And the hits just keep on comin'

Wow.

The male escort responsible for the downfall of Christian evangelist leader Ted Haggard is now alleging that embattled Senator Larry Craig also came to see him.

Quote of the Day

The best quote I've seen on a blog in a long time:

I'm a librarian, motherf**ker, you couldn't shock me if you tried.

Told you they were pissed.

Hat tip to silveradept at Nonsensical Ravings of Finely Tuned Insanity for the highly entertaining and thought provoking link.

Chris Matthews: Life's a Frat Party

Oh my God. What a buffoon. And that laugh? His prime example of getting ahead in life: Bill Clinton getting laid in college. What a creepy, pathetic guy.

Jon Stewart is priceless.

I'm not trashing your book, I'm trashing your philosophy of life.

Hmmm...if that embedded link seems to be stalling, try this one:

The New Revolutionaries

Mark my words, librarians will be on the front lines when the revolution comes. Don't believe me? In 2003 the NYT reported librarians went to federal court "to gain permission to identify themselves as the recipients of the secret subpoena, known as a national security letter, ordering them to turn over patron records and e-mail messages."

Lawyers for the group, the Library Connection of Windsor, Conn., argued that their client was eager to participate freely in the debate last year over the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. But federal prosecutors asserted that the Patriot Act required that the group's identity remain secret and that the government would suffer irreparable harm if any information about its investigations became known.
...
"We are obviously very much looking forward to the day where they can explain how it felt to be under threat of criminal prosecution for merely identifying themselves," said Ann Beeson, the civil liberties union's associate legal director. "The clients are happy that the fight over this gag is nearing its end."

Librarians challenged the Justice Dept. and won.

In Europe, librarians joined with The Electronic Frontier Foundation to demand fixes to vague copyright law that would potentially criminalize websites, internet service providers and librarians.

This group is organized and some of them are pissed. A healthy combination.

Anyway, we're adding a few new links that hit the spot:

Librarian
Information for Social Change Journal (ISC)
Nonsensical Ravings of Finely Tuned Insanity

Welcome!

Thousands Massacred in Burma

This horrible situation has just gotten infinitely worse.

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men.

...

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.

There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.

And now the whereabouts of U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari are unknown. MSNBC is reporting the question of where is Gambari, but does not mention the massacre of thousands. CNN is not reporting this story either. BBC is reporting "thousands of monks 'to be sent away'" but no mention of a massacre.

Update: Well now the MSNBC link has been changed to "Envoy set to meet Myanmar's junta leader." So I guess he's accounted for. That's a relief.

Pentagon Dominatrix "hates all Iranians"

Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Secretary of Defense Gates, wearing what appears to be a fascist medal over a flaming red leather jacket, shocked British MPs by stating that she "hates all Iranians."

"She is very forceful and some of my colleagues were intimidated by her muscular style."

The Pentagon denied this and declined to comment on her outfit.

Did the CBC snub Obama?

The only "stand-alone invite" to the Congressional Black Caucus's Annual Legislative Conference held yesterday in Washington went to Senator Hillary Clinton. She's even nailed down more support from individual CBC members than Barack.

Is the bloom off the rose?

Phony Soldiers?

Rush "Boil-on-his-ass" Limbaugh isn't fit to wipe the boots of those who serve in the U.S. military.

Graceful Seal

taken at the Brookfield Zoo 9/23/07

Friday Malamute Blogging

It's getting cooler. His winter coat is coming in. He wants out NOW!

"Childrens Do Learn"

Yes, Virginia, George Bush is right—childrens do learn. One day in the near future, childrens in Washington state will think apprehensively of the freakishly tall young man conducting storytime in Byrning Books Library, and this memory will haunt them and spur their quest to find that elusive blogger forever and ever.... But I digress... because the real question is: do George learn?

Bill O'Reilly: Surprised he's a racist

...which surprises no one else.

And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship.

He clearly sees his audience as white and just as stupid as he is.

O'REILLY: No, no, I mean, I like that soul food. I had the meatloaf special. I had coconut shrimp. I had the iced tea. It was great.

From Little Rock to Jena, LA

How far we haven't come. Fifty years after he and eight other black teenagers were escorted by federal troops into an all-white high school in Little Rock, Terrance Roberts made a sad but accurate observation:

"This country has demonstrated over time that it is not prepared to operate as an integrated society."

Look no further then Jena, LA and the case of the Jena 6. The story isn't complicated, but it is interesting how so many details get left out of the telling. Read Listen to me for a minute for a detailed timeline. Friends of Justice has a great post called Why the "liberal" media doesn't get Jena.

I am disturbed by the growing tendency of mainstream journalists to jump from the nooses to Justin Barker’s swollen eyes without mentioning the chain of events that link these graphic and disturbing images. We don’t hear about Reed Walter’s pen. We don’t hear about the fire that destroyed the central academic wing of the High School. We don’t hear about Robert Bailey, Jr. getting attacked at a dance. We don’t hear about a white youth threatening black youth with a shotgun outside the Gotta Go convenience store. We don’t hear about Justin Barker and his buddies talking trash with black students during the lunch hour.

In fact, many journalists have latched onto US Attorney Donald Washington’s bizarre claim that there is no discernible link between the noose incident and the assault on Justin Barker. Anyone familiar with the facts of this story can only gasp in disbelief at this suggestion. But most journalists don’t know the facts. Last Friday, on the LaSalle Parish Courthouse lawn, I told an NBC reporter that they needed to get a person of equal prominence to Donald Washington (Charles Ogletree?) to rebut his allegations. The man was unimpressed. “He’s got access to the evidence,” he replied. “Who else knows as much about the story?”

I told him I had access to all the facts Washington had seen. To prove it, I began rattling off the disturbing undeniable links between the nooses and the swollen eyes. “You’re kidding me,” the man said. “Really?” “Oh my God, I hadn’t heard that.” This is the guy who was helping to shape the story for the NBC Nightly News!

And now the white supremacists are riding into town, whipping up the hatred and fear, with their laptops under their sheets, publishing on their web site the phone numbers and addresses of the black teenagers called the Jena 6. White residents of Jena are afraid to openly support these six students. And you gotta love Reed Walters, the lawyer representing the school board. Not only is he the prosecuting district attorney in the case, he brought police to the high school and threatened protesting black students, “I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.”

Seems like old times.

UPDATE: It gets worse.

...the leader of a white supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to "realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind."
...

McMillin has insisted that his town is being unfairly portrayed as racist—an assertion the mayor repeated in an interview with Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist group based in Learned, Miss., who asked McMillin to "set aside some place for those opposing the colored folks."

"I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do," Barrett quoted McMillin as saying. "Your moral support means a lot."
...

Barker's father, David, said his family did not know the nature of Barrett's group when they agreed to be interviewed, adding, "I am not a white supremacist, and neither is my son."

But Barrett said he explained his group and its beliefs to the Barker family, who then invited him to stay overnight at their home on the eve of last week's protest march.

Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Tribune that he had grown so concerned about white extremists' threats against the Jena 6 families and perceived injustices in the town that he called the White House over the weekend to ask for immediate federal intervention. Jackson said the acting head of the U.S. Justice Department's civil right division phoned him Monday to say that the agency had begun investigating the Jena situation.

The Barker family, the family of the white teenager who was beaten, allegedly by the six black youths, INVITED the leader of a white supremacist group to stay overnight at their home on the eve of last week's protest march.

Troops coined "General BetrayUS"

Here's an interesting bit of news I first read on The Group News Blog:

First off let's be clear about who David Petraeus is. He is someone who takes credit where credit is not due. Someone who is very competitive and has shown that he cares little for the line troops that make his commands. Some of the only interactions that his men have had with him have involved him choppering in and pinning a purple heart on the lucky man that is pointed out to him by his aides and hopping back on the chopper. It's the best way to maintain those starched cammies. This guy was responsible for securing the weapons and explosive caches in Iraq. He was not supposed to rush to glory by bypassing towns to try to enter Baghdad first. He was supposed to destroy or guard all those AK-47's currently being used to shoot our troops to death, and he was supposed to stop the distribution all tons of explosives to bomb makers in Iraq. You have to understand the nickname Betrayus came from Iraq. There is not a 11B who doesn’t know this nickname. It’s his fuckups with weapons and explosives that garnered him the name. He was also supposed to train the Iraqi security forces. You remember those. The ones were we had 100 battalions, and then we have 23 battalions and then 3. The more security forces Petraeus trained the fewer we had. They sent his ass back to Kansas after that debacle.

And an article in the TimesOnline also referred to:

Critics, including one recently retired general, are privately calling him “General Betraeus” on the grounds that he is too ambitious to deliver a balanced report on the war.

And DailyKos links to a comment from 2005 on BLACKFIVE, a PajamasMedia blog, of all places that confirms the troops-Betrayus origins.

Hmmm...now if any or all of this information was broadcast on your nightly news program alongside the MoveOn.org ad it would clear up alot of misunderstanding and bullshit floating around out there.

Saturday Malamute Blogging

Crazy puppy likes to view the world upside down.

This is how to handle the FOX censors

Rice and Beans: Not just a common food staple

I'm not even sure what to think of this:

In the book and on the show, Kessler described how Rice's "closest male friend" is openly gay, a man by the name of Coit D. Blacker, a Stanford professor (Rice was provost at Stanford in the late 1990s for six years) and a Democrat who served in the Clinton administration. Blacker, whose partner is also mentioned, advised Al Gore's campaign in 2000, while his close friend Rice became a chief confidante to a president who has tried to make gays into second class citizens in the U.S. Constitution. But wait, it gets better.

Rice's "closest female friend" is a woman named Randy Bean (pictured here), who is unmarried and whose sexual orientation is not stated. She is described as a "liberal progressive;" she's a documentary filmmaker who works at Stanford University and once worked for Bill Moyers. She and Rice and Blacker (again, who has a partner) are discussed as a "second family," a term Bean uses, also saying that, "on friends, [Rice] goes narrow and deep."

According to newly revealed information in the book (which Kessler found through real estate records), the two women, Rice and Bean (yes, hilarious), own a home together and have a line of credit together. Bean explains this to Kessler by saying that she had some medical bills that drained her financially years ago, and Rice and Blacker helped her out by buying the house with Bean. But over time Blacker sold his share of the house to Rice and Bean, and then Rice would later get the line of credit with Bean to do some renovations on the home. Kessler, when pressed, said he did not know if this meant there was something more to the relationship between the women beyond a friendship.

OK. Let's review: Coit Blacker, closest male friend to Condo, advised Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign. Condo's closest female friend is a documentary filmmaker who worked with Bill Moyers. I can't even get my mind around the incestuousness of this scenario. Whether Condo is a lesbian is beside the point.

Condo serves an administration that demonizes gays and lesbians and liberal progressives. But she parties with her best friend and his male lover, and owns a home and shares a line of credit with her other best friend, a liberal progressive, with no apparent guilt over these monumental betrayals. And no apparent guilting or rejection from the best friends, either. The disconnect here, on all sides, is worthy of a sociopath. Which brings us to Condo's bestest friend, George Bush. But that's a whole 'nother blog...

I've always thought Gore was advised by persons on the GOP payroll, but this is through-the-Looking-Glass material. Beyond Carville and Matalin, beyond Animal Farm and 1984, even.

Loyalty = treachery. Faithful = traitorous.

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall when these best friends get together.

From the Dept. of Hubris and Lost Causes

Wow.

On Friday, Sept. 14, Alan Keyes filed a Statement of Candidacy...with the Federal Election Commission--thus officially announcing as a Republican candidate for President of the United States.

Madame Secretary? How's the invasion going?

How does the Secretary of State have time to write a book, in the middle of, not one war, but two wars, much less promote it on the NYT OpEd page ?

Maybe it's about the US invasion of Iraq...well that's questionable, but understandable.

Maybe it's about how the worst terrorist attack on American soil happened on her watch as National Security Advisor...yeah, that'll be the day.

Nope, my friends, it's about campaigning. This is a version of shoe-shopping while people are drowning in New Orleans.

Friday Malamute Blogging

Kodi generally pays no attention to the many storefronts we walk by regularly...
...until now.