Sen. Al Frankin of Minnesota (D, Inevitable)

Republican Senator Norm Coleman, who is about to lose his seat in Minnesota to Al Franken, runs an ad against Al Franken that makes him look both sleazy AND ridiculous - Once Al reveals where the "dangerously angry" footage came from.I think C-Span is going to be a lot more fun after this election.

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The Biggest "Gate" Ever:

"The real reason some of the top federal lawyers were removed from the job, according to the Justice Department report, was that either the U.S. attorneys had the audacity to prosecute Republicans or because they failed to aggressively prosecute Democrats. At any other time what happened in the Justice Department last week would have been big news."This crisis is in no small part due to the fact that the people that ran amok, creating the Subprime crisis, did so in the full knowledge that the system was rigged to ignore any small, niggling questions about propriety and ethics that their actions might raise. Please hit that digg link below.

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Obama unfairly using Canadian-style politics!

H/T > Mattbastard:

Who simply posts a press release from the Liberal Party of Canada with no comment. But then, what could you add?

Read, enjoy, and as you do, see if any of this sounds suspiciously familiar...

For Immediate Release
September 15, 2008

Harper’s Index - Week One

Number of campaign events that Stephen Harper has held so far that have been open to members of the public: 0

Number of campaign events that Stéphane Dion has held so far that have been open to members of the public: 18 (including two town halls)

Number of times Jason Kenney has been seen in public since the puffin incident: 0

Total savings a Canadian family could receive from Mr. Harper’s two-cent-per-litre diesel tax cut if it fully “trickles down” to consumers and is not absorbed by suppliers or transporters: $15 annually or about 25 cents per week.

Number of Conservative campaign events that used unwitting new and expectant mothers as human props: 1

Number of apologies Mr. Harper has had to issue so far for gaffes by his staff: 2

Number of female party leaders Mr. Harper has tried to exclude from the leader’s debate: 1

Number of times the RCMP has been used to physically shield Mr. Harper from questions: 1 (2 if you count This Hour Has 22 Minutes)

-30-

Contact:

Liberal Party of Canada Press Office
613-783-8888

Do you see what I see? Barack Hussain Obama has stooped to employing Canadian Style politics!

He has resorted to employing The Politics of Personal Courtesy. He thinks - and I must emphasize this, for it is a critical point - he thinks that American voters will stand for Canadian political niceties; unfairly and un-patriotically employing banter that is both amusing and substantive!

Who does he think he is? Who does he think he's talking to? Go back to Canada, Hoser! How DARE you try to change the game by actually playing it skillfully according to the written rules?!?
How DARE you respectfully and politely refuse to engage in American style politics?

Who the hell do you think you are? Wayne Gretzky?

Bush Politics as Usual: Politics is the only principle.

Notes from prosecutors in the Bush Justice Department indicate an Alabama defense contractor was targeted because he is a Democrat.

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The End of America?

clipped from www.bu.edu Consumerism, expansionism undermine democratic way of life, Bacevich says One week after the September 11 terrorist attacks, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was quoted as saying, “We have a choice. Either to change the way we live, which is unacceptable, or change the way they live. We chose the latter.” In his latest book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Andrew Bacevich argues that the American culture of consumerism, among other things, has undermined basic democratic values. Photo by Frank Curran Andrew Bacevich, argued that it was time for Americans to abandon that thinking and instead look inward. We must change the way we live before it’s too late, the retired U.S. Army colonel urged. “Can anyone possibly think at this stage that changing the way ‘they’ live is plausible or affordable?” he said. “To persist on the course that we are following will only lead to ever-greater debt and ever-greater dependence.”

During a question-and-answer period after the speech, Natasha Cohen (CAS’12) asked Bacevich how internal change might be brought about.

“We need to live within our means, as individuals in our households and in terms of the services provided for by government at various levels,” he answered. “I’m no economist, but I do believe there is no free lunch. Everything has to be paid for.”

THAT ONE and Joe

THAT one and Joe by webcarve

"That one," in reference to Barack Obama, might be the most talked about sound byte from any election or primary debate this year. NOW Magazine

McCain made the remark tonight when discussing a 2005 Senate vote on an energy bill. “There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one,” he said, pointing to Obama. “You know who voted against it? Me.”- WSJ

You know what I think? I think the whole debate - such as it was - revealed a grumpy, shallow, occasionally incoherent old man, one who can barely contain his disrespect for his colleague.

Is it because Obama is black? Is it because Obama is clearly smarter? Is it due to some coatroom slight? Ya know, I don't really care.

Teaching kids that Uncle Fred might be a pedophile is "unprincipled?"

High Ideals and No Principles by Thomas Sowell on National Review Online: "What is called “sex education,” whether for kindergartners or older children, is not education about biology but indoctrination in values that go against the traditional values that children learn in their families and in their communities."

Were that true, it would be a damning allegation. It's a shame that the once respectable NRO seems to have abandoned the principle of basing opinions upon facts presented honestly in the light of respectable and honorable Conservative perspective.

Here's what Obama was actually suggesting:

When Obama's campaign was asked by ABC News to explain what kind of sex education Obama considers "age appropriate" for kindergartners, the Obama campaign pointed to an Oct. 6, 2004 story from the Daily Herald in which Obama had "moved to clarify" in his Senate campaign that he "does not support teaching explicit sex education to children in kindergarten. . . The legislation in question was a state Senate measure last year that aimed to update Illinois' sex education standards with 'medically accurate' information . . . 'Nobody's suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it,' Obama said. 'If they ask a teacher 'where do babies come from,' that providing information that the fact is that it's not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that's going to be determined on a case by case basis by local communities and local school boards.'"

In addition to local schools informing kindergartners that babies do not come from the stork, the state legislation Obama supported in Illinois, which contained an "opt out" provision for parents, also envisioned teaching kindergarteners about "inappropriate touching," according to Obama's presidential campaign. Despite Obama's support, the legislation was not enacted.

So, I'm forced to wonder aloud - as I have, all to often when these memes come up - as to how such harmless and frankly needful information could be considered destructive and harmful to families?

Could it be the "inappropriate touching" part?

Look - I know how utterly snide and insulting that sounds. But I'm not saying it in order to score political points or shoot across the bow of anyone's "Culture War" gunboat. This observation comes out of almost two decades of involvement in abuse and survivor's issues. Bluntly, I'm the product of something that (though my specific memories are unreliable) would, both by the patterns of cracks in my psyche, point toward something for which the term "inappropriate touching" would be an understatement of truly mythic proportions.

And of the people I know who's shatter patterns resemble mine, it's almost a cliche' to observe that the shattering occurs within a family context that justifies it's abuse via authoritarian belief structures, generally with some religious trappings.

I can count on the fingers of one thumb the number of polyfragmented, traumatized, dissociated and disordered multiple personalities that did not have such a background, absent something like autism or a particularly hidious scholastic enviroment. Lucky me, I hit the trifecta and despite my inherent conservative biases, it's real hard to ignore such compelling evidence without engaging in levels of denial that are truely and literally insane.

Further, my wife was a special educator for twenty years and has a parallel observation - that in her suburban schools, it would be common for two to three children to disclose (out of classes of 25 to 30) some form of abuse whenever the issue was brought up - often through a reading assignment. Oddly enough, such books are very high on the list of books conservative and religious groups would like to see banned.

As a person who's dedicated much of his adult life to figuring out how things can go so badly wrong within the confines of family and church; institutions that both claim the right, duty and ability to shape children so that they "do right," I have come to the conclusion that our national fetish for preserving "innocence" of children is, sadly, just that.

A fetish.

And whether or not that fetish is personally sexual in any particular person, all persons that buy into and support it add to the cover it grants to Republican Pedophiles.

It seems that the authoritarian conservatives - and far too often, the religous authoritarian conservatives - are easily seduced by the idea of proving their power to themselves and to others by sexually exploiting those with less power, while sexually disenfranchising all those who are not in power. In the most brutal and literal sense, the Authoritarian sees power and sexual abuse - rape, to not put too fine a point on it - as being both the expression, the reward and the natural right of the alpha male.

Now, this understanding is cloaked in culture and shrouded in denial, to the point where conservatives may think that they are being completely honest in making what they think as principled objections to what they see as interference in family matters, and the right to determine what sort of information regarding sexuality is appropriate to their children.

But I see nothing in what Sen. Obama was advocating that would actually be a threat to that - assuming the matters were handled appropriately. And meanwhile, the "abstanance only" movement is more than willing to trade in misinformation and outright lies about the consequences of premarital sex, contraception and abortion.

So if this is a principled position, it's a principle that admits that it's ok to decieve "for the greater good," to bear false witness, to install toxic fear and shame as an acceptable price for the prevention of "sinful behavior."

Having spent far too many years hip deep in the consequences of such stupitdity, both personally and in support of the weeping consequences of being forced to face the price and consequences of surviving their childhoods in abusive and almost universally religous conservataive families, I call bullshit.

And Thomas Sowell is either bullshitting himself or trying to bullshit you. Either way, it's another reason to vote for someone with a realistic view toward the costs and benefits of early information and age-approprate education about maintaining appropriate sexual boundries, both in and out of one's own family.

Republicans Are Giving Up on McCain

An email to National Review's Mark Steyn: "Well I have gone outside and pulled up my Mcain/Palin sign. This election is over. I will vote for Mcain but I know that come Nov. 5 Obama will be our president-elect."

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"Even the President Got Involved": Sordid New Revelations Reveal AG Firings came from the top.

But, essentially, this came from the White House. Even though the White House didn't cooperate with the investigation, even though they didn't turn over documents, and people like Karl Rove and Harriet Miers thumbed their nose at the investigators, the report was still able to find that the general outline of this plan originated in the White House

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Live Blogging the Debate, Graphictruth Style

My Friends Button by webcarve
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My Friends T-Shirt
by webcarve

How many times DID he say "My friends?" If I'd had strong drink I'd have been doing shots. It's a personal thing, but whenever someone says "My Friends" I tend to hear "My Suckers."

Other than that, I agree with others, fairly dull, but with a few welcome specifics about health care and economic policies.

Northwest Passage plus Arctic Resources a perilious and opportune moment for Canada.

clipped from www.russiatoday.com According to Jane's International Defence Review (IDR) magazine, by 2020 fossil fuels could heat up conflicts over the ice-cold plains of the North Pole. As the ice caps melt and the vast recourses located at the top the world become more accessible, the stakes could be raised. “Well, the worst case scenario will be some kind of conflict in the Arctic, in particular driven by the high price of oil and gas,” said Christian Le Miere, IDR’s Managing Editor. “If countries find themselves in need of these resources they may be forced or compelled to act in a military fashion.” five major states are already racing for their piece of cake: Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark and the US. Russia planted a Russian titanium flag and took some samples of the soil to prove that it is a continuation of the Siberian continental shelf, verifying it as Russian territory. whether Russia's claim will be able to cut any ice is anybody's guess. - other contenders will not give up this treasure without a fight.

Canada poised to become superpower - or lunch.

I wonder who's sleeping on the couch.

The wife of Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel plans to endorse Democrat Barack Obama. Lilibet Hagel has scheduled a 10 a.m. news conference in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday with Susan Eisenhower, the daughter of Republican President Eisenhower.

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So THAT'S a Post Turtle

clipped from attackerman.firedoglake.com Post Turtle While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working with cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually, the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to to be a heartbeat away from being President. The old rancher said, “Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.” Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was. The old rancher said, “When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.” He continued, “You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she is up there, if she tries to make a move she’ll fall down hard, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.”

Rednecks For Obama

clipped from www.pamshouseblend.com My sister said she told him she was canvassing for Barack Obama and then asked him if he'd decided if he was going to vote, and if so, who he planned on voting for. His response, she said, about knocked her off the porch. "Well," he said. "I'm gonna have to vote for that nigger 'cause I sure as hell ain't votin' for McCain. That Obama fella knows sumpin' about folks like us. All McCain knows is war and I've had enough of war." She said he went on to explain that he has a son who's on his third tour in Iraq, which he said "jest ain't right". "I done my duty in Vietnam and then came home. He's done his duty and they should let him come home. Let some other folks go over there and fight if they think it's that damned important."

Apparently even crackers from the deep south are disgusted with McCain

Bad Puns and Cute Dragons

This is the sort of thing I do when I can't deal with ranting.

I spent a very enjoyable day yesterday doing the illustration, per John's request. John is actually going to wear this in public! Family, Eh; what can you do?

Now, I like bad puns as much as the next aspie, but I confess this one was beyond me. But I'm perverse enough to love it after the fact.

It makes cute kids stuff too, since I did the text and the dragon separately.

And that makes it possible to have the sister design - the "Myassis Dragon." That would be the one I'd wear. Today, anyhow.

But more importantly... It makes FIERCE Keds!