Waterboarding is Torture… Period

In case you're still not convinced.

The Mendacity Index

Which recent president has told the biggest whoppers?

Poor scientists

The presidency is now a criminal conspiracy

Keith Olbermann hits another homer pointing out all that is wrong with the current administrations attempt to drum up enough fear that we allow them to turn America into a fascist state.

If, say, a president simply needed a constant supply of terrorist threats to keep a country scared. If, say, he needed phony plots to play hero during, and to boast about interrupting, and to use to distract people from the threat he didn't interrupt. If, say, he realized that even terrorized people still need good ghost stories before they will let a president pillage the Constitution, Well, Mr. Bush, who better to dream them up for you than an actual terrorist? He'll tell you everything he ever fantasized doing in his most horrific of daydreams, his equivalent of the day you "flew" onto the deck of the Lincoln to explain you'd won in Iraq. Now if that's what this is all about, you tortured not because you're so stupid you think torture produces confession but you tortured because you're smart enough to know it produces really authentic-sounding fiction — well, then, you're going to need all the lawyers you can find … because that crime wouldn't just mean impeachment, would it? That crime would mean George W. Bush is going to prison.

Why media matters

It makes me sick when people are not held accountable. It's gotten so bad that even the media not only doesn't check the facts, they don't report it when someone else has checked them and shown them to be wrong. In this case, the Repbulican front-runner is lying, knows he's lying, and is continuing to use the lie -- and it's not news!?! WTF? Remember when the news media was the publics attack dog who had politicians quaking in their boots at being caught with both fists in the candy jar? What happened? When did they get neutered?

Memo to editors: If a candidate says something completely false, it’s not “in dispute.”

America - land of the bubble-babies

I've always thought that Americans have an unhealthy fascination with cleanliness -- and no, this is not just because I'm an occasional slob. Turns out, I'm probably right.

We all do this, right?

Ten Reasons Why American Health Care Is so Bad

If you aren't yet CERTAIN that we need a major overhaul of our healthcare system, read this. Here's the 25-cent tour:
1. We spend the most. (actually twice as much)
2. We don't pay doctors according to the quality of their care.
3. Our wait times are low because many of us aren't getting care at all.
4. Most of us don't have a regular physician. One might expect, given what we pay, that our care would at least be more central and convenient.
5. Our care isn't particularly convenient. Nor is medical service more convenient for Americans to access.
6. Our doctors don't listen to us.
7. We have high rates of chronic conditions. Aside from the surprisingly unhealthy Australians, Americans have the highest rate of chronic disease.
8. … But we're not treating them properly.
9. We're frequent victims of medical, medication, and lab errors.
10. Most of us are dissatisfied with our current system.

Read the full article for all of the gory details.

Job hunting - the worst job in the world

I've always said that; primarily because it weighs so heavily on your sense of self-worth. Well, who knew that it had gotten this bad? Wow, the middle-class in general and white collar jobs in particular are being gutted from within. American citizens need to stand up and collectively vote out the corporate shills in our goverment and get some people in there that will stop selling our country to the highest bidder.

This book reviewer has a few tips:

White-collar employees should expect that everything, especially their career, is temporary and will disappear from their lives suddenly and when they are most vulnerable. Once they are unemployed, they should expect to remain so for a long period of time (at least for six months and probably for two or more years) at least once in their working lives, and they should plan accordingly. My advice is to always save as much money as possible to keep yourself from having to live on the streets. Even if you manage to get a good job that pays well, keep your living expenses as low as possible and NEVER go into debt for anything, including your education and housing. Even after you have a "real job", continue learning new (and marketable) skills, such as bookkeeping or a new computer language. And -- as a reserved and self-effacing person, I have particular trouble with this one -- always market yourself for your next position to your family, friends and colleagues.

Commander of plane that dropped Hiroshima bomb, dies at 92

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr., the Army Air Forces pilot whose bombing run over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 introduced nuclear war, died today at his home in Columbus, Ohio. He was 92.

Good LA Times article. Not everyone agrees that it was necessary but either way, it's a horrifying responsibility to bear. Let's hope that no one else ever has to accept this burden.

The Golden Compass

The trailer looks good. You can also create your own Daemon. Here's mine:

I'm not sure how accurate their 20-question assessment is, but the tiger is cool.

John Edwards appeals to us all to take back the power

Thanks 1gm! I wish all politicians talked like this. Perhaps they wont live up to their promises but how long has it been that they've even *promised* to do these things?

Eat the rich!

A World Without the Rich:

If Americans examined the deeper damage that the rich do to society, perhaps they might be willing to try cutting the rich down to size.

Your ARE being watched

Here's another major lurch forward on our downward spiral into becoming an Orwellian dictatorship. Once again, our congresscritters are working against our best interests.

With the disbanding of Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure without court warrants or probable cause, no Americans, not even those who are apolitical and believe they have nothing to hide, are safe. Under this judicially unregulated Orwellian system of total information awareness, all Americans who use the Internet and/or the telephone (which means virtually all Americans) are suspects in a massive, nationwide (and global) government dragnet.

Some conquering music, please