Sidney and Hussein

So we're going to hear a lot of "Barack Hussein Obama" in the next few months. I think we should also hear "John Sidney McCain III." Ooo, the "third." My, he sounds fancy, kinda like a rich spoiled kid, you know, like John Forbes Kerry. And "Sidney?" Far be it from me to laugh at that name. Personally, I don't see the humor in it. It's not my doing that the name has often been used as a caricature for someone considered a bit fey, effeminate, and, uh, er, you know, gay. It's a good thing that intelligent people know that just because you're named Sidney the third it doesn't mean you're fey, effeminate, a spoiled rich kid, or gay. I'm just saying that if Obama's full name is going to be used, it's only fair to use Sidney's full name too.

Jack Kingston. Biggest. Asshole. Ever.

McCain in bed with radical preacher

McCain sought for a year, and finally received, the endorsement of nutjob end-times preacher John Hagee. Hagee is the guy who says, "The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ." I think it's only fair to ask McCain if he agrees with Hagee, and what that means for any Palestinian-Israeli peace plan. In an amusing development, the Hagee endorsement has raised the ire of Catholic nutjob William Donohue, who denounces Hagee because Hagee regularly refers to the Catholic Church as "the Great Whore of Babylon." It would only be fair to also ask McCain if he thinks the Catholic Church is the Great Whore. Great whore? She was good, but great?

$102

And today, oil spiked above $102.

Another good day for Dick

Another good day for Dick Cheney. Oil rose to over $101 a barrel and closed just over $100.

Disappointed in Hillary Clinton

I write this as someone who will STILL be content to vote for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the general election. I am VERY disappointed in Hillary Clinton's attacks on Obama the last couple of days. Look, I understand this is politics. You play to win. But now that she has descended to outright personal mockery, I think it's time to acknowledge that she herself knows it's almost over for her. And earlier there was her anger over the campaign literature. She scolded Obama like a schoolmarm, as if her own campaign literature did not distort Obama's words and positions. Please. Put a sock in it, Hillary. And then there was the business with the picture. Enough, Hillary, enough. Crawl away, please. Just crawl away.

Obama hoax email

The big bloggers are finally taking note of Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Asshole) and his "performace" on Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night.

Jack Kingston is a child molester

Last night on Real Time with Bill Maher, Rep. Jack Kingtson from Georgia dutifully repeated ALL the smears against Barack Obama, that he hates the flag, refuses to pledge allegiance, refuses to put his hand over his heart, he's secretly a Muslim and hates Christians, he drinks the blood of straight white babies... He even drooled out the "You know, his middle name is Hussein" as if that was something sinister. What was VERY disappointing was that Maher, and the liberal guest who knows better, did NOTHING to correct the false smears. Of course, Kingston knows better too. He knows good and well they're not true. But he repeated them anyway. The smears against Michelle Obama were allowed to stand uncontested too. They referenced her comments about being "really proud" the other day and then claimed she had yet to "clarify" them, when she had already repeatedly done so the day before. Jack Kingston is a flaming asshole. I hear Kingston molests children. Some people say he's a Satanist. There are rumors he regularly masturbates into an American flag, and secretly wishes for the return of the USSR so that Communism could once and for all defeat the United States which he hates. He was caught on "To Catch a Predator" with Chris Hanson, but they let him off the hook because he held Hanson's wife hostage and threatened to anally rape her until she died. That's what I hear, anyway. I'm going to repeat those stories as often as I can. At any rate, he's another article on the Obama smear-watch.

More "security lapses" at Obama campaign events

I'm seeing that some other bloggers have noticed that there have been "security lapses" of similar nature at many other Obama campaign events. Someone at the Secret Service needs to start talking, other than the quick one-off denial they issued earlier today. There's some smoke here, and there may be a fire. And this smoke smells really fishy.

Hoping for an assassination attempt?

Were they hoping for an assassination attempt? This happened in Dallas, site of the JFK assassination. An hour before the Obama campaign rally, the Secret Service reportedly instructed security details to stop screening people for weapons at the front gate. Somebody at the Secret Service needs to start explaining immediately, and telling us if this order came from someone higher up.

The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security. Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on. Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection. They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.

Obama trashed by Jillery McClintcain

I was struck listening to the speeches tonight from John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Their comments about Obama were practically the same. It seems that the Republican smear tactics against Obama are exactly the same as Hillary's. It's odd to lay speeches of Clinton's and McCain's side-by-side and have a difficult time telling which one said which. I'd like to know, since when is being inspired to make our country better a bad thing? I would say that after 8 years of Bush, being inspired is something America needs more than anything else right now, because with inspiration comes real possibility of working together to solve problems. Without inspiration, it ain't gonna happen.

Good day for Dick

I was worried about Dick Cheney. Times are hard, everyone I know is struggling. Prices are up, paychecks are down. So I was worried about how Dick was doing in these difficult days. But then I saw that oil closed above $100 a barrel for the first time today, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Dick's doing okay. In fact, I'm sure he has a big smile on his face now. I am so relieved. So when you're paying more at the pump, don't complain. Just be happy that Dick is getting richer.

Clean Teams and the uselessness of torture

The Pentagon has charged six Gitmo detainees with murder and war crimes in connection with 9-11. It's widely believed that detainees have undergone "coercive interrogation techniques" like waterboarding and other torturous means. The Bush administration has maintained all along that they MUST have the right to use these tactics against terrorists. But now they've let the cat out of the bag. They didn't need these techniques at all. The White House KNEW that coercive CIA interrogations would not yield legal, useful evidence. They KNEW it. Proof? In order to make sure the charges would hold up, the FBI also interrogated the suspects, using non-coercive means performed by so-called "clean teams." In other words, the detainees were given food when hungry, and even Starbucks coffee when they wanted. Bush & Cheney's entire line of reasoning that they must have the ability to use coercive interrogation (i.e., torture) now falls flat on its face. Even THEY know that torture is useless. There is one reason and one reason only the administration used torture at all -- and that was to elicit answers that they wanted, so they could claim to avert all these alleged pending terror attacks, and frighten the populace into shutting the fuck up and doing what they're told, i.e., vote Republican.

Huckabee dreams of Christian Taliban

The guy gets tumescent at the thought of a Christian Taliban in America.

Huckabee at Falwell's Church: Ten Commandments better than law "We really don’t need a lot of law if we’re people of morality," Huckabee said at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, according to a report in the Lynchburg News Advance. "There are only 10 basic laws that we need … the reason that the law is more complicated is because we try to find clever ways around those 10." Additional reports at CBS News showed Huckabee taking his statement a step farther. "I hope you know Jesus Christ personally…because the level to which he rules you and governs you, you need less and less of man’s law to tell you how to live and that is what our Founding Fathers understood and we must understand," he preached. The Baptist minister and former governor isn't new to calling for more Biblical influence on America's system of government. On the stump in Michigan in January, Huckabee declared that there was a need, "to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

Smearing Obama

"While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches." A new twist on an old distortion. Thorough debunking here and here. Also see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC9veEouqqQ

More trouble for McCain

After McCain got booed at CPAC today, he's got more trouble from the base: Evangelical kingmaker and de facto head of the Republican Party James Dobson is going to endorse fellow theocrat Mike Huckabee.

Obama is a money machine

Since Super Tuesday, Barack Obama has raised 7.2 million dollars in less than 48 hours. That's after an incredible 32 million raised in January. No wonder Hillary felt she had to donate 5 million of her own money to her campaign to try and keep up.

What's going on here?

Erasing cell phone records? Copying information on hard drives? And with no reason to search electronic devices like cameras, mp3 players, laptops and cell phones?

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased. A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

Republicans say "Screw U, America!"

Republicans are worried about the economy, and they're intent on doing something about it. Unless it means helping the unemployed, veterans or retirees.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a Democratic-backed $157 billion economic stimulus plan that would have provided benefits for the long-term unemployed and expanded proposed tax rebates to include retirees and disabled veterans.

Back to the USSR

Back in the old days when the Bad Guys were easier to see -- they were "evil commies" from the USSR -- we heard all the stories about their totalitarian police-state regime, and how political opponents brave enough to speak out -- or even think about speaking out -- were declared "mentally unstable" and packed away to mental hospitals, never to be heard from again.

If they were lucky.

Looks like current Russian leader Vladimir Putin really wants to go back to those bad old days. Roman Nikolaichik, a politician who has been publicly criticizing Putin has run into a bit of trouble: Authorities tried to fabricate murder charges against him. When that didn't work, a psychiatrist was called, declared him "mentally unstable," and packed him off to a mental hospital.

Lucky guy.

What confuses me is that once upon a time, President Bush said he saw into Putin's "soul," and that he was a good man. Bush likes to tell us how much he talks to God, so how could he have been wrong? Doesn't Bush have a hotline to the Almighty? If Bush sees someone's soul and declares it "good," isn't that the same thing as a veritable endorsement by the Most High?

Could God and Bush have been wrong about Pooty-Poot?

Next you'll be telling me that pro wrestling is... Nah, I can't even imagine it!

Yes We Can

More money for Big Oil fat cats

An addendum to this post from below... Exxon Mobil is now posting ANOTHER year of record profits. Think of that as they keep raising prices at the pump. In any other reality they would call this profiteering.

Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion — on Friday as the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at the end of the year. Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005. The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil had in 2006.