Thank goodness

America is not the only country comprised of 12-year olds.

The jury in the trial of a British publicist accused of sexual assault had to be dismissed from the courtroom today after they couldn't stop laughing about testimony concerning the defendant's two-and-a-half inch penis.

Ha, ha!

So funny, the guy only committed at least seven sexual assaults...

Not so funny now, is it?

Prelude to the new Kent State

Guy does a couple tours in Iraq and then comes home to get shot in the face when he dares point out assholes got rich and undertaxed while he was serving his country.

It sounds like a story he should be in, but does not involve Dick Cheney.

Ok, the world is strange

I am just curious about something.  If all of the media outlets assume that the Democrats are going to lose and lose big in a super smashing utterly devastating soul crushing way without any possible hope of a smidge of dignity because the public is so angry about the economy:

Why do they never mention that Bush created this stupendous clusterfuck?!

Just asking.

It's fixed...too late

Go HERE to go to the new website.

Rising Hegemon 2 -- Electric Boogaloo

For those who have us bookmarked this is the new address for the Blog, same name, slightly different web address.  This link will stay up, but no longer posting on it...but the archive will remain.   DeDurkheim and I will be here.   http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/   Thanks for your patience and visiting.

Taking a Break   Until Blogger helps me fix the mess they've created.   Attaturk.

Conundrum   No, I'm not talking about Blogger's new tools, which have caused the blog's margins, to become so unattractive.  I'm talking about the dilemma for Jerry Falwell and his ilk (is there a better word for snide comments than "ilk"?  I don't think it can be bettered -- maybe matched by a "cabal" or a "clique" but not surpassed).   Poor Jerry and the fundies, as the NY Times points out they are tools used by the GOP, but failure still makes them happy:   

Failure on the cultural front serves to magnify the outrage felt by conservative true believers; it mobilizes the base. Failure sharpens the distinctions between conservatives and liberals. Failure allows for endless grandstanding without any real-world consequences that might upset more moderate Republicans or the party's all-important corporate wing. You might even say that grand and garish defeat — especially if accompanied by the ridicule of the sophisticated — is the culture warrior's very object.

  So let me completely satisfy the nutjobs by holding up my end of the bargain with ridicule (although my sophistication is definitely in question).   While Jerry does his best to flaunt the laws regarding tax-free status, I wonder if he thinks about the Hobsian Dilemma in which God has clearly put the United States according to his own logic train.   Jerry infamously said, shortly after 9/11 (like two days) that the attack occurred in large part because God had withdrawn his protection over the United States because of those damned sodomites.   Does Jerry ever think that maybe God won't allow the anti-Gay Marriage amendment to pass ... because of all the ass-fucking?  Maybe he is punishing us for the sodomy by making sodomy legal? That would really show us who's the boss.  "Who is the pitcher and who is the catcher now biatches?"   Or,  is it the alternative? Maybe God has no problem with the sodomy. "Plug away my randy little creations -- God just wants you to be happy, and if that trips your trigger, enema away!"   A real conundrum.  

For those of you who are Wondering?   I don't know what the hell BLOGGER has done now.   They put up new formatting for posts last night, but as for the margin crap...I did NOTHING and this is what I've got.   Sorry for the inconvenience.

Our [new] Despot?   Once upon a time, of course, the CIA had its man in Baghdad works his way into the Baath Party.  Eventually that man became Saddam "Fucking" Hussein [Not to be confused with Saddam "Pure as a newborn Lamb" Hussein].  It worked for about 40 years until he turned out to be Noreiga with an army.   Never one to just let things go because it didn't work out to well the first time, "Woodrow Wilson-Lite" decided to get back with the program and our newest former CIA agent plant is also reportedly accelerating the whole despot thing.  

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs. They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death".

  Now, in fairness, Allawi denied this story in its entirety just like Saddam denied possessing WMD's.  

But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence.

  Wow, now it's getting even better isn't it?   

Yet Another Brilliant Satirical Animation   On the heels of Bush/Kerry singing Woody Guthrie, comes this brilliant animation from SF Gate Cartoonist Mark Fiore.  It's very very good.   Thanks to Meteor Blades at Kos.

Joe Wilson -- Sorry Rethugs...He's Telling the Truth   Like Rick Santorum at an animal shelter; like John Cornyn when he tried to put the moves on the tres sexy Yertle the Turtle; the Right-Wing has struck out again.   Granted, Bob Novak's hyponotic teeth are a powerful force to be reckoned with, but when the reaches are so transparent, so desperate, so banal, and so predictable, they lose their potency faster than Mike Ditka and Bob Dole on a saltpeter diet.   In Salon today, the Ambassador strikes back, just an excerpt:   First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee." That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife, sent to her superiors that says, "My husband has good relations with the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] reports officer stated that "the former ambassador's wife 'offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department intelligence and research officer stated that the "meeting was 'apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue." In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she [Valerie] departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium-related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made. The interpretations attributed to them are not the full story. In fact, it is my understanding that the reports officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments." I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement. It is unfortunate that the report failed to include the CIA's position on this matter. If the staff had done so it would undoubtedly have been given the same evidence as provided to Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce in July 2003. They reported on July 22 that: "A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his [Wilson's] airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses." (Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," dated July 22, 2003). In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip: "'She did not propose me,' he [Wilson] said -- others at the CIA did so. A senior CIA official said that is his understanding too."   There is more...much more at the link.   It's a take down, but as usual the wingnuts have thrown out their meme (blogger contract fulfilled for July 2004) and little -- nay nothing -- can stop them from spewing it on Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly et al for the next several weeks.   Of course the three of them -- and most other wingnuts -- haven't read the actual Senate Report or the matter Wilson addresses, let alone what Wilson writes.  No, they read what another wingnut writes -- for example Steno Sue of the incredible reading skills [Iran, Iraq, who cares].   Steve Gilliard has more.     

What a lovely little lie:  Bush's BIG Lie that sold the War, Exposed.    James Woolsey, former CIA director and unapoligetic neo-con, has been -- as usual -- on the airwaves as much as possible decrying his successors and doing what he can to defend the Republic of FUBAR.   Woolsey still insist for example, like Dick Cheney, that there was strong evidence of a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection, a drumbeat he has been pushing so long he is more cult member than policy expert.   Via this report from Knight-Ridder comes the story (not discussed by the Senate in its report)  of how Woolsey subverted the CIA to take the now thoroughly debunked Chalabi relative known as "Curveball" to the Department of Defense and his fellow neo-cons, through another defector Maj. Mohammad Harith .   Curveball & Harith became the Bush Administration's shining piece of intelligence on Saddam's "mobile weapons labs", used so famously by Colin Powell at the UN in the greatest Powerpoint Presentation ever made by a 6th Grader.     The fact that Harith & "Curveball's" information was complete bullshit,  and as soon became known, palpably so, didn't matter to those determined to have the lovely little war they really wanted.   

R. James Woolsey's role as a go-between was detailed in a classified Defense Department report chronicling how the defector's assertion came to be included in the Bush administration's case for war even after the defector was determined to be a fabricator.

  Again, remember the Bush Administration's contention that "we went to war because we all thought this stuff was true"  (which they knew to be false) and how the GOP is trying to cover for them.    For example, Pat Robert's statement yesterday:   

Mr. Roberts said he was "not too sure" that the administration would have invaded if it had known how flimsy the intelligence was on Iraq and illicit weapons. Instead, the senator said, Mr. Bush might well have advocated efforts to maintain sanctions against Iraq and to continue to try to unearth the truth through the work of United Nations inspectors. "I don't think the president would have said that military action is justified right now," Mr. Roberts said. If the administration had been given "accurate intelligence," he said, Mr. Bush "might have said, 'Saddam's a bad guy, and we've got to continue with the no-fly zones and with inspections.' "

  This notion that Bush would NOT have invaded is, of course, all unadulterated crap.  An apologia from Roberts for that which Bush himself is pathologically unable to offer in any fashion.  Hell, Cheney is still leading the charge, which Bush has to follow that all the things disproven are still true -- and Woolsey is one of the more prominent foot soldiers.   It all comes down to this:   THEY KNEW THEIR PRIME PIECE OF INFO, PUSHED FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION WAS WRONG, BUT THEY PUSHED IT ANYWAY!!   Colin Powell before the United Nations, February 5, 2003:   

One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents. Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eyewitness accounts. We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.   The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War.

Although Iraq's mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, UN inspectors at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came later, in the year 2000. The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. 12 technicians died from exposure to biological agents.

      By this time, Curveball's information was being used not only by Powell, but by others, including the President.   

After several meetings, a DIA debriefer concluded that some of Harith's information "seemed accurate, but much of it appeared embellished" and he apparently "had been coached on what information to provide." ...

However, further intelligence assessments in April, May and July 2002 questioned his credibility - including a "fabricator notice" issued by the DIA. Nevertheless, Harith's claim was included in an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and cited by Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union message.

Yep, another lie in the Bush State of the Union -- unrelated to the Yellow Cake Lie (and it is a lie Rethuglicans).   In January 2003, the "Codpieced Crusader" said the following:

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

Two of the three, were Harith & Curveball, the other likely an Iraqi from the Iraqi National Congress (Chalabi's organization, maybe the great Conman himself) nodding enthusiastically to Curveball's story.  Yeh, real credible.

So there you have it.  It's plain for all to see (though some will refuse -- "it's all too complicated" for Professor Reynold's I presume).  Remember what Dick Clarke said (never really contradicted) that on September 12, 2001, Bush came up to him and made it clear he wanted whatever evidence he could get to connect Iraq to the attack of September 11th?  Well, that seems especially damning in light of this newest evidence.

-- We want to invade Iraq.

-- We need some evidence to invade Iraq.

-- Let's throw out whatever we can now and then hope we get lucky.

-- I'm a War President.

No, You are a:

WAR MONGERER!

Jacuzzi Lawyer   Earlier today over at uberblog Atrios, currently being run, while the master is on vacation, by the Four Guest Bloggers of the Apocalypse (War, Pestillence, Famine, and Pie)[actually they are doing great] we saw bits of a transcript of John Edwards being a recently reformed "Jacuzzi Lawyer".  This accusation came from odious bowtie fetishist Tucker Carlson.   As the post went on to say, Edwards involvement with Jacuzzi's was focused on representing a young girl and her parents after the former's guts had been sucked out by a defective drain.   The Odious Carlson undoubtedly snarled this line with the full blown preppy derision that can only come from those who are from old money toward rich by merit.   But what Carlson apparently either forgot or didn't know is that a certain Republican compadre of Chimpy McFlightsuit may have a different impression of "Jacuzzi Lawyers":  

By Josh White Washington Post Staff WriterWednesday, June 19, 2002; Page B02The 7-year-old granddaughter of former secretary of state James A. Baker III died when she became trapped in a whirlpool and drowned in McLean, Fairfax County police said yesterday. Virginia Graham Baker of McLean was playing with other children in a friend's whirlpool on Alps Drive during a graduation party Saturday when she accidentally got caught in the pool's drain. She was stuck underwater and was unable to free herself, police said. A family member found her, and it took two adults to dislodge her, authorities said. Several people who were at the party then tried to revive the girl, who was taken by helicopter to Inova Fairfax Hospital and pronounced dead. Virginia was the daughter of James A. Baker IV, who is the son of the former cabinet secretary.

-- Washington Post, June 19, 2002, Page B02

Wonder what James Baker thinks of somebody who represents victims of such a measure.  You know very well his grandaughters death is being litigated or has been settled.   So Tucker -- you are an Ass.

Shocker! Really now is this surprising Sully?

ALLAWI ON SADDAM: He insists that the old dictator had contacts with al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Someone tell the New York Times.

Former CIA Operative, Anti-Saddam Insurgent in the 1980s and 1990s, relying upon American Troops to defeat a new insurgency, in all fashions beholden to the current American Administration, proclaims this and we are supposed to swallow it? Well, considering the bunk you've swallowed from Bush himself I guess you would think so. But I'll pass.

Oh CRAP! Via the Poor Man comes this excerpt from a Hersh speech that will no doubt travel at light speed throughout the blogosphere...as it already has...dammit when Atrios is on vacation you've got to beat FOUR bloggers. Anyhow, it is very, very depressing.

Seymour Hersh says the US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher." ... "The disaffecion inside the Pentagon is extremeley accute," Hersh says. He tells the story of an officer telling Rumsfeld how bad things are, and Rummy turning to a ranking general yes-man who reassured him that things are just fine. Says Hersh, "The Secretary of Defense is simply incapable of hearing what he doesn’t want to hear." The Iraqi insurgency, he says,was operating in 1-to-3 man cells a year ago, now in 10-15 man cells, and despite the harsh questioning, "we still know nothing about them...we have no tactical information.”

There is video of the entirety of this speech here. Kos has this story too, so does Oliver Willis, undoubtedly more do as well. Criminy I thought posting before 6:00 a.m. would occassionally give me a leg up. Apparently, I'm a lazy bastard. If this is true, all I've got left in regard to Bush is SHAME and ANGER.

Not a Good Sign A general perusing of right-wingers over the last couple of months leads to one conclusion. It's one thing for the folks out of power to make the case as to why the incumbent has to go. But when your side has the incumbent, and all you ever do is attack his challenger and "hope for the best" in regard to the incumbent's policies what kind of shape is your side really in? That sounds a lot like what Republicans would have been saying in 1932.

Sweet, Sweet Republican Love Unable to share in that flaming love between a man and the Gamera of his choice, GOP operatives are doing their best to work up a froth over another thing, as Kos notes in this selection from the Dallas News (subscription required).

Opponents of John Kerry have hired a Dallas-area private investigator to gather information aimed at discrediting his military service, say several veterans who served with the Massachusetts Democrat in Vietnam. Several veterans who have been contacted in recent days accused the private investigator, Tom Rupprath of Rockwall, of twisting their words to produce misleading and inaccurate accounts that call into doubt the medals Mr. Kerry received for his service. "They're just distorting things," said Jim Wasser, who served with Mr. Kerry. "They have nothing to go after John Kerry for, so now they're trying to discredit him." Mr. Rupprath was hired by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on the recommendation of Merrie Spaeth, a Dallas public relations executive assisting the anti-Kerry group.

What great guys. Of course, as Kos further says, I guess its easier to try to attack Kerry's war record than defend Bush and Cheney's complete and utter lack of one.

Attaturk, is No Economist And my lack of interest in economics compounds monthly. But I imagine that if I was the Preznit I would want the economy to be solid in an election year (or a re-appointment year as the case may be). I would imagine I wouldn't want consumer sales to start going down. So this cannot be good news for Chimpy McTaxCut:

U.S. retail sales slumped in June, dropping 1.1 percent on lower auto sales, the Commerce Department estimated Wednesday. It was the biggest decline in 16 months. Retail sales thus fell in two of the three months making up in the second quarter. Read the full release. Excluding a 4.3 percent drop in auto sales, retail sales fell 0.2 percent in June, matching April's decline. Economists had been expecting overall sales to fall 0.7 percent, with ex-autos anticipated to rise 0.2 percent, according to a CBS MarketWatch survey. See Economic Calendar.

A Bonafide Right-Wing Intellectual Abandons the Flock of Flacks Francis Fukuyama, who gained praise in the early-90s for pulling the Hegellian Chestnut out to explain we were really at the end of history (OK, not terribly accurate, but neither was Hegel). Well the Owl of Minerva has flown the Bush Coop. Fukuyama was one of the founders of the Project for the New American Century, but unlike nutjobs like Mylroie, has brains larger than his dogma.

Fukuyama began to distance himself from the administration during the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The tension between the two came to a head prior to the invasion of Iraq. Fukuyama opposed the war. Fukuyama is still angry at the Bush administration since they refuse to admit to the mistakes they have made. Fukuyama had warned that after the war, Iraq would be dragged into an internal conflict and would export terror to the world. Fukuyama said that because of those reasons he could not vote for Bush in the upcoming elections. He added that he has an important place among the right wing and could affect the outcome of the elections; however, he explained that he would not carry out any studies in that direction because he is not eager to fight with 'old friends'. In his well-known work of political philosophy 'The End of History and the Last Man', Fukuyama argues that history is directional and that its endpoint is capitalist liberal democracy.

Obviously YOU PEOPLE Aren't Scared Enough A Message from the Chimp Intelligence Agency: The polls are showing a bump up for the Kerry-Edwards ticket. With that in mind -- nay, because of it -- the CIA would like to remind you, that though the nation's threat level is set at the permanent baseline of yellow -- we are all gonna die if this trend continues. Not that we are going to bump the level up to ORANGE and all. We cannot afford that...so we will just tell you to pay special attention to Pat Boone's Jacket Color. Obviously, we advise all of you to run back to the comforting bosom of our Chimperor in Chief. Otherwise, just spend all of your time being afraid, being very afraid. We will not allow these terrorists to destroy the Reichstag our way of life. Now, watch this drive. But do not get too close to the President all you gay people -- and you black people, if you could get just a bit closer so we can put you up on the "Compassion Page" that would be great.

Christopher Hitchens...Mind Reader Blow Job by Intern and Whitewater, HUGE scandals. Outing CIA Operative, eh, it was all piffle. So sayeth Christopher Hitchens, divining the minds of all those who alter his predetermined course. Hitchens is as much a contrarian on this as Dubya. But HOW can he read minds? Oh right.

C'mon Now, it isn't like he read it or anything From today's NY Times:

The White House and the Central Intelligence Agency have refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee a one-page summary of prewar intelligence in Iraq prepared for President Bush that contains few of the qualifiers and none of the dissents spelled out in longer intelligence reviews, according to Congressional officials. Senate Democrats claim that the document could help clear up exactly what intelligence agencies told Mr. Bush about Iraq's illicit weapons. The administration and the C.I.A. say the White House is protected by executive privilege, and Republicans on the committee dismissed the Democrats' argument that the summary was significant.

Now, is it more disturbing they won't hand it over, or that Bush makes WAR DECISIONS by PAMPHLET? What's next? The Wisconsin Dells? -- Damn You, Tommy Bartlett's Watershow! In other news, Bush doesn't like Gay Marriage because he read a Jack Chick cartoon.

Repressed Sexuality Pics of the Day Pat Boone takes time out from visiting the First-Class section of GITMO to endorse the FMA and give Ricky an "eyefull". Saying that turtles are only good for tyin' fire-crackers to, the President expresses his preference for nuzzling eagles. Lynne Cheney announces that a crestfallen Dick will have to make amends by proofreading her next lesbian novel instead of Mary. Lifelong Bachelor encourages protection of heterosexual marriages...and hiding stashes of child porn better. Meanwhile, in other news. It turns out that President Bush and Kenny Boy Lay are sharing the same lawyer. Oopsy. A picture of said lawyer is found below. You said "Lay", ha, ha, forced double entendre.