Bush Certain of Hillary’s Nomination

And he believes a Republican nominee can beat her. These revelations are in the new book “Evangelical President” by Bill Sammon set to be released Monday. Sammon is the senior white house correspondent for the Washington Examiner and excerpts from the book will start running Monday in that paper. According to an anonymous “senior White House official” while Obama is “capable of the intellectual rigor” needed to win the Presidency he relies too heavily on his charm. “It’s sort of like, ‘that’s all I need to get by’, which bespeaks for of a condescending attitude toward the voters,” according to the official. “And a laziness, an intellectual laziness.” The book appears to be full of opinions and predictions coming from the Oval Office and other officials in the White House. More Via: IBN E-Lert

Fiddle dee dee, I’ll Think About it Tomorrow….

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle Editorial Cartoonist and Animation Artist
For Nick’s animations, visit Nick Anderson: Animation Archives.
For Nick’s cartoons, visit Nick Anderson.

The Devil Went Down to Egreggious

Last night was one of those weirdos where Satan once again slithered up to the side of my bed and made me yet another offer I couldn’t refuse. This time the little devil offered, in exchange for my soul, to make me the sexiest man on earth for just 24 hours. Of course, my first question to Satan, after hearing this modest proposal, was, “And just how will that make David Hasselhoff feel?”

Beltway Democrat Syndrome

Glenn Greenwald laments the fact that Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has become such a wanker.

He concludes:

It isn’t only — or even principally — the “Blue Dogs” which make the “Democratic Congress” nothing but an enabling instrument of the Bush White House and its right-wing policies. Far worse are the establishment-defending, soul-less, belief-less, self-perpetuating “liberal Senators” like Feinstein who render the concept of “opposition party” nothing more than a deceitful illusion. Dianne Feinstein is the drained and Bush-enabling face of the 2007 Democratic Congress.

Two Rights Making a Wrong

From CBS News:

(AP) Attorneys for at least 40 Guantanamo Bay prisoners have been barred from visiting or writing their clients because of a judge’s order dismissing legal challenges to the men’s confinement, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.

A Justice Department lawyer informed the attorneys of the new restrictions in an e-mail that cited Thursday’s dismissal of their cases by District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington.

…

Challenges are still pending for dozens of other detainees with the Supreme Court set to consider whether Congress had the right to strip the prisoners of the right to contest their confinement with petitions of habeas corpus.  [emphasis added]

Let’s see, who do we have on the Supreme Court these days?  Roberts? Alito? Scalia? Thomas?

I keep imagining how much money this country would save if we simply did away with habeas corpus altogether.  No more need for these expensively stupid trials to actually determine if a person is guilty or innocent!

[Photo courtesy of kleinmatt.  Used by permission.]

Rudy is sooooo cute!

I’m not an enormous fan of Maureen Dowd, but occasionally her smart-ass New Yawk take on politics can be amusing. Today’s column on Rudy at the NRA is a case in point.

And, thanks to YouTube, you can hear him yourself.

Ahmadinejad Thinks More of the American People Than CBS Does

From The Largest Minority, by Manila Ryce:

In a supposedly “objective” interview, Iranian President Ahmadinejad told Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes that the American public is smarter than to believe the propaganda the media puts out. Pelley essentially reiterated the warmongering spin about Ahmadinjad’s visit to Ground Zero, saying it would be an insult to the American people. Not only did the President of Iran inform Pelley that he doesn’t speak for all Americans, but he told him to do a better job as a journalist. Now what does that say about the press when a supposed “terrorist” has more respect for us than our own media?  [emphasis added]

Read the rest of the article here.

Where’d it go??

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Jeff Danziger, Syndicated Political Cartoonist

Rising Seas Likely to Flood U.S. History

via: Huffington Post

Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Va., as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting.

In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.

Global warming _ through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding _ is expected to cause oceans to rise by one meter, or about 39 inches. It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation.
(Continue reading article…)

The BBC writes that sea level rise is accelerating. Here is another article from National Geographic on rising sea levels. And for a glimpse at what the rising sea levels will look like, and how it will impact many cities around the United States, check out the report by ABC News.

Bush, the Cowboy, is ‘scared of horses’

via: The Telegraph

President Bush may like to be seen as a swaggering tough guy with a penchant for manly outdoor pursuits, but in a new book one of his closest allies has said he is afraid of horses.

Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a “windshield cowboy” – a cowboy who prefers to drive – and “the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life”.

Will Ferrel’s impression of Bush, the cowboy.
(H/T to The Largest Minority)

The Falklands – A War Revisited

Remember the Falklands War and the Iron Lady who so courageously grabbed British soil from the grasp of Argentine dictatorship? Did you wonder what, good gracious, was so important about a few rocks 7’500 miles from the homeland to wage a war and shed the blood of 900+ young men and women for ? Well, that one’s easy: Protecting some 3’000 of her Majesty’s subjects and countless more sheep from oppression by a brutal regime!

Wrong! – It’s the oil – Stupid! 

Largely unnoticed, except by the formidable “Guardian“ Great Britain is moving to secure large parts of the Atlantic for exploitation. The Falklands, as well as Ascension Island near Africa and Rockall in the North Atlantic form the centers of an area of tens of thousands of square miles to be annexed in the hope of getting control of huge oil fields. Read more here.

As resources dwindle and “peak oil” looms, more and more areas are going to be exploited, even if protected now. Russia has claimed most of the Arctic. Only Antarctica is not yet up for grabs - yet.

The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 reserves the area for research and demilitarizes all of Antarctica south of the 60° South Latitude. However, the signatory states have stated in Article IV:

1. Nothing contained in the present Treaty shall be interpreted as:

a. a renunciation by any Contracting Party of previously asserted rights of or claims to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica;

b. a renunciation or diminution by any Contracting Party of any basis of claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica which it may have whether as a result of its activities or those of its nationals in Antarctica, or otherwise;

c. prejudicing the position of any Contracting Party as regards its recognition or non-recognition of any other State’s rights of or claim or basis of claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica.

How long until the claims for territorial sovereignty start to come in?

And back to Great Britain! One latitude is 60 nautical miles.  The British claims are now surrounding the Falklands for 350 miles. The Falkland islands are situated on 52° South Latitude. Start calculating – pretty close innit?

That’s why the Falklands War was fought!

The More You Travel, The More They know.

Even the personal items you carry with you while traveling are documented by the US government. According to an article by the Washington Post.

I agree that power like this can easily become abused. It is required we maintain the ability to have appropriate checks and balances in place.

The federal government is trying to build a surveillance society,” said John Gilmore, a civil liberties activist in San Francisco whose records were requested by the
Identity Project, an ad-hoc group of privacy advocates in California and Alaska. The government, he said, “may be doing it with the best or worst of intentions. … But the job of building a surveillance database and populating it with information about us is happening largely without our awareness and without our consent.”

However, if you don’t travel much, it seems whatever information has been obtained on you would be very miniscule.

Posted by Dave

“Taser this… F*CK BUSH”

via: Breitbart.tv
Video of the news as reported by a Denver news station.

Coloradoan.com: A profane four-word editorial in Friday’s Rocky Mountain Collegian, Colorado State University’s student newspaper, caused advertisers to pull $30,000 worth of advertising and prompted the newsroom to slash student employee pay and other budgets by 10 percent, according to a confidential memo. The Friday editorial read simply “Taser this… F— BUSH,” along with a sentence in regular type saying “This column represents the views of the Collegian.’

Real Time Overtime with Bill Maher

Real Time’s Overtime segment with Rob Thomas, Salman Rushdie, and Janeane Garofalo. They discuss topics from OJ, Dan Rather, Bush and the National Guard, Republicans vs Democrats, and the MSM. Garofalo was refreshingly frank. From 9/21/07.
(H/T to Crooks and Liars)

Car Sick

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle Editorial Cartoonist and Animation Artist.
For Nick’s animations, visit Nick Anderson: Animation Archives.
For Nick’s cartoons, visit Nick Anderson.

Blackwater, Oil and the Colonial Enterprise

via: Commondreams.org
by John Nichols of The Nation

Blackwater USA’s mercenary mission in Iraq is very much in the news this week, and rightly so. The private military contractor’s war-for-profit program, which has been so brilliantly exposed by Jeremy Scahill, may finally get a measure of the official scrutiny it merits as the corporation scrambles to undo the revocation by the Iraqi government of its license to operate in that country. There will be official inquiries in Baghdad, and in Washington. The U.S. Congress might actually provide some of the oversight that is its responsibility. Perhaps, and this is a big “perhaps,” Blackwater’s “troops” could come home before the U.S. soldiers who have been forced to fight, and die, in defense of these international rent-a-cops.

But it is not the specific story of Blackwater that matters so much as the broader story of imperial excess that it illustrates.

Jesus Apparently Loves War

So this must be the segment of America the “pro-war” Democrats in Congress are trying to appeal to:

Just over half of the white evangelicals who attend church at least weekly said the war was the right decision and the extra troops were helping, while about four in 10 said the war is a success — well more than Catholics and Protestants measured in the survey.

Slight majorities of conservatives saw success in Iraq, a troop increase that is working and a war that was the right choice, a third of them or more answered each question negatively.

In another indication of how uncertainty over the conflict is felt even by its supporters, of those who said going to war was the right decision, fully one-fifth said it will be viewed as a failure and about a quarter said the troop increase has not worked.

HT: John Aravosis at AMERICAblog.com.

Hillary-mania!

Her Royal Highness is making the rounds of the talking heads shows today.  Expect to hear about nothing else for a while.

The Cost of this War

via: The Washington Post

The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group’s analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.

(Continue reading article…)

Sunday Morning in Europe – News

 (Swiss Steam Engine) 

Good Morning on a slow news morning in Europe. Slow? Depends on how we view it. Actual lack of breaking news of the “Britney-faces-jail” variety makes one concentrate on the real important stories.

And, as on most Sundays, “The Sunday Times” is a bonanza of information. Israel claims it has seized nuclear material from a Syrian site before the site was attacked in an air-raid. When reading this article, don’t omit reading the comments that come with it. And, surprisingly, there is no mention of Iran. The Israeli military mission was met with determined support from Washington, whereas an Israeli invitation to Syria to talk and lower tensions  met with a “studied lack of interest” from the US. (Honi soit qui mal y pense!)

At least no lack of interest here: The planning for airstrikes and a war with Iran, get their own article in “The Times” today. “Project Checkmate” has been resurrected. And intense planning is under way for military action against Iran. However, can the following be counted as a small flicker of hope?

The US president faces strong opposition to military action, however, within his own joint chiefs of staff. “None of them think it is a good idea, but they will do it if they are told to,” said a senior defence source.

Hardly. So the drumbeats keep accelerating.

“The Guardian” is doing well, too. Why is the UN trying to bring an effectual newcomer into the position of top prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia?

The mercenary armies in Iraq have been warned in May (!) about a deteriorating security situation, due to growing tensions between American security contractors and Iraqis. Blackwater didn’t heed the warning and fulfilled the prophecy.

In Myanmar, the Buddhist monks, and now the nuns, too, are busily trying to bring the military junta to their knees. All it takes is taking to the streets.

Italians are anxious to learn about the fate of two of their soldiers who disappeared in Herat province. They are feared to  have been abducted along with two Afghan interpreters.

In France M. Sarkozy and M.Fillon are losing voter confidence. Maybe war drums are not so popular in France, the social reforms planned by the duo will most certainly cause hackles to rise.

While German Chancellor Angela Merkel is meeting the Dalai Lama in Berlin, the Chinese are showing their discontent. They are giving their blogging community enough slack, so they can voice their fury. But honestly, being called a “witch” by Chinese bloggers won’t impress her that much.

And last:

Sadly, the French mime artist Marcel Marceau passed away yesterday. You can find more on this unusual man here.

Sunday Morning Music

Nelson Mandela is the one politician who will always have my deepest, heartfelt respect. Here’s to you President Mandela!  

The fabulous Miriam Makeba 

A little Longfellow

Some Sunday inspiration..

(Thanks to Thom Hartmann for introducing this to me)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

A PSALM OF LIFE