When it Rains, it Pours

I'm singing in the rain,
I'm singing in the rain!
What a glorious feeling...

I'm happy again!!

Via TPM, When it rains, it pours. For some, more than others.

NYT/CBS: Bush at 34%

Update: Ooof, Billmon has all the happy details!

Debonaire

Lion kitty Maxx impersonates the Sphinx. Just ignore the drool.

The End of the Revolution

Karen Tumulty at TIME Magazine has a nice story on the clusterfuck that is the republican party. The End of a Revolution

Every revolution begins with the power of an idea and ends when clinging to power is the only idea left.

That's a powerful lede, but I think it's only partially true. I don't think the republican revolution was ever about ideas. It was always about power. It was never about governing or about making America a better place. It was never about creating "a more perfect union."

Let's hope the american public (the sane portion, anyway) has finally had enough.

Fuck you Poppy

When I was a kid in the sixties, we regularly had drills to show us what to do if the unthinkable happened. I thought about it a little more than the average kid, because my dad was in the Air Force. For a time he was a bomber pilot, flying the route up above the Bering Straight, carrying the bomb on his B-52. Just in case the soviets got out of hand, ya know. (I didn't know at the time that they carried nukes, but my father confirmed it to me many years later.)

Whenever world tensions got high, all the pilots would go on alert, and my dad would kiss my mom goodbye, and head out to the airfield for as long as it lasted. Eventually he would come home to our quarters on base, and life would go on as normal.

I can't say that I let it bother me all that much, but for any kid who grew up in the 50's or 60's, the threat of nuclear war was always a constant presence in our lives.

As I grew older it seemed like the world was coming to its collective senses. Men seemed to have come to the realization that nuclear war was not an option under any circumstances. Nations were making a serious effort to control nuclear proliferation.

So how did we come to this? N. Korea Reports 1st Nuclear Arms Test

The past six years have been a disaster. The nuclear club has expanded and the world is more dangerous than it has ever been before.

I blame Poppy. Listen up, you old fuckwit. If you had not coddled, protected and run interference for your fuckup of a son, this world might be safer. The first time some teacher came to you and said, "Ummm, excuse me Mr. Bush, but your son seems to have serious personality and behavioral problems" I'll bet you said, "I don't want to hear it. How dare you criticize my boy."

You and that harridan of a wife hatched this monster, and not content to unleash him on the oil industry, you got your friends and patrons to launch him on an unsuspecting American public.

The result? thousands of American soldiers are dead, not to mention the thousands dead on 9/11 because your twit of a kid was too incompetent to listen to the warnings the intelligence community was screaming at him. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead because your kid wanted to one-up you. And now the entire world is living under the threat of nuclear oblivion. And this time, crazy people have the bomb.

So let me take a moment to invite you and your whole worthless clan to go fuck yourselves with a rusty chainsaw. You're just as much to blame for this clusterfuck as your lazy, untalented, delusional, narcissistic fuckwit of a kid is.

I only hope you live long enough to see your "boy" humiliated and the Bush name destroyed for all time. It's what you deserve.

Saturday Night Plushy Noir

Hope everyone is having a happy, plushy weekend.

Plushyporn

No comment needed.

Friday afternoon plush

So much cuter than any republicans I know.

Random life

This is some random, flowering, desert plant growing in my courtyard.

It is several times more intelligent than either Gary Ruppert or dith.

Plush fix

Very busy day for me, but in the meantime, Mr. Plushy gives ya a little tongue.

We shall have haiku later this evening.

Lion kitty Maxx!!!!

Just cause he's so damned cute.

Jabba Haiku - Day 2

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

We're on Denny the Hut Death Watch Day 5. I believe more haiku is in order. Post your contributions in comments and I'll put them up.

Jabba spins madly
Crushing all with his foul bulk
Save him it will not.

Meanwhile, the Federal Probe Intensifies.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department ordered House officials to "preserve all records" related to disgraced Rep. Mark Foley's electronic correspondence with teenagers, intensifying an investigation into a scandal rocking Republicans five weeks before midterm elections.

Oh, my. Anyone got popcorn??

Update 4:44 pm: from watertiger:

Greedy fat bastard.
Protects child predators.
That's Denny Hastert.

9:41 pm- from noteasy:

slime blubber in suit
going down the toilet now
and its about time

Catastro-fuck

AP/Darko Branic

Meanwhile, back in the forgotten war.... 8 GI's Die in Baghdad, the largest one-day death toll since 2005:

BAGHDAD, Oct. 3 — Eight United States soldiers were killed Monday in Baghdad, the United States military said, the most in the capital in a day since July 2005.

Four of the soldiers died in a roadside bomb attack; the four others were killed by small-arms fire in separate incidents.

Monday’s loss also represented one of the highest nationwide death tolls for American troops in the past year. In late August, nine soldiers and a marine were killed in a day. But before that, the last time eight or more soldiers were killed in hostile action was last November.

“Obviously this was a tragic day, with eight killed in 24 hours,” said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman.

Incidentally, I had to go looking for this story. None of the major newspapers, or cable outlets have this as a prominent story on their front pages.

I guess they've gotten the message from Karl that they need to down play the Iraqi clusterfuck prior to the elections.

Oh, and by the way, 51 Iraqis died on Tuesday as well. As Billmon notes, if it's American blood, it leads. Iraqi blood? not so much.

PS. Dennis "I support the troops!!" Miller? kiss my centaur ass.

Late night kitty

"What's with all the fucking trolls?"

Cover for Denny the Hut

Billmon has found the perfect cover in case Fat Denny decides he needs to wrap himself in the flag.



The question is, can he seek cover before his fellow scumbags toss him under here?



Photo shamelessly stolen from the fabulous watertiger.

Plushy brain bleach

I don't know about you guys, but all this talk of Denny blubber is making me queasy.

So here's a little plush to sooth our tortured psyches.

Jabba Haiku

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

I feel like I should say something about the impending meltdown.

Foleygate poison
Spreads. Jabba's time is ending.
Titty babies wail.

Okay, there. I said something.

Let me just give some advice to 50 year old pervs everywhere: 16 year olds of either sex do not find your 50 year old droopy carcass sexy, nor do you make them horny.

Oh, My!!

yuriko Nakao/Reuters

My, what big ears you have!

A fennec fox in japan.

Double shot of plushy

Mr. Plushy, being plushy and doing cat stuff.

Happy Birthday Tena!!

May your birthday be as delightful as you are.

Where I wish I was

From the NY Times. The Louvre in Paris.

I think my new ambition is to be a travel writer and photographer. Anything to give me an excuse to go to amazing places. And possibly stay there.

Even more New York

Another nice thing about New York is the astonishing number of dogs that live there. New Yorkers love their pets. Probably much more than they love each other.

This shot was taken at the dog run in Union Square Park, which is a delightful place to visit on a warm September afternoon. I'm not sure who was having more fun, the dogs or this little boy.

Sadly, I was only in New York for 2 and a half days and I didn't get to use my camera nearly as much as I'd hoped to. This is probably my favorite picture from the trip.

Sometimes luck is with you and you get to catch a nice moment.

More New York

One of the nicest things about New York is the amazing amount of greenery to be found there. People who have never lived in NY tend to imagine it to be a vast concrete jungle. Well, okay, it is that, to some extent. But there are also trees on most blocks and quite a few parks.

This is a shot of the park on the grounds behind the New York Public Library. It's really lovely, and thanks to global warming, on this September evening, there were many people occupying the tables among the trees.

Disgusting

The NYTimes has a front page article up about the infighting between state, defense and white house officials about detainee policy and torture, or as they call it "coercive methods." Memo Fueled Deep Rift in Administration on Detainees.

Yes, it fueled a deep rift, but guess who won the argument?) (my emphasis added

In a nine-page memorandum, the two officials, Gordon R. England, the acting deputy secretary of defense, and Philip D. Zelikow, the counselor of the State Department, urged the administration to seek Congressional approval for its detention policies.

They called for a return to the minimum standards of treatment in the Geneva Conventions and for eventually closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The time had come, they said, for suspects in the 9/11 plot to be taken out of their secret prison cells and tried before military tribunals.

snip

When the paper first circulated in the upper reaches of the administration, two of those officials said, it so angered Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that his aides gathered up copies of the document and had at least some of them shredded.

“It was not in step with the secretary of defense or the president,” said one Defense Department official who, like many others, would discuss the internal deliberations only on condition of anonymity. “It was clear that Rumsfeld was very unhappy.”

Go read the entire article. It's clear that Rummy and Cheney are still driving the policy bus to the detriment of us all. I found this final paragraph to be the most chilling:

The element of the new legislation that raised the sharpest criticism among legal scholars and human rights advocates last week was the scaling back of the habeas corpus right of terrorism suspects to challenge their detention in the federal courts. But in dozens of high-level meetings on detention policy, officials said, that provision was scarcely even discussed.

They discarded one of our most cherished rights with scarcely any discussion at all. So much for having the "grown ups" in charge. No wonder the entire world thinks we're a bunch of torturing orcs.

Flower kitty

He likes taking naps in that terra-cotta pot. This is from last Saturday- it was beginning to storm, so I went outside to holler for him... but no Mr. Plushy. I stood there calling him for a good 10 minutes before I noticed he was right under my nose, looking at me like, "Why ever are you shouting?"

Late night plushy....

His favorite bench.

More New York

I took a couple of reflection photos for Eli (boring ones.) Times Square is bizarre these days- it's filled with kids and there's nary a porno shop in sight. It just ain't right.

New York

I can't think about the destruction of the constitution any longer, so instead I'll post some photos from my trip to NYC earlier this week.

This, of course, is one of the famous lions in front of the NY Public Library.



And here's the chaos on 5th Avenue that he stands sentinal over each day.



The construction across the street is an apartment building that is being renovated. It's a disturbing trend in NY recently- a developer comes in a buys the property, kicks out the current tenants, renovates and resells to rich folk. Voilá, profit!! The apartments start a $1 million.

There are dozens of these projects going on in Manhattan right now. The rich get richer.... and you know the rest.

America, RIP (1776-2006)

Today is a terrible day for the United States and for anyone who loves the constitution. The senate just voted down Arlen Specter's amendment that would have preserved the writ of habeas corpus, one of our most cherished rights. Our founding fathers fought and died to give us the right to be free from arbitrary detention by government.

The senate just cast that right away with only a few hours of perfunctory debate and I expect that later today they will pass the entire abomination of a bill, legalizing torture, indefinite detentions and retroactively immunizing anyone who has tortured in the past.

It's a very dark day for America.

Via Froomkin, take note of this from Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman:

"Buried in the complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights. (my emphasis added)

"This dangerous compromise not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops 'during an armed conflict,' it also allows him to seize anybody who has 'purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.' This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison."

I'll go Professor Ackerman one further- we've had the VP say publicly that anyone who publicly criticizes the president's war policies is aiding the terrorists. What's to stop the administration from detaining John Murtha? or John Kerry? or Howard Dean? or you or me or Cindy Sheehan? Everyone should remember that this is the gang who thinks the Vietnam war was lost due to a bunch of rabble rousing hippies. For the first time in my life, I'm actually worried about what I say publicly.

Anyone who thinks the can be trusted with this power is fooling themselves.

The NY TImes editorial Rushing off a cliff, comments:

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

snip

But Americans of the future won’t remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.

They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

I'm going to disagree on one point- I'm not sure America is going to survive long enough to fix this catastrophe.

Froomkin asks:

"How far from our historic and Constitutional values are we willing to stray? How mercilessly are we willing to treat those we suspect to be our enemies? How much raw, unchecked power are we willing to hand over to the executive?"

I think the answer is clear. Everyone in America should be ashamed today.

Plush returns!!

Mr. Plushy was a little annoyed that I left him to go to NYC. He had a nice babysitter to feed him delicious paté and scritch his ears, but he could not go out to prowl. Alas.



He seems to be getting over it though.

Because we love tiger kittens

AP/Adrian Wvld

Watertiger's pipples!!

Friday Plush

"There's some pate on my chin? I don't know what you're talking about."

The mighty plushy hunter

What beastie lurks in the vegetation?

A day in a plushy life

What he does while I'm at work...



What he does when I get home....



Me: "Maxx... come back here. Maxx, do NOT go out into the parking lot.

MAAAAAXXXXXXXXX!!!!!"

He does not respect mah authoritah.

Silly cat

Lion kitty Maxx found some unused terracotta pots under the stairwell that were the perfect size for a kitty nap.

About torture

Bush put on quite the performance today in the rose garden. He's gonna SAVE US FROM THE BAD guys!! If only the democrats and appeasers will just get out of the way and let him do his job.

Feh.

Let's be clear about what we're talking about here. Bush wants to rewrite Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. He wants retroactive cover from the nefarious activities the CIA and others have been engaged in over in their little chain of black prisons.

He wants to eliminate habeas corpus and judicial review in the cases of enemy combatants. He wants tribunals that can convict people on secret evidence that the will not have the right to see. He wants the ability to detain people indefinitely without charging them at all. And he wants the ability to use "harsh methods" against those detainees in interrogations.

And while I'm happy some republicans are challenging him, their bill isn't much better.

I'm sorry, but that is not the America I love.

Conceivably, you could be tried, convicted and executed on secret evidence that was obtained from another detainee under torture without you ever knowing what that evidence is. And before anyone says, "but these are bad guys, they're terra-ists!!" let me remind you that this president has asserted the right to declare anyone, including American citizens, to be enemy combatants.

It used to be that when American troops came in, people cheered. "The good guys are here!! Huzzah!!"

Now they grab their women and children and run for the hills in horror. Take a good look at the photograph. That is what we look like to a good bit of the world. We are something to be feared and hated.

It breaks my heart.

Billmon has a thoughtful post us on the subject: A Tortured Definition

lion kitty porn!

AP/Frank Perry

These are barbary lion cubs, rather rare.

Progress, bush style

Baghdad is about to become a prison city. Via the NYTimes, Iraq to Seal Off Baghdad Next Month

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 15 — The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad next month by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said today.

The effort is one of the most ambitious security projects in recent memory, with cars expected to be funneled through 28 checkpoints along the main arteries snaking out from the capital. Smaller roads would be closed off. The trenches would run across farmland or other open areas to prevent cars from evading the checkpoints, said the ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf.

“We’re going to build a trench around Baghdad so we can control the exits and entrances so people will be searched properly,” he said in a telephone interview. “The idea is to get the cars to go through the 28 checkpoints that we set up.”

Ah yes, spreading democracy, one prison city at a time.

When ya coming home???

Come home and FEED me!!

Mr. Plushy Britches

His fluffy tail and butt crack me up.

Late night sleepy Maxx

Well, he's not actually sleeping right now. He's mad because he wants to go outside and frolic in the cool evening air.

But this centaur needs some sleep.

WTF?

I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. Darth Vader cannot be made of lego.

Do children have to ruin everything?

RIP Governor Richards

Damn. Ann RIchards died this evening from cancer. Former Texas Governor Ann Richard Dies.

Our condolences to her family and friends. She will be missed.

They was blind

From today's Froomkin, details from the gaggle:

SNOW: . . . [W]hat the President was making reference to after September 11th -- the war on terror didn't end on September 11th, it began. It lifted the veil to us on a world that we didn't know existed, that we have to respond to. And it is also a real fact that the war in Iraq is clearly part of that war on terror, and where we proceed with it.

A world you didn't know existed, eh? Are you fucking kidding me? I seem to recall that there was a PDB entitled "Osama Bin Ladin Determined to Strike Inside the US."

These people are such asshats.

Extra Plush

Just because Jon Stewart was so freaking funny tonight.

Plush for Plum

Okay, we got plush, everybody simma down now.

Obvious forgery, blog ethics panel needed!!

photo from White Planet

I don't see a coke bottle in this photograph. This is an obvious leftist attempt to attack corporate america.

Even more a hero

Keith Olbermann gave a blistering editorial blasting Bush for his incompetence, mendacity and shamelessness tonight. The entire special comment is up on his Web blog on MSNBC, This hole in the ground:

...
When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.

Let me just say that I never will. I will not forgive him or his administration for their incompetence nor will I forgive him for the terrible damage he has done to this country since 9/11.

There is no hell hot enough for him.

Question

When is will the media stop being snookered into giving Bush free network time for his campaign speeches?

When?

A hero of the day

Salon has a nice interview with Keith Olberman up (ladies, no swooning!). The Olbermann Factor. Please, just sit through the ad and read it.

My favorite quote:

The country belongs to the people, not to the government that happens to be in charge at the moment. We should remind ourselves of that fact periodically.

Amen.

Monday Plush

A not so great photo of Mr. Plushy, who was annoyed because I was following him around with the camera.

Fuck ABC

Maxx and I would like to suggest that you watch The Wire on HBO tonight.

Boycott Disney.