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From Overheard in New York...
Professor: What words do we get from the name Aphrodite?
Student #1: Hermaphrodite.
Professor: Yes — from the union of Aphrodite and Hermes. What else?
Student #2: Aphrodisiac!
Professor: Good! And what is an aphrodisiac?
Students: [Silence.]
Professor: Are you all Victorians? Come on… What’s it called when one uses something to arouse sexual appetite?
Student #3: Necrophiliac! [Class laughs.]
Professor: I have to advise you to invest in a dictionary, as it’s simply prudent to know the difference between a necrophiliac and an aphrodisiac. Hopefully, you won’t ever need to thank me for that.
In a 2005 report, the Southern Poverty Law center issued a report outlining the frightening number of domestic terrorists being spawned by right-wing ideologies:
In the 10 years since the April 19, 1995, bombing in Oklahoma City, in fact, the radical right has produced some 60 terrorist plots. These have included plans to bomb or burn government buildings, banks, refineries, utilities, clinics, synagogues, mosques, memorials and bridges; to assassinate police officers, judges, politicians, civil rights figures and others; to rob banks, armored cars and other criminals; and to amass illegal machine guns, missiles, explosives, and biological and chemical weapons. What follows is a list of key right-wing plots of the last 10 years.
There can be little doubt that right now, more terrorist plots are being hatched by right-wing crazies. Let us hope that our law enforcement agencies are hot on their trail, for the home-grown variety of terrorist is a far more immediate threat to the safety of the average American citizen than any insurgents in Iraq.
(hat tip: Orcinus)
Ariana Huffington calls it spot on — the hissy fit that the wingnuts are having over the MoveOn.org “Betrayus” ad is nothing more than a clumsy attempt at distraction:
Does anybody really believe the problem with the war in Iraq is too much questioning of those in authority, too much bluntness, and not enough deference to those who have been in charge of the war for the last four years?
That’s apparently the feeling of all the conservative talk-show hosts and GOP presidential candidates who came down with the vapors over the MoveOn ad that had the temerity to question Gen. David Petraeus. Tens of thousands of dead civilians, nearly 4,000 dead American soldiers, half a trillion dollars spent, and the squandering of America’s moral authority — none of that seems to have ruffled their feathers very much. But the ad? Now that has got them royally steamed.
Rudy Giuliani is up in arms, railing against “character assassination on an American general who is putting his life at risk.” John McCain thinks “MoveOn.org ought to be thrown out of this country.” Even Don Rumsfeld popped his head out of his spider hole to blast the ad.
It’s the political version of the old lawyer’s axiom: When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, attack the plaintiff. And when the war is an unmitigated disaster, the facts on the ground are against you, and your only plan for the future is ‘more of the same,’ go crazy over a newspaper ad.
The USA “Patriot” Act — perhaps the all-time prizewinner for Most Inappropriately Named US Law Ever — is slowly being taken apart, odious bit by odious bit:
Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, “now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”
...
“For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law _ with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised,” she wrote.
By asking her to dismiss Mayfield’s lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general’s office was “asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so.”
Judge Ann Aiken understands our legal heritage far better than the vast majority of the terror junkies on the right. It simply is not necessary to gut the Constitution to ensure this country’s security.
UPDATE 09/27/07 6:26 AM EDT: The text of the decision [PDF] is available online. (hat tip: Xeni Jardin)
Rick Perlstein, reflecting on the hysterical reaction of the wingnuts to the Iranian president’s recent visit to the US, has it exactly right: we’ve become a nation of bedwetters:
But look now what we have lost. Now when a bad guy crosses our threshhold, America becomes a pants-piddling mess.
Iran’s president speaks at a great American university. That university’s president, in the act of introducing his lecture, whines like a baby bereft of his pacifier that his guest is a big meany poopy-head. City Council members, too, and a rabbi, make like ten-year-olds, giving their press conference in front of a sign with his face struck through and the legend “Go To Hell.” Up in Albany, Democratic leader Sheldon Silver treat the students of this great university like ten years olds, threatening to defund Columbia University lest censors like himself prove unable to shut the poor children’s ears to difficult speech. (What, was he worried they’d be convinced, join the jihad?) Then a Republican presidential candidate chimes in — bye, bye, federalism! — saying Washington should starve the school of funds, too. American diplomats used to have the gumption to spar face to face with dreaded foreign leaders. Now they go on cable TV and whine about what a “travesty” it would have been to visit a site which properly should belong to the world. Hundreds of foreign nationals died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 (maybe even some of the Iranian!). Yet we have to systematically repress that — as if our national ego would crack like fine crystal if we were forced to acknowledge the mingling of American blood with that of mere foreigners.
But — they sputter — Ahmadinejad has has promised to wipe Israel off the map!
Well, Khrushchev had promised to wipe the U.S. off the map. (“We will bury you.”) And, unlike Mr. A, who has but some possible stores of fissile material, Mr. K very much had the means, motive, and opportunity to do it — thousands of nuclear-tipped rockets aimed at every city in the land.
How cowardly our conservative Republic of Fear has made us.
Go… read the whole thing.
Don’t forget to point and laugh cruelly at the next hand-wringing, bed-wetting, right-wing Nervous Nellie you meet.
(hat tip to Shakespeare’s Sister)
If any man in history deserved the gratitude of all humanity, it is Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, who saved the world twenty-four years ago today by doing… nothing.
(hat tip: Wired)
Meanwhile, back in reality...
And in other news...
Apparent contradictions are relatively easy to find in the flood of bar charts and trend lines the military produces. Civilian casualty numbers in the Pentagon’s latest quarterly report on Iraq last week, for example, differ significantly from those presented by the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in his recent congressional testimony. Petraeus’s chart was limited to numbers of dead, while the Pentagon combined the numbers of dead and wounded—a figure that should be greater. Yet Petraeus’s numbers were higher than the Pentagon’s for the months preceding this year’s increase of U.S. troops to Iraq, and lower since U.S. operations escalated this summer.
The charts are difficult to compare: Petraeus used monthly figures on a line graph, while the Pentagon computed “Average Daily Casualties” on a bar chart, and neither included actual numbers. But the numerical differences are still stark, and the reasons offered can be hard to parse. The Pentagon, in a written clarification, said that “Gen. Petraeus reported civilian deaths based on incidents reported by Coalition forces plus Iraqi government data. The [Pentagon] report only includes incidents reported by Coalition forces for civilian causality data.”
Read that last carefully. Petraeus supposedly uses multiple data sources that report more incidents than included in the Pentagon report, yet he still conveeeeeeniently comes up with fewer casualties during the surge.
Yet the wingnuts got their knickers in a twist because MoveOn.org dared to question Petraeus’ veracity.
It is to laugh.
(hat tips: Atrios and ThinkProgress)
Scientist, writer, and rationalist Richard Dawkins recently presented his documentary “The Enemies of Reason” on Britain’s Channel 4. View part 1 and part 2 below.
In related news, both of Dawkins’ US and UK foundations have been officially recognized as charities.
(via Pharyngula and Denialism)
“There’s a new book out this week that says that Fidel Castro is desperately ill, but is determined to outlive the presidency of George W. Bush. And we say, welcome to the club…” — Garrison Kiellor
Everybody’s favorite imbecile “Christian”, Nathan Bradfield, demonstrates again that he just doesn’t understand that commandment about not bearing false witness. He’s commenting on an article in the Huffington Post by Paul Begala, who starts out saying:
Before a single Democrat condemns MoveOn’s ad, they should insist that George W. Bush and the Republican Party repudiate the anti-military smears on war heroes that have been the hallmark of Mr. Bush’s political career.
Bradfield can’t help it — he immediately goes into full-bore fabrication mode:
If this weren’t an outright lie, it might be laughable.
Alas for poor Bradfield, Begala actually cites some of the damning evidence that Preznit McAWOL and the Republicans do indeed have no compunction whatsoever about attacking military men for political gain:
- In the 2000 South Carolina primary, George W. Bush stood next to a man described as a “fringe” figure – a man who had attacked Bush’s own father – at a Bush rally. With Bush applauding him, the man said John McCain “abandoned” veterans. McCain, who was tortured in a North Vietnamese POW camp, was incensed. Five U.S. Senators who fought in Vietnam, including Democrats John Kerry, Max Cleland and Bob Kerrey, condemned the attack and called on Bush to repudiate it. When pressed on it at a debate hosted by CNN’s Larry King, Bush meekly muttered that he shouldn’t be held responsible for what others say. Even when he’s standing next to them at a Bush rally.
- In the 2002 campaign, draft dodger Saxby Chambliss ran an ad with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, then said Sen. Max Cleland lacked courage. Max Cleland left three limbs in Vietnam as an Army captain. Mr. Bush’s political aide, Karl Rove, later refused to disavow the ad, saying, “President Bush and the White House don’t write the ads for Senate candidates.”
- Also in the 2002 campaign, the PAC for the Family Research Council, a close Bush ally, ran an ad in South Dakota that pictured Sen. Tom Daschle and Saddam Hussein. “What do Saddam Hussein and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle have in common?” the ad asked. Apparently, they both opposed drilling in the Arctic wilderness. First, I had no idea that supporting drilling in the wilderness is a family values issue. Second, I have seen no reporting on the late Iraqi dictator’s position on Alaska drilling. But I do know Tom Daschle is an Air Force veteran. Mr. Bush never disavowed the smear.
- But perhaps the worst was what was done to John Kerry. Kerry earned five major medals in combat: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. And yet supporters of Bush and Cheney decided to smear his war record. The despicable, dishonest Swift Boat attacks alleged that Kerry fabricated reports that earned him the Bronze Star. The Swifties also suggested that Kerry’s wounds were insignificant – and that one was even self-inflicted. Kerry’s wounds were certainly more serious than Mr. Bush’s, who suffered a cut on his finger from popping a beer can while avoiding his duty in the Alabama National Guard. At the 2000 GOP convention, rich, white Republicans were photographed gleefully putting Band-Aids with purple hearts on their chubby cheeks. Mr. Bush refused to condemn the attack – blandly noting he didn’t like 527 groups generally – and later nominated one of the men who financed the smear to be Ambassador to Belgium.
The only laughable thing in all this is the idea that Nathan Bradfield has any credibility left at all. He lies to his audience when he claims Begala is lying, and he hasn’t the balls to take on Begala’s evidence head-on, preferring instead to pretend it simply doesn’t exist.
Liar and coward: That’s all Nathan Bradfield is, and it’s quite likely that that’s all Nathan Bradfield will ever be.
The gaggle of idiots at StopTheACLU.com has added a new jackass to the stable, and his name is Warner Todd Huston. He’s every bit the addle-pated asshat that his mentor Jay Stephenson is. Whining about the recent “Petraeus or Betray Us” ad that has the wingnuts’ panties in a huge communal twist, he throws in this bit of mendacious hogwash:
After all, isn’t the left upset at Bush for replying to terrorism with force? As if we are wrong for replying to having nearly 3,000 of our innocent citizens incinerated on 9/11?
Yes, folks, Our Sainted President™ bravely ordered our mighty military machine to attack Iraq in retribution for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — attacks in which Iraq played no part whatsoever.
Warner Todd Huston is a perfect example of the kind of dishonest, self-deluded fumblewits that post over at StopTheACLU.com.
Following up on yesterday’s post, the Republicans in the Senate have refused to allow a vote on the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007. While Republicans and their wingnut blogger syncophants like to accuse anyone who dares disagree with them of being “anti-American”, it is now abundantly clear that it is Republicans themselves who are striving to destroy the American nation from within.
In related news, the Republicans are working very hard to ensure that American soldiers are burned out and rendered ineffective. They are trying to block, or render toothless, legislation that would require troops to get at least as much time at home as the length of their previous tour.
Last year, a gutless and terrified Congress passed the Miltary Commissions Act, which removed the right of habeas corpus not only for terrorist suspects, but for all Americans — since all that is required to hold a citizen indefinitely is that the President declare him or her an “enemy combatant”. Senators Patrick Leahy. Christopher Dodd, and Arlen Specter have introduced The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, which if passed will restore this fundamental right.
Visit Restore-Habeas.org today and sign up as a citizen co-sponsor. Then, call your senators’ offices (202-224-3121, or toll free at 888-355-3588) and demand that they support this critical legislation.
UPDATE 09/18/07 1:33 PM EDT: Firedoglake has more phone numbers, and a list of Senators who “could use some extra persuasion today”.
Notice that my latest comment at a minor wingnut blog called Flight Pundit has been greeted with the usual panoply of lies and idiocy, from the usual collection of imbeciles. Not a one of them can produce a single fact to support their accusations.
It is heartening to see that the only tools these morons have at their disposal are lies and crude sexual innuendo. Since their tactics are based upon blatantly obvious falsehoods, they have guaranteed that they will never be taken seriously.
Heidi "call me a cold-hearted bitch" Thiess proves once again that there is no fact she will not ignore:
Despite harassing emails, truly disgusting spammers, and multiple online death threats, I always felt relieved that I could turn off my computer at any time and rejoin my family in the Real World. Until last summer, my efforts to protect my family were largely successful. Unfortunately, due to the obsession of one particularly insistent and dedicated stalker, Thinking Meat, my real name was splashed across the web attached to every kind of slander and lie you could imagine.
Of course, a simple Google search will reveal that Heidi’s name was “splashed across the web” long before last summer, when her series “Brother against Brother” was being ballyhooed by the wingnut blogosphere. Her insinuation that I am somehow responsible for her full name being known on the web is beyond ridiculous.
In fact, if one were to go to Heidi’s old blog HE!D! says and click on the comments link of any post, one would see that the URL in the browser starts with http://www.haloscan.com/comments/hthiess/. Hmmmmm. Who do you suppose put the “hthiess” in there, when the Haloscan account was created?
Heidi is correct in one respect: I have consistently misspelled her last name. I apologize to anyone who has been inconvenienced by my spelling errors. I have corrected all such misspellings I have found in this blog, and I ask that anyone finding any that I missed to let me know.
I do find it amusing that despite Heidi’s allegation that I “maligned and harassed” someone else by misspelling Heidi’s last name, neither she nor the other Heidi saw fit to contact me and ask that I correct the spelling errors. Obviously, Heidi Thiess finds it much easier to bitch and moan than to actually do something that would rectify the situation.
Remember the Petraeus report? The one that’s supposed to be delivered next week, and will prove to everyone just how peachy-keen everything is in Iraq?
Guess what? It’s a myth…
A major political event unfolding Monday will be the report to President Bush by Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker.
A senior military officer said there will be no written presentation to the president on security and stability in Iraq. “There is no report. It is an assessment provided by them by testimony,” the officer said.
The only hard copy will be Gen. Petraeus’ opening statement to Congress, scheduled for Monday, along with any charts he will use in explaining the results of the troop surge in Baghdad over the past several months.
The results from the “surge” are so great, so terrific, so overwhelmingly convincing that the Bushies won’t even commit them to writing.
Feh.
Another piece of the PATRIOT Act has gone down in well-deserved flames:
U.S. judge strikes down FBI secrecy ordersBy Edith Honan
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A provision of the Patriot Act that requires people who are formally contacted by the FBI for information to keep it a secret is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero sided with the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit and argued that an FBI letter requesting information — called a National Security Letter — is effectively a gag order but without the authorization of a judge.
The FBI tells people who receive the letters to keep them secret, but recipients can challenge the secrecy order in court under a 2006 congressional amendment to the NSL law.
The law says judges must defer to the FBI’s view that secrecy is necessary, undermining the judiciary’s check on the power of the executive branch, the ACLU said.
In a written ruling issued on Thursday, Marrero said the gag order violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and was unconstitutional.
Marrero based his ruling on the seriousness of the potential intrusion on privacy and on “the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association — particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies.”
Here’s the opening paragraph of a recent AP story:
Marines Disciplined in Haditha Case
Sep 5, 7:51 PM (ET)
By ELLIOT SPAGATCAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) – A major general and two senior officers have been disciplined for their roles in investigating the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha in 2005, the Marine Corps said Wednesday.
Here’s what Kim at And Rightly So concludes from this:
A living enemy is worth more than a living Marine...And many feel that when ground combat conditions exist and civilians are in the area, enemies should be allowed to go unharmed. The fact the more Marines would have been killed (as well as more civilians) means nothing; a living enemy is worth more than a self defending living Marine. The sacrifices are acceptable when its the life of a Marine; when enemies die it’s a crime.
Yup.
Iraqi civilians are the enemy — every single one of them, in Kim’s eyes.
UPDATE 09/06/07 11:04 AM: Referring to this post, Kim states:
HERE is one of those people who believe that enemies who hide among civilians, who dress like and act like them, should live while our Marines stand by helpless, and die as a result of more attacks.
Of course, I’ve neither said nor implied this. Those who are our enemies must be fought, and I do not advocate that any American soldiers should die needlessly. However, fighting the enemy and indiscriminately killing civilians are two very different things — a concept that Kim does not seem to grasp.
UPDATE 09/06/07 2:13 PM: A Reuters article published earlier today demonstrates that there are at least some in the US military who understand that the indiscriminate killing of civilians is simply wrong:
CAMP PENDLETON, California (Reuters) – Does a U.S. Marine serving in Iraq have the right to shoot first and ask questions later if hostile forces could be nearby?
The question is at the heart of the case against Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 27, the U.S. Marine accused of leading a November 19, 2005, massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha.
Witnesses who were on patrol with Wuterich in Iraq have testified that he told them to “shoot first and ask questions later” as they followed up the killing of a popular Marine in their unit.
“This is not what we do,” Wuterich’s former commanding officer, Capt. Alfonso Capers, testified on Wednesday when asked about the “shoot first” remark attributed to Wuterich that day. “It says everybody is expendable.”
Emphasis mine.
Rejoice, ye mongers of war! The surge is working!
Iraq’s power grid is on the brink of collapse because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid, according to officials.
Aziz al-Shimari, an electricity ministry spokesman, said at the weekend that power generation nationally was only meeting half the demand, and there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages across the country were the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, he added.
Power supplies in Baghdad have been sporadic all summer and now are down to just a few hours a day at most. The water supply in the capital has also been severely curtailed by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations.
Kerbala province, south of Baghdad, has been without power for three days, causing water mains to go dry in the Shia holy city of Kerbala, the provincial capital.
Rejoice, ye mongers of war! The surge is working!
The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.
The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.
Related Document: July 2007 GAO Report
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