Norm Coleman Finally Concedes....Finally!! Congratulations Senator Franken!

And congratulations to all of us for the majority and for the end of this circle jerk. Of course, Coleman felt like he had to do this for the people...just like my own Joementum Lieberman! Sometimes the people don't want your idea of justice!



c/p RIP Coco

outfits I want

The Olsens... how do they do it?

Here's the bottom line: If you wouldn't want your spouse to know about it, it should at least set off alarms in your head.

Turns out that Mark Sanford's midlife crisis was more extensive than just the lovely Maria:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress — but never had sex with them.

The governor said he "never crossed the ultimate line" with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed his once-promising political career.

"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

Oh, horsepuckey. This guy fucked this woman a few times and exchanged e-mails, and it's true love? It's easy to keep up that hormone high for a long time when you're not dealing with day to day life. Doesn't mean it's love, it means it's hormones. So can we please stop this horseshit that Mark Sanford is, as MoDo so accurately described him the other day, "Marco", the great romantic who just happened to meet his true soulmate while married to another? Can we please stop this ridiculous narrative?

There isn't a married couple in the country that didn't feel this same thing in the beginning. It's why they decided to commit to each other. But just because you aren't on a hormone high all your life doesn't mean you've fallen out of love.

Look, Mr. Brilliant and I have been married for 23 years this September. And those hormone high days are long behind us. But I'm sitting here in a hotel in Cologne, Germany, and I can't WAIT to get home to the guy who's learned how to zone out when faced with my incessant yammering instead of yelling "Can you possibly shut the fuck up for ten seconds?"; the guy who knows exactly where the spot is on my back that always itches before I even ask him to scratch; the guy who after 23 years still makes me laugh -- and I can still make him laugh. Would I trade that for the heady high of some bad romance novel notion of Intense Tortured Forbidden Love?

Not on your life, bub.

But just when the death of Michael Jackson had driven Mark Sanford from the front pages, along he comes with boasts of his other conquests, but because it didn't involve the old in-out, in-out, it wasn't cheating.

I say bullshit.

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

'Didn't cross the sex line'
He said that during the encounters with other women he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.

Sanford said the casual encounters happened outside the U.S. while he was married but before he met Chapur, on trips to "blow off steam" with male friends.

Sanford also admitted he saw Chapur more times than previously disclosed, including what was to be a farewell meeting in New York chaperoned by a spiritual adviser soon after his wife found out about the affair.

He described five meetings with Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up.

He said he saw her two other times, including their first meeting in 2001 at an open-air dance spot in Uruguay.

"There was some kind of connection from the very beginning," he told The Associated Press, though he said neither that meeting nor a 2004 coffee date in New York during the Republican National Convention were romantic.

First of all, I wish the media would stop buying into this narrative that a woman Mark Sanford fucked seven times and then had thousands of miles between them is his true soulmate. I know our culture is saturated with this notion that the hormone high of a new encounter is true love, but it's not. Period. In fact, I'd say that you don't know someone is your soul mate until you've been with them a few years and smelled the farts and listened to the yammering and heard them snip their toenails and eaten the dish that didn't quite work out but took all day to make -- and you still love the person anyway. Fucking in a hotel in Argentina and e-mail does not soulmates make.

As for the "connection", well, Sanford is a married man. That "connection" should have been a giant red alarm clock screaming "DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!" And it should have been a signal that either a) Sanford was unhappy in his marriage and hadn't realized it and maybe he should examine why and work with his wife to improve things; b) he knew he was unhappy and used this as his excuse to cut his ties and make a new life; or c) he was an asshole and a narcissist and there's no reason he shouldn't have the wife to wash the skid marks out of his underwear and the girlfriend in Argentina.

I'm not saying that if you're married you will never find anyone else attractive. We're not dead, after all. But there's "I like the way that looks" and "I must have that", and if you are feeling the second one, you'd better think about whether trading what you have for "that" is a good trade. Becuase a real man would weigh alternatives and make a choice. And live with the consequences.

But Mark Sanford is clearly c): An asshole. This is a guy who set himself as moral arbiter for Bill Clinton and every Democrat he regarded as less moral and holy than himself. And while he was doing so, he was groping everything in sight, justifying it all by saying he never "crossed the sex line."

I don't fault Jenny Sanford for trying to patch up a marriage in which she has many years invested, though I think the so-called "counselor" who has been working with the couple has made clear in the press that his reaction to Mark Sanford's escapades are "Atta boy" more than anything else. Perhaps she thinks this is a wake-up call, and they might come out of this with a new closeness and ability to communicate. But somehow I don't think so. Because the fact is that she is married to a narcissistic, sociopathic creep whose sense of grandiosity has him comparing himself to a Shakespearean protagonist and a Biblical king. No matter how many heroes to whom Mark Sanford may compare himself, the bottom line is that he's just an asshole.

Rebel yell!!

By the Mr Terry Richardson... of course

styled by george cortina

George Cortina

The stylist George Cortina kids about falling into fashion because he couldn't find another job, but in reality, styling is all he ever wanted to do. "I saw the first book of portraits that Avedon did when I was very young and nearly lost my mind," he says. "I wanted to live in that world." Knowing what he wants has worked out well for Cortina, who counts Roberto Cavalli, Comme des Garçons and Levi's as clients. He is also the fashion director of L'Uomo Vogue, and his work has appeared in this country in Vanity Fair and V. More recently, he styled Valentino's men's show in Milan last month. For "Surface Tension," he joins up with the photographer Paolo Roversi, whom he admires for being "able to capture the mystery in a woman."

George Mavrikos

Sit on the roof, smell the BBQ, drink pina Coladas

So will Tim Pawlenty certify the 2008 election now?

The Minnesota Supreme Court delivered the smackdown to Smarmin' Normin' Coleman today:

The Minnesota Supreme Court has just ruled that Democrat Al Franken will be the state's next U.S. Senator bringing the months long contest against former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

The decision was a unanimous 5 to 0 ruling, finding that Franken was "entitled" to be certified by the state's Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and its Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

Pawlenty has recently said he would sign the certification for Franken, if ordered to do so by the MN Supremes. The state requires a signature for certification from both the Governor and the Sec. of State before Congress members may be seated. State law also allows for all election contests to be settled in the state before certification is signed.

Here's the kicker, though. I'm not sure that this decision constitutes a direct order. It says that Franken was "entitled" to be certified, but is that an order?

UPDATE: MSNBC is reporting that Norm Coleman has conceded. Doesn't mean Pawlenty will certify the election, though...

Jolin Snijders

knows how to capture simple youth! (who've been dressed by a great stylist) God damn I want those black boots. AHHH where can I get them?

Who are you Wildfox?

wonderful... What is a Wildfox girl...

Ripples at Sydney Wharf, Pyrmont, Sydney - Chef's Table

"Look! Look! There's fairy floss above our heads!"This is just one moment of glee in a food-filled evening at Ripples Sydney Wharf.We struggle at first to find the restaurant, looking for wharves nine and ten, before realising it's only a mere stroll from the grass of Pyrmont Bay Park, home of the Good Living Growers' Markets. There's a casual al fresco feel to the restaurant, the dining area set

Sale!

There is a Wildfox surprise at daily candy today...


www.dailycandy.com

it's worth it! Sign up for daily candy and get a super Wildfox deal...

WINNER

Congratulations Jemma! Your sweet, poetic entry, photo in a floral tent from a festival, and job in fashion are what really make you a Wildfox girl!

This was so hard as there were so many amazing entries!! Honestly, it was almost impossible...






visit her blog here:
http://www.frontiermagic.blogspot.com/






Runners up:

So great girls!! Very impressed!

pictures soon

manic monday

Hey lovers! I will post the winner of the contest by the end of today, and some other entries that we loved!

Thanks so much for all your submissions, it was so fun reading them. Everyone's were so good and it is gonna be really hard to choose

xo

But...But...But...it's a LIBERAL media!

Rudy Giuliani was on Morning Joe this morning to talk about Marc Sanford’s affair. It is safe to say that no journalism took place on that set this morning, because from the get-go Rudy turned the topic to another famous politician who was caught in an affair. “Let’s look at Bill Clinton,” said Rudy.

And Mika, seeming slightly more over-medicated than usual responded brilliantly…She said “yeah.”

Had it been me, I would have said “All due respect, but lets look at you, Mr. Mayor.”

But it was Mika. So she just said “Yeah.”

All through the interview Giuliani kept holding the door open, inviting them to raise the issue of his own infidelity - an affair that led him to put New York City’s terrorist response center in the World Trade Center - the site of a previous attack by international terrorists - because that location facilitated him sneaking off for nooners with his mistress - who by the way got a security detail on the city's dime.

This conveniently never came up when they were talking a bout the important issue being whether or nor public money was used by Marc Sanford in conducting his affair.

And yes, this would be the same Mika Brzezinski who claims that there is a double standard when politicians have affairs…and it favors Democrats. Because in her world, apparently, Bill Clinton and Elliot Spitzer paid no penalty for their indiscretions while David Vitter and John Ensign have been forced to resign from office. Or something.

Dana Milbank is a dick

I sure hope that Keith Olbermann stops having this, well, dickweed on his show. Because guys like Nico Pitney, who has been in Iran reporting live while Dana Milbank has been nibbling cocktail weenies with MoDo at Washington cocktail parties, are mopping the floor with so-called "journalists" like Milbank:

The larger issue isn't the petty bitching of hacks like Milbank over whether the Obama White House solicited questions from Iranians so that Nico Pitney could ask them. The issue is whether so-called journalists from so-called newspapers like the Washington Post are doing their jobs. We know from eight years of George W. Bush that they didn't. And the reason young people aren't reading newspapers is because they now know just how close the Washington Press Corps is to the White House.

As for Dana Milbank, I don't recall him expressing this kind of outrage when George W. Bush was calling on a gay prostitute again and again to ask softball questions:

This means something, but I don't know what

That Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, the Screaming OxyClean guy, and David Carradine are gone...and THIS man:


...keeps ticking like the Energizer bunny.

(Best comment anywhere of the day belongs to chareth cutestory over at Pandagon:

i’ve been saying forever that keith richards will rule over a race of giant, intelligent cockroaches long after the demise of humanity.

Truffle Festival lunch at Senso Restaurant, Canberra

Head chef and owner, Jan Gundlach, breathes in deeplyTruffles. Is there are food more veiled with gastronomic intrigue and romantic mystique?We headed to Canberra's first Truffle Festival to find out first-hand the allure of the truffle, a road trip that detoured via Berrima for scones, before arriving at Senso. for a four-course truffle lunch.Pumpkin pickles with lemon and pepperSenso. sits on

Insert your own snark here

They're dropping like flies....I'm sorry the man is dead, but I was tired of getting yelled at by a commercial pitchman all the time:

Tampa police say Billy Mays, the television pitchman known for his boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean, has died. He was 50.

Authorities say Mays was pronounced dead Sunday morning after being found by his wife at home. There were no signs of a break-in, and investigators do not suspect foul play. The coroner's office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

Mays' wife, Deborah Mays, says the family doesn't expect to make any public statements and asked for privacy.

If there's an afterlife, I hope the TVs have fast-forward through the commercials.

Does this make me a bad person....

...that all I can think of in regard to Michael Jackson is this Weird Al Yankovic parody?

What Have We Learned From Stonewall?

Back then, the national gay community still called themselves "homosexuals", protested in an orderly fashion, the men in natty business suits with the requisite thin black ties, the woman in prim, knee-length skirts. And the only reason why the Stonewall Inn riots that began 40 years ago today aren't better known is an accident of timing. Mere days after the last of the riots in Greenwich Village had been quelled, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon. The month after, our attention and wider scope of posterity was diverted yet again to a little arts and music festival on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York.

On a somewhat more reduced yet no less significant scale, what we're now witnessing in the streets of Tehran we'd seen on Christopher Street when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar that was the only one in the city that allowed same sex dancing, for selling liquor without a license. During the countless preceding raids, the patrons allowed themselves to be loaded into the paddy wagons and waited to be booked and tried for the crime of being gay.

On the late night/early morning of June 27-28, 1969, all that changed.

By the time the police knew what had hit them, four of them were in the hospital, one with a broken wrist, and were chased by an enraged mob back into the gay bar from which they'd just emerged. Armed with nothing more than garbage, bricks appropriated from a nearby construction site and their bare hands, the gay community of Greenwich Village rose up in a screaming, quivering fury and said with one voice, "No more." What seemed to set the crowd off were eyewitnesses who saw NYPD officers beat and tear the shirt off a lesbian patron.



What is most readily and easily forgotten, however, is that the riots were conducted not merely by white young gays but also straight sympathizers, lesbians, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and the middle-aged and even elderly as well as the young. The flash point, don't forget, was the public molesting and assault of a young lesbian at the hands of the authorities, a thankfully nonfatal precursor to Neda Agha Soltani.

It's safe to say that the Stonewall Inn riots became one of the widest and strongest columns of the ongoing gay rights movement for which it had been a catalytic and unifying influence. Since then, American voters have elected over 400 openly gay and lesbian public officials and we now have gay marriage in six states with New York expected to become the seventh. Yet in a way, it could be said that the still vibrant and potent LGBT community in our nation still lags behind virtually every other civil rights movement for any other wronged and oppressed American minority with the possible exception of Native Americans.

We ought to have at least seven states already that allow same sex marriage but on election day 2008, all that changed in what used to be the most progressive state. In several aspects, it seems as if the gay rights movement has taken one step forward and two steps back when one remembers the much later Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the Clinton era that was recently upheld in a despicable brief filed by the Obama-era Justice Department. In fact, the DOJ's brief upholding DOMA was so heinous that it actually synonymized gay marriage with incest and pedophilia.

Somehow, that took all the warmth and fuzziness out of parallel State Department and White House decrees that same sex couples working for the federal government get the same perks and privileges as traditional married couples. I suspect I may not be alone in saying the gay rights movement makes me proud to be a liberal more than anything and the government's genteel jihad against gay rights makes me ashamed more than anything to be a Democrat.

And, to go back to California and Proposition 8 for a minute, the gay rights movement practically had one of its columns kicked out from under it last November because it proved several things few if any of us expected. #1, that a small minority of evangelicals could sway seven million voters into denying a basic, inalienable right to people outside their community and #2, it marked the first time that gay marriage had been overturned in a state that had formerly allowed it.

In other words, a fringe minority had changed existing state law.

Same sex marriage is by far the most polarizing issue in the gay rights movement, perhaps for the simple reason that it throws on its ear the universal and fundamental human ritual of wedded union. We fear that which we do not understand, even if it does not threaten us.

To we liberals and progressives, the sight of two men or two women kissing passionately at a wedding altar is one of the most joyous, life-affirming and natural sights imaginable. But, unfortunately, it seems that perhaps we are as much in the minority as the evangelical propagandists who'd spent tens of millions of dollars telling people to tell people whom they can't marry.

Granted, gay marriage in the Stonewall era wasn't even a pipe dream except for a few radical dreamers and the rise of political leaders such as Harvey Milk and Barney Frank wouldn't be for another decade or so. Yet we live in a nation in which it is no longer legal to discriminate or harass based on sexual orientation yet sweet young gay men like Matthew Shepard are beaten and left to die on barbed wire fences.

We are a nation in a painful state of transition in which Republicans and Democrats alike oppose gay marriage and liken it to sexual perversion while making mockeries of their own traditional marriage vows.

We have not have learned nearly as much from the Stonewall Inn riots of two generations ago as we may like to think. And the gay rights movement, while it may at times be shrill and militant, is deep down at heart just as scared and vulnerable as it was on that hot, humid, chaotic night 40 years ago today.

Blogging from Cologne: Steiff! Steiff! Steiff!

It's so humid in Cologne right now you could just melt. If you're like me, and you don't do well in heat or humidity, and you packed for mid-to-high 70's, you're not a very happy camper right about now. Well, I am, because I'm back in my room getting ready to do actual work after spending the morning at the Römish-Germanisches museum, where I took a ton of photos and videos that I probably won't get to post till I get home next Friday.

But yesterday was shopping and a visit to the Dom. First up, my grip to the Galeria Kaufhof, where my colleague assured me I could find Steiff toys.

Well.

When you get off the escalator on the floor where the sports equipment, kids' clothes, and toys are, you are greeted by this guy:

Now, this child you see in the video was enthralled, but I know that when I was a small child, this thing would have scared the living daylights out of me. I also thought it was strange that when he's finished, he squats down on the lovely Steiff golden retriever under him. But whatever. Let's take a tour of the department, shall we? (Mom, you'd better sit down for this.)

If you're looking for bargains, you won't find them here. There seem to be 2 tiers of Steiff animals now; the original, hard-bodied toys with the stiff fur, which are still preposterously expensive, and the softer, newer-style toys that are more affordable. I mean, I am just not paying 80 € for a 4" bear. I'm just not. But of course I am the person who once bought a bag of about six Steiff animals for 25 bucks from an animal shelter yard sale the minute the person who brought them in started pulling them out. But you can hear me muttering in the second video that the bears in suitcases can be had for $25 from the Signals catalog, and they were the equivalent of $40 here.

I had read that in Germany they don't use plastic shopping bags, so I brought my canvas Trader Joe's tote with me. Well, if you go into a Steiff department with an empty tote bag, they are going to keep an eye on you. So there I was, trying to explain to a salesperson who spoke no English that if they can "schiff auf US, ich [take] das grosse animal fur meine mutti geburtstag, Sie ist zwei und ochtzig." So we managed to communicate, and when she saw I was a serious buyer, the smile came out and I was directed to a service desk, where I had to explain that "St." in the US suffices, that you need not write "Strasse", and in fact no one will know what it means. So it remains to be seen whether my purchase will ever get to the U.S., but with a big laptop bag and carry-on limits, there is no way I would have been able to bring my purchase on the plane.

But I was also captivated by this little guy, who wasn't a Steiff, but in true internet geek fashion, is called -- what else -- a Roffle:

His name is Rollo the Laughing Dog, and you can get your very own here.

Open Letter to Dan Froomkin

(Crossposted at Welcome Back to Pottersville.)


(At first, I'd intended for this to be a private letter to Dan Froomkin, until yesterday, one of the best reporters employed by the Washington Post. However, sometimes private correspondence transcends mere personal communication and addresses themes, perhaps even in an unexpectedly eloquent fashion, that demands a wider audience. This is a ver batim transcript of an email that I just sent to Dan Froomkin in response to his excessively gracious final byline and perhaps it contains some small lessons that ought to be heeded by what is plainly a dying print media.)

Dan:

You and I both know that, the social diktats of graciousness aside, the Washington Post only was a great newspaper and that it is not great now nor will be in the foreseeable future as long as it discards diamonds such as you and polishes turds like Deb Howell and Charles Krauthammer. Being only a pissant blogger, I am not encumbered in the slightest by the useless conventions of social norms handed down by the irrelevant czars of Political Correctness. This is why I am a political blogger extraordinaire. I do not give a fuck whose toes I step on. So if you'll pardon my putting a knee on your chest...

You could've completely laid them out in the particular instead of in the abstract and I'm sure that a journalist of your stature still could have gotten a paying gig at a prestigious progressive organ such as The Nation, Mother Jones or maybe a Fellowship at Media Matters, where Eric Boehlert wound up. It's one thing to be a disgruntled ex-employee giving his former boss the finger at a public exit interview. It's another thing entirely to speak truth to power and the fact is, the Wa Po fucked up more times than could be remembered during the entire Bush administration.

During the extremely rare times that reporters such as Dana Priest and Anne Hull actually did their job and revealed the existence of Black Prisons in eastern Europe or the Walter Reed Hospital scandal, those of us on the left side of the tracks cheered for their journalistic integrity while forgetting that this was the way the craft of journalism was intended to be crafted- Mercilessly objective, passionately devoted to the truth and unafraid of stepping on well-shod toes.

Much more commonly, we saw, instead, partisan politics being played in the pages of the byline of Deb Howell, a person who saw no problem whatsoever in not only taking the sides of conservatives who had been proven wrong time and again but even publicly taking down her own colleagues for their beliefs (you had felt the sting of her tongue) even to the point of censoring without explanation or just cause the comments section that invariably took exception with her.

Much more commonly than the occasional Pulitzer prize-winning expose we saw time and again Bob Woodward, a mere shadow of his former Watergate-era self, hoarding information from his readership and superiors at the Washington Post and, instead, not revealing these things until his next blockbuster comes out. It's been obvious for years now, Dan, that he only keeps his press credentials alive and remains on the Wa Po's payroll so he can continue digging up dirt that only gets to our eyes and ears only years after it was at its peak relevance.

For those aforementioned reasons alone, the Washington Post is no longer a great newspaper at all and hasn't been for at least 10 years. E. J. Dionne and precious few others aside, I wouldn't wish them well and certainly don't now in light of your politically-motivated ouster. It wasn't enough that all throughout the nascent Obama administration your White House Watch byline continued to try to put its feet to the fire as it had the Bush administration's. You had spoken truth to power far too many times and, far be it from no one listening, it seems among those who were listening were your own editors.

You were right about one thing, if nothing else- we and the media had ignored those who were right all along and continue listening to those who were wrong all along (like Howell, Krauthammer, etc). Yet your ouster, at the height of your column's popularity, betrays an even darker sense of urgency that brings to mind Gary Webb and every other decent, hardworking reporter who was ever excommunicated from the 4th estate. That not only do we tune out those on the side of the angels, but these Cassandras will also suffer the ultimate price.

Meanwhile it seemed as if everyone in the White House press pool but Helen Thomas had, to varying degrees, played some part in the systematic disinformation campaign that had for eight years risibly masqueraded as a free and democratic press. Instead, as the years wore on, each increasingly rare press conference during the Bush years didn't resemble press conferences as much as a bunch of 150-200 pound upholstered gerbils eagerly and gratefully bellying up to Ari Fleischer, Scott McClelland, Tony Snow or Dana Perino for their placebo pellets that passed for actual journalism.

You could have afforded to be a lot less gracious and your termination, effective yesterday, has resulted in far fewer readers upon which the Washington Post can depend. I read the blog posts, the comments. When things like this happen to good reporters such as you, it further weakens an already weakening dinosaur like dead tree publishing, which still isn't as perishable as the medium in which the rest of us work.

Robert Crawford

Hal Turner has been arrested for advocating the murder of public officials. When will Not-Joe the Not-a-Plumber be similarly arrested?

Sarah Palin's 2012 running mate calls for the lynching of Sen. Chris Dodd:

Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher, better known as "Joe the Plumber," has had his fifteen minutes of fame during the 2008 election and was widely expected to disappear when the candidate who brought him into the spotlight lost. But he's still a star in conservative circles -- and still saying some odd, hostile things. At an event Thursday for the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity (one of the lead organizations behind the Tax Day Tea Parties), Wurzelbacher suggested Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) should be lynched.

Wurzelbacher has a reputation for being a blunt, politically incorrect speaker. Referring to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., more than once, Wurzelbacher asked, "Why hasn't he been strung up?"

For those not familiar with the Hal Turner situation, Turner is a lunatic who broadcasts an internet radio show out of his North Bergen, NJ home. He's been arrested before; the latest charges involve threatening public officials with violence (emphasis mine):

Hal Turner, an occasional talk show host on internet radio and blogger, was arrested today by the FBI in his New Jersey home on charges he threatened to murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago following their recent ruling upholding handgun bans.

According to the U.S. attorney's office, postings on Turner's web site included photos of the judges and addresses for them, with statements such as: "Let me be the first to say this plainly; These judges deserve to be killed."

The three judges have long served on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals: Frank Easterbrook, the current chief judge; and Richard Posner and William Bauer.
Turner, 47, was charged with threatening to assault and murder the three judges with intent to retaliate against them for performing their official duties. He is to appear in court tomorrow in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., but the charges were brought in Chicago, where the judges work.

So what is the difference between "Why hasn't he been strung up yet?" and "These judges deserve to be killed"? Absolutely none. So why hasn't Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher been arrested for threatening a public official, and why is he still a star in the Republican Party?

UPDATE: I see that Great Minds Think Alike.

Meet your wingnuts

I don't usually link to the Great Orange Satan himself, but you must admit, he gets some rockin' hate mail.

Now we know what the conservatives' idea of scientific method is. Hey, Barry...Ur doin it wrong.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

I just didn't think it would happen this quickly:

Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

Look, I understand the dilemma. I understand that by utilizing torture, the Bush Administration created evidence against some of the people held at Guantanamo Bay that cannot be used under the system of justice we claim to utilize in the U.S. But does Barack Obama really believe that embracing the Bush Administration's power grab to incarcerate anyone, at any time, for any reason, under the cover of "war", is "change we can believe in" and that it's going to "keep us safe"?

Either we're better than the government of Iran or we aren't. And if we aren't, then let's throw this notion of "change" out the window and stop this crap about how America is so special and some kind of moral beacon for the rst of the world.

And by the way, in case Barack Obama doesn't know it yet, the very same wingnuts who ignored the destruction of habeas corpus under the Bush Administration are suddenly going to find it objectionable and a Threat to the Republic now that a Democrat has embraced it. So if he thinks this is a way to curry favor with Republicans, he'd better guess again. And if the new boss is going to be the same as the old boss, then we might as well sit on our hands in 2012 and let Sarah Palin become President. Because what the hell's the difference?

teen angst

more karolina