Res Ipsa Loquitur

Hunter sums up our times in a single paragraph:

It's so painful, it burns. Perhaps "leaders of any group will turn out to be liberals" is indeed true, and perhaps there are a hundred perfect reasons for it to be true that are not part of an insidious secret plot by All Those That Oppose Us. Jesus McCracker McBain, it has been shown time and time again that liberalism is directly correlated to knowledge. I'm going to tattoo it onto my forehead, or paint it on my car: It's not a conspiracy, you're just stupid.

The Thing Speaks For Itself.
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(/) Roland X
Go read the whole thing. Seriously.

Promoting Linse's Law

This meme is sheer genius, so I thought I'd share:

As a corollary to Godwin's Law, I propose "Linse's Law":

As a debate between pro-war and anti-war pundits grows longer, the probability of the pro-war side accusing the anti-war side of being unpatriotic becomes 1.

I heartily recommend the rest of the post, particularly the quiz: do you know the difference between patriotism and jingoism? Well, sure, you do, but I have to wonder: do they?
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(/) Roland X
jin·go·ism n. c.f. Republican Party.

Pegging the Hypocrisy Meter...Again

You know, I think I've finally figured out what Duby'a true talent is: reaching new heights of sheer, unadulterated hypocrisy.

"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges," the president said in his combative Veterans Day speech.

Yeah, no kidding, Dubya. Imagine starting a war with the wrong friggin' country based on exaggerations and outright lies. A war that virtually eliminated our ability to fight terrorists in their real centers of power and allowed enemies who have openly stated their hate and fear of America to build nuclear weapons. A war in which our leaders then compromised our moral authority (when they realized how badly they screwed up) by encouraging and possibly ordering the torture of POWs, most of whom are innocent civilians caught in poorly conducted sweeps run mostly by teenagers who don't speak Arabic. Oh, and throw melting children with phosphorous on top, and covering it up for a year.

Yeah, I think the national interest is kind of important to be letting that kind of crap happen.

Mmmaybe Bush shouldn't be talking about the stakes of a conflict he's all but conceding to the enemies who, you know, actually want to kill us.
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(/) Roland X
Okay, this time Res Ipsa didn't quite Loquitur. Even I still need to rant about these nutjobs sometimes.

Politburo Leader Frist Backs Gulags

Bill Frist (R - Siberia): objectively pro-gulag:

Bill Frist on the existence of overseas "black sites" where the Bush administration secretly holds detainees in the war on terror:

I am not concerned about what goes on and I'm not going to comment about the nature of that.

Well okay then.
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(/) Roland X
Once again, Res Ipsa Loquitur.

Governor Girlie-Man

Yeah, America's moral authority is in the toilet and the focus from the good news is rightly on our victory in Virginia. Still, I want to take a moment to do the happy dance here:

To call California a disaster for Arnold is the biggest understatement of the year. Schwarzenegger spent $50 million of taxpayer money in an election in which every single ballot initiative failed, and failed handily (the closest prop, the parental notification one, failed by over 5 percent).

Pwn3d.

The Governator now has to decide whether to follow his brain or his ego in leaving Sacramento. He can do the smart thing, declare "mission accomplished," and go back to his movie career, or he can run for reelection and be totally spanked and humiliated by whichever otherwise-unknown Democratic apparatchik ends up winning the nomination.

Either way, I'm looking forward to '06. ;-)
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(/) Roland X
Pwn3d: to be beaten, dominated, or made a fool of in any contest, especially in a Net-related context. *eg*

Feel the Love

Opera's being flaky; let's try this again.

DeLay's cronies admit the truth: they think their right-wing theocon sheep are wackos too:

How anybody could vote Republican until they do a full fumigation to get rid of DeLay and Co. is beyond me. Check out what (indicted) DeLay aide Mike Scanlon says here:

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

As is rapidly becoming the Justice Log tag line, Res Ipsa Loquitur.
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(/) Roland X
"Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender." -- the Book of G'Quan

Moonbat Conspiracy Theorists

...yeah, that's us:

This powerful and probing report takes a hard look at the election of 2004 and supports the contention that the election was stolen. The report has received almost no coverage in the national media.

The GAO is the government’s lead investigative agency, and is known for rock-solid integrity and its penetrating and thorough analysis. The agency’s agreement with what have been brushed aside as “conspiracy theories” adds even more weight to the conclusion that the Bush regime has no business in the White House whatever.

Almost a year ago, Rep. John Conyers, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the GAO to investigate the use of electronic voting machines in the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election. That request was made as a flood of protests from Ohio and elsewhere deluged Washington with claims that shocking irregularities were common in that vote and were linked to the machines.

...

Online Journal.com reported that the GAO report stated that "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."

...

The chief executive of Diebold, one of the major suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren "Wally" O’Dell, went on record in the 2004 campaign vowing to deliver Ohio and the presidency to George W. Bush.

Emphasis mine.

Some of the GAO’s findings are: 1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected." In short, the machines; provided a way to manipulate the outcome of the election. In Ohio, more than 800,000 votes were cast on electronic voting machines, some registered seven times Bush’s official margin of victory.

2: the report further stated that: "it was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works, so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate." Very many sworn statements and affidavits claim that did happen in Ohio in 2004.

As some readers may remember from the time.

These findings are even more damning when we understand the election in Ohio was run by a secretary of state who also was co-chairman of Bush’s Ohio campaign. Far from the conclusion of anti-fraud skeptics, the GAO’s findings confirm that the network, which handled 800,000 Ohio votes, was vulnerable enough to permit a handful of purposeful operatives to turn the entire election by means of personal computers using comparatively simple software.

As a recent commenter said, "Res Ipsa Loquitur" (The Thing Speaks For Itself).
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(/) Roland X
George W. Bush: The only two-term president to lose both elections.
Or: Worst. President. Ever.

Republicans Declare War; Democrats Strike Back

As pretty much everyone who reads this blog no doubt knows, Bush nominated Scalito to replace O'Connor. Not only should this have shored up his base (though there's reason to doubt that he succeeded), it also distracted nicely from the whole Plame game scandal.

Fortunately, Minority Leader Reid was having none of it. In a brilliant piece of political theater, he forced the Senate into a closed session to discuss the virtual rape of pre-war intelligence, which ties back to the Plame scandal, the whole Iraq mess, and why we're trapped there instead of focusing on Al-Qaeda and its vile cousins.

Not that Democrats are necessarily rolling over on Alito, though the early news is discouraging. In spite of Armando's note of optimism, the article in question (warning: it's the NYT, so the link may not be good for long) isn't as promising:

"I have not heard any of my Democratic colleagues in the Gang of 14 talk of using the F-word - filibuster," Mr. Nelson said, adding that he hoped that the coalition ends up playing no role in the Alito nomination. "We would hope that the process would work without requiring anything from us."

Let's just say the article isn't about "give 'em Hell Harry."

Nevertheless, it looks like we're on the brink of total political warfare here. The theocons clearly believe they're about to break Roe v. Wade, and it's equally clear that the plethora of scandals dogging the steps of the GOP make a Democratic resurgence a real possibility in 2006. That would, essentially, put an end to their dreams of theocracy.

The last time the stakes were this high, Robert Kennedy and Rev. King were assassinated. We still won. This may be the last gasp of reactionary madness, but only if we beat it back. Otherwise, we could be looking at The Handmaid's Tale. All the commentary on the nomination indicates that this is the fight the theocons wanted, though they may be unhappy to learn that Alito's anti-choice stand is being heavily downplayed by the White House. Regardless, they got the fight they wanted. It's time to make them regret it.
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(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix