Weekend Comics

I'm going to the country so I'll be Internet-less for a few days. Here's Bob Geiger with the Saturday cartoons.

Connells

A Friday Vid: The Connells '74-'75



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In Iraq

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5 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Attack

BAGHDAD - Insurgents launched a deadly coordinated attack on an American combat patrol, detonating a roadside bomb, then firing guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the soldiers, the U.S. military said Friday. Five troops were killed.

Seven soldiers were wounded in the attack on Thursday in southern Baghdad and were evacuated to a military hospital; one has since returned to duty, the military said.

The deaths brought to 99 the number of U.S. troops to die in Iraq this month, according to an Associated Press count. The toll for the past three months , 329 , made it the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

More.

Orwell | Nineteen Eighty Four

George Orwell
Born June 25, 1903

But in the future will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. They will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no employment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever."

- -George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

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Screaming Walls and Other Disturbances

SCREAMING WALL Shrieks & Scrawls from a Series Vanishing from View






















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Elizabeth Edwards in Lexington Friday Night

Elizabeth Edwards will be in Lexington tomorrow evening. The admission price is only $15.00, even poor Bloggers can afford that. Let's hope she gives a scathing review of Ann-thrax Coulter.
Ditch Mitch's Joe Sonka will be there and hopes to get an interview.
Time n Place: Downtown Arts Center: 161 North Mill Street, in Lexington, KY, at 5 P.M.

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Lewis Black | Right Wing paranoia

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Bushopotamia | More Blood and Horror

In the war dubya created.

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Car bombs kill 30 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD – A car bomb parked at a crowded Baghdad bus terminal killed at least 25 Thursday morning, while 20 beheaded bodies were found on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of the capital.
The car bombing shortly after 8 a.m. struck during the rush hour in Baghdad ’s Bayaa neighborhood as many of the victims were lining up to catch rides to work. About 40 minibuses were incinerated, police reported.

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Don't Buy Books by War Criminals

That'll be my reason for not buying Crazy Donnie's book anyway. I'd rather buy OJ's book at least he only slaughtered a few. I do have a good name for Rummy's rumifications, how 'bout, "A Neo-con's Dream, Killing Hundreds of Thousands of Innocents For Fun and Profit". Feel free to come up with your own.

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Rumsfeld Seeking 'Large Cash Advance' For Iraq Memoir











Rummy with his best pal(then) Saddam Hussein.

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Tom Tomorrow | Conservative Jones, Boy Detective

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RIP | Hank Medress

Hank Medress of The Tokens, the group that took "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to the top of the charts in 1961 has passed away. A great Doo-Wop group mostly known for that one song. Here's Skippy with the news and more, and here's a reunion video of The Tokens and The Lion Sleeps tonight:



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We Have Always Been at War With Al Qaeda

Jesus' General verifies what we've begun to suspect:

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The United States has always been at war with Al Qaeda

















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DU's Top Ten

DU has the Top Ten Conservative Idiots here. Ann-thrax Coulter didn't even make the list! That'll tell you how tough the competition is. The Dick made number one, well deserved I might add:

..The vice president is a member of the Executive Branch when he needs to claim executive privilege, but not a member of the Executive Branch when that would mean having to open his records to the National Archives.

You know, this kinda reminds me of the time in 2003 that Cheney said of Halliburton, "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years," and then it turned out that just two years later his Halliburton stock options rose by 3,281%.

Talk about having your cake and eating it. (Or in Cheney's case, having your blood and drinking it.)

America- Are We First in Prisons Yet?

That "Bong Hits For Jesus" kid better be glad they didn't lock him away. Next time they will. Nothin' makes a good dictatorship like a humming prison system, and look it's exportable. Damn Iraqis shoulda known to give dubya/halliburton their oil and keep their mouths shut.

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If You Can't Export Democracy, Try Prisons!

..Although America’s attempt to export its version of democracy to Iraq has been a resounding failure, it has found more success at introducing to the region one of its world-renowned skills: building (and filling) prisons.
In 2006, as the U.S. State Department completed its $20 billion “reconstruction” program in Iraq, the only new rebuilding money requested was for prisons. State Department Iraq coordinator James Jeffrey asked Congress for $100 million for the sole significant building project --- prison construction (or, in the administration’s bureaucratic-speak, for “additional bed capacity for the Iraqi legal system”). This year, the United States has sought expansion of its prisons as its “security” operations around Baghdad have increased..

From DMIBlog via The Agonist.

Senator Dodd at ACLU Rally For Constitutional Rights

Senator Chris Dodd speaks at the ACLU Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice Rally in Washington DC on 6/24/07.



You want to know who my senator is? Mitch "Mo'Money" McConnell. That's my senator, Blech!

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"Insurgents" Are Now "Al Qaeda"

Similar to the way any dead vietnamese were "Vietcong" 4o years ago. To be honest I'm still not even certain that "Al Qaeda" wasn't created as a convenient bogeyman. Here's Glenn Greenwald:

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McClatchy reports on shift in Iraq propaganda

"But let us focus on the underlying and most significant point of all of this. This sudden shift in describing the "enemy" in Iraq as "Al Qaeda" is the by-product of a very familiar information-producing system: namely, the administration formulates narratives, the President announces them, his top officials and military commanders recite them endlessly, and then establishment "journalists" not only write them down, but rely exclusively -- and uncritically -- on those narratives to report events. As I noted on Saturday, particularly in the Update citing the work of other bloggers who have been tracking this rhetorical shift for several months, this is exactly how the transformation of the "War in Iraq" into the newly unveiled "U.S. War Against Al Qeada" was manufactured and disseminated.

Whatever else is true, all of these new reports about the glorious victories we are achieving against "Qaeda fighters" in Iraq are the by-product of this exact system. These reports rely exclusively, or overwhelmingly, on the claims of military commanders selected by the Bush administration to communicate "information" to the media."
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On a very related and scary note, 41% of Americans just polled STILL believe that Iraq was involved in 9/11. WTF! 41%? Did they happen to only poll Faux News watchers? Now that's scary. It's gotta make the propagandists at Bushco and in their corporate "news" media(cough, Fox, cough, CNN, etc.) very happy though. A lie repeated often enough...

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Patton Oswalt's- Those Darn Bush Boys

Bush/Cheney as the Dukes.



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"Crazy" for the Theremin

Found at Laughing Squid, Gnarls Barkley's huge hit "Crazy" as played on the Theremin. What, you've never heard of the theremin? Here it is:



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Meanwhile in Dubyaland

Dubya's "surge" appears to be a surge of the dead.

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Roadside Bombs Kill 7 US Troops in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) - Roadside bombs killed seven American troops in Iraq on Saturday, including four in a single strike outside Baghdad, the military said, as U.S. and Iraqi troops captured two senior al-Qaida militants in Diyala province.
More at The Guardian.

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Saturday's Cartoons

Bob Geiger has the Saturday toons up.
















Danziger
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Father's Little Lies

On a bit lighter note here's a few of my favorite father stories to their children, from the Father's day page at PostSecret:

"My dad told me the worst swear word you could possibly say was "Bostonian". It meant "someone who has no private parts." My brother and I used the word until we were teenagers and my father giggled every time we said it, right before he sent us to our rooms."

"When i was little my dad told me that polyester was a small animal in australia & they would kill it to make clothes. that night i sat in my room reading the labels on my clothes for hours & threw all of the polyester ones away."

"My dad used to tell me that the Beware of Falling Rock signs along the sides of the road in mountainous areas warned of a Native American named Falling Rock that threw rocks down on the passing cars below."

"When I was little, my dad told me ATMs worked by having little monkeys inside them. I believed that for years. Now I work in a bank, and wish it were true!"

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Friday Video

Featuring the kick-ass music of Alvin Lee and Ten Years After:



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What Will We Talk About Today?

From Gorilla's Guides and Crooks and Liars comes another version of Iraqi grief and what our neo-cons have brought to a country. My own pansied version Mitch McConnell should listen but I'm sure he can't hear.
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What will we talk about today you and I?

..When I heard the bomb explode last Saturday the first thing I did was telephone my father. But there was no reply. Again and again and again I tried to phone him. My fingers hurt I stabbed them onto the buttons on my phone so hard. I fell onto the floor and prayed please let him not be dead. Please let it be that he died quick if he is dead.

And my heart was sick inside me.

What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce..

More.

Fix Our Internet

The United States has the worst Internet speeds vs. costs of any of the developed countries. Here's Susan Crawford with some of the reasons and hopefully some badly needed cures.

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Moving Slowly in the Fast Lane

"..Thirty years ago, two-way communications in this country were controlled by Ma Bell. After eight years of litigation, AT&T agreed to divest itself of its local telephone companies, and those local telephone companies (the “Baby Bells”) agreed not to leverage their local monopolies into the market for long distance service.

Where are we today? The Baby Bells have re-consolidated. Telephone service in this country is essentially controlled by AT&T (in the West) and Verizon (in the East), with Qwest filling in gaps. And two-way communications in this country – which, these days, means highspeed internet access – are controlled by a duopoly of Big Phone and Big Cable. Many Americans don’t have a choice of highspeed providers, and, as Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, Media Access Project, and U.S. Public Interest Group recently told the FCC, “Americans pay 10 to 20 times as much [as people do in other countries] for far less service.” The duopoly is something like Shamu and Godzilla on hire for televised wrestling – giant beasts gently swatting at one another for the cameras. They aren’t competing, these giants. There is a clear failure in the market for highspeed internet access in this country.

Even people who don’t often think about interactive communications have heard that the U.S. is lagging far behind many other developed nations when it comes to highspeed internet access. As with other key infrastructure issues – like Head Start and healthcare – we just don’t seem to care about giving our people a firm foundation for life.."
Continue.

Dramatic Chipmunk

I've seen it all over so here it is in my corner. Yes it's called good acting.




First found here.
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Myth of the Day | Michael Bloomberg, Independent

So Michael Bloomberg says he's independent. He's certainly been in the Republican's pockets for quite some time. Could this be a stealth campaign to draw votes from Democrats? Hopefully if he runs he'll pick Lieberman as his running mate. Thanks to Agitprop here's "independent" Bloomberg with his best bud dubya.













And here's THP with the details.
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NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg Leaves GOP

NEW YORK — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday switched his party status from Republican to unaffiliated, a stunning move certain to be seen as a prelude to an independent presidential bid that would upend the 2008 race.
The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the GOP for his first mayoral run, said the change in voter registration does not mean he is running for president.
Continue at Huffington Post

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Digby Revealed

We finally meet the real Digby at the Take Back America Conference:



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Last Photographs | Ashley Gilbertson

Ashley Gilbertson is a freelance photographer who's been taking pictures of conflict and displacement for years, since 2002 in Iraq. He has a book coming out called "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", a photographer's chronicle of Iraq.
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Last Photographs
Ashley Gilbertson
with Joanna Gilbertson

Baghdad, March 2007

I didn’t want to go back.

When I began reporting from Iraq in 2002, I was still a wild and somewhat naïve twenty-four-year-old kid. Five years later, I was battle-weary. I had been there longer than the American military and had kept returning long after most members of the “coalition of the willing” had pulled out. Iraq had become my initiation, my rite of passage, but instead of granting me a new sense of myself and a new identity, Iraq had become my identity. Without Iraq, I was nothing. Just another photographer hanging around New York. In Iraq, I had a purpose, a mission; I felt important. I didn’t want to go back, but I needed to—and for the worst possible reason: I wasn’t ready for it to end. After twelve months away, I had a craving that only Iraq could satisfy.

My wife didn’t like the idea. Neither did my shrink. “If you go back to Iraq now,” he warned, “you’ll probably keep going back.” To be completely honest—and I wasn’t being honest with myself then—part of me knew they were right. Still, I could easily rationalize my desire to anyone who asked. I told them that I wanted to have one last look, that I needed to shoot the place differently, outside the constraints of daily coverage; I said I wanted to photograph Iraq emotionally, to react to my feelings on the spot instead of bottling them up as I’d done in the past; I said I wanted to be sure that my book of war photographs was indeed finished, that the story had irrevocably turned. The only people who bought my justifications were my editors at the New York Times. They thought another rotation was a great idea.

More.
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Thanks Boingboing.

Here's an NPR interview.
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Take Back America

The Take Back America Conference has an amazing list of speakers this year.Check it out.

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Regarding Bloody Dubya's Pet War

Scores killed today in Baghdad bombing.

Happy Father's Day

George points out the guy that Cheney shot in the face to Laurabot_2007 while Jenna flashes the BFEE(Bush Family Evil Empire)club sign to Not-Jenna.
Happy Father’s Day from George W. Bush.

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Saturday Cartoons

Bob Geiger with the Saturday Cartoons.














Tony Auth

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Gayest President Since Buchanon, Part II

After Tony Snow's strange comments:
Q: Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?
SNOW: Yeah, the President. The President is in the war every day.
Q: Come on, that isn’t my question
SNOW: Well, no, if you ask any president who is a commander in chief
Q: On the frontlines, wherever...
SNOW: The President.

and seeing this pic at Kos:




















I just had to do my part and post another Gayer than Buchanon post.

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American Idol and Diamonds in the Rough

I don't watch American Idol but I did appreciate this.

"And finally something completely different and not for laughs. Not tonight. Be aware that programs like American Idol got their start in Britain where they thrive today. I give thanks tonight for YouTube, not for its often hilarious political content or for all the unguarded moments it captures, but because without YouTube I might never have come across this."

-Brit Hume



Thanks to Marie at Newshounds.

Neocons and the Enemy Within

Of Crazies, Neocons and the Enemy Within
-Manuel Valenzuela


..If you are not disgusted at how this species of human being has hijacked America, how it has condemned a million people to their premature death, how it has turned the beacon of freedom into the gulag of criminality, how it has made mass murder, torture, rape and pillage acceptable, how it has made an entire nation hateful, xenophobic and jingoistic, how it has molded and conditioned an army of American authoritarians, then you have not been paying attention....
Continue..

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Help Get Rid of Puppy Mills

The Humane Society could use your help.

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"..Soon after "Baby" arrived at a puppy mill, her vocal cords were cut with scissors, without any anesthetic, so she couldn't bark. The puppy mill owner didn't want to be disturbed. Then, she was confined in a cramped cage with a chicken wire floor, so the owner did not have to clean it. Later, she broke her leg, and it was left untreated for years. Ultimately, the leg had to be amputated...

As you may know, puppy mills are large-scale breeding facilities. They force mother and father dogs to produce litter after litter of puppies to support consumer demand for purebred and "designer" dogs.

"Breeder dogs" are routinely kept in horrific conditions, enduring a lifetime of misery in tiny cages, deprived of exercise, decent food, or even basic veterinary care. As they age and their fertility wanes, these animals are often killed or abandoned.

What most pet owners and animal lovers don't realize is that so many of the puppies sold through pet stores or Internet sites come from places just like these -- breeding operations filled with suffering, disease, and malnutrition. Puppy mills typically operate without oversight, sell puppies through third parties, and use deceptive practices to fool the public into believing they care about the puppies they breed. That is why it is crucial to shine a spotlight on this unseen industry.."
Go here to help.

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The Progressive Majority in America

The Progressive Majority:
Why a Conservative America is a Myth

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MSNBC's Conservative Love

More of that "Liberal Media".

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Save the Internet for Everyone

KEF Puts on a Fund Raiser

Kentucky Environmental Foundation(KEF)and Richmond's own Madison Garden Restaurant are doing a benefit to raise money for the safe disposal of chemical weapons in Madison County:


















All I ask is, PULEASE don't give it to the army to dispose of(see below).

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Army Dumped Toxins, Radioactive Waste and More in The Oceans

I sometimes think that the people in charge have the intellect and the conscienceness of not very bright 12 year olds. Heaven knows what the Marines, the Navy, and everybody else was dumping. This is from Deep Sea News, and thanks to Skippy:




















Photo:

"The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels."

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Internet Gaining on Television News

Online Will Overtake Television News Within Five Years
By broadcastengineering.com.













Cafe

"..Research from news consumers in seven countries predicts that online news and information sources will overtake TV newscasts within five years. Even today, many people believe it’s already easier to get news online than to read a newspaper.
The data came from a Harris Interactive poll on newspapers and online sites and was released last week at the World Association of Newspapers conference in Cape Town, South Africa. The research came from a poll of 8749 adults taken last month in seven countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Australia.
While television news programs on broadcast and cable networks are the primary information providers today in all the regions polled, a sharp increase in the role of online news information is predicted for five years down the road, largely at the expense of television, with smaller inroads into the market for newspapers.."

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Sadistic Justice and Prohibition

From NORML.

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Quadriplegic Serving 10-Day Sentence For First-Time Marijuana Charge Dies In DC Jail

Washington, DC: A 27-year-old quadriplegic man sentenced to serve ten days in a Washington, DC jail on charges that he possessed a minor amount of marijuana died while in custody last week due to inadequate health care, including prison officials' failure to provide him with a ventilator.
The victim, Jonathan Magbie, had been paralyzed from the neck down since the age of four, was unable to breath on his own, and required nursing care 20 hours a day.
Magbie was sentenced to spend ten days in jail on September 20, 2004 after pleading guilty to one charge of marijuana possession. Though prosecutors had recommended probation, the judge in the case ordered Magbie to serve jail time - noting that the defendant had told pre-sentence investigators that he would continue using marijuana because it made him feel better.
Continue:

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Spell it Out

Spell it out for them..I..M..P..E.A...









Thanks to Skippys for linkage.

YTube Movie | "Four Eyed Monsters"

A seriously good full length movie (71 minutes) on YouTube - "Four Eyed Monsters", the title is a bit misleading. Some bad language and risque situations. You'll have to sit through a short ad by the creators, but they're nice, and it's well worth joining spout.com just for the visuals in this little movie:



It says it will only be there 1 week so if the video doesn't work here's the YouTube linkie. As with most YouTube video it's often better to go to the actual YouTube video site of the clip and click the "full size" window(lower right of the video clip at YouTube).

Lieberman Wants to Attack Iran

Joementum may be seriously losing it. Doesn't he already have enough blood on his hands with Iraq?
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Lieberman: "We've Got To Be Prepared To Take Aggressive Military Action" Against Iran

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What the World Eats

What does an "average" family eat in one week and what does it cost them. From Time and a book called Hungry Planet.














The Manzo family of Sicily
Photo by Peter Menzel

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Tommy Chong on MSGOP

Tommy Chong being interviewed on MSNBC regarding the Paris Hilton blanket coverage. I watch very little cable "news" so I haven't seen much of the latest MSM fixation, "Paris".

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Bree Walker Buys "Camp Casey" | It Will Become a Park

It looks as if Cindy Sheehan's property near the Bush ranch may become a "Peace Park" and place of meditation. Brad Blog and Crooks and Liars has the whole story. It's a nice outcome. All the best to Cindy Sheehan.

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Cindy Sheehan

Former Los Angles newscaster turned progressive talk radio host, Bree Walker will be purchasing Cindy Sheehan’s 5-acre property near the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas,[..] Walker, currently a resident of San Diego, was previously a television news anchor in Los Angles and New York. She confirmed the news to us moments ago, in an exclusive interview, that she intends to keep the property “as a ground for freedom and peace” and is considering erecting a memorial there for troops killed in Iraq. She hopes to create a meditation garden on the grounds and to keep it open to the public.

Bree Walker:



















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Friday Video | The Band

Yes I said The Band! Early live 1970. With "The Weight":

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Oh heck, here's a double with "It Makes No Difference"(with lyrics):

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Creations "Adam" is Porn Star

This is to good to not post. Northern Kentucky's new Creationist Museum or as I like to call it, "The Flintstone's Museum" apparently has an Adam and Eve exhibit. Looks like the Adam portrayer Eric Linden has a new web site called.. wait for it .. wait.. Bedroom Acrobat! Life is sometimes like an Onion Article:

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Creation Museum's 'Adam' Shared Sex Exploits Online
By Julie Carr Smyth, Associated Press

The man who portrays Adam for a museum based on the Bible's version of history led quite a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a line of clothing with an explicit mascot.
Registration records show that Eric Linden, who portrays Adam taking his first breath in a film at the newly opened Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., has owned a graphic Web site called Bedroom Acrobat.

Linked at BluegrassReport.

Markarian's Eyes

From NASA's Pic of the day. Markarian's Eyes looking at us from 50 million light years away.
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Prominent in Markarian's Chain are these two interacting galaxies, NGC 4438 (left) and NGC 4435 - also known as The Eyes. About 50 million light-years away, the two galaxies appear to be about 100,000 light-years apart in this sharp close-up, but have likely approached to within an estimated 16,000 light-years of each other in their cosmic past.

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Jon Stewart on the Republican Debate

39 People Have "Disappeared" in US Custody

Maybe Blitzer can ask the Republican candidates in their next debate what they think of making prisoners disappear into dubya's secret prisons and torture rooms. This is from from Raw Story;

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Thirty nine people said to have 'disappeared' in US custody

"Six human rights groups released Wednesday a list of 39 people they believe have been secretly imprisoned by the United States and whose whereabouts are unknown and called on the Bush administration to abandon secret detentions," according to advance copy of an article being considered for the front page of Thursday's New York Times.

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Tom Tomorrow | Bully of the beach

Harry "Weak Tea" Reid.

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Julie Amero's Conviction is Reversed

Julie Amero (background here and here), the Connecticut substitute teacher who was put on trial when the computer in the classroom that she was in started throwing out porn images. Good news Julie Amero’s conviction has been reversed and she will get a new trial.
Thanks to Lindsay for the reminder.

Keith Olberman | The Nexus of Politics and Terror

Keith Olberman does a report on the Bushco's use of terror and fear alerts to counter bad news and ratings. Thanks to C & L for the heads up.
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Part 1


Part 2


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What's Mitch McConnell Hiding Contest

From WhatsMcConnellHiding.com
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What’s McConnell Hiding?

Be the first to ask Senator McConnell☼ what he’s hiding. Make a video—either answering the question or refusing to answer the question. Show up at his office in Kentucky or in DC, catch him as he’s boarding a plane to or from Louisville, try to flag him at an event. Capture him on video telling you who is behind the block on S. 223. The first person who does this gets a reward of $500 from the Sunlight Foundation. Sunlight will post top video entries to YouTube and this site.

Holy Cow! Or Cape Buffalo!

Wow! Had to post this one. Found it at World o Crap

Larry Flynt offers $1 Million For Washington Smut

Maybe they should talk to Jimmy Guckert Gannon.

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Hustler offers $1 million for sex smut on Congress

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hustler magazine is looking for some scandalous sex in Washington again -- and willing to pay for it.

"Have you had a sexual encounter with a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official?" read a full-page advertisement taken out by Larry Flynt's pornographic magazine in Sunday's Washington Post.

It offered $1 million for documented evidence of illicit intimate relations with a congressman, senator or other prominent officeholder. A toll-free number and e-mail address were provided.
Continue.

Sgt Pepper Belated

A belated Happy Birthday(June 1st) to Sgt. Pepper and the band. "It was twenty(forty) years ago today Sgt. Pepper told the band to play";
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Strawberry Fields Forever


Beatles on the brain

..One hundred years from now Beatles songs may be so well known that every child will learn them as nursery rhymes, and most people will have forgotten who wrote them. They will have become sufficiently entrenched in popular culture that it will seem as if they've always existed, like Oh Susannah, This Land Is Your Land, and Frère Jacques.

Why can we listen to certain songs across a lifetime and still find pleasure in them? Great songs activate deep-rooted neural networks in our brains that encode the rules and syntax of our culture's music. Through a lifetime of listening, we have learned what is essentially a complex calculation of statistical probabilities of what chord is likely to follow what, and how melodies are formed. Skilful composers play with these expectations, meeting and violating them in interesting ways. In my laboratory we've found that listening to a familiar song that you like activates the same parts of the brain as sex or opiates do. But there is no one song that does this for everyone; musical taste is both variable and subjective.

Today the Beatles catalogue is cross-culturally loved - the product of a six-year burst of creativity unparalleled in modern music. The Beatles incorporated classical elements into rock music so seamlessly that it is easy to forget that string quartets and Bach-like countermelodies and bass lines (not to mention plagal cadences) did not always populate pop music. Music changed more between 1963 and 1969 than it has in the 37 years since, with the Beatles among the architects of that change...

At the time I was really more of a Stones fanatic but the beatles(even then) were recognized gods of a another order.

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Seven..Er..14 More US Troops Dead in Iraq

Bushopotamia takes seven more of America's young soldiers. ..Dubya yawns, and picks his teeth.. Oops, make that 14 troops in the last three days. It's hard to keep up with the blood and gore.

Bob Geiger's Saturday Cartoons

Here's the Bob Geiger cartoons for Saturday;















Nick Anderson

Peter Tosh

Pick myself up, dust myself off
and start all over again..



Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

Birthday Guys

Happy birthday Allen Ginsberg:
June 3rd 1926

Buddha's a help, promises ordinary mind no nirvana
--coffee, alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms, marijuana, laughing gas?
Nope, too heavy for this lightness lifts the brain into blue sky
at May dawn when birds start singing on East 12th street
--Where does it come from, where does it go forever?

-From Five A.M. by Allen Ginsberg

And while I'm at it;
Paul Gauguin- June 7th 1848:















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Labron James Says no to Darfur Protest

Labron James probably couldn't tell you what continent Darfur is in and maybe doesn't know anything about the horror going on there. He refused to sign a letter condemning China's trade with Sudan which is to blame for much of the death and misery in Darfur. James is a ballplayer he lives and breathes basketball. It's possible he never reads, watches, or listens to the news. It's similer to Michael Jordan refusing to speak ill of Nike's international policies. I thought less of Jordan after that but both men get a HUGE chunk of money from Nike, etal.

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Photo: Bartcop

Labron James Refuses to Sign Protest Letter

LeBron James must have given hundreds, if not thousands of autographs in his three years of NBA stardom.
It took just one polite "no" to a different kind of autograph request recently for the 22-year-old forward to stir up a hornets' nest.
James was asked to sign an open letter, written by Cleveland Cavaliers teammate Ira Newble, condemning China's government for contributing to the genocide of people in the Darfur region of Sudan.
"China cannot be a legitimate host to the premier international event in the sporting world - the Summer Olympic Games - while it remains complicit in the terrible suffering and destruction that continues to this day," Newble wrote.
China is thought to buy a huge amount of Sudanese oil. The African country is then said to spend much of that oil money on obtaining weapons and technology from China.
Sudan is also accused of arming the Arab militia, the Janjaweed, who in turn use the weapons to murder innocent people in the Darfur region.
Newble's letter was signed by most of the Cavalier players, but not James, who said he didn't have enough information about the issue, or Damon Jones, who refused comment.
James has a huge contract with Nike, a company that has business interests in China, while Jones is to endorse products from a Chinese shoe and apparel company. http://thebridge.typepad.com/thebridge/2007/05/bball_star_jame.html

Bush Greening?

Short answer is.. Are you kidding?
DUH-bya's going "green". To see how that's gonna work see the Ferrell vid below or go to Grist. I assume a bird didn't give him a well deserved crapping this time.

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Today's headlines are full of the news that President Bush is "unveiling a new climate strategy." If your immediate reaction is cynicism, well ... looks like you learned something over the last seven years. Let's look a little closer.

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Ferrell Does Dumbya..Er..Dubya

Will Ferrell does Bush like no one else.



Thanks to Bagnews. Go there to see the actual Bush bumbling "green vid" to get the genius of ferrell.