Headlines - Wednesday

Mental Health Break

 

Wonderful World: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rooyt3ptNco&feature=email

 

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Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, urged a "truth commission" to investigate Bush administration policies including the promotion of war in Iraq, detainee treatment and wiretapping without a warrant, an influential senator proposed commission as a way to heal what he called sharp political divides under former President George W. Bush and to prevent future abuses.

 

Good idea. How about we start with the state secrets about the genital slicing that we're doing?

 

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Senate passes stimulus bill 61-37, with all but three Republicans voting against it (Specter, Collins, Snowe). Done with his meeting with GOP donors in New York, Cornhole voted this time - against it.

 

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A big chunk of Australia is on fire — over 700 homes have been burned, and it's estimated that over 300 people have been killed. We know the cause: a drought that dried tons of brush to tinder, lightning strikes, and deplorably, apparently a number of arsonists.

 

Well, that's what I would say were the causes. But then, I'm one of those materialists. Danny Nalliah, pastor of one of those cheesy evangelical organizations, has a different idea.

 

You see, the bushfires are happening because of abortion laws which decimate life in the womb. Luckily, the pastor's congregation will commence a 7 day prayer and fasting campaign for Australia tomorrow.

It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to know that there are people like him that see a catastrophe, pain, and loss of life as an opportunity to proselytize for his idiotic religion. His faith is a parasite that feeds on death and destruction and fear. That's all he's got. This is just more of the same from this wretched ghoul: before the fires, he was making similar accusations of blame.

He had previously said drought and the world financial crisis could be partly blamed on human sin.

These people are useless lunatics.

 

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And by the way, this woman paid with the in vitro with money from her other children's disability checks. One would think that would be fraud.

 

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Fred Barnes writes:

Democrats couldn't hide their self-consciousness about the excesses of their own bill. Supporters made few TV appearances to defend it and rarely talked about specific spending items. Obama sounded like Al Gore on global warming. The more the case for man-made warming falls apart, the more hysterical Gore gets about an imminent catastrophe. The more public support his bill loses, the more Obama embraces fear-mongering.

The ever-curious TPM Muckrakers follow up with Fred:

We hadn't heard anything lately about the case for man-made global warming falling apart. In fact, just the opposite. So we called Barnes and asked him what he was referring to.

 

At first, he cited the fact that it's been cold lately.

 

Perhaps sensing this was less than convincing, Barnes then asserted that there had been a "cooling spell" in recent years. "Haven't you noticed?" he asked.

 

Asked for firmer evidence of such cooling, Barnes demurred, telling TPMmuckraker he was too busy to track it down.

 

We pressed Barnes again: surely he could tell us where he had found this vital new information, which could upend the current debate over how to address global warming.

 

In response, Barnes said only that he knew where he had found it, but would not tell us, apparently as a matter of principle. "I'm not going to do your research for you," he eventually said, before hurriedly ending the call.

A good journalist never reveals his sources.

 

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Paging Senator James ("global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people") Inhofe:

 

Tornado touches down in Oklahoma City. In February.

 

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"The Republicans set the economy on fire and now they're blocking the fire trucks." Paul Begala

 

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Shocking story: Fair and Balanced Faux News caught plagiarizing directly from the Repiglican party! Brad blog.

 

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Eunuch to finally get payback

 

 

A new poll does not show one — even close — winning scenario for Traitor Joe.

 

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Wow. Just wow.

From the governor of the state that stopped gay marriage in California:

Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-UT) backs a proposal that would give same-sex couples the right to civil unions in the state. "Huntsman is the most popular governor in state history and is increasingly speaking out on moderate issues such as global warming that make many conservatives in the state cringe. For Huntsman, there is little political risk because he has pledged not to seek a third term.

Gov Huntsman is a devout Mormon and serves as an Area Seventy and as a member of the Fifth Quorum of the Seventy. He has also served as stake president and mission president in the Washington DC mission.

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Arizona Sens. Jon Kyl (R) and John McCain (R) have vehemently opposed President Obama's recovery package, both voting against it. McCain called the bill "generational theft."Apparently the two are unaware of the "recession reality" facing their constituents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, Keating Five McCain, who as recently as September said the 'fundamentals of our economy are strong', said that he is "definitely running for reelection in 2010 and has already begun using criticism of the stimulus bill as a platform to raise money. "The economic challenges currently confronting our nation are immense and unfortunately, the Democrats in Congress propose addressing these challenges through increased spending," McCain wrote in an e-mail to supporters.

Some might consider the Iraq war and hogging a senate seat for a generation to be generational theft.

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Everything you need to know about the stimulus package you can tell by the expression on Geitner's face:

 

Natives murder and cannibalise a farmer in Amazon. No word yet on their negative feedback rating: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/09/brazil.ritual.cannibalism/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

 

Wonder how long it will before it starts happening here?

 

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TPR: Former Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), will pay the federal government $402 million to settle a massive Cheney-era bribery scheme.

 

This is the same KBR that is under criminal investigation over the electrocution of two U.S. Soldiers who allegedly were killed as a result of KBR's shoddy electrical work, and the same KBR that just got awarded a $35 million dollar contract to do electrical work in Iraq.

 

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Obamatrons will hand out money to banks with no strings attached, just like the Busheviks did.

 

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Indulgences!

 

Because trips to the confession booth won't save you from punishment after death in Purgatory before you enter heaven, you can now receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament!

 

You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.

 

Sounds like a good way to replenish the coffers that have been wiped out from all the pedophelia lawsuits.

 

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Texas teacher suspended for atheism: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/2/10/123751/653

 

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Famous for its "To Catch a Predator" series, NBC is expanding the franchise with a new series in which intrepid correspondents go after war criminals:

 

No news if they'll go after George Walker Bush, Richard Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld.

 

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This is the "manifesto" of domestic terrorist Jim Adkisson, the man who opened fire in a Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tennessee last June. It sounds eerily familiar to something Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, or Michael Wiener would say. 

 

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Volunteer firefighter Dave Tree rescued a bewildered female koala bear found cowering in a burned out forest at Mirboo North, 90 miles southeast of Melbourne. He gave her water from a plastic bottle as she put her burned claw in his cold, wet hand: Watch the video on YouTube

 

She was named Sam, and has now bonded with another rescued koala:
 

A love story between two badly burned koalas rescued from Australia's deadliest bushfires has provided some heart-warming relief after days of devastation and the loss of over 180 lives.

"They keep putting their arms around each other and giving each other hugs. They really have made friends and it is quite beautiful to see after all this. It's been horrific," said Wood.

But all is not happy endings in Victoria. The introduction to this video (not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach) says that over 5000 koalas alone have perished in this fire. And the injuries suffered by those animals that survive are heartbreaking:

The Victoria RSPCA is accepting money donations specifically for animal efforts here. And the Australian Koala Foundation is here. And Wildlife Victoria is funding the rescue and rehabilitation efforts cited in the above article.

 

Obviously not all of the wildfires were caused by people, but I hope they catch the bastard(s) that started some of them. 

 

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A big shout out to the Senate, that is willing to devote its time to investigating whether Ticketmaster scalped Bruce Springsteen tickets through a subsidiary, you people are awesome.

 

They let George W. Bush and Dick Cheney crap all over the Constitution for eight years, but a few people being unable to get Springsteen tickets except through scalpers is somehow more important than trying to restore the laws on which our nation was founded? 

 

There is no question that Bush and Cheney personally authorized torture. We know about waterboarding. What we don't know is what other kinds of torture these two psychopathic men authorized and committed IN OUR NAME. We have an obligation to our country, to the Constitution, and to all the people who came before us and who died defending this nation over the past 233 years, to hold these criminals accountable for their actions - actions that they committed while we sat by and allowed them to invade a country that did nothing to us and grab people off the streets and "disappear" them. If we do not hold them accountable, no matter how difficult or inconvenient it may be, then the blood of everyone who died from the crimes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney policies is on our hands. One would think Congress would see this as a far more pressing issue than the scalping of Bruce Springsteen tickets.

 

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A modest idea

 

In all of those states where the congressional delegation voted against the economic stimulus package, where the crazy-ass legislators from the party of Hoover have made comments about how government spending never does any good, let me propose these steps:
http://eb-misfit.blogspot.com/2009/02/modest-idea.html

 

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Mississippi legislator Gary Chism (R-District 37), lost his fight to append a sticker to biology textbooks that was to include such supposed "weaknesses" as:

There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.

Speaking to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Gary said:

 

"Either you believe in the Genesis story, or you believe that a fish walked on the ground."

 

Ummm, Gary? You might want to have a look at this: