MN Supreme's rule Franken won.

MSNBC is reporting the MN Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that Al Franken won the election.

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state's long-running Senate race.

The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.

Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. With Franken and the usual backing of two independents, Democrats will have a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibusters.

Next stop for Coleman..living under a bridge or taking it to SCOTUS.

Any bets on which he will pick? ;p

Madoff gets his due and other noteworthy news.

Bernie was sentenced to 150 years this morning. That was the maximum he could be given.

I wonder if that sentence will make his victims feel better, somehow I doubt it. His wife Ruth finally released a statement this morning about her husband's crime. You can read the entire statement here. I really can't muster any sympathy for Ruthie.

Joe Jackson is lower than pond scum. He is already getting his worthless, child-beating ass on the tv as much as possible, showing up at the BET awards show last night and having a daily presser when possible out in front of the families Encino enclave. Al Sharpton is also getting his share of tv time as is Jesse Jackson (no relation but I bet he wishes he was).

The biggest media circus in the last decade will now start. Who gets those three little children that lived in a fairytale bubble? Who gets any money..or rather.. is there any money to hand out? Not waisting any time, Joe and Katherine Jackson have filed a probate order and gotten temporary custody of the three children. It's gonna get real ugly.

Iraq is preparing for our soldiers to start pulling out of their cities tomorrow. This news is scary in that all hell might break loose now that Iraqi police will be in charge. I worry about this, I worry that the innocent will suffer. I worry that our soldiers will be sitting ducks. I just worry period. But I want them all home now..all our soldiers. Don't leave them sitting in fortresses, just bring them home..NOW.

Finally Tricky Dick Nixon has more of his musings released. I have been reading the transcripts over at the NYT and they are a friggin trip. Get this quote from a Philippines head honcho during the time Marcos took control of the government:

ROMULO: You see, democracy, really, American democracy, is for a mature, highly developed, affluent society.

NIXON: Yes.

ROMULO: For a developing society, you need someone with strength.

Affluent society? Give me an effin break dude. Did anyone know there is a website devoted to the Nixon tapes? Yep...check it out here.

Walter Cronkite's health declining rapidly

From the NYT via The Daily Beast:

The New York Times reported today that Walter Cronkite is gravely ill with cerebrovasuclar disease and, according to his family members, "not expected to recuperate." "He is resting at home surrounded by family, friends and a wonderful medical team," his three children said. Cronkite's family told TVNewser, a blog, that he had been suffering from his disease for several years. The CBS News anchor was oftentimes described as "the most trusted man in America" during his work on CBS Evening News from 1960-81.

Cronkite was always on our tv every evening when I was a child. It was Cronkite that announced the news of JKF's death for me and so many other important news stories. When I got older and moved out..he was on my tv every evening as well. I hope he is comfortable, pain-free and surrounded by those he loves and who love him.

From Wiki:

During the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Cronkite was anchoring the CBS network coverage as violence and protests occurred outside the convention, as well as scuffles inside the convention hall. When Dan Rather was punched to the floor (on camera) by security personnel, Cronkite commented, "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan."

He is 92 years old and I can still hear his voice which was soothing and paternal for me.

And that's the way it is....

Jacko's legacy..in music

Watch a nice video of MJ's music legacy here on my video page.

Musical facts on Michael Jackson:

Jacko sold an estimated 750 million records worldwide, released 13 No.1 singles and became one of a handful of artists to be inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized Jackson as the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time and "Thriller" as the Biggest Selling Album of All Time. Jackson won 13 Grammy Awards and received the American Music Award's Artist of the Century Award.

No matter what your opinion of him was as a human being, the man did change music and dance..by combining them into works of art many times.

My son loved Jacko. I remember fighting furiously with my ex husband about what my son wanted for Christmas one year..an MJ doll, complete with that red leather jacket seen in the video Thriller. My son loved his music and his videos as a wee lad.

It drove my ex-husband crazy that my son wanted a 'doll'. Especially a doll of a black man. It infuriated me that he was racist and homophobic.

My son got that doll and his own version of the red leather jacket. We talked about that today on the phone when I called to tell him that Jacko had died. He was sad about it, but we enjoyed the walk down memory lane.

Jacko became a freak, it was sad to watch him fall from his pinnacle. The child molestation charges were something that he had to carry the rest of his life, yet he was acquitted in one trial and paid off the family in another. Whether he molested children..we will never be sure. We can be sure that his father was a bag of shit that sucked the life out of a small child in order to fill his own bank account, thereby robbing Jacko of any semblance of a childhood.

Jacko changed the face of pop music and he gave his all to his fans that loved him regardless of whether he had a real nose on his face or a prosthetic, regardless of the fact that he went from a black man to a man whiter than my current husband or had wrongfully touched a child.People loved Jacko and always will.

He was basically broke when he died. His beloved Neverland Ranch is owned by the cartel that was bankrolling his new tour in Europe.

I just hope his demons are at rest and that his children will remember him as a father who loved them more than anything else in the world.

ACLU report: Identifying School-to-Prison Pipeline in State

Pandagon has an excellent post up about racism and racial stereotyping within the Michigan school systems. Full disclosure: The author works for the ACLU in Michigan. You can read the ACLU report entitled “Reclaiming Michigan’s Throwaway Kids: Students Trapped in the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” here. The report addresses the disciplinary practices which are highly suspect and disproportionate with regard to African-American students in the state. A few highlights of the Pandagon article:

One of the things the report discusses is the vastly disproportionate numbers of punishments that black students receive - in Ann Arbor, for instance, black students make up 18% of students but 58% of suspensions, with numbers like these are repeated in districts across the state. I’ve had this discussion with people before, and the explanations for this usually attempt to pin it on parental involvement, or culture, somehow believing that the apogee of black culture is mouthing off to a teacher, because that makes sense.

I have a basic rule in life: if a group of people seem to be acting illogically given what are seemingly clear reasons not to, then there’s likely something else at work. We could accept that black kids and black families are just drastically more likely to train themselves to do disruptive things that will be cracked down on in schools, but that makes virtually no sense whatsoever. I think there are a couple of things at work, the first being that assumption by many teachers that black students and black males in particular are more aggressive and therefore more likely to transgress initially. The second is that, from the perspective of black students, being more likely to be treated in a capricious and heavy-handed manner by authority figures makes you less likely to respect those authority figures.

In my mind, it's logical to have less respect for authority figures when you are constantly being treated 'capriciously' by the asshole in charge because of the color of your skin or because of your sex. This paragraph in the Pandagon article really hit it for me:

Any more, many schools don’t do detention, they just suspend or expel. Combined with zero tolerance policies, often for subjective transgressions, being a grade school or high school student is perilous - whether you behave well or behave poorly, your continued presence in school is often subjected to the whims of teachers or administrators in dealing with you.

With all the budget cuts, they don't have the teachers to hold detention after school anymore. It's also a lot easier and cheaper, to expel or suspend a child. From the ACLU report:

Through its research the ACLU found that disproportionate discipline towards African American students was apparent in the majority of the school districts examined in the study. For instance, in the Ann Arbor School District during the 2006/07 school year, black students accounted for 18 percent of a secondary school student population, but they received 58 percent of suspensions. This trend is reflected in school districts statewide.

“In school district after school district, from one end of the state to another, we found that black kids are consistently suspended in numbers that are considerably disproportionate to their representation in the various student populations,” said Mark P. Fancher, ACLU of Michigan Racial Justice Project staff attorney and principal author of the report. “More alarming still are studies we examined that show that the behavior of black kids and white kids is essentially the same, and black kids are still kicked out of school proportionately more often. This is true regardless of socio-economic factors and geography.”

Racial stereotyping is alive and well isn't it? Damn it..damn it all.

How To Repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell

From The Progress Report:

While campaigning for the White House, President Obama pledged to repeal the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) policy, which bars openly gay men and women from serving in the military. But since taking office, the Obama administration has yet to follow through on its promise and has repeatedly resisted calls to suspend DADT by executive order. The administration is seeking "Congressional action" to resolve the issue. As a consequence, the military has discharged more than 265 service members on the basis of the discriminatory and counterproductive policy since Obama took office. Despite the losses, when asked about DADT in March, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that repealing DADT would have to be pushed "down the road a little bit." Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that the Senate was waiting for "a legislative proposal from the White House on repeal so as to provide clear guidance on what the President would like to see and when." Seventy-seven members of the House recently sent Obama a letter urging him to "suspend" DADT. As part of an effort to build momentum from this call for action, the Center for American Progress published a report yesterday by Lawrence J. Korb, Sean Duggan, and Laura Conley that provides a practical outline for repealing DADT and opening the armed forces to men and women who are currently excluded.

HOW TO MOVE FORWARD: Korb, Duggan, and Conley have laid out a five-step solution to repealing DADT that starts with the Obama administration setting the agenda: 1) Sign an Executive Order banning further military separations based on DADT and send a legislative proposal on DADT repeal to Congress; 2) Form a presidential panel on how to implement the repeal; 3) Repeal DADT in Congress and change the Uniformed Code of Military Justice; 4) Change other necessary military guidelines to conform to the new policy; and 5) Follow-up to ensure that the armed forces implement the policy changes. The CAP report says that "careful examination of the laws outlining the president's powers as commander in chief show that the executive branch has the authority to suspend homosexual conduct discharges without legislative action." This provision, commonly known as a "stop loss" order, grants the president authority to suspend the release of military members during any period of national emergency in which members of a reserve unit are serving on active duty. But because Congress originally passed the ban, an executive suspension will have to be followed up with legislative action that reverses DADT. CAP also recommends forming a DADT advisory panel modeled after the Gates Commission, which was established by President Nixon in 1969 and outlined a plan for transitioning the military to an all-volunteer structure. The commission's charge should be to consider "how" to end DADT, not "whether" to make the change.

LESSONS LEARNED: A crucial hurdle, the CAP report says, is the military's "strong aversion to change." President Truman's effort to integrate the Army bares this out. In 1948, after Truman issued an executive order ending racial segregation in the armed services, Gen. Omar Bradley, then the Army chief of staff, flatly refused, saying desegregation would ruin the Army. Because of the military's reluctance and bureaucratic hedging, Truman's 1948 order wasn't implemented until 1954. The CAP report notes that it's common for members of Congress, especially those on the Armed Services Committee, to aid the military's aversion to change. Robert Taft, the Senate Majority Leader at the time, called Truman's executive order a "cheap political ploy." On the question of gays serving openly in the military, perhaps the biggest obstacle has been public opinion -- until recently. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, nearly two-thirds disagreed with the argument that "allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military would be divisive for the troops and hurt their ability to fight effectively." And a 2006 Zogby International poll of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans found that 73 percent were personally "comfortable with gays and lesbians." The most recent example of a military seamlessly integrating its Army can be found in Britain. The British, who have a military structure and deployment patterns most similar to ours, were forced to allow gays into the military by the European Court of Human Rights in 2000. Before integrating, surveys in Britain indicated that there would be a backlash from current service members, with "two-thirds of male troops" saying that they would not work with gay men if gay bans were lifted. Once the ban was lifted, however, only a handful of troops resigned.
DADT STILL CLAIMING CASUALTIES: During a conference call with reporters yesterday, Korb underscored that repealing DADT was "not a gay rights issue" but an "issue of military readiness" at a time when the U.S. is engaged in two wars. Since its enactment more than 16 years ago, DADT has resulted in the discharge of more than 13,000 highly qualified men and women. At least 1,000 of these service members have held "critical occupations," such as interpreters and engineers. In addition, roughly 4,000 service members have left the military voluntarily every year because of DADT. The recent cases of Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach and Army Lt. Daniel Choi are illuminating. Fehrenbach, a highly decorated F-15 fighter pilot and an 18-year veteran of the Air Force with 88 combat missions, was informed last September that he would be discharged because someone notified his commanding officer that Fehrenbach had a male partner. It's estimated the military spent roughly $25 million training Fehrenbach. Choi was a National Guard infantry officer, whose expertise as an Arab linguist was vital to the war in Iraq. But he was also discharged because of the bigoted policy. The result of losing talented and crucial service members, said Korb, is that "lives could be lost."

Of all the industrialized nations with a military..how many are as homophobic as the United States military? The following is a list of countries which allow gays in the military:

Argentina
Australia
Bermuda
Canada
Germany
Israel
Italy
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Philippines
Romania
United Kingdom
Switzerland
Uruguay

Russia is a tad strange on this issue- those alleged to have "sexual identity problems" are to be drafted only during wartime. "Well adjusted homosexuals" are permitted to serve in a normal capacity.

SCOTUS rules 13 year old school girl strip search illegal..

Holy fuckamoly..really? That's a friggin no-brainer for me folks. She was also accused of bringing naproxen to school..not an illegal drug..an over the counter medication.

It was an 8-1 ruling. The lone idiot..I mean dissenter is...drum roll please...

Justice Clarence Thomas

Christ, was a tool Thomas is. From the McClatchy writeup:

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Souter wrote.

The "combination of these deficiencies was fatal" to the legitimacy of the search, the court concluded. This ruling is likely to clarify for other school administrators nationwide how and when intrusive searches of students might be conducted.

Carrying pills in her underwear..give me an effin break.

Hypocrisy 101- Mark Sanford took that class.

The Party of No has it's second philanderer in as many weeks today. Poor Governor Mark Sanford has professed to a few goodies today:

He lied about where he was for the last week.
He has been having an affair with a married woman
He possibly lied about spending South Carolinian's money to see his mistress.
He hasn't resigned from the governorship yet, but he demanded that Bill Clinton resign over the Monica Lewinsky affair.
He blew his 2012 move towards the White House out of the water..with a couple of bunker-buster bombshells.

Do I feel sorry for him? Fuck no..but I do feel bad for his wife of 20 years that gave up a lucrative Wall Street career to run his campaigns. She looked like the pinnacle of a good wife..Leave it to Beaver style. He of course supported the DOMA..the Defense of Marriage Act..can you say hypocrite? Read his sordid emails here and here if you wish..I do not.

But his wife kicked his ass out of the house..good for her. Good. For. Her!

Hopefully Sanford and Ensign will get the help they need..a psychiatrist for their lying, hypocrisy and double standards. ;)

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away...

Paul Simon-Kodachrome click to listen.

View some beautiful photos from some of the worlds greatest photogs. From CNET:

Kodak is winding its last rolls of Kodachrome after 74 years of making the color film used by many of photography's greats. Steve McCurry and Eric Meola.

Spectacular yet old school. Goodbye Kodachrome.. a wonderful product used by millions to show us the world and it's inhabitants.

Check this out.

I have been going to doctor appointments non-stop lately and somewhat depressed..so therein lies the reason I have not posted here lately.

But Sirens Chronicles has plenty of great articles. Our writers are top notch and their subjects are quite diverse. Please check them out and respond in kind if you feel so moved.

They would really appreciate your patronage. ;)

Now, off to another doctor appointment..ugh.

When Christians and Muslims work together for peace.

Another important factor is that they are all women. Liberian women. They got tired of the corruption, the civil war and all the death, rape and dismemberment. They decided to do something about it.

Pray the Devil back to Hell. This movie tells their story.




The movie has won at least five film festival awards around the world. Bill Moyers will discuss the documentary tonight on his pbs show. What did I like about it most of all?

The WOMEN got it done. After a decade of hate and killing, the only way Liberia came back from the hell of war and corruption was because of the women and their determination. It's a powerful movie folks..very powerful.

The female that organized all this is Leymah Gbowee. Her intestinal fortitude was amazing to me. Her actions and those of all the Muslim and Christian women of Liberia saw the first female President elected to an African nation - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Unlike Obama, these women all represent real hope and change. I hope people will see this movie. I pray that they will.

Click graphic for larger image.

Blurring the lines between right and wrong.

The Big O is doing a standup job of blurring the lines. His fucking memo yesterday threw a few crumbs to the LGBT community whilst still keeping them on the outside looking in.

A memo dude? A friggin memo? It isn't worth the paper it's typed on and you know it. Once your lying ass has left the oval office for good, that memo will be found in circular file 13 and you fucking know it.

His actions regarding the civil rights of the LGBT community..or lack of.. and his DOJ supporting DOMA and DADT makes all his actions now suspect to me.

Take his transparency bullshit...like refusing to release the names of those that come to meet with him in the WhiteHouse..otherwise known as The People's House. Glen Greenwald talks to Amy Goodman about the lying sack of shit and his lack of transparency here. Secrecy was the watchword of the Bush Administration for eight long years.

Therefore, I don't trust him any more than I trusted Bush43..and hopefully ya'll know how much I despised that fucktard.

There has been very little change..but plenty of the same ole shit people..plenty. From The Progress Report:

NEW VEIL OF SECRECY: For all of the administration's promising early steps to restore transparency and accountability, however recent developments are less encouraging. Some of these stumbling points have been simple failures of implementation; many of the administration's budget transparency websites, for example, publish inconsistent numbers. Other transparency failures, however, suggest a more disturbing trend. Despite promises to end "secret meetings" and restore the White House as the "people's house," the administration has refused to disclose the names of individuals who have visited the White House since Obama took office, while echoing similar excuses by Bush administration officials who wanted to hide secret meetings with energy industry executives. But most disturbing are recent, tenuous invocations of "national security" to cast a shade over government transparency. After the Environmental Protection Agency uncovered nearly four dozen toxic coal ash sites in Tennessee that "could cause death and significant property damage if an event such as a storm, a terrorist attack or a structural failure caused them to spill into surrounding communities," the administration choose to keep the locations of the toxic sites secret from Tennessee residents because of fears that such disclosure could present a "security risk." Similarly, despite earlier disclosure of the infamous torture memos, the Obama CIA has thus far successfully kept secret a comprehensive account of that agency's interrogation practices. Although a heavily redacted version of the report was uncovered by the ACLU, the administration insists that disclosing the full report would endanger national security. Even more alarming, however, is the Obama administration's adoption of Bush's "state secrets" claim in court cases dealing with issues ranging from extraordinary rendition to warrantless wiretapping. The "state secrets" privilege allows the administration to withhold information in a lawsuit or even dismiss the suit altogether if the subject matter of the suit could potentially reveal information that puts national security at risk. In one suit, brought by an Islamic charity challenging the previous administration's warrantless wiretapping program, a federal judge finally threatened sanctions against the Justice Department if it did not comply with an order to turn over a document to the plaintiff's attorneys. Incidents such as these led the New York Times to lament that Obama has "backtracked, in substantial if often nuanced ways, from the approach to national security that he preached as a candidate, and even from his first days in the Oval Office."

Change my ass...

Obama throws the LGBT community a bone. How nice.

His DOJ supports DOMA and DADT, yet The Big O has issued an executive order that will provide the partners of federal workers with federal benefits. There is some question as to whether his decree is a Memorandum or an Executive Order. A Memo only works whilst The Big O is in office..so it's an important fact.

Gee, how nice of him. Slight problem however:

The order Obama intends to sign tomorrow would apply to the Defense Department's civilian workforce but not the Pentagon's men and women in uniform.

Thanks dude..but it's still not enough. It's a crumb of an offering you friggin jackass.

Graphic filched from Two Crows over at Preserve,Protect and Defend.

Ah, the great healthcare debate..

I refuse to enter into it, 'the debate over healthcare'. It should be a no-brainer as far as I am concerned.

But the rightwingers are using lies and obfuscation. This severely jerks my chain. The talking points are all the same, and frankly, I can't believe people are buying into them.

Even my friggin orthopedic surgeon's office is on the bandwagon. I went to the doc's this morning and at the end of the 'visit', I brought up Obama's speechifying to the AMA yesterday.

The short of it is this:

The Physician's Assistant (whom I always see instead of the actual doctor) used the word socialism to describe Obama's plan. He is against socialized medicine.

What does he think the Workers Compensation system is for Christs sake? His boss makes a fortune off of work injuries..enough to finance a horsefarm...I shit you not.

Yet, he is against socialized medicine. Free Market, thats the ticket!

But The Big O's plan allows for free market health insurance. He said so yesterday at the AMA. He said anyone that tells you otherwise is full of shit. Not quite in those words of course. ;)

My medical provider then said we will have less people that want to be doctors and especially specialists. The years spent going to school will not turn into a huge money making empire for the students when they graduate in 6-8 years he said.

I thought most medical professionals got into it to heal and help the human race. Lofty goals eh?

Pardon the fuck outta me for being so delusional and silly to think that.

Guess they are aiming for the same things those fuckwits on Wall Street are...money money and more money.

Maybe that explains the lack of 'bedside manner' in most doctors I see these days. With the exception of my primary care physician..most of them are assholes acting like they are doing me a favor by seeing and/or treating me. They hate being asked questions or as one of them put it recently:

Being grilled by you Miss Taylor.

Asking a lot of questions about your illness and treatment options doesn't go over too well with a lot of doctors these days.

I just don't know anymore...who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

The lines get blurred.

Monday monday...

I have been out of the news loop since last Thursday. So this caught my eye this morning whilst trying to get my political bearings and watching The Big O pontificate about our healthcare system to the AMA.



No matter what you think of Joan Walsh, she has some brass ones even going on Bill-O's whacked out program. Her version of the cough...interview can be read here. It's entitled: Why I went on 'The OReilly Factor'.

As for The Big O's speechifying in front of the AMA..more later. ;)

This will make you feel warm and fuzzy...not!

Americans net worth shrinks $1.33 Trillion in the first quarter.

Now, I don't have any stocks..so I figured this news didn't really affect me. But..I saw this part and cringed:

Collectively, homeowners had 41.4 percent equity in their homes in the first quarter. That was down from 42.9 percent in the fourth quarter .The value of household real-estate holdings fell 2.4 percent.

But..never fear dear reader..because Bennie Bernanke says the recession will be over by the end of the year!

I guess he has a really great crystal-fucking-ball....

Or maybe it's because 10 of the banks have the ability to repay their TARP loans, to the tune of $68 Billion..because they jacked the living shit out of the credit card rates and anything else they could raise legally.

Our personal money trees are getting bare..

11,000 Iraqi's still being held by US Government

From Jurist:

The US-led Multi-National Force in Iraq said Tuesday that it is still holding 11,057 Iraqi prisoners in three separate camps throughout the country. The prisoners currently held in the three US camps, Camp Taji, Camp Cropper, and Camp Bucca, will either be released or transferred to Iraqi authorities as the military works to transfer control of the prisons to the Iraqi government. Camp Bucca, in southern Iraq, is expected to be the first to close when the total prison population drops below 8,000. The other two facilities will close by August 2010, in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that went into effect in January and requires all US troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2001. A fourth US-run prison, Abu Ghraib, was transferred back to Iraqi control in 2006 following the release of photographs depicting prisoner abuse by US military personnel.

In November, Iraqi human rights activists said they were concerned about the treatment of detainees due to be transferred from US military custody to Iraqi authorities under the then-proposed SOFA. In August, the US military said that it has released more than 10,000 Iraqi detainees over the past year. In November 2007, US military forces in Iraq released 500 detainees at a joint ceremony with the Iraqi government at Camp Victory outside Baghdad.

The Iraq government isn't known for it's judicial system. Of course our methods, via the military tribunals, were horrific as well. The prisoners will most likely be dealt with according to whether they are Shiite or Sunni. This doesn't bode well for any Sunni prisoners.

US Contractors arrested by Iraq officials.

This will be interesting to watch, as the arrested contractor and his company have ties to KBR..from Jurist:

Five US contractors have been arrested by Iraqi officials for their alleged involvement in the May death of an American in Baghdad's Green Zone, according to Sunday reports. The suspects are not yet charged but may be the first Americans to face trial in an Iraqi court since the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the US and Iraq took effect in January. The agreement removed any immunity that private US contractors had under Iraqi law, allowing for the five accused to be tried. Jim Kitterman, an owner of a construction company, was found dead, bound, blindfolded, and stabbed in his car in late May. A US official anonymously disclosed that the investigations involved possible charges other than murder. Kitterman's death is believed to be the first criminal killing of an American in the Green Zone since it was established in 2003.

Americans killing American's in Iraq? WTF? From the LATimes link:

A relative of two of the suspects insisted that the men were innocent and would be released within a couple of days. John Feeney said the suspects included his father, Donald Feeney Jr., brother Donald Feeney III and two other employees of his father's security company, Corporate Training Unlimited, or CTU. A fifth man who lived on their compound was also taken into custody, John Feeney said.

He spoke by telephone from North Carolina, where CTU has its U.S. headquarters.

Donald Feeney Jr has a storied past, from the FayObserver:

Past exploits

Donald Feeney Jr. first made news in 1988 when his company of former commandos spirited a 7-year-old child out of Jordan and reunited her with her mother in Texas.

CTU’s actions caused the U.S. State Department to apologize to Jordanian officials.

Feeney and others have defended the company’s actions, saying people in the United States are defenseless against custody battles involving other countries.

In 1993, Feeney and James Grayson of Florida were found guilty in Iceland of kidnapping Grayson’s daughter and the child’s sister. Feeney spent a year in prison.

Two months after his release, Feeney’s company took a child out of Tunisia in another custody battle.

The U.S. State Department has taken a dim view of Feeney’s actions.

It's gonna get ugly methinks. The Washington Post has a different view on the arrests:

Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the men were being held at a police station in the Green Zone as part of a joint U.S.-Iraqi investigation. He said FBI agents had provided a tip to Iraqi forces, then accompanied them on a raid at a house where they had uncovered weapons and drugs.

But there were conflicting accounts about the arrest and possible charges.

Fennell said the men were not arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Jim Kitterman, a 60-year-old contractor from Houston. During a search of the men's house, authorities found "possible evidence on an unrelated matter," he said, without disclosing details.

Staaaaaay tuned boys and girls! That SOFA Bush signed has changed the rules for contractors. They can now be tried, convicted and jailed by Iraqi's. More than enough reason to keep your ass in the US..or be really really good whilst working in Iraq.

Update: The rightwing moonie media, the Washington Times is reporting that three of the contractors have been or will be released today.

Chris Wallace is a friggin idiot.

He opened his sunday show asking the following question:

Uncle Sam wants you driving one of his cars, writing checks at one of his banks, and using his health insurance. Are we saving the economy or headed toward socialism?

For this, he gets the Fucktard of The Week award. Gotta love the fact that Faux Noise is always unfair and very unbalanced mentally. Watch his dumbass below.


Thanks to C&L for this video find.

Playing hockey with a brussel sprout..

It's been one of those weeks with the critters. A few of them are pms'ing bad and taking it out on the others. Spanky, here on the right, is on my last nerve as the youngest and most wily of the housemates.

Charlie and her brother Jack are still picking on Scooter, who then takes it out on one of the others..you know..shit rolls down hill.

When the DirectTv guy came over to take us off cable and into the world of satellite television, every single one of the cats ran under the bed and stayed there for hours. Thank Buddha I have a king-sized bed, or they wouldn't of all fit.

Junior, the DirectTv guy was nice and professional but the nitwit had a problem with remembering to close the screen door behind him. The Ball n' Chain™ was tasked with watching to make sure the door got closed and none of the house felines escaped everytime Junior had to go in or out.

After he left, we did a headcount and thats always fun around here...not! But they were all eventually counted for.

Last night, we splurged and bought two nice fat steaks and two gigantic potato's to bake..er..microwave. When the BnC went out to clean the grill, he found out that a central part was broken and we couldn't use the bbq grill to cook our magnificent steaks.

So we then began an online search for a quick fix...aka a new but very cheap charcoal grill to replace our expensive and now useless gas grill. Praise Buddha we found one..just one problem..

It needed to be put together. The BnC and I are not mechanically inclined..to say the least.

It took us 3 hours to put together a friggin cheap-ass charcoal grill with four legs. I shit you not..Three Fucking Hours. At one point I figured we might be eating those steaks around midnight.

We got to eat them around 9pm..not too bad. Grilling in the dark is not without it's problems. I like my steak rare..but cold and still mooing doesn't do a thing for me. The middle has to at least be cooked slightly and friggin hot for christs sake. So, after numerous checks with a flashlight, my steak was cooked and we finally sat down at the dining table to eat.

At one point I got up to get something to drink with my wonderful meal.

The BnC isn't the best at paying attention, so when I heard him scream Spanky's name and tell him to 'drop it'..I figured my steak was off my plate and being dragged around the floor by the Spankster. Believe me..he has dragged some large food items off the counter..huge things that look as big as he is. Pee Wee likes to drag an entire cube of butter into the living room and eat it and Bobby Joe has run off with a whole slice of pizza before..but I digress.

My steak was safe and untouched. We ate our meal and then I drug my tired ass into the bedroom to lay down and watch some sports on the boob tube. Dishes are NOT my responsibility and I didn't give a shit if they got done last night or not.

They didn't get done last night. The BnC was tired and cranky and wasn't in the mood to wash dishes. Believe me when I say..I did not care one whit. Until I got up this morning to slop the hogs...

That's when I found Pee Wee and Spanky playing hockey on the kitchen floor with an errant brussel sprout. The looked at me, screaming profanities at them, looked at the brussel sprount and hauled ass for a safe house..er..safe hiding place.

I had left 4 brussel sprouts on my plate. There were none on my plate when I looked this morning.

Nothing says fun like hunting down 3 lost brussel sprouts at 8am on a Sunday morning.

I found them all..and I am going back to bed. Have a good Sunday m'dear readers. ;)

Bless you Betty Bowers..

Subject: Bible-based Marriage.

Jon Stewart roughs up Faux News..

He dissects the Faux News wingnuts over their response to Obama’s speech in Egypt. I do love this line about Faux’s talking heads..which include the idiot Michelle Malkkkin:

“What a torture it must be for such pretty people to see such ugly things.”

Negativity always abounds in the Faux Noise crowd. Do those assholes ever see anything positive? Nah..

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D-Day 65 years on..

As President Obama heads to Normandy, here are some numbers to think about, from D-Day.org:

D-Day: It is hard to conceive the epic scope of this decisive battle that foreshadowed the end of Hitlers dream of Nazi domination. Overlord was the largest air, land, and sea operation undertaken before or since June 6, 1944. The landing included over 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes, and over 150,000 service men.

After years of meticulous planning and seemingly endless training, for the Allied Forces, it all came down to this: The boat ramp goes down, then jump, swim, run, and crawl to the cliffs. Many of the first young men (most not yet 20 years old) entered the surf carrying eighty pounds of equipment. They faced over 200 yards of beach before reaching the first natural feature offering any protection. Blanketed by small-arms fire and bracketed by artillery, they found themselves in hell.

When it was over, the Allied Forces had suffered nearly 10,000 casualties; more than 4,000 were dead.

From Wiki's page on the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial we learn there are 9,387 young men and boys buried there. Of those buried there, 307 are unknown soldiers. More information on casualties, numbers of troops and equipment landed on the beaches can be found at the DDayMuseum site.

The numbers are mind-boggling. And it was supposed to be the war to end all wars....not really, but it should of been. After the big power countries finished carving up Europe, it would never be the same, would it? Such death and destruction...

20 years ago-Tanks and Tiananmen Square

This picture is recognizable by most everyone. It is a student facing off with a shitload of Chinese tanks. It is simply known as 'Tankman'. It was taken by Jeff Widener.

I remember Tiananmen Sq and the bloody crackdown by the Chinese government. I watched it on CNN all day and night. I got online and tried to find live shots of what was going on.

June 3rd and 4th was the massacre. There is a good pbs timeline and a documentary entitled Tank Man on the entire protest which started in April and ended June 5th, which was the day the Tankman photo was captured by Jeff Widener. There is also another documentary on the subject which you can rent or buy entitled The Gate of Heavenly Peace. A section regarding the massacre can be watched here.

There has never been an accounting of how many protesters and bystanders were killed that night.

Home-a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

This film will be showing tonight on National Geographic. This version is the entire film..one hour and 33 minutes long. You can watch it free on YouTube until July 14th. From Mr. Arthus-Bertrand:

We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate.

The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.

For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because Home is a non-profit film.

HOME has been made for you : share it! And act for the planet.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Countrywide founder in deep doo-doo with the SEC

Angelo Mozilo has been charged with fraud, leveled by the SEC with regard to Countrywide's subprime loans.From MSNBC:

Federal regulators on Thursday charged Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., and two other company executives with civil fraud.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, also accuses Mozilo of illegal insider trading.

*snip*

Civil fraud charges also were filed against Countrywide’s former chief operating officer David Sambol, 49, and ex-chief financial officer Eric Sieracki, 52.

The trio “deliberately misled” Countrywide shareholders, SEC enforcement director Robert Khuzami said at a news conference at agency headquarters. While they painted a picture of robust performance, the real Countrywide was “buckling under the weight” of soured mortgage loans, he added.

Countrywide started our trip down the road to depression when they took the first dump.

I hope to hell Angelo does jail time..but I ain't holding my breath that the over tanned bag of shit does any time in jail. I would feel much better if the FBI charged this fuckwit. Angelo knew Countrywide was taking a shit but sold his shares for over $140 million dollars before they fell from grace. Again, from the MSNBC writeup:

The SEC is seeking injunctions and unspecified civil fines against Mozilo, Sambol and Sieracki and wants them to be barred from serving as officers or directors of any public company. The agency also is seeking unspecified restitution of allegedly ill-gotten profits from Mozilo and Sambol.

Fry those bastards..please.

Koko Taylor is gone...

Koko was a sharecropper’s daughter. She became one of the best-known blues singers in the world. She has passed on. She was supposed to headline the Joe Bonamassa concert I saw last month, but canceled, and we now understand why..she was very sick and she was at the end of her wonderful life. God I loved her voice and her music. From the LAT writeup:

Koko Taylor, a Chicago musical icon who became one of the most revered female blues vocalists of her time with signature hits such as “Wang Dang Doodle,” “I’m a Woman” and “Hey Bartender,” died Wednesday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago of complications from gastrointestinal surgery. She was 80.

Her death came less than four weeks after her last performance, at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis, where she collected her record 29th Blues Music Award. She had surgery May 19 and appeared to be recovering until taking a turn Wednesday morning, and was with friends and family when she died.

*snip*

Born Cora Walton in Memphis in 1928, she grew up on a sharecropper’s farm outside Memphis. Young Cora and her three brothers and two sisters slept on pallets in a shotgun shack with no running water or electricity. By the time she was 11, both her parents had died. She picked cotton to survive, and moved to Chicago in the early ’50s to be with her future husband, Robert “Pops” Taylor. She found a job working as a domestic. Pops Taylor died in 1989.

She had sung gospel music in church while living in the South, and on weekends would attend the blues clubs in Chicago’s burgeoning South Side scene, the heyday of Chess Records and such stalwarts as Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon. She would occasionally sit in and caught the ear of Dixon, who approached her in the early ’60s about recording one of his songs, “Wang Dang Doodle.”

Her longtime manager and friend, Bruce Iglauer was with her when she died. He had this to say about her:

“She was of the same generation as Muddy [Waters] and [Howlin'] Wolf, she had those [Mississippi] Delta roots,” he said Wednesday. “Even though she had been living in Chicago since the ’50s, her music was still deeply rooted in the South. She had that rhythmic sense, that sense of where you lay the words and how the band locks in around the singer, that intensity of people who have lived that life.”

You will now be with the rest of the Blues greats who passed before you Koko.. rest in peace dear lady.

Below is Koko singing I cried like a baby. Oh, How I love this song by her. I so looked forward to hearing her...now she is gone.

Obama's speech in Egypt

For those of us that weren't up at 3am this morning..his speech to the Muslim world.




You can read the entire transcript here.

Nevada assembly overrides Governors veto of same sex unions.

From Jurist:

The Nevada Assembly on Sunday approved a same-sex partnership law, overriding the governor's veto by a 28-14 vote [roll call vote]. The measure, passed in the state senate a day earlier by the requisite two-thirds vote, seeks to give same-sex partners the same rights, protections, and benefits as are given to spouses. The rights afforded to domestic partners include property rights, mutual responsibility for debts, rights with respect to children, and the right to seek financial support if the partnership ends. While the legislation specifies that a legal union under the law does not constitute a marriage under the Nevada Constitution [text], the law provides legal protection for same-sex marriages or unions from other states. Governor Jim Gibbons vetoed the bill on the grounds that the voters of Nevada previously passed a constitutional amendment specifying that the rights of marriage should only apply to married couples, reasoning that only the voters should determine if domestic partners are granted such rights. Gibbons also reasoned that the privileges sought by the bill could be achieved with private contracts.

Some good news on the equality front...or is it just separate but equal?

And from Dawn I filched this great friggin video..watch it!
Traditions..not all are worth keeping:

Nebraska physician vows to keep Tiller’s clinic open.

Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a physician that has been working with Dr. George Tiller for ten years has stated he will operate Dr. Tiller’s clinic beginning next week. From McClatchy:

Carhart said he drove to Wichita last night. He met with clinic staff members and Tiller’s wife and daughters Monday morning.

“It was a really, really good meeting,” Carhart said. “It was a chance to go over all the important things and the good things George had done for each of us, and ways that we could appreciate all that he’s done for the community and the women of this country.

“His daughters and his wife are doing far better than I would be doing if I just lost my life partner or my mother or father,” he said.

Patients who had appointments this week have been notified of the clinic’s closing, and other arrangements have been made, Carhart said.

“Starting next Monday we should be back to 100 percent,” he said.

Carhart said he and two other out-of-state doctors have been rotating weekly shifts at the clinic, and that will continue.

So the anti-choice terrorists will not win this time around. Thank Buddha…and bless Dr. Carhart.

Below is Professor Turley on Rachel Maddow tonight discussing the Domestic Terrorists.

SDS - Sotomayor Derangement Syndrome

William Rivers Pitt has a good read up at TruthOut this morning. The title is the same as mine-Sotomayor Derangement Syndrome. He lists all the major rightwing nutters that are foaming at the mouth over Judge Sotomayor and her supposed racism. The list is quite long, as you are probably aware. His explanation of SDS:

They called it Bush Derangement Syndrome for eight years: the condition of being berserk with rage, hatred and fear over the acts and actions - nay, even the very existence - of George W. Bush and his administration.

*snip*

Last week, the malady mutated into a whole new thing - Sotomayor Derangement Syndrome - and boy, but it's a doozy. Ranting incoherence, brazen racism and suicidal ideation swept through the ranks of the far right after Judge Sotomayor was nominated to replace Justice Souter on the high court, symptoms that became worse by orders of magnitude as the week wore on. By the weekend, those suffering from Sotomayor Derangement Syndrome had not only struck the bottom of the barrel in their attempts to tear the Sotomayor nomination down, but had plowed right through the wood and burrowed deep into the slime and ooze beneath.

They, the nutters, ignore the SCOTUSblog indepth analysis of Judge Sotomayor's race cases-all 97 of them. The most heinous of these fucktards is Newt Gingrich.

This bigoted wingnut actually is using this issue to raise money. He uses Martin Luther King Jr's words in his email, from the TIME link:

The email opens with this quote, from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream: that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Wait..there is more..

Of course, no one believes that any judge can be 100% impartial and unbiased in every situation. Judges are human beings, and will occasionally allow their personal biases to cloud their attempts at impartiality.

But this is VERY different -- this judge is making it CLEAR that she thinks she SHOULD be biased and partial, based on her ethnicity and gender!

So Newtie is now bellowing his sexist rant as well. Surprised? Not really. Then he adds a small ps at the end:

We need YOUR help to take this fight to Capitol Hill. Please consider supporting Renewing American Leadership with a generous donation today. $25, $50, or $100 will dramatically help us stand strong for the Rule of Law in America!

PLEASE MAKE YOUR BEST
CONTRIBUTION NOW:
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Paid for by Renewing American Leadership recognized as a public charity by the IRS under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Your generous contribution to support our important work is deductible as a charitable contribution to the maximum extent permitted by law.

Public charity my brown ass. Racism and sexism coming from Newt's piehole should offend everyone. It should piss off everyone that has two brain cells to rub together..unlike most of Newt's fan base. William Pitt has this to say about Newt's fundraising letter to his masses:

Civil war, suffrage, civil rights, un-American ... wha? Oh, wait, that's right, this was a fundraising letter, which means it doesn't have to make sense. With this letter, Gingrich is seeking to raise money from the same subsegment of the GOP base that vacuums up change from between the couch cushions and sends it to the RNC whenever they get a direct mailer warning about evil immigrant hordes conspiring with Hillary Clinton to abort all Christian fetuses, or something to that effect. Gingrich will turn a nifty profit with this letter, even if it is all nickels, and use the funds to position himself further as the far-right's darling candidate for the 2012 presidential election. Sense? Meh. There's money to be made.

So Newt's email is really about making money off Judge Sotomayor. Nice..and so expected from theses fuckwits. After all, Newt doesn't have a real job..so how can we expect him to live comfortably without rallying his fellow wingnuts to his latest cause?

Notice that all the wingnuts shooting off their pieholes are not elected republicans. The elected republicans are pissing down both legs at the rhetoric being spewed by the likes of Beck, Gingrich, Liddy, Savage, and of course..Boss Limbaugh. Pitt's final remarks on what this all means to the The Party Of No:

"After a week of escalating race and gender rhetoric from the right over the Sotomayor nomination, it's now looking like some in the Republican Party - those concerned with actually getting elected - have become alarmed by the political damage the more extreme members of their party may be doing and are moving to rein in the vitriol," reported Eric Kleefield of Talking Points Memo on Friday. "It's the starkest example yet of an interesting division within the right, one that has been apparent for some time, but which the Sotomayor nomination has not only crystallized but accelerated: the right-wing bomb-throwers obsessed with ideological purity versus the right-wing pragmatists who want the party to actually win election again some day."

By the end of last weekend, Sotomayor Derangement Syndrome had blown this rift within the GOP wide open. Establishment conservatives are now directly pitted against the vocal ideologues on their right flank and a GOP base that seems to be avidly listening to them. For a party already traumatized by arguments over immigration, two decisive routs in a row at the polls, and an absolute absence of any real leadership, the advent of this newest intra-party bloodbath is the worst possible situation.

Stay tuned.

Oh yes..stay tuned. These fuckwits are not even close to shutting the hell up. I hope this blows a huge hole in the republican party, big enough to drive a semi through, driving sane individuals away from them by the thousands. I hope they become marginalized enough that all they represent are the ignorant bigots in the south.

Because that is all they deserve. Keep talking Newtie..keep talking.