Ay Carramba!!!

Look at the horror that awaits us if we do not immediately stem the tide of illegal immigration.

Yes.

It is the insidious, mandatory breakfast burrito. Once those evil little brown people from the south have taken over the country, they will impose their reign of tex-mex. No one will be able to resist. No one will be safe!!!

First it will be breakfast burritos, and before long, your daughters will be munching on green enchiladas at lunch time.


I call on all good republicans to drop everything and rush to the border to defend us from this delicious plague!! To arms! You have a wall to build. And if you can't manage that, you owe it to your country to wander around in the desert looking fierce and talking on a walkie-talkie.

Your country is depending on you.

A plushy kitty's work is never done

Sheesh. Who's making all that noise? can't ya tell I'm sleeping?

Looking for me???

Come over here and rub my tummy or the peep gets it.

Everybody loves kittens

Milk is delicious!!

Especially straight from the source.

Amazing

Folks from Democratic Underground sent Helen Thomas 100 dozen red roses to thank her for her hard work. A Messsage From Helen!!"

Helen sent a note back:

Blessed are the peacemakers. The bounty of beautiful roses from such
wonderful people has lifted my heart and will remain in my memory for the
rest of my life. Thank you for caring that others may live.
Helen Thomas
Columnist, Hearst Newspapers

I wish I'd known- I'd definitely have kicked in. She is a heroine in my eyes.

Maxx!!

...cute as always and glad to have his human at home.

afternoon lion kitty fix

I wish I could take a nap.

Eclipse

Via National Geographic, a view of yesterday's eclipse as seen from the space station.

Richard Cohen is a wanker

It's not even Thursday and he's grabbed top honors. Oy.

Bush Wanted War

Shorter Cohen: "I didn't think chimpy lied even though the evidence was right in front of my stupid face. Then Helen Thomas asked him a mean question last week so I saw the light." Then he goes on to list all the freaking evidence that he has been ignoring that proves, YES HE DID TOO LIE.

What a maroon.

Late night plushy....

Lion kitty's fans are so demanding.

We like the sea!!!!

Photograph by Paul Nicklen/NGS


How beautiful is that? Via National Geographic News we learn that the Republic of Kiribati has created an enormous marine preserve in the south pacific. Giant Marine Reserve Created in South Pacific

The Republic of Kiribati in the South Pacific has designated an enormous swath of Pacific atolls, coral reefs, and deep ocean to become one of the world's largest marine reserves.

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area safeguards some of the planet's most pristine coral reef ecosystems. The new marine park is the world's third largest, topped only by Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the Northeastern Hawaiian Islands.

The protected region spans some 73,800 square miles (184,700 square kilometers)—a stretch of ocean twice the size of Portugal—and includes eight virtually uninhabited coral atolls.

The reserve is home to a panoply of marine life, including over 120 coral species and more than 500 types of fish—some found nowhere else.

Seabirds and turtles also frequent the region, which lies along key migration routes.

The park includes deep-ocean habitat found in no other marine reserve—protection extends even to seamounts on the ocean floor.

Maxx and I loves us some fishes. And we love that some nations still want to be good stewards of the planet.

Put that camera down!!!

...and scritch my chin.

We like the Sun!

Views of last night's solar eclipse from NASA TV. The next total eclipse that will be visible from the United States will be in 2017.

Via Space.com.

Plushyporn™

Just for his aunt sally.

Spring is here...

While my car was being fixed this morning, I amused myself by photographing the sparrows outside the waiting room window. They were busy repairing their nests after the fierce storms that blew through the Austin area this morning.

Ummmm, why?

Via National Geographic News. A housefly gets glasses:

March 28, 2006—Pampering pets with designer goods isn't so unusual—and now even your houseflies can get outfitted in style.

An entry in a German science-photo competition, this image shows a fly sporting a set of "designer" lenses crafted and set in place with a cutting-edge laser technique. The glasses fit snuggly on the fly's 0.08-inch-wide (2-millimeter-wide) head.

Manufacturing firm Micreon GmbH submitted the insect's picture for the Bilder der Forschung (Photos of Science) 2005 competition. Selected images were on display last week in a Munich shopping center.

Micreon, based in Hannover, Germany (see map), created the fly's eyewear using ultrafast laser micro-machining. The firm notes on its Web site that the process can create objects with high precision at scales of less than a thousandth of a millimeter.

Interesting, but creepy.

Maxx wishes....

...it would quit storming so he could go out and play.

Magoo!! I'm guessing she likes the moon, too.

Magoo is lovely, is she not? She lives with Barry in Alaska, with her sister Hidey.

We like the Moon!! Part deux

Why do we like the moon you might ask? and why do conservatives hate the moon? Elementary, dear reader. It is a well known fact that 98% of radioactive, brain-eating zombies are registered republicans. And zombies just aren't very nice, now are they precious? And just who is it that comes out on a full moon? the werewolf, that's who!

What you may not know is the werewolf is the natural, sworn enemy of the radioactive zombie. No wonder conservatives hate the moon!

Further, think of all the naughty things associated with the moon. Pagans and wiccans enjoy dancing and feasting under the moon. And full moons are very romantic (if you can avoid the werewolf-zombie carnage), which leads to lovers kissing... and possibly.... sex! Not just sex, but romantic, hot sex. Sometimes in the back of cars, just for fun. Can't have that, now can we.

So, good liberals everywhere like the moon.

Have I lost my mind? well, no. But if Jeff Goldstein, Assrocket, Malkin and RedState can post nonsense on their blogs, well, then so can I.

This fucking war....

photo illustration by fourlegsgood

What's new in the never ending horror that is Iraq today? Let's see, Shiite leaders have suspended talks over forming a government,and the governor of Baghdad has announced a halt in cooperation with American authorities. A suicide bomber killed 40 and wounded 30 in Kasak, which is near that bastion of peace, Al Tafar.

And the shiites are really, really angry about Sunday's raid on a shiite compound which killed at least 16 people. Their mood can't have been improved by this photo, which ran on Iraqi television on Sunday. The photo shows bodies in what appears to be the prayer room of a Baghdad mosque.





No wonder they hate us.







A note about the illustration-- I was rereading Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Pocket Books, ©2000) this past weekend where King describes being a college student during the summer of 1969 when "happy hippies wore bell-bottom pants and tee-shirts that said things like "KILLING FOR PEACE IS LIKE FUCKING FOR CHASTITY."

"That sayings NEEDS to be on a protest sign," I said.

So, through the magic of photoshop, voilá! (The photo is my own) Hopefully King won't mind that I've borrowed his phrase to illustrate a point.

It makes no fucking sense to blow up a country and kill thousands of people in the name of peace. None. It was a ludicrous idea in 1969 and it's a worse fucking idea now.

Good sense prevails. For a change.

NASA has changed their mind and decided to reinstate the cancelled Dawn Mission to visit a pair of asteroids..

NASA’s once-canceled Dawn mission to visit a pair of asteroids has been reinstated following a mission review, space agency officials said Monday.

NASA initially canceled the Dawn mission, which calls for an ion-powered spacecraft to visit two large asteroids, earlier this month only to reverse that decision, which drew ire and opposition from planetary scientists at this month’s 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC).

After an in-depth study of the cost overruns and technical challenges plaguing Dawn’s development, NASA officials concluded that the mission should proceed towards a summer 2007 launch target.

“When you’re doing deep planetary missions….there are always pretty tall challenges,” NASA associate administrator Rex Geveden told reporters in a Monday teleconference. “And it looks like Dawn is ready to take those on and beat them.”

The decision buoyed Dawn mission scientists, who had mourned the project’s cancellation earlier this month.

Basic science is important. Besides, we're going to need a place to stash all our war criminals.

Via Space.com.

I see dead people

Well, who knows what he sees? He's a cat.

An endless horror...

Via Atrios at Eschaton comes this horrific story published in the Washington Post. A teacher is beheaded in front of his students for allegedly being a CIA spy.

Their visit came as more violence was reported across Iraq, including a terrifying incident earlier in the week in the western city of Ramadi. On Wednesday, armed insurgents burst into the classroom of Khidhir al-Mihallawi, an English teacher at Sajariyah High School, accused him of being an agent for the CIA and Israeli intelligence and beheaded him in front of his students, according to students, fellow instructors and a physician at a local hospital.

One teacher, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared retaliation from insurgents, said that most students ran from the classroom but that some stayed to watch. Many stopped coming to school after the incident, he said. Another teacher, who said he moved his mathematics class to his home to accommodate frightened students, said Mihallawi had earlier been threatened because he worked as a translator for U.S. forces in Ramadi, a hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

Mihallawi "looked at us just like he was telling us that we do not have to be scared. Even as we were running out of the door, his looks were still telling us that nothing will happen and we do not have to be scared," said a student, whose father asked that his name not be used. "I heard him screaming for a few seconds, then stop screaming."

The father said his son has had trouble sleeping since the incident. "He always has nightmares and he always wakes up screaming and shaking, talking in his dreams," he said.

Bloody fucking hell. As Phila said in comments at Eschaton, Iraq has turned into an endless fucking horror.

Back from GWPDA's birthday party....

....and what a delightful time he had! Birthday cake and vanilla ice cream galore!

Nothing to see here, move along...

The BBC is reporting that iraqi security forces found 30 bodies, all of them beheaded, near the town of Baquba today. And yet, as Atrios notes, due to right-wing hand wringing, our American media has become obsessed with searching out the "good stories."

Forget the good stories. I'm certain a litter of adorable puppies was born somewhere in Baghdad today. It doesn''t change the fact that Iraq is broken, and we broke it.

Your sunday lion kitty

I am off to the darkroom, but Mr.Plushy's here to keep you company. He's even got a few toys handy.

The Outlaw Party

Digby at Hullaballo, has a brilliant post up about what the Bushies and the republican party is really up to, and how the NSA spying scandal ties into the whole pernicious mess. Outlaw Party. Read the whole thing.

It has been a while since I have weighed in on the particulars of the illegal NSA spying scandal, mostly because Glenn Greenwald has this story covered so thoroughly and so well (and I'm sure you are all reading him every day.) But today we are reminded just how pernicious this scandal is: the Bush Justice department has asserted their right to ignore any law that congress makes, and which a former president signed, under a theory of executive power so sweeping that it essentially declares that this nation is a constitutional, elected monarchy (the elected part being debatable since the president could theoretically assert his unfettered powers to cancel elections.)

~snip~

...And these are the gravest of circumstances. There is nothing to be gained by Democrats abandoning anything in the name of civility Republicans will simply impeach the next Democratic president for double parking without so much as a second thought if they have the chance. They play the hardest of hardball and they do not see such minor setbacks as losing a few seats as any kind of repudiation. In fact, they see nothing as repudiation, not even Nixon's disgrace. They waited patiently for 30 years for the opportunity to reinstitute the imperial presidency and were operating under it even before 9/11.

The only thing that might make them repudiate Bill Clinton's impeachment would be George W. Bush's impeachment and I doubt that we will see either. But what we should see, and I dearly hope we will see, is a Democratic congress that puts the bright light of investigations on what this administration and its GOP allies have done --- and if we should get a Democratic president in 2008, a justice department that seeks out and punishes those who broke these laws. I don't think we should shut up for one minute about demanding accountability for what these people have done.

Back in 1974, I was in favor of pardoning Richard Nixon. I thought that it was wise to "bind up the country's wounds." I was wrong. The Republicans barely missed a beat and just went right on with the program. Whether George W. Bush can be charged with a crime, I don't know. But I have no doubt that it would be good for the country, not bad, if the Republicans were held to account for their undemocratic actions once and for all. They're impeaching, stealing eleactions and starting unnecessary wars now. What is it going to take before people realize that we are dealing with an outlaw political party?

Bush and Rove have made bullying, intimidation, and lying standard operating procedure. They've ignored the constitution at will, and so far, gotten away with it. Just this week bush penned another "signing statement," this time attached to the re-authorization of the Patriot Act (how I loathe that name), stating that he felt free to ignore the oversight that Congress had established.

We elect a president, not a king. But that's changing. The imperial presidency is on its way to becoming an established institution. Unless we stop them this year, this election cycle... well, we might as well renew our passports and start brushing up on our french.

The game will be over.

Sci-Fi Channel's real audience...

This is Maxx... watching Mortuary. Hilarious.