Ronnie Earle on the hunt...

Via Josh at TalkingPointsMemo, Travis County DA Ronnie Earle is continuing to chase down Tom DeLay's ties to Jack Abramoff.

Today he subpoenaed Jack Abramoff's travel agent, the one who arranged the junket to Scotland in 2000. DeLay came along, and I think that it's fair to say from the $6,617.20 ticket price that he flew first class. The ticket was charged to Jack Abramoff's credit card.

Whoops! Those pesky little credit card statements get ya everytime.

NARAL Endorses Ciro

Via Jane at Firedoglake, NARAL is endorsing Ciro and donating $5,000 to his campaign.

Maybe they're finally getting the message. Please, if you can, go to Jane's ActBlue page and give Ciro's campaign a buck or two.

Redistricting Redux

The Supremes heard the Texas redistricting case today, and I have to say I'm not hopeful. Justices hear Texas redistricting arguments. Though it's hard to make predictions, it sounds like the justices were unmoved by arguments that the process was politically motivated. Listen to this passage:

"That's a surprise," Justice Antonin Scalia joked. "Legislatures redraw the map all the time for political reasons."

But Smith said lawmakers should not be able to get away with drawing oddly shaped districts that protect incumbent Republicans and deny voters their chance to vote for other candidates.

R. Ted Cruz, the Texas solicitor general, told justices that Republicans were only fixing a map that had been drawn to benefit Democrats, despite the fact that the state has more Republican voters.

That's a blatant lie. What ever happened to one man, one vote? The specific intent of this whole exercise was to either dilute or obliterate the votes of progressive and democratic voters in the state of texas. Period. The fact of the matter is that conservative democrats were getting elected in republican districts. And Tom Delay couldn't stand that.

So they came after Austin with a carving knife. The plan was to split up the voters of Travis County and stuff them into suburban, republican districts, effectively wiping them out. If that's not depriving me of my right to representation, I don't know what is.

What makes me angriest is that as a white, middle class manimal, I have no standing whatsoever to sue over this.

They cheat, they lie, they steal, they commit felonies. And they continually get away with it. And if the Roberts court doesn't rubber stamp this, I'll be astonished.

No!!!! You keep him....

AP Photo


...for the love of god, please don't send him back.

Separated at birth?

You decide.

Plush for auntie Sally

Lion kitty Maxx luvvvvvs his aunt Sally. And she's been good, so she gets her very own plush.

Bush has capital?

He's delusional. Despite polls, Bush says he has 'capital'

Ummm, sorry, but "living in the capital" and "having capital" are not the same thing.

Civil War Looms

Reuters/Nmir Noor-Eldeen

68 dead in Baghdad today. That we know of, anyway. Civil War Looms With 68 Killed in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunnis and Shiites traded bombings and mortar fire against mainly religious targets in Baghdad well into the night Tuesday, killing at least 68 people a day after authorities lifted a curfew that had briefly calmed a series of sectarian reprisal attacks.

At least six of Tuesday's attacks hit clearly religious targets, concluding with a car bombing after sundown at the Shiite Abdel Hadi Chalabi mosque in the Hurriyah neighborhood that killed 23 and wounded 55. A separate suicide bombing killed 23 people at an east Baghdad gas station, where people had lined up to buy kerosine.

Take a good look at the end product of the bush doctine. Can you imagine this happening in your neighborhood?

Bush had better hope that all that "saved" nonsense is actually true.

The Peep War continues

Mr. Plushy is grim, but resolute, in the face of the peeps relentless assault on his dignity.

Beautiful Photo of the Day

AFP/Jose Luis Roca

From the flamenco festival in Jerez, southern Spain.

Eeeeek! a sea monster!

Well, not really. Only a giant squid, but probably the largest specimen ever found is on display in London. This is one of the best headlines ever: Giant squid grabs London audience Via BBC News:

"One of the biggest and most complete giant squids ever found is on display at London's Natural History Museum.

Measuring a monstrous 8.62m (28ft), the squid was caught off the coast of the Falkland Islands by a trawler."

I feel a saturday sci-fi feature coming on.

baby plushies

Some baby plushies to keep you company while I work today.

Somewhere Tinkerbell is weeping.

Casualties in the sectarian violence in Iraq the past four days is three times what has been reported in the US press. Iraq's Deadly Surge Claims 1,300

Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The truth just didn't fit into Karl and chimpy's preferred narrative last week. Civil war? what civil war? nothing to see here, move right along.

When Tinkerbell gets through crying, I expect someone will finally notice that she's been dead for quite some time, and is, in fact, a reanimated zombie. Clapping won't change that.

Just relaxing...

...with his peeps.

"Quit putting stuff on me!!!!!"

Well, that explains it.

Bubonic Plague, or the black death, may have been responsible for Europe's "little ice age," the BBC reports today. Europe's chill linked to disease

Europe's "Little Ice Age" may have been triggered by the 14th Century Black Death plague, according to a new study.

Pollen and leaf data support the idea that millions of trees sprang up on abandoned farmland, soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

This would have had the effect of cooling the climate, a team from Utrecht University, Netherlands, says.

The Little Ice Age was a period of some 300 years when Europe experienced a dip in average temperatures.

So there you have it. All the peasants died and trees sprang up on their untended farms, soaking up all the carbon-dioxide, cooling the earth.

So all we have to do is kill a gazillion peasants and plant a bunch of trees- global warming solved! Huzzah!

What Maxx is up to this instant

Ah, the life of a lion kitty.

Carnival!!

Reuters/Caetano Barreira

Carnival in Salvador, how festive! I wish I were there.

Delay's allies try to sic the IRS on folks...

... to no avail. Texas Nonprofit Is Cleared After GOP-Prompted Audit. Basically, one of Delay's goons in the house instigated an IRS audit on a group critical of Tom Delay.

I guess using federal agencies to go after your critics is OKIYAR.

What a bunch of whiny-ass titty babies.

Palestinian Authority Near Collapse

In the "we'll get what we want one way or another file," the WAPO is reporting that Middle East Envoy Warns of Palestinian Authority Collapse.

Basically the US and Israel, by withholding aid and tax receipts, are doing their level best to undo a legitimate, democratic election. Which is exactly what they had in mind.

Nice work if you can get it

In spite of the fact that auditors questioned more than $250 million in charges as excessive or unjustified, the pentagon intends to pay nearly all of them. Army to Pay Halliburton Unit Most Costs Disputed by Audit"

The pentagon routinely withholds up to 60% of the amount recommended by auditors in these cases. This time they're only withhold 3%.

I guess it pays to have friends in high places.