March of the Penguins

In 30 seconds...


-Diane

Late night music, obviously.

Portishead: "Machine Gun"



-Diane

Caption this.

Don't vomit on my blog, man...



-Diane

Bill O'Reilly has a new friend.

Part One.




Part Two.

Isn't that special.

-Diane

Countdown

Keith Olbermann gives us a sneak preview of appearances by Michelle and Barack Obama coming up on Thursday.

-Diane

Wednesday Monkey Blogging

-Diane

Well, well.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama’s ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright could hurt his presidential hopes. So could his comment about “bitter” small-town America clinging to guns and religion. And Americans might question Sen. Hillary Clinton’s honesty and trustworthiness.

But according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the bigger problem appears to be John McCain's ties to President Bush.

In the survey, 43 percent of registered voters say they have major concerns that McCain is too closely aligned with the current administration.

Now, when will the msm get their heads out of the sand? I know, I know, don't hold my breath...


-Diane

Truth

-Diane

John McCain = 4 more years of Bush on Iraq

Via Moveon.org.


-Diane

-Diane

Weird

McCain was against the long-term occupation of Iraq before he was for it.


-Diane

Hope my Virginia readers are okay.

SUFFOLK, Va. - Three tornadoes ripped through Virginia on Monday, with one hop-scotching across the southeastern part of the state and leaving behind a 25-mile trail of gutted homes, tossed cars and more than 200 injured residents.

Residents of some of the hardest hit neighborhoods in this town outside Norfolk were forced to evacuate their homes, with buses taking them to nearby shelters. Police closed roads, steering people away from streets with downed power lines.

Downed trees and power lines covered the streets in a section of the city. A vending machine was tilted on its side, leaning up against a pile of rubble that had been the general store in a small shopping district.

"It's just a bunch of broken power poles, telephone lines and sad faces," said Richard Allbright, who works for a tree removal service in Driver and had been out for hours trying to clear the roads.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine declared a state of emergency for the areas of southeastern Virginia struck by the twisters.


What a mess, and 200 injured. Just unreal.

-Diane

North Pole Ice Free in 2008?

Report from ABC News.


-Diane

Howard Dean on Morning Joe

From this morning, Monday April 28, 2008. The topic is the new DNC ad.

The Republican National Committee demanded Monday that television networks stop running a television ad by the Democratic Party that falsely suggests John McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq.

The ad says President Bush has talked about staying in Iraq for 50 years, then plays a clip of McCain saying, "Maybe 100. That'd be fine with me."

The announcer then says: "If all he offers is more of the same, is John McCain the right choice for America's future?"

Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said the ad deliberately distorts what McCain, the likely GOP presidential nominee, said.

The committee's chief counsel, Sean Cairncross, said he sent letters Monday to NBC, CNN and MSNBC insisting that they stop airing the commercial.

At issue is McCain's answer, in January, to a question about Bush's theory that troops could be in Iraq for 50 years.

McCain said: "Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that'd be fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaida is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day."

Democratic Party chief Howard Dean said "there's nothing false" about the ad.

"We deliberately used John McCain's words. This isn't some ominous consultant's voice from Washington. This is John McCain's own words. And we've been very upfront about everything that he's said."

Here's the unedited DNC McCain ad:



-Diane

-Diane

Bushit

Did he actually say our international obligation? I think he did.

-Diane

Coming up Sunday on CBS

I recommend sitting in front of the television with a few dozen cream pies, if you get my drift.

-Diane

The Daily Show Week in Review

-Diane

Who's running this show, Karl Rove?

Via ABC:

On Wednesday, Obama-backing musician in Black Mountain, North Carolina, David LaMotte, got a phone call from a pollster for Sen. Hillary Clinton, Garin-Hart-Yang, in which negative messages against Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, were being tested.

The Garin in Garin-Hart-Yang, incidentally, is Geoff Garin, who has an op-ed in today's Washington Post complaining that the Obama campaign is the one that's negative, not Clinton.

Ahem.

"I'm going to read you a few criticisms opponents might make about Barack Obama," the pollster said. "For each one please tell me if they give you very major doubts, fairly major doubts, some doubts or no real doubts about supporting Barack Obama for president.

"At a time when we need leaders who are clear, strong and decisive, Obama has been inconsistent, saying he would remove all troops, but then indicating that he might not, and pledging to renegotiate NAFTA, but then sending signals that he would not actually do so as president.

'He supported George W. Bush's 2005 energy bill which paid six billion dollars in subsidies to the oil and gas industry, nine billion dollars in subsidies to the coal industry and twelve billion dollars in subsidies to the nuclear power industry. It was called 'a piñata of perks' and 'the best energy bill corporations could buy.' Would that leave you with major doubts, some doubts or no real doubts?"

You can listen to some of the call, which LaMotte record and emailed to me, HERE.

Says LaMotte, in an email, "the questions, as you'll hear, are unanswerable if you don't accept the basic premises laid out in them, like the classic push poll example 'Are you still beating your wife?' You can't answer that 'yes or no.' I don't accept that Barack pledged to walk away from NAFTA OR that he 'sent signals' that he wouldn't really do it as president, both of which are premises for the question. Like Hillary, he pledged to renegotiate, and to walk away if other parties refused. And having unpaid staff in a misrepresented casual conversation in Chicago over coffee with someone from the Canadian embassy I don't accept as 'sending signals.' So how do I answer this question: 'Would that leave you with major doubts, some doubts or no real doubts about Senator Obama's candidacy?' Well... if it were true, it might leave me with some doubts, but it's not, and that's not an option for an answer."

Even if I didn't already have an opinion here one way or another, I'd be inclined to think that if all you've got to offer is negative attacks on your opponent, perhaps that's all you've got to offer.

But, hey, when that's all you've got...

-Diane

There can only be one.

The new cover. There can only be one, and imo, there's only once choice for real change. Obama.

-Diane

This barely received a blip on the msm meter so...

Threats and violence have worked so well these past eight years.

-Diane

Belated Monkey Blogging

New computer this week, but I'm fully operational now, yet still working 7 days a week. I hope to stop in here as much as I can, folks, doin' my best.

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Ann Coulter coughs up hair ball.

(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Well, it's either Ann's hairball or a Hungarian Puli Sheepdog. Your call.


-Diane

They shot him 50 times.

Three cops, 50 bullets, that means at least one of them even had to stop to reload. But, cleared of all charges...

A photo of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old bridegroom whom police said was shot and killed on his wedding day along with two other men, who were injured, after police opened fire on them, with his fiancee Nicole Paultre and one of his children is displayed at a candlelight memorial at the scene of the incident in New York November 27, 2006.

(Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)


-Diane

Headline news...really.

Times Recommends

Squirrels battle for supremacy

You can't make shit like this up. I'm just sayin'.

-Diane

The Bigger they are, the faster they defect...

One of the things that both Dem campaigns are always nervous about is defectors. In particular, Clinton is more vulnerable to this problem since she's the candidate that is trailing.[emphasis mine] Well, NBC News has learned that a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, former Amb. to Chile Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon is leaving the campaign to join up Barack Obama's campaign. Officially dubbed a "Hillraiser," Guerra-Mondragon raised nearly $500,000 for Clinton's campaign, according to some estimates. He has been informing people inside Clintonworld this week in what's been described as some tough conversations. A formal announcement of a role for Guerra-Mondragon on Obama's national finance committee will be made next week. Guerra-Mondragon was appointed Amb. to Chile by Pres. Clinton in '94 and served until '98.

Among the reasons for Guerra-Mondragon to defect, according to one informed source, was he was uneasy with the tone of the Clinton campaign and was beginning to worry about what this would mean for the general election.

-Diane

-Diane

It's my blog and I'll vent if I want to...

-Diane

Tuesday morning...

John McCain is older than...

-Diane

Whoa...

-Diane

Hillary can still win.

-Diane

Confirmed.

Meet your media. You can't see the hands up their asses, but they're there...

-Diane

Help me Obi Wan Kinobe, You're My Only Hope!

It's part of the cast from Star Wars...

-Diane

Natasha Bedingfield: "Pocket Full of Sunshine"

-Diane

Condi pretends to be a diplomat or something again...

-Diane

Party!

Men dressed as ancient Roman centurions parade in Circus Maximus to celebrate the birth of the city of Rome. Legend has it that Rome was founded on April 21, 753 B.C. by Romulus and his brother Remus, the twin sons of the god of war Mars, who were suckled as infants by a she-wolf in the woods. Known as the Christmas of Rome, each year Romans celebrate the pagan festivity, which has become a major tourist attraction, by dressing up in ancient Roman clothes and parading through the streets surrounding the eternal city's ancient ruins. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
(April 20, 2008)

-Diane

Oy.

READING, Pa. - Democrat Barack Obama, who often argues that John McCain is the same as President Bush, said Sunday that the Republican presidential candidate would be an improvement over Bush's eight-year reign.

"You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain. And all three of us would be better than George Bush," Obama said.

"But what you have to ask yourself is, who has the chance to actually, really change things in a fundamental way?" Obama asked as he wrapped up a town-hall style event at Reading High School in central Pennsylvania.

The Illinois senator was trying to argue that he is the stronger choice over Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in Tuesday's primary in Pennsylvania. But Obama ended up mixing in praise for McCain at the same time — and giving Clinton an opening to criticize.

Senator, heal thyself...




-Diane

While you were out.

Just in case you were out having fun over the weekend and missed this:

Hillary Clinton attacks MoveOn.

-Diane

Situation Normal

The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.

Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.

The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - "were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost", Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team, previewed last week by the Guardian. Snafu stands for Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

Saudi-born al-Qahtani was sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and given enemas at Guantánamo.

274 days to go...

-Diane

Hoodwinked

Gitmo:

America's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.

The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today's Guardian.

In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, reveals that:

· Senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.

· Myers believes he was a victim of "intrigue" by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld's defence department.

· The Guantánamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the American TV series 24.

· Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army's field manual.

The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld's under-secretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

Gives ya the warm fuzzies, don't it? I mean the picture of the lot of them sitting around the tube with their tumblers of ...whatever...straight up, of course. No foo-foo drinks for these manly men, nosiree. I hope someone is prepping an entire cell block for the end of the rule of the dark overlords.

-Diane

-Diane

Danny Federici

"Danny and I worked together for 40 years - he was the most wonderfully fluid keyboard player and a pure natural musician. I loved him very much...we grew up together."
—Bruce Springsteen

Danny Federici, for 40 years the E Street Band's organist and keyboard player, died this afternoon, April 17, 2008 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City after a three year battle with melanoma.

The Federici family and the E Street family request that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund. A web site for the Fund is being established and we'll post its link when it is on line.

Bruce Springsteen's concerts scheduled for Friday in Ft. Lauderdale and Saturday in Orlando performance are being postponed. Replacement dates will be announced shortly.

-Diane

Enough

Tell ABC enough with the distractions. Sign the petition.

-Diane

Superdelegates, reveal yourselves!

(CNN)— An increasingly firm Howard Dean told CNN again Thursday that he needs superdelegates to say who they’re for – and “I need them to say who they’re for starting now.”

“We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time,” the Democratic National Committee Chairman told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “We’ve got to know who our nominee is.”

Howard's interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN is at the link on video.

-Diane

Darth Cheney yucks it up with the Press corps...

-Diane

Very late monkey blogging.

-Diane

-Diane

Primary 2008

Oh my!

-Diane

Filipino children. A UN agency may be forced to cut rations feeding more than a million people in the troubled southern Philippines because of soaring world food prices

(AFP/Romeo Gacad)


-Diane

The Three Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree

Anything's possible...

-Diane

Government funds linked to Texas polygamy compound

Video courtesy MSNBC

-Diane

-Diane

~QOTD~

"Be what you is, cuz if you be what you ain't, then you ain't what you is."


(Original 19th century epitaph on a grave marker in Boothill Cemetery, Tombstone , Arizona.)



-Diane

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

The US military says an Apache helicopter has accidentally destroyed one of its own armoured vehicles in eastern Baghdad.

The military says the incident occurred yesterday afternoon, when the chopper spotted a group of four militants placing roadside bombs. It says a Hellfire missile hit the group, killing two gunmen.

Sunday's statement says that a second Hellfire was then launched. But it missed its target and struck a US armoured vehicle instead.

Iraqi police confirm that a Humvee was set ablaze in the Mashtal area of eastern Baghdad. They say two US soldiers and three Iraqi civilians were wounded and that American troops immediately blocked off the neighbourhood.



More death and misery that shouldn't be happening.

-Diane

Late night music.

Leona Lewis: "Bleeding Love"

-Diane

Residents wait in hope of identifying some of their missing relatives among retrieved bodies that were found in a mass grave in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi soldiers acting on tips from detained Shiite militia fighters found 14 bodies that had been buried in a field, officials and witnesses said. It was the second discovery this week of mass graves in the area, raising to 44 the number of bodies found by the Iraqi troops. (AP Photo/Loay Hameed)
(April 12, 2008)


-Diane

A Tibetan protestor with a slogan painted on his sunglasses is seen at a protest in New Delhi, India. Hundreds of Tibetan exiles and campaigners rallied in the Indian capital against the Chinese crackdown in Tibet. (AP Photo/Mustafa Quraishi)
(April 12, 2008)


-Diane

Kathy Fendelman comforts her twins Samantha and Benjamin, 9, as their father, First Sgt. Barton Fendelman, leaves Philadelphia for an eventual deployment in Iraq. The soldier, not pictured, is a member of the 304th Civil Affairs Brigade and will be beginning his second deployment to Iraq following training at Ft. Dix, N.J. (AP Photo Joseph Kaczmarek)
(April 12, 2008)


-Diane

People light candles at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany, to commemorate the 4,646 children who were transported by train from Berlin to Nazi death camps. A 'Train of Commemoration' is due to stop in Berlin on Sunday on its way to Auschwitz. More than 1 million children and youths from all over Europe were transported to the Nazi death camps during World War II via the German rail network. (AP Photo/Herbert Knosowski)
(April 12, 2008)


-Diane

Going Green?

If you're new to the efforts to go green, and aren't sure where to begin, here are 52 tips to get you started on your way.


-Diane

Nooooo, no racism in Amurika

SANDUSKY, Ohio -- A highway patrolman who was photographed in a handmade Ku Klux Klan costume while on duty the day before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday has been suspended without pay, authorities said.

A fellow trooper who transmitted the cell-phone photo of white-masked lawman has been demoted.


Some people still obviously quite falsely believe that as we're yankees that it some how implies there aren't any racists in these parts. I also still hear people claim that racism is no longer a problem in the US, and yet the white sheets continue to pop up.

-Diane

Closing Gitmo

What will happen to the detainees?

-Diane

Each day is another day too long.

A roadside bomb killed an American soldier in Baghdad on Saturday, capping the bloodiest week for U.S. troops in Iraq this year. Clashes persisted in Shiite areas, even as the biggest Shiite militia sought to rein in its fighters.

At least 13 Shiite militants were killed in the latest clashes in Baghdad's militia stronghold of Sadr City, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said seven civilians also died in fighting, which erupted Friday night and tapered off Saturday.

The U.S. military said the American soldier was killed in a blast Saturday morning in northwestern Baghdad but did not say whether Shiite militiamen were responsible.

The death raised to at least 19 the number of American troopers killed in Iraq since last Sunday.


Along with seven Iraqi civilians (that we know of) killed today as well -- and who knows what their toll has been for the week -- just drifting along until January '09 when a new POTUS is sworn in makes this continually more unacceptable.


-Diane

Mass grave of the day

BAGHDAD - Iraqi soldiers acting on tips from detained Shiite militiamen found 14 bodies Saturday that had been buried in a field south of Baghdad, officials said.

It was the second discovery this week of mass graves in the area, raising to 44 the number of bodies located by Iraqi troops.



-Diane

Poor Gonzo

Just can't get a break.


-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Dirty deeds, anything but dirt cheap.

Why the fuck are we involved in this debacle aside, this article's intent is to criticize the Iraqi's administrative capabilities. A secret deal without competitive bidding that sidesteps anticorruption safeguards mirrors the Bush adminstration's approach to such dealings. People often learn by example, no?

BAGHDAD — An $833 million Iraqi arms deal secretly negotiated with Serbia has underscored Iraq’s continuing problems equipping its armed forces, a process that has long been plagued by corruption and inefficiency.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, center, with Defense Minister Abdul Qadir in February. Mr. Qadir has drawn criticism for his role in engineering an $833 million deal to buy military equipment from Serbia, a deal that was later scaled back.

Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, center, with Iraqi officers in March. He is the head of America’s security advisory mission in Iraq.

The deal was struck in September without competitive bidding and it sidestepped anticorruption safeguards, including the approval of senior uniformed Iraqi Army officers and an Iraqi contract approval committee. Instead, it was negotiated by a delegation of 22 high-ranking Iraqi officials, without the knowledge of American commanders or many senior Iraqi leaders.

The deal drew enough criticism that Iraqi officials later limited the purchase to $236 million. And much of that equipment, American commanders said, turned out to be either shoddy or inappropriate for the military’s mission.

If the Pentagon doesn't even know the when and wheres of how the Iraqi government is spending its money -- that is still in large supplied by the US -- when millions are going out for munitions...I don't think they should be trying to tell us that they know that the militias are getting weapons from Iran. That doesn't make any sense at all, not that anything about this war does.


-Diane

Heh

Could not resist...

-Diane

-Diane

Oh my.

-Diane

What?

Hillary Clinton used her trademark laugh Thursday to deflect a question about the $800,000 her husband earned in 2005 giving speeches for a Bogota-based group that supports the Colombia free trade agreement — the same trade deal she currently opposes.

Asked by CNN if those earnings represented a conflict of interest given that she has dipped into her family's pocketbook to pay campaign bills, Clinton threw up her hands and laughed loudly for several seconds.

"How many angels dance on the head of the pin?," she responded, continuing to giggle.

-Diane

What's in a word?

Bush: ‘We do not torture’ terror suspects



-Diane

Late.

-Diane

Obama in 30 seconds

MoveOn's Obama in 30 seconds contest is accepting entries until 4-15-08, and I've picked out a couple of the entries to share with you. Some really creative people out there in the internets.







-Diane

Countdown

4-11-08: Worst Person in the World!

Courtesy MSNBC

-Diane

Bosnia, Bosnia, Bosnia!

-Diane

Is that really a nekkid woman in Dick Cheney's sunglasses?

I had this photo of the reflection in Cheney's sunglasses up bright and early this am at Raw Story. :)

Video courtesy of MSNBC.

-Diane

Impeachment is off the table...

WASHINGTON - The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday.

A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government’s laboratory.

The accidents are significant because the administration is likely to move foot-and-mouth research from the remote island to one of five sites on the U.S. mainland near livestock herds. This has raised concerns about the risks of a catastrophic outbreak of the disease, which does not sicken humans but can devastate the livestock industry.



I wonder if we couldn't convince Pelosi that -- at a minimum -- someone needs to get Bush to 'freeze' and not touch another gotdamn thing while in office?

-Diane

Hell in a handbasket?

And here I'd always been speaking metaphorically when I would say that hell was just going to burst open and swallow our country up:


GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off the central Oregon Coast.

Scientists don't know what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of magma rumbling underneath the Juan de Fuca Plate - away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said geophysicist Robert Dziak of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore.

They hope to send out the OSU research ship, Wecoma, to take water samples, looking for evidence that sediment on the ocean bottom has been stirred up and chemicals in the water that would indicate magma is moving up through the crust, Dziak said.

There have been more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. The biggest was magnitude 5.4 and two others were more than magnitude 5.0, OSU reported. They have not followed the typical pattern of a major shock followed by a series of diminishing aftershocks, and few have been strong enough to be felt on shore.

It looks like what happens before a volcanic eruption, except there are no volcanoes in the area, Dziak said.


-Diane

-Diane

ohmahgawd, it's the eighties

Rolling Stones: "Ruby Tuesday"

-Diane

The Surge.

Oil over $112 per barrel.

-Diane

Chaos.

American Airlines cancels over 1,000 flights -- more than 45% of its daily schedule -- for safety inspections, and maintenance.

-Diane

Passing of the torch.

-Diane

-Diane

Meanwhile, back in Iraq...

4031.



-Diane

They all knew.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush's most senior advisers approved "enhanced interrogation techniques" of top al Qaeda suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency, ABC News reported on Wednesday, citing sources it did not name.

ABC reported that the so-called "principals" discussed interrogation details in dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House.

Then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by a select group of senior officials or their deputies, ABC said.

"Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding," ABC reported.

In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on the ABC report.

Here I was almost feeling a tad sorry for Ashcroft having Gonzo barge into his hospital room while he was ill and all.

-Diane

Iraq: One Friedman Unit at a Time

-Diane

Wednesday. Monkey. Blogging.

-Diane

Senate Iraq-Petraeus-Crocker hearing

This didn't seem to get much attention yesterday, and I thought it very significant. Not only Voinovich's remarks -- and can someone please tell the msm that he is a Republican -- but also the rather humorous bit with Senator Biden when Obama enters the room for the hearing:

WASHINGTON -- The intersection of presidential politics, economic doldrums, and Iraq policy just produced this scene at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, broke with the party line, declaring, "We've kind of bankrupted this country" with the war spending. "We're in a recession," he added, "and God knows how long it's going to last."

Then he asked General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker whether the Iraqi government understood that the US would eventually withdraw.

"We have someone sitting across here, maybe the next president of the United States," Voinovich said, drawing a cheer from the back of the room.

Committee Chairman Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat who ran for the nomination himself, asked Voinovich not to "reference the senator from Illinois" -- Democratic front-runner Barack Obama -- especially since Biden had ordered a few unruly demonstrators ejected from the hearing room.

"I can just see the headline in the Washington Post: Biden throws out people who cheer Democratic candidate," Biden said, drawing a chuckle from Obama.


Headlines everywhere today said Anti-war Dems, Dems this, Dems that, when in fact the majority everywhere is sick to death of this war that never should have been waged.

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Holy Joe: 'Iran, Iran, Iran!'

-Diane

Don Siegelman with Dan Abrams

Part One.



Part Two.

Gov. Don Siegelman tells Dan Abrams that Karl Rove was behind an
effort to put him in jail. Program aired April 7, 2008.


Videos courtesy MSNBC.


-Diane

-Diane

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says


-Diane

Delicious Snacks Distract Congressmen From Horrors Of War

-Diane

A resident sits next to a child, who was wounded in a U.S. air strike, in a hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City April 7, 2008. A hospital source said four were killed and 12 were wounded in the incident.
REUTERS/Kareem Raheem (IRAQ)



-Diane

Tibet activists hang up banners on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, April 7, 2008. Three pro-Tibet activists scaled the cables of San Francisco's famed Golden Gate Bridge and hung banners to protest the arrival of the Olympic torch in the city on Wednesday.
(Kimberly White/Reuters)



-Diane

Fact-checking the Clinton campaign

4-7-08 MSNBC's Countdown: Olbermann discusses the firing/demotion of Mark Penn.

-Diane

Hardball

4-7-08 MSNBC Hardball with Tweety: Did the Iraq troop surge work?

Jeezus, how many msm nitwits does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

-Diane

Lame Duck Fascist's Ode to Vladimir

Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.
We've known each other since were what, fifty or so?
Together we climbed hills or trees.
Learned of pet goats and ABC's,
skinned our hearts and skinned our knees.
Goodbye my friend, it's hard to retire,
when all the bombs are still flying in the sky,
Now that napalm is in the air.
Nuclear weapons are everywhere.
When you see them I'll be there.
We had wars, we had bombs, we had biological weapons.
But the wars that we waged
were just commas in history.
Goodbye, Vladimir, please pray for me,
I was the black sheep of the family.
You tried to teach me evil from wrong.
Too much beer and too much song,
wonder how I get along.
Goodbye, Vladimir, it's hard to retire
when all the bombs are flying in the sky,
Now that napalm is in the air.
Nuclear weapons everywhere.
When you see them I'll be there.
We had wars, we had bombs, we had biological weapons.
But the beer and the song,
like the seasons, all have gone.
Goodbye, Vladimir, my faithful one.
You gave me vodka and helped me find the john.
And every time that I was down
you would always come around
and get my feet back on the ground.
Goodbye, Vladimir, I'll miss this power.
when all the bombs are flying in the sky,
Now that napalm is in the air.
With the progress ev'rywhere.
I wish that we could both be there.
We had wars, we had bombs, we had biological weapons.
But the death tolls we could reach
were just commas on the beach


Sing to the tune of 'Seasons in the Sun'





-Diane