42 years today.

Martin Luther King Jr was shot dead.

Seeing this video, no matter how many times I do it, sends chills down my spine.

42 years ago.

Just 42 years.

Rachel Maddow - unfortunate headline

I love Rachel and her show, and I think she's the best around, but given how she rolls, I think this was a somewhat unfortunate headline on HuffPo...

Closest I'll ever get to Obama

Yeah, now I feel special.

Ted Kennedy - couple words

Say what you might about his personal life (and there is much to say, not much of it positive), the man was great.

Listen, he lost not one, not two, but ALL THREE of brothers under extraordinarily difficult circumstances - he was the youngest of them all. To carry on the family name in the glare of the national spotlight was not easy. To have accomplished what he did in the senate was truly great. He fought for liberal ideals, and we're all better for it. Right from the nuclear freeze, to the Anti-apartheid act, to funding Americorps to funding for women's sports to Immigration reform. But most importantly, he was a champion of health rights. COBRA, AIDS funding, SCHIP... the little things (or big things, depending on your situation) that we take for granted, many of them can be traced back to legislation introuced by or fought for by Ted Kennedy. It's amazing that he had the strength to fight the good fight over so many years, despite having being undercut so often by Republican colleagues and administrations.

You might say that his rough experiences do not excuse his alcoholism or his philandering or Chappaquiddick, and I would agree to some extent; but there have been so many who have had much less happen to them, and have frittered away entire lives and fortunes.

Truly a man who fought for the less fortunate in society all through his life. We'll miss him.

Now if only those assholes in congress can get their shit together and pass meaningful health reform...

Bush Co. Cover up of the Dasht-e Leili massacre

I had only read snippets of this massacre previously, but now this video really really brought it home for me.

Watch the video, it is chilling.



Dostum is an Afghani Pol Pot. And we not only befriended the guy, we called him our ally, made him a minister, allowed him to kill thousands in our name, and still continued to support him AND HELPED COVER UP THE MASS MURDER HE ORCHESTRATED.

It makes me sick.

And you want us to "move forward?"

Hiking on the Appalachian Trail

I think this will go viral as a new idiom:

"Hey Joe, where's that report you were supposed to submit today?"
"Er... I went hiking on the Appalachian trail..."

Or even better:
"What the fuck Joe, where's that report you were supposed to submit today? Did you go hiking on the fucking Appalachian trail???"

Of course, for those of you who don't know what's happening, I am of course referring to Mark Sanford's sad saga. Poor republicans. For being the party of moral values, they sure are finding it real hard to keep the snake in their pants. Bloody hypocrites. So yeah Sanford? You can go to hell. Oh one more thing: awful penmanship. Those letters make me want to puke.

And finally, apologies for those who thought this was about, you know, the Appalachian trail. Here is a post from a while back that may help.

Why Operation Rescue is a Terrorist Organization

Take a look at my previous post on this subject, and the comment. Astute. While I have been pro-choice all this while, it's only now that I've started reading a bit about the dark world of the fringe "anti-abortion at ALL costs" groups. I was reading about the killing (which is bad enough as it is), and what is emerging is that the murder of Dr. Tiller was but one flash point in the chillingly well-planned terror campaign on a woman's right to choose. Yes, terror campaign. Yes, Terrorist Organization.

What do you call an organization that has a well-planned and unapologetic program of violent rhetoric and assassination of high profile opponents to instill fear in people in order to achieve their goal?

You call it a terrorist organization.

In this the case the terrorist organization is "Operation Rescue" (Scott Roeder, who is charged with killing Dr Tiller was but a pawn the organization), and their target is women who, for whatever reason, choose to terminate their pregnancy. (Read this moving diary from DKos about a woman who exemplifies exactly the kind of life story that pretty much IMO renders the whole debate moot). They kept egging people on - calling Dr Tiller a baby killer, calling him a Nazi, accusing him of being a mass murderer of 60,000 fetuses, until some fool went and actually killed him. Oh, they knew. They KNEW that there would be someone who would take it upon themselves to "do the right thing, and kill the devil". You can't spew hatred for decades, bomb clinics, harass nurses and doctors, defile their names, and then pretend you didn't do a thing. Manson didn't kill anybody personally, did he? Nope. Was he responsible for the deaths of people? Yep.

Oh sure, now they're backing away, (Here Media Matters NAILS Bill O'Reilly. Nice try, BillO, but YOU called him Baby Killer too) but make no mistake; these people have one agenda, and one agenda ONLY.

They aim to terrorize women by any means possible and take away any control that women have over their own bodies. And they will not stop unless we are honest, call them for what they are, and then do something about it.

How Fox News killed Dr. Tiller

Surely, you have already heard about this - the doctor from Wichita, Kansas who has been strongly pro-choice, and has performed abortions, including late-term abortions, was killed yesterday by a gunman. He was at Church.

Now, the controversy about late term abortions is valid, and should be debated. But why have a reasoned debate when you can create blind hatred? The right wing loves an enemy, and oh boy, did they ever have one in Dr Tiller. They have always hated the man, and they have created and then stoked the flames of the anti Tiller hysteria so much so that his clinic has been bombed, he has been shot, and his name sullied thoroughly. And now they have killed the man. True to their style, "pro-lifers" remain thoroughly unrepentant.

And if you have seen Fox "News", you would know that this man has been totally demonized by this channel. They have called him a Hitler, a Nazi, an executioner, and they even gave him a name: Tiller the baby killer. They taunt, they threaten, they vilify, and now they're surprised that someone would go and shoot the guy?

Olbermann had a great segment on this tonight. Watch it all the way, and quarantine Fox News. I know I will.

This man ran for President of the United States of America...

I know, he lost, but he was a serious contender. Presenting to you Tom Tancredo, wanker from Colorado.

Desiree Rogers... phew!

Oh man, I DO love short hair on women. But Desiree, I mean, wow.

America loves the Obama Administration

Did you see the latest NYT/CBS Poll? It's extraordinarily detailed, and most of it shows one thing: Yeah, America Hearts Obama. Not all is peachy though, a lot of people are queasy about the way they're handling the banks.

It seems to me that overall, the ~1000 people they polled are people with common sense. They want fairness, they're still optimistic about their future, they want the government to control some of the excesses but not become too big... I mean, it's really telling how people think. Overall, what you see is that what people want is neither a pure liberal agenda, nor a conservative one. So all this b.s. that's happening in Washingtin, all this posturing and preening and yelling about this thing or that, the people don't really care. They just know they got screwed the last few years, and they trust that the man in charge is going to lead them out.

All he has to do is listen to them and stick to the common sense solutions, liberal/conservative idealogies can go screw themselves.

Oh, and one more thing: When Rush Limbaugh gets called a Nazi on his own radio show by a retired service officer who is republican, you have got to smile... (h/t Anon.)

Big day for Unions tomorrow...

They're voting on the Employees Free Choice Act. For those of you who want to read up about it (and it is well worth your time learning about EFCA), go here. Its an important step in empowering workers. No wonder the Repubs are crazy against it. Its right up there with same sex marriages and healthcare reform.

Easier option, listen to Rachel:



Why, oh why, Rachel, did you have to be lesbian? I'dve married you in a tick...

Obama's pronunciation of Afghanistan vs. Pakistan

Speaking of speeches, why does Obama pronounce Pakistan the way it should be pronounced (Pahkistahn), but Afghanistan like, well, Afghanistan? Its weird.



In completely unrelated news, I am dog tired. Phew. Any more than 3 hours of productivity a day wears me down...

Bobby Jindal, you are a complete idiot

AAAAAAGGHHHHH!!!! Why did Bobby Jindal (or as we call him in my work place, Babu Gental) have to be Indian!?!?!? Its bad enough that I have to constantly remind people I am not his brother (all Indians look alike, you see). Now, on top of being an anti-science jerk, he has also proved to be completely inept at intelligent conversation. I mean, if ALL FOUR panelists at Fox news, FOX NEWS, have nothing good to say about your speech, dude, you suck.

Scientists boycott Louisiana

Wow, nice to see scientists showing some spine. Now as you may know, the governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, is a thoroughly misguided, anti-evolution republican (what else?) politician. (Both his voting against the stimulus and the legislation that he signed into law that will allow for "supplemental materials" that "provoke debate" in science classes are topics that deserve their own detailed post, but that comes later).

But now, The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology has decided to back out of their annual conference, which was slated to be held in New Orleans, as a result of this legislation. That's a lot of money that the city and the state can ill-afford to lose. Though the city is taking the punishment for some pretty backward political thinking (you should read the comments section in the nola article to see how people in the area think. It's illuminating), the protest is great, in my opinion. Not that science should be political - it shouldn't - but when we are up against a systematic program to undermine a very basic tenet of Biology for no real reason other that religious bigotry, the least we can do is let our voices be heard.

Mumbai terror masterminds arrested in Pakistan

Hmm.... I'm not "quite" sure what to make of this. Holbrooke makes his first trip to Pakistan, and lo and behold, the Pakistani government, which till now seemed to have been dragging its feet, all of a sudden has gone and arrested the alleged plotters behind the Mumbai attacks a few months earlier, which claimed some 173 lives.

On the one hand, great. Now I hope they call a couple of hard pipe-hitting ni****s to go to work on these homes here with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch and figure out exactly what happened, and then hopefully actually root out the LeT. The fact is that most mainstream Pakistanis are equally fed up with the crazies as everyone else, and I think we'll all be happier if they're stomped out.

On the other hand, I have to wonder, what arm wringing has been going on in the background, and what has been promised in exchange for this? This is no small deal. A government is actually owning up to the fact that a terrorist organization has fluorished within its borders and has plotted and carried out a terror attack on a neighboring country. This is big. So for Pakistan to own up to this, I wonder what has been promised in return.

My guess is "anti-terror" arms and technology form the US. Now ostensibly, this will be used on the Afghen border to root out those crazies. But this whole thing of arming a weak government in order to quell an uprising has been tried so many times before (to many to link to), and most often, has failed spectacularly. Plus who knows how the equation will change with regards to Kashmir, even though/especially since India has lobbied strongly (and successfully) to ensure that Kashmir will not be on Holbrooke's mandate...

Phew, I don't know what's really happening... and I'd wager a bunch of money that no one does... what do you think is happening?

Hillary brushes off Bill to kiss Barack

HAHAHAAAAA!!!! Turns out the Presidency does indeed gives you a magnetic personality. Aw, poor Bill... he's got his eyes closed, and his lips all puckered, and he totally shoots an airball. I mean, I'm sure things weren't super warm between the two of them anyway, but to turn away and kiss another guy while your hubby leans in to kiss you? Ouch. Very Ouch.

Unions - Welcome to the Obama White House!!!

Got to keep reminding myself not to get overexcited...

But, man, I have been following the last 10 days of this new administration, and honestly, this new administration keeps blowing me away. They're clear about what they want to do, and its not just making the right sound bites. They are doing the right things. But still when I hear the POTUS say "The labor movement is not part of the problem, it's part of the solution" (about 6:40 into the video), or the VP say "To our friends in organized labor: Welcome back to the White House", boy, that sure does sound great.

A task force for the middle class? BAM!
The Lily Ledbetter act signed into law? BAM!!
Gitmo closed? BAM!!!
Reversal of the Anti-abortion funding policy? BAYYYAAAMMMM!!!!

Talk about ending not just the farcical "War on Terror", but also ending the war on the labor movement, the war on women, the war on science...

(a personal favorite : Michael Griffin, the NASA chief? His ass is grass. Deservedly so.)

Lily Ledbetter's (finally fruitful) efforts reminded me of Rosie the Riveter:

The antarctic ice-sheet IS warming. Why does the right wing still have a problem with this fact?

You may have already read the article in this week's Nature: The data (don't take my word for it - the views are pretty much unanimous on this) is solid. The antarctic ice sheet has been warming pretty much at the same rate as the rest of the globe in the last 50 years.

So why does the right take such glee is misrepresenting facts? It's easy: if you read drudge, just watch his headlines when there's a heat surge. Silence. I can guarantee it. If there's a winter storm, snow, a cold front, ANYthing that is not a five degree spike in average temps, you'll see it given pride of place on the website. Or you'll get supposedly snarky, but in reality really stupid shit like this (from today):




I also saw Bill O' Reilly today (yes, yes, I do, every once in a while. It gets my blood pumping, so I look at it as therapeutic. Have to be careful to limit myself to 5 minutes though...), and he quoted an NYT article about the Nature paper; He said something like this: "Well, look at their title; it says that a study finds new evidence of warming. But go a few lines down, and they say that weather stations in other locations, including the one at the South Pole, have recorded a cooling trend. Sounds like that's a misleading headline, eh?" And then he gives his trademark patronizing smirk and head shake.

NO YOU ASSHOLE, IT ISN'T A MISLEADING HEADLINE. The FACT is that the overall sheet HAS indeed been warming, and the tmeps from East Antarctic are noisy - NOTHING remotely like a cooling effect, as BillO was insinuating.

I mean, we KNOW BillO is an awesome guy, but this is either incredibly stupid or especially cynical/misleading. And since he apparently not an idiot (jackass: yes, mentally deficient: no), you have to go for the latter option. The same is true for the even bigger jackass, Sean (vomit) Ha... Han... sorry, I just can't bring myself to type his name.

And that then begs the question:

What do these right wing jackasses stand to gain by denying a scientific fact? See, I can understand the whole anti-evolution fight: the more you can invoke god in our creation, the better you can control gullible folk; its a power thing. You can always threaten people to behave because otherwise they'll get fucked in the ass by some dude with a trident, but you can't say "Hey you better do this or evolution will turn you back into a chimp." So that's you they demonize/deny scientific fact that evolution does indeed work. But what the hell do you gain by denying global warming???

Someone, help me out.

At the Inauguration

That's where we were. (What, you thought I'd miss this one?) We were there at 7ish; this photo was taken around 9, and the crowds kept coming in till 11. We could've gone WAY closer, but the area surrounding the monument is a nice hill, so we had a good spot overall.

Way too tired (or should I say, ahem, bushed - well I think after 8 years, we're all more bushed than we should ever have been). Will try to fill in some details tomorrow.