Imagining Ted Kennedy landing on an aircraft carrier

Tom DeLay: “To gauge just how out of touch the Democrat leadership is on the war on terror, just close your eyes and try to imagine Ted Kennedy landing that Navy jet on the deck of that aircraft carrier.” That sentence is so silly on so many levels I wouldn’t know where to begin.

A federal judge strikes down part of California’s recall election law, in the first of many such decisions that will leave voters hopelessly confused. This one correctly decided that people who refuse to vote on the recall can still vote for a candidate. (Democratic) state officials quoted on this (the sec of state, attorney general) all supported the blatantly unconstitutional provision for no reason I can figure out. The deputy atty general gave this opaque explanation: “Allowing voters to abstain on the recall question would allow those with only an indirect or remote interest in this crucial question to decide who will replace a recalled officer.” A remote interest in who the governor is?

Just as Bush’s State of the Union lie (well, one of them) became “sixteen words,” so the censored pages about Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 reports have become 28 (or 29, or 27, although only Bush is using the latter number) pages of a 900-page report. I’m not sure what the length has to do with anything. Bush said he couldn’t release them, to protect “sources and methods,” a phrase straight out of the CIA’s Big Book of Stonewalling. So Tenet is now fully engaged with Bush’s speeches. Goodie. Saudi Arabia is now pretending to really really want those pages released, knowing they won’t be.

Canada’s government, having legalized medical marijuana, will now issue a 59-page user’s manual. No doubt more later on this...

What happened to all those bodies the Liberians dumped in front of the US embassy?

Japanese police replaced their sirens with the recorded sound of church bells, in hopes of soothing agitated criminals.

Fob James may be gone, but Alabama looks like continuing to provide amusement. The new weirdo governor, Bob Riley, says that voters should support new taxes as a Christian duty. Cool by me, as long as only the Christians have to pay it. How about a virtue tax (opposite of a sin tax) on holy water and crucifixes? The referendum on September 9 should separate Christian from heathen (the latest poll has the heathens winning). In a measure of how stupid Alabamaniacs are, the poorest people, who would pay fewer taxes, oppose it 2 to 1.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3929/wdyt_3929.html

Standing next to Ariel Sharon, Bush today referred to the Israeli security thingy as a fence. Friday, when he was with Palestinian PM Abbas, he called it a wall. Actually it’s both, in different areas (it’s a floor wax! no, it’s a dessert topping!). Sharon, standing next to Bush, defied him and said he’d continue to build it, “to defend our cities.” Actually, if it was just that, and followed the border, it would be a lot less controversial than all the detours it takes to include settlements. Here’s a Ha’aretz opinion piece saying that Bush showed that he has given up pushing Israel, at least until the election. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/323516.html

At the event, an, I presume, Israeli reporter asked Bush about releasing Jonathan Pollard, convicted for spying for Israel. Bush had no idea who he was taking about, but answered the question as if he did: “I said very clearly at the press conference with Prime Minister Abbas, I don't expect anybody to release somebody from prison who'll go kill somebody. That doesn't make any sense. I mean, if we're trying to fight off terror and we're interested in a peaceful settlement, it doesn't make any sense to release somebody who's going to get out of prison and start killing...” Beyond the fact that Pollard has a good slander suit, Bush, I repeat, tried to fake an answer, because he can never admit his own ignorance.

The top 40 US lies about war & terrorism.

Latest project of Shrub and his contributors: a gas pipeline through the Peruvian rainforest.

I mentioned that Texas R’s are considering using bounty hunters to retrieve D. state senators from New Mexico. The state atty general has approved the idea--has approved sending off-duty cops or whomever into *another state.* NM Governor Richardson said anyone who tried it would face kidnapping charges. Well, no, that would be up to the Bush administration, wouldn’t it?

Working on re-establishing the death penalty in Illinois, the governor vetoed a bill that would actually have fired cops who committed perjury in a capital murder case.