Saturday Night Plushy Fix

This is the preferred position for Saturday Night Sci-Fi Blogging.

We are all Swamp Thing now

If we are swamp thing, what are they?

Oh, right. Whiney ass titty babies. All they have to do is report the news accurately. That's all.

"Well, I didn't tell them...

Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

...that you have a micro-dick."

Save Us!!

Reuters/Cheryl Ravelo

Help us!! the evil preznit tried to fuck us while on a crack binge.

It's a proven fact. Don't blog me.

The Moon is made of roquefort cheese

NASA

But don't blog me!

This Carrot Must Die

Maxx saves the world from the alien carrot menace. Again.

He is tireless on our behalf.

Sick Culture

The NYTimes has an excellent editorial up by Norman Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, If You Give a Congressman a Cookie, that gives an excellent description of the stinking sinkhole of corruption that Washington has become with the republicans in charge.

The two of us have been immersed in Washington politics for more than 36 years. We have never seen the culture so sick or the legislative process so dysfunctional. The plea deals of Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, the indictment of Tom Delay and his resignation as House majority leader, and the demise of Representative Randy Cunningham notwithstanding, this is not simply a problem of a rogue lobbyist or a pack of them. Nor is it a matter of a handful of disconnected, corrupt lawmakers taking favors in return for official actions.

Go read the whole thing.

Pluto, Bitch

AP Photo/Terry Renna

My only complaint with this mission is that they didn't strap chimpy and cheney to the rocket before they blasted off. The New Horizons vehicle is expected to arrive at Pluto around 2015.

What do they need lobbyists for?

Josh has the right take on the state of texas rethuglican lobbying mess. No Voice in Washington?

A state with 2 republican senators and a largely republican congressional delegation needed outside lobbyists to make their case to congress? What complete and utter bullshit.

This is about (a) rewarding your cronies with cushy jobs and (b) laundering state taxpayer funds into republican campaigns. It's the same playbook over and over and over.

Update: Josh has another update on Denny Hastert's district with the same scam running.

Let's call this what it is- patronage. Pure and simple. I'm sure it's going on in every republican fiefdom in the land.

Today in Science

Yomiuri Shimbun/AFP/Getty Images

Giant Jellyfish are invading Japan.

Can we drop chimpy in a tank full of these things? (Via National Geographic News)

Plushy RX for GWPDA

Sometimes it's just an emergency and only plush will heal what ails ya.

Dots? what dots?

Reuters/Jim Young

What am I supposed to connect?

3200 still missing

How can this be possible?

Thousands Still Missing After Katrina

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- More than 3,200 people are officially still unaccounted for nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and the state medical examiner wants the search to resume for those missing from the most devastated neighborhoods.

There is no excuse for this. None.

To the Hague, Bitch!

Blair knew too. Bastard.

Via the Guardian, Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday January 19, 2006
The Guardian

The government is secretly trying to stifle attempts by MPs to find out what it knows about CIA "torture flights" and privately admits that people captured by British forces could have been sent illegally to interrogation centres, the Guardian can reveal. A hidden strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about rendition - the US practice of transporting detainees to secret centres where they are at risk of being tortured - is revealed in a briefing paper sent by the Foreign Office to No 10.

The document shows that the government has been aware of secret interrogation centres, despite ministers' denials. It admits that the government has no idea whether individuals seized by British troops in Iraq or Afghanistan have been sent to the secret centres.

I hope the british public has less tolerance for this illegal nonsense than we do.

Bonus Kitty Blogging

This is Barry in Alaska's cat Hidey. Possibly the most beautiful black and white cat ever.

Better Looking than Chimpy

But then isn't everyone?

January 17, 2006—Fancy imported hair gel is, unfortunately, no guard against a good solid axe blow to the skull.

This sad fact is illuminated by Clonycavan man (pictured above) who suffered three blows from an axe to his head, one to his chest, and was also disemboweled before being mummified in an Irish peat bog.

Experts studying the remains of the murder victim say he likely lived between 392 B.C. and 201 B.C. The man's hair contains a substance made from vegetable oil mixed with resin from pine trees found in Spain and southwest France. The man might have used the product, researchers say, to make himself appear taller.

I hope there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Via National Geographic News, Bog Man Used Imported Hair Gel

Mr. Plushy!!

Lobbyists, Run for Your Lives

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The house democrats unveiled their ethics reform plan today. The NYTimes covers it, sort of, without describing what's actually in the plan. Democrats Unveil Their Own Plan for Rules on Lobbying

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 - With a stinging attack on Republican ethics, Congressional Democrats today proposed a lobbying overhaul they said far exceeds new Republican proposals in limiting the influence of monied special interests on Capitol Hill.

Senator Harry Reid, center, said the Democrats' plans for a lobbying overhaul unveiled today far exceed new Republican proposals. "Today we as Democrats are declaring our commitment to change - change to a government as good and as honest as the people that we serve," said Senator Harry Reid of the Nevada, the Democratic leader, who compared Republicans to organized crime figures he battled as a state gaming official.

"We took them on; we ran them out of the state," he said in an elaborate event staged by House and Senate Democrats at the Library of Congress. "Well, here they have infiltrated government."

I loves me some Harry.

The WAPO has finally put up an article as well: Democrats Assail Republican 'Culture of Corruption'

Some details:

Rather than limiting the value of a gift to $20, as House Republicans are considering, the Democrats would prohibit all gifts from lobbyists. And the Democrats take direct aim at some of the legislative practices that have taken root in the last 10 years of Republican rule in Congress. They vowed to end the K Street Project, under which Republicans in Congress pressure lobbying organizations to hire only Republican staff and contribute only to Republican candidates.

Oooh. That's gonna make some folks unhappy.

Under the Democrats' plan, House and Senate negotiators working out final versions of legislation would have to meet in open session, with all members of the conference committee -- not just Republicans -- having the opportunity to vote on all amendments. Legislation would have to be posted publicly 24 hours before congressional consideration. The Democrats also proposed to crack down on no-bid contracting and to require that any person appointed to a position involving public safety "possess proven credentials."

Uhhh, oh. No more crony jobs. I see trouble on this one.

Olbermann was reporting that there would be penalties for war profiteering as well. Ouch. Can you say Halliburton?

Today in Space

JPL/NASA

Via Space.com, meet the Mars Science Labratory, the next generation in unmanned exploration vehicles.

Mars Science Laboratory: Big Wheels on A Red Planet

PASADENA, California – Make way Spirit and Opportunity – big daddy is coming!

The next wheels on the red planet will belong to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)—a huge step in how that planet is further poked, probed, and more fully plumbed for new information.

MSL is a huge chunk of machinery. At liftoff in September 2009, it will carry the largest, most advanced set of instruments for on-the-spot science duties ever dispatched to the martian surface. The nuclear-powered rover is being designed to assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life.

On one hand, MSL closes out an intensive period of surveying Mars…while setting the stage for an aggressive agenda of future robotic Mars exploration that ultimately leads to the planting of the first footprints on the red planet.

I loves me some space tech.

Well, of course.

The New York Times reports this morning that US intelligence knew in 2002 that the Niger claims were ridiculous:

2002 Memo Doubted Uranium Sale Claim

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 - A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department.

Among other problems that made such a sale improbable, the assessment by the State Department's intelligence analysts concluded, was that it would have required Niger to send "25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers" filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border.

I'm sure that apology to Ambassador Wilson will be forthcoming, oh, any second now.