Under the order of Islam’s enemies

Why we fight, redux: The upper house of the Afghan parliament votes to condemn Karzai’s amnesty of Pervez Kambaksh, the student convicted of blasphemy for downloading material about women’s rights from the internet, complaining that he did so “under the order of Islam’s enemies,” by which they mean Western nations (there is no evidence one way or another that Obama actually did press for this). Oh, let’s do keep troops in Afghanistan forever, just to keep these people who think we’re Islam’s enemies in power.

The Republicans in the California state senate, having failed to kill a program that provides help to poor people in filling out their tax returns, a program which the makers of the software program TurboTax have contributed millions to campaign funds in an attempt to eliminate, retaliated by blocking 20 bills, including funding to keep domestic abuse shelters open. The funds had passed the lower house unanimously, but needed 2/3 in the senate. Other bills that fell victim to the hissy fit would have prevented the firings of cops and firefighters and distributed money to prepare for swine flu – not even California money but federal dollars, which the state will now lose. The legislative session has now expired.

Stupid Hollywood Movie Idea of the Day: Battleship: The Motion Picture. As in “You sunk my battleship.”