line item to shield it from notice. One is left to wonder what other consultants and services may be lurking behind other bland titles on his expense reports.

You are also left to wonder if Mitt will get the same level of outraged and snickering reporting that John Edwards got from the US media.

Who Knows

Your Personality is Very Rare (ENTP)

Your personality type is optimistic, curious, enthusiastic, and open. Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 3% of all women and 5% of all men. You are Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

A New Link On The Roll

Say hello to

Demokat

Impeachment

One unintended consequence of the commuting of Scooter Libby's jail sentence seems to be a massive uptick in the willingness of mainstream media outlets to talk about impeachment.

It has been a topic on the left for at least three years now, but studiously avoided by the overwhelming majority of conventional news outlets.

For some, impeachment has been the goal since they got their first whiff of some of the questionable behavior of the Bush administration. I was not in that camp. Now the call is gathering up steam, but I still can not yet call for impeachment.

For me, Impeachment should be the result of the process, not the goal of it. Our members of congress owe us good oversight of the administration. One of their most important jobs is to assure that the government is working within the laws of the land and is being honest with the people they have been elected to represent. As part of this process there should be hearings and investigations.

Only when these events present us clear indications of wrong doing, is it time to call for corrective and punitive measures.

In my opinion we are not there. But, I hold little doubt that in time we will be faced with enough evidence that Impeachment is an option that must be considered. For the time being I just wish that we could keep the horse in front of the cart, and do the job of looking into the actions of the Bush Administration, not with the goal of Impeachment, but with the goal of finding the truth.

And just see where that road leads us.

Heck, based on the way the White House is responding to the investigations, their efforts at obstruction of justice alone may warrant Impeachment.

Disgusted

But in no way surprised.

Bush lets one of his convicted evil minions go free.

It is one heck of a great system we have here: Break any law you want, obstruction investigations, lie to those investigating, and once your are brought to trial and become aconvicted felon, get released by the man who was in charge during the whole process.

It makes one wonder why the Bush administration is refusing to answer congressional subpoenas, since it is clear that Bush is willing to pardon criminal wrongdoing done in his name.

And there appears to have been a great deal of criminal wrongdoing in his name

Firedoglake covers this very well

Amature Hour In The UK

While the US (and no doubt the UK) media are now in a full feeding frenzy, it should be clear to everyone that the 'terror attacks' in London and Glasgow were highly amateurish.

For starters, gasoline is not a high explosive. If we were talking 50 pounds of Semtex or the Al Qaeda standby, TATP, I would be impressed. Those are real high explosives with a detonation rate in excess of 20,000 feet per second. Gasoline can explode (just ask former owners of a Ford Pinto) but it is first and foremost an incendiary. If the initial reports are true, the clown driving the Mercedes was a rank amateur when it comes to constructing an Improvised Explosive Device aka IED. Unlike a Hollywood flick the 50 gallons of gas would not have shredded the Mercedes into lethal chunks of flying shrapenal.

The fact that "officers courageously disabled the trigger by hand" coupled with the report of the smoke in the car leads me to believe that the mad London "bomber" tried to construct a Molotov cocktail of sorts and lit a cloth fuze. Fortunately he left the windows in the car up and there was not enough oxygen to really get the fire going. Looks like the brave British police reached in and snuffed the flame.

Judging from the overreaction to this non-incident I think we can safely conclude that Osama Bin Laden will remain holed up in Pakistan and let the fear mongers at CNN, MSNBC, and FOX do the dirty business of scaring the shit out of people.

While they had the potential to some light damage, it is clear that raw anger and desperation, not professional calculation and terrorist training fueled these attempts at terror.

It should also be clear that these attacks are not being driven so much by the ideology of Bin Laden and radical Islam, but anger at the ideology of Tony Blair (and George Bush). Their incredible stupid and fouled up attempts at reducing terror has only grown it, both abroad, and at home.

My only real concern about these type of terrorist (and calling them terrorist is an insult to terrorist {if you can insult a terrorist}) is one day, a group like these idiots in Scotland, or the foolish saps who dreamed of attacking Ft. Dix, or the lost souls who formed their own religion and army in Miami (or the JFK crew), may get 'lucky' and do damage far beyond what they are actually capable of.

1 Mild Dirty Word, and

Mingle² - Online Dating

Abject Failure, Again

The current administration, and our leaders in the Pentagon, have again been proven to be total failures.

BAQOUBA, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. commander of a new offensive north of Baghdad, reclaiming insurgent territory day by day, said Sunday his Iraqi partners may be too weak to hold onto the gains.

The Iraqi military does not even have enough ammunition, said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek: "They're not quite up to the job yet."

His counterpart south of Baghdad seemed to agree, saying U.S. troops are too few to garrison the districts newly rid of insurgents. "It can't be coalition (U.S.) forces. We have what we have. There's got to be more Iraqi security forces," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.

If the Iraqi army is unable to hold the territory, and we lack the manpower to hold the territory, why are we bothering with this farce of an escalation?

Are our Political leaders so stupid that they do not understand that this is a huge waste? of course they are this stupid, this is George Bush and his cohorts we are talking about.

Are our military leaders now so spineless they lack the courage to tell the politicians in DC the results of their idiocy? It appears that they are.

What is the result of this latest display of criminal stupidity, and craven fear?

At least 12 soldiers were killed on Saturday from roadside bombings and other causes, leaving at least 31 dead for the week.

Reflection On Past Decisions, And Iraq Today

Almost 30 years ago, a nation in the middle east (OK, South Asia) was in in disarray, suffering from internal divisions, political murders, coups, and open warfare. A Superpower saw this as an opportunity, and Russia sent 80,000 men into the country to 'stabilize' it and to tie it securely into it's sphere of influence.

The locals were not amused, and the unrest continued, and in places grew much worse.

Soon the number of troops rose to about 150,000, and still the resistance grew stronger.

The US saw an opportunity. We could destabilize the southern border of our enemy, and tie down a sizable fraction of our biggest foe's army in a manner very similar to what happened to us in the 60s in Vietnam. So in July 1979 Jimmy Carter ordered the initial aid to the 'freedom fighters' of Afghanistan.

When Regan took power in 80s, the aid was continued, and by the mid 80s it was not a trickle, but a flood. Russia was trapped in it's own Vietnam, and faced many of the same difficulties we saw in the 67-73 period. Eventually Russia left, and Afghanistan was left to fight a continuing civil war that was eventually won by their religious right, the Taliban.

This group was an immediate international pariah, a supporter of international terrorism and became the eventual protector of Al Qaeda.

Another by-product of this war was the training and eventual dispersion of as many as 40,000 mujaheddin. During the war years, the lure of battle for a just cause, and the funds and tools to wage war attracted tens of thousands of fighters from across the whole of the Islamic world. They were trained by the US (by proxy at least) and bloodied in battle, and when it was over, they moved on.

There is little doubt that some of these very same US trained fighters are now involved in Iraq.

All of this as a result of a decision to stick it to the Russians. Our goal was not a terrorist supporting fundamentalist Islamic government in control of Afghanistan, our goal was not to train tens of thousands of mujaheddin, and then disperse them across the globe, our goal was not the elevation of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to the point where the world knew who he was, but that was the end result.

That is why I have to ask, have we thought the wisdom of arming Sunni freedom fighters.

these groups have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and other supplies.

American officials who have engaged in what they call "outreach" to the Sunni groups say the groups are mostly ones with links to Al Qaeda but are disillusioned with Al Qaeda's extremist tactics, particularly suicide bombings that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. In exchange for American backing, these officials say, the Sunni groups have agreed to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American units.

Commanders involved in these negotiations say that in some cases, Sunni groups have agreed to alert U.S. troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps.

This clearly show just how bad the current situation in Iraq is. We are arming the very people that we have spent the last 5 years trying to kill. In our effort to find a path to victory, we are now forced to making very dangerous alliances and aiding uncontrollable groups. The forces we are arming are not part of the government, not part of the Iraqi army, they are fighting the Iraqi government as it currently exist. These are the armies of the Sunni population who are already at war with the Shia population, who happen to control the government at this time.

critics of the strategy, including some U.S. officers, say it could amount to the Americans arming both sides in a future civil war.

This may work, desperate situations call for bold action, but I fear that the law of unintended consequences will lead us to look back on this decision, and wish we had not chosen this path.

Ravelel Shows Us How To Keep Those

Bank accounts and campaign coffers full, start trafficking in drugs.

South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel has been suspended from office, following his indictment by a federal grand jury for distribution of cocaine.

He is innocent till proven guilty, but, a federal indictment is a very serious step.

Sen. Graham (R-SC)

gets a little attition from Firedoglake.

They make a very good point. For a man who is said to have no ambition for a higher office, he sure gets a lot of face time with the national media.

Badtux

makes a great point.

Paris Hilton is America. Where once America was steelworkers and freedom fighters, today America is... Paris. Vacant empty-headed useless people with no conception of "reality", who mostly spend their days selling things nobody needs to people who don't need them but hey, they're neat things, so buy, buy, buy!

Gallup Confirms, The Majority Of Republicans

Are idiots.

The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.

This is a great debate to follow, and regular visits to science blogs, like pharyngula, make it fun and easy to learn.

PS

The overwhelming stupidity of theist republicans also extends to US History

Jefferson (D-La) To Be Indicted

All I can say is what took so freakin long.

A Justice Department official familiar with the case said the indictment outlining the evidence against Jefferson is more than an inch thick and charges the congressman with crimes that could keep him in prison for up to 200 years. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.

Bush Administration Starts to Admit

They want us to stay in Iraq for ever.

For the first time, the Bush administration is beginning publicly to discuss basing American troops in Iraq for years, even decades to come

This should be a surprise to no one.

In other news from Iraq, after the first 3 days of June, at least14 more US troops have been killed

New Blog On The Roll

Visit Outloud In South Carolina

DeMint, He Opens His Mouth

And a flood of stupidity follows.

His latest attempt at public speaking has a couple of choice moments.

“Al-Qaida knows that we’ve got a lot of wimps in Congress,” DeMint said. “I believe a lot of the casualties can be laid at the feet of all the talk in Congress about how we’ve got to get out, we’ve got to cut and run.”

A few notes for Sen. DeMint.

Al Quade makes up only a very small percentage of the forces involved in fighting against the US in Iraq (and would not even be in Iraq if we had not gone in there). The vast majority of those involved in attacking US forces are Iraqi. These people will continue to fight us until they are totally defeated, something that almost never happens with domestic insurgency.

They are responding to an invasion of their land like I hope Americans would respond to an invasion of the US, with massive resistance. In the US this resistance would not stop based upon the political discussions of the invaders, but only when the invaders were either kicked out, or had killed such a massive amount amount of our population that resistance was no longer an option.

We face the same reality in Iraq.

The sad truth is, they want us out of the way so they can get busy killing each other. Iraq is a land divided by religious, ethnic and family divides, and grudges held onto from the past. These will define their existence for the next few decades if not longer. Our staying in Iraq just delays the now unavoidable.

All you do by demanding that we remain in Iraq is assure the deaths of more of our troops. The Democrats are trying to save some troops, it is you Sen. DeMint who are killing them.

Not only did Sen DeMint display his stupidity while in Spartanburg, He also confirmed that he is very accomplished at spinning a lie.

DeMint also took issue with the now widespread belief that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, saying the executed Iraqi dictator had “stockpiles of chemical weapons” that still exist.

Yes Saddam has some very old, scattered, most likely forgotten, shells that did at one time contain deadly toxins. These are left over from their war with Iran (you know, back when we were allied with them, and were helping with their chemical weapons programs). As chemical weapons, these shells are basically useless. The chemicals have degraded, and are not much of a threat. In fact a couple have been used in IEDs (most likely by accident), and the damage was very limited.

These are not the 'stockpiles' but leftovers, and posed no real threat to our nation.

Stupid, and a bad liar, no wonder so many love to call the Jr. Senator from South Carolina Sen DimWit.


Tags
DeMint

Well, She Was Covert

That is again made perfectly clear.

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

I would hope that the small army of right wing nuts cases who kept trying to claim she was not covert would now have the grace and manners to both apologize the the Plames. and the people of the US, and then demand the proper punishment for the traitors who outed a covert US spy (you know, Bush, Cheney, Libby etc).

But I wont hold my breath. Past experience has shown that vast majority of those who make up the right wing noise machine lack both the courage and wisdom to do the right thing.

Terrorist Attack Thwarted in Virginia

It appears they have followed us here.

Campbell County authorities arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car.

The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service. The devices were made of a combination of gasoline and detergent

....

Three other suspects are being sought, one of whom is a soldier from Fort Benning, Ga., and another is a high school student.

Ooopppps

It appears that these terrorist were already here. I wonder if the right wing wack jobs are going to flip out like they did about the Miami and Ft. Dix groups (who do not appear to have been this close to making an attack).

Evolution or Fantasy

Not Very Bright has started a survey, and the results, while not surprising, are very disappointing.

It should be no surprise that a parade of Not Very Bright people are in charge of South Carolina. I suspect an average IQ of about 69 (Intellectually Deficient) could be found in the creationsim subset in the survey.

Dr. Laura's New Difficulties

(At least she is not naked this time)

As a media product, She has been in decline for a while now. It appears that the behavior of her sole reason for being (her Son) may, if true, speed up her disappearance from the American media scene.

The soldier son of talk radio relationship counselor Laura Schlessinger is under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called "repulsive."

Unfortunately as well as being repulsive, it is also similar to many other such projects that have been produced by members of our armed forces, who, a recent study suggest, think torture is a fine idea.

It is alarming what four years of lies and pointless warfare is producing.

Fawell's Dead

And when you can't say something nice, you should say nothing at all so I will hush.




Other voices

I can say with a clean conscious that one of the great leaders of intolerance and promoters of illogical thinking is dead at age 73.

the reality is that he was a shameless liar, a demagogue and a driving force for a variety of anti-liberty causes.

Over his long career as a vile televangelist building an empire of bigotry from the donations of poor people, Falwell has supported South African apartheid, called AIDS an invention of Jesus to punish gays, attacked Martin Luther King and U.S. civil rights, and blamed 9/11 on feminists and homosexuals.

we can all take solace in the fact that the extinction of the televangelist was all part of god's loving plan.


Hell, serving one.

"Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

It's difficult to be charitable when acknowledging the passing of someone whose life's work you despised.

Sen. DeMint and RU-486

South Carolina's Junior Senator's war on RU-486 continues. It should come to no surprise to anyone that in this ongoing effort, The Senator (or his staff) continue to use misinformation (A classy term for subtle lies) in their effort to support their case.

There is an excellent quick review at The Well-Timed Period, where some real facts are introduced.

While the DeMint press release is chocked full of half truths and misapplied stats, the one that I find most interesting is the whole last paragraph.

The reported risk of death associated with RU-486 is ten times greater the risk associated with surgical abortions. The death rate associated with surgical abortion is one in a million. By contrast, the reported risk of death associated with RU-486 is higher than one in 100,000

.

It appears that the fine folks in DeMints office decided to quote the numbers that best helped their case, while ignoring the rest.

Lets start with the RU-486 mortality number, there is still study needed here, and some of the adverse effects appear to come from improper use of the meds, but even then, the real number is about 1 in 110,000 (not less than 100,00 are DeMint claims). As for regular abortions, well on the whole, they are 1 in 1 in 142,000 ( not 1 in 1,000,000 ).... and there is one other fact that his office left off the memo that is very telling: The risk of death in pregnancy is 1 in 8700. Making it a far riskier proposition than either RU-486, or surgical abortion.

Yet, somehow, that little fact is not mentioned at all.

No wonder so many people in SC prefer his nickname when refering to him, Sen. DimWit.


hat tip to pharyngula

Mom Always Wanted A Dr. In The Family

MD... or PHd... it didn't matter

You Are Dr. Bunsen Honeydew

You take the title "mad scientist" to the extreme -with very scary things coming out of your lab. And you've invented some pretty cool things, from a banana sharpener to a robot politician. But while you're busy turning gold into cottage cheese, you need to watch out for poor little Beaker! "Oh, that's very naughty, Beaker! Now you eat these paper clips this minute."

The Muppet Personality Test

28%

I thought only serial rapist and televangelist could have approvial ratings this low.

George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation