A Celebration of Life in Kansas

WICHITA, Kansas (AP)- Media reports say that abortion provider Dr. George Tiller has been shot and killed at his Wichita church.

Tiller has been among the few U.S. physicians performing late-term abortion. His clinic has repeatedly been the site of protests for about two decades.

Rest of Story

Way to go on that defending life concept, wingnuts. All life is precious, as long as you agree with the one who draws the breath, otherwise it's under the bus, eh?

you have a republic - if you can keep it

As we observe this Memorial Day and honor the thousands and thousands of brave Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve and defend the Constitution and the United States of America, it is shocking to think that we are now debating whether the nation should suspend the foundation of inalienable human rights upon which it was founded, and people in the loftiest elevations of our social and political cultures are openly espousing the torture of human beings for the sake of expediency and in the name of "defense."

The most common form the argument seems to take is the so-called "ticking time bomb" question, which usually goes something like: "if we had a prisoner in captivity who knew where a bomb was that was imminently going to explode and that when it did, it would kill your family members and loved ones, wouldn't you go ahead and waterboard the bad guy?" The questioner almost always spits it out with a smug and condescending sneer as if the answer is transparently obvious.

However, I wouldn't. Although it would be heartbreaking, that is the price of being an American. That phrase the right likes to drag out that "the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots" also includes involuntary participants in that class of patriots. The twenty-seven hundred Americans who were just in the wrong place on September 11th of 2001 are the very patriots to which that quote refers. Our basic freedoms stem from our acceptance of the risk that goes along with being a nation of liberty, and when the finger points our way we have agreed as a country to accept the consequences.

I have a slightly different version of the question that I think needs to be asked.

If there was a ticking time bomb that was imminently going to kill many innocent Americans, and the authorities had somebody in custody that they strongly suspected had information that could stop it, would you favor torturing that person for the information the authorities believed they had...




...if that person was YOU?




Happy Memorial Day, United States of America.

flying their true colors

So, just in time for Memorial Day, in which we honor the thousands who have given their lives to keep America free, Jerry Falwell's "Liberty University" has banned Democrats from attending their "school."

The United States government should immediately revoke any of their tax breaks and withdraw every single penny of government funding, and the local police force and municipal government should cut them off from the protection and service afforded to them.

If you want "Liberty," I'll be happy to give it to you.

just shut the fuck up

Republican moron Dana Rohrabacher was on "Hardball" to dispute the very notion of the existence of human-caused global warming and climate change, and spent a lot of his time bitching about how "the left" was trying to "cut off debate" instead of refuting evidence that it was caused by natural Solar cycles. His major points of contention were that the planets Mars and Jupiter were "getting warmer" and that "Greenland used to be green."

Okay, stupid.

First, if the Sun is the problem and is causing temperatures to rise on Earth, Mars, and Jupiter, that should be easy to support because the temperatures of Mercury and Venus would be skyrocketing since they are much closer to the Sun. Let's check.

Nope. No change. That's enough right there to demonstrate that you have no argument and are simply a self-righteous and duplicitous science denialist. Something which you demonstrated later anyway when you could not agree to the fact of evolution.

And as far as the Greenland thing, it's been an icy and glacial country the entire time. The southern coastline, where the Vikings landed and christened the island, is just as green now as it was back then.

So, if you want to have a debate, learn some science instead of pretending that the stuff that you are pushing is actually the truth instead of just what you are regurgitating in order to please the people who give you lots of money and access to power.



Unless you really are that stupid, of course.

victory!

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/kennedys-cancer-in-remission-2009-05-19.html

happy birthday, Mr. Wakeman

words I wish I had said

"We’ve got what amounts to a reverse Nuremberg defense, where Bush administration officials are let off the hook because they were only giving orders. I’m not sure that’s such a great idea."


http://thepoorman.net/2009/05/17/sympathy-for-the-bad-apples/

which one will become the pope?

and while we're at it

In addition to single-payer health care in this country for all, we also need to form a single-payer public legal corps so that ordinary people have access to the same kind of justice as the wealthy. I realize that criminal defendants already have public defenders to represent them, but there are too many times that wealthy individuals, groups, or companies use their ability to out-spend and out-wait people with less resources available for them to watch out for their own interests. It is time for the ordinary citizens to finally have equal power to the wealthy when it comes to civil matters.

omg!

I'm stunned.

I was just feeding the Squirt as she danced around in anticipation a couple of feet away from the bowl and me. Expecting nothing but the customary run-away-in-panic reaction, I held my arm out with forefinger extended in her direction...


...and she came up to it, sniffed, and gave the tip of my finger a little kitty nose-kiss.




Uh-oh.

Darth Hogg

PLUS





EQUALS

trumped again

So Carrie Prejean is going to stay on the throne as Miss California despite breaking numerous pageant rules.


This once again demonstrates that there is no tacky situation that Donald Trump can't turn into a sloppy blowjob from a plasticized ingenue. Rock on, dude.

did Wanda Sykes go too far?

No.

snark du jour

http://www.goodnightbush.com/librarium/

It's 7000 miles from Chicago, we've got a big tank, half a pack of cigarettes, bibles printed in Pashto, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses...,

HIT IT.

if you insist

We aim to please. How does "Justice of the Supreme Court William Jefferson Clinton" grab you?

the verdict is in

I have now officially completed one year of using walking as my primary means of exercise. In the last twelve months, I have averaged almost exactly two and a half miles walked per day, I have lost fifty-three pounds, basically a pound each week, and I look and feel better than I have in twenty-five years. If that isn't an effective advertisement, I don't know what is.


Take a hike. I mean it.

the first hundred

Now that all of the usual windbags have pontificated over President Obama's successes and failures during his first three and one-third months in office, I feel compelled to point out his biggest accomplishment.


Mr. Obama has successfully avoided being shot by some racist conservative nutcase.

I have to admit, I'm surprised that no young McVeigh-in-waiting hasn't tried to make himself famous to the Hitler worshippers of the right. Let's hope it stays this way.