Otherworld

There’s a bit of news that happened over the weekend, so let’s see what’s happening in the world of politics:

 House Democrats are targeting billions of dollars in oil company tax breaks for quick repeal next year. While I wish them all the luck in the world getting even a dime out of the oil companies, I just can’t help but think that Bush will veto anything the Democrats try to do.

Iraq is getting so bad that now even Henry Kissenger says that a military win is impossible. Kissenger has been in the news lately with all the comparisons with Vietnam, so one can only hope that Bush will finally listen to him (or anybody telling the facts about Iraq) and stop the insanity.

“If the Democrats won on November 7th, Cheney said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran. The White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions and thus stop Congress from getting in its way.”

-Seymour Hersh, writer for the New Yorker, citing a source familiar with the discussion.

Imagine the nerve of the rest of the world to use International Law to challenge Bush’s rejection of treaties in order to protect his ass. The nerve!

Remember the right wingers crying because they thought the filibuster was soooo dishonest? Well, Sen. James Inhofe just threatened to filibuster any legislation on Climate Change. Then again…Inhofe is an idiot. They don’t come much dimmer. Remember his speech about the Federal Marriage Amendment? How about this…

A new report by the Government Accountability Office has “criticized the Bush administration for failing to check if federally funded abstinence-only programs actually work to curb teen sex.” 

  Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance bill: “Not gonna happen.” Last week, Bush sent Capitol Hill a “plea for a legislative stamp of approval on the controversial spy effort,” calling it an “important priority in the war on terror.” Senate Republicans responded with “deafening silence.” 

John McCain is flip-flopping like a dying fish out of water. Oh John….to think that I once said I would vote for you. What happened to you? How did they get to you?

• He wants to immediately overturn Roe v Wade after he was against it.
• McCain Hires Key Falwell Staffer For Presidential Campaign
• John McCain Floppin’ around

 Pat Robertson strapped the final buckle on his straight jacket with his comment this past weekend that “all others than the Lord are demonic powers.” Just stfu, Pat….before you make the rest of the world hate us even more.

 

The CIA has acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents, including a directive signed by President George W. Bush, that have guided the agency’s interrogation and detention of terror suspects. [..]The contents of the documents were not revealed, but one of them is “a directive signed by President Bush granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees,” the civil liberties union said, based on its review of published accounts. 

 The second document, according to the group, is a Justice Department legal analysis “specifying interrogation methods that the CIA may use against top Al Qaeda members.” Read on… 

The political party formed by U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman after he lost the Democratic primary in August has a new chairman - and it’s not Lieberman. Lieberman critic and Fairfield University professor John Orman has triggered a process that will force Lieberman and state elections officials to decide the future of a party created solely to return the senator to Washington.

In a surprise move by the oh so biased media, newly elected Democratic Senators Jim Webb and Jon Tester were guests on Meet the Press this past week.

Amid Uproar Over War, Rangel Renews Call for Draft - I can understand his reasoning behind it….the thought that if there were a draft many of the warmongers with kids wouldn’t be so quick to start another war. My only problem with that theory, however, is the fathers of those children…like Cheney  or George W. Bush, are only going to pull strings and have their children armed with as many deferments as they had. Unless you made a draft specifically aimed for the rich (which is just wrong), it’s not going to do what you want it to do. The draft is just a bad idea all around…and the incentive for not starting a war should be the fact that wars are terrible..terrible things that should always be avoided whenever possible.

More bad news from the Bush “appointment for bad ideas and butt kissing” office:

Bush has named Dr. Eric Keroack the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs, overseeing the Office of Family Planning. 

AlterNet : 

He’s a favorite guest speaker at meetings of the National Right to Life Committee. He’s on the medical advisory council for the notorious Leslee Unruh’s National Abstinence Clearinghouse, whence he expounds on such topics as the physical and emotional consequences of premarital sex. 

He teaches that there is a physiological cause [pdf link] for relationship failure and sexual promiscuity — a hormonal cause-and-effect that can only be short-circuited by sexual abstinence until marriage.[..] 

He’s the full-time medical director for A Woman’s Concern, a chain of Boston area crisis pregnancy centers, where he spreads all the usual lies about abortion and uses ultrasound scans as a tool to influence the decisions of women who might be considering abortion.  

He was one of the “experts” who determined that federally funded abstinence education programs must mention contraceptives only in relation to their failure rates and promote abstinence until marriage. 

[..]Keroack works his heart out for the Christian right. And it appears that, as of Monday morning, he’ll be working for us, too. Read on… 

FOX News is now considering making a right-leaning version of the Daily Show. Funny…I thought FOX News was already a parody of the real thing.

The Daily Show on Troop Levels and Glenn Beck

Now here’s a protest that I can get involved with: “Baring Witness” activists are planing a Global Orgasm for Peace

A good friend of mine sent me a YouTube link starring the most verbose 8-year old I’ve ever seen…and her tirade against religion and Bill O’Reilly. Out of the mouths of babes…

And finally…a moment of Zen that’s also going to be one of my new icons: