$2,000 for oral sex

AMDOM STUFF
* heres tom ridge on jons saying that there was no politics in terror alerts. LINK
jons wondered why when the poll numbers arent favourable, they'll announce that 'we caught a hat bomber, in canada, 8 months ago'

* " At the end of the debate of a broad crime bill concerning gangs and many, many other issues, Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) offered a final amendment (referred to as a "motion to recommit") to prohibit war contract fraud. The Republicans voted it down, on a 198-227 basis, with only two Republicans voting to do the right thing." LINK

* "A chaplain at the Air Force Academy has described a "systemic and pervasive" problem of religious proselytizing at the academy and says a religious tolerance program she helped create to deal with the problem was watered down after it was shown to officers...
Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin, the chief of chaplains for the entire Air Force, screened the R.S.V.P. program in October, Captain Morton said, and afterward asked her, "Why is it that the Christians never win?" in response to some of the program's dramatizations of interactions between cadets of different religions...
The investigation into the religious climate at the academy comes at a time of national discussion about the proper constitutional boundary between church and state...
"The tension always is, when is a person crossing the line, or when are they being a positive person of faith, like our president?" the general said." LINK
is that last sentence the funniest thing ever? perish the thought that some repug could ever have these 2 thoughts coexist: "its wrong *and* the president does it"

* some news from GorillaInTheRoom that i mentioned yesterday - the original author has gone missing, and the site gets 300 visitors per day LINK
html - and more here on Gorilla and the FBI

* it looks like all the orginal Gorilla articles are here

* "an outspoken evangelical conservative doctor on the panel subsequently acknowledged in a previously unreported public sermon that he was asked to write a memo to the FDA commissioner soon after the panel voted 23 to 4 in favor of over-the-counter sales of the contraceptive, called Plan B... "I argued from a scientific perspective, and God took that information, and he used it through this minority report to influence the decision," Hager said. "Once again, what Satan meant for evil, God turned into good."
Hager has been a highly controversial figure because of his strong views against abortion and emergency contraception and in favor of abstinence education. In his October sermon, he said that Christians such as himself were at "war" with people who would take faith and values out of medical care." LINK

* in other news, Hager's wife is complaining that he ass-raped her for 7 years. " it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible.".
"(the wife) even let Hager pay her for sex that she wouldn't have otherwise engaged in--for example, $2,000 for oral sex"
he also had "an affair with a Bible-study classmate"
"Meanwhile, David Hager's stock has been rising among conservatives. " LINK
this man will be getting a promotion. pronto

* i'm looking fwd to reading this one day: "the blogger take-down continues unabashed. the righty bloggers claim they can claim dan rather and jordan. lefty bloggers can claim jeff gannon, and recent additions condi rice, blinky, cheney, feith, bolton, rumsfeld, leeden, dobson" (etc - its a long list)

* i keep seeing the photo of galloway meeting saddam on the teeve. ive never seen the (1984?) pic of rummy meeting saddam on the teeve. btw there were rumours that rummy met saddam in jail recently - the consensus seems to be building that that story is actually true!

* theres much confusion about the whitehouse cessna and associated issues. i dont have any comment.

* no news on haririkiri

* the military is calling off recruiting for a day - so that they can teach recruiters about right and wrong. i guess that'll be why recruiting is down again in may. the cool thing is that when u watch recruiters in action, they always talk about the life-long discipline they learnt from being in the army - altho it tends to break when the recruiting #s fall short.

* btw - that story about the 2 f18s that got shotdown (oops - went missing) seemed to disappear real quick.

* "Spc. Sabrina Harman, who pleaded innocent to charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty and maltreatment of subordinates, also photographed abuses because she wanted to document what she felt was wrongful behavior, attorney Frank Spinner said."
LINK
please dont hire a lawyer named Spinner if you are gonna come up with that defense. btw - in case u missed it, graner's excuse for the leash was that he was trying to put it around the guy's shoulders and it slipped.

* btw - the sgrena story died down real quick...

* "Every day I pick up the newspaper thinking, "Today will not be as ridiculous as yesterday."" LINK
sometimes i try to check myself and ask whether things are really as fucked up as they seem. for three years ive been asking 'wheres the outrage?' - and at the same time we get our dose of daily outrage - to the point where i cant even keep up - and i do this shit full time - except for sleep. i try to do some outrage-accounting but it seems to be justified most of the time - or maybe thats just the fumes that keep me running. the prob with these folk is that they can attack in so many areas simultaneuously - they are so dammed organised - one minute we are trying to watch them dissemble lies on socsec, and the next thing we know they are pretending to capture alq folk in pakistan, and waging a losing war in iraq and destroying the senate, and the UN, and we take another breath and they are fucking donkeys or assraping their wives, or blaming galloway for the decline of the empire. its really quite astonishing.

* i think i posted yesterday about the 'salvardorisation' article - it turns out that name came from the cover of the mag.

* the funnest thing about having a site counter is that u can see which google searches end up on the site - funny cos u can see what people actually search for, and funny to see the vagaries of google's algorithm. eg i just got a hit from someone searching for "ridiculous coverage on the popes funeral", "clitoral damage", "lying journalist story is made up", "George Bush Hells Angels cooperation", "dick cheney rumsfeld nazi cia mafia " and so it goes - there are often similar, but funnier searches. i might start reporting on em... the site counter also gives the isp - yesterday i got one from the swiss state dept on 'alpine printing' - which is kinda interesting if u know that story...