five opportunities

STUFF STUFF
* blinky didnt give a cent to blair for africa. meanwhile, i heard from someone who told me that blinky gave blair everything he wanted. he was seriously, earnestly adamant that blinky had done this. "i watched it on tv - he said "100%" - i heard him say it" LINK

* ""Nobody wants to give money to a country that's corrupt, where leaders take money and put it in their pocket," Bush said." LINK

* "Is there really a sane reading of the Constitution on which growing dope in your garden for your own use is interstate commerce?" LINK

* via cursor: "Egyptian blogger The Big Pharoah writes that during her recent visit to Egypt, First Lady Laura Bush visited a USAID-funded school, hastily fixed up for the occasion and complete with Potemkin pupils, brought in to replace school girls who "were poor and wore dirty school uniforms."" LINK

* "In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable." LINK

* fredbarnes (approvingly): 'you can get the best sense about what blinky thinks by listening to what he says - most of his ideas are formulated in the speech-writing process, often before he has even spoken to the cabinet about it'

* cornyn for scotus? LINK
good grief.

* "Along with $10 million in tobacco industry campaign contributions to the GOP, Thinkprogress notes another possible "influence": namely, the fact that the government's lead lawyer in the case used to be a partner at a big law firm that represented tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds." LINK

* gorevidal: "I urge would-be reformers of our politics as well as of such anachronisms as the Electoral College to read Conyers’s valuable guide on how to steal an election once you have in place the supervisor of the state’s electoral process: In this case, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who orchestrated a famous victory for those who hate democracy (a permanent but passionate minority). The Conyers Report states categorically, “With regard to our factual findings, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State Kenneth J. Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.”" LINK

* conyers is truly the hardest working man in showbizness.

* urghhh! am watching lehrer. they are doing a piece on how schools are losing to kids to homeschooling. u already know the answer. teach creationism. for balance, they interview a science teacher who'd be pissed, and an english teacher who wouldnt mind teaching the bible as literature. grrrrr.
why does jesus hate science? why does pbs love fundies?

* "``Facts, evidence and information obtained during the course of this investigation has led investigators to believe that the altercation involving Mr. Hook is an isolated incident and is in no way related to Mr. Hook's whistleblower status at the Los Alamos National Laboratories,'' Santa Fe Deputy Police Chief Eric Johnson said in a statement...
Hook, an auditor and 15-year lab veteran, has sued the University of California, which manages the Los Alamos lab, alleging whistleblower retaliation. He had been preparing to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week." LINK
its all just a misunderstanding, see. unless someone bought the cops, and AP.

* the other funny thing about condi looking nervous when blinky started talking about afrika was stepford, looking at condi, also looking horrified.

* "FBI missed at least five opportunities before the Sept. 11 attacks to uncover vital intelligence information about the terrorists, and the bureau didn't aggressively pursue the information it did have, the
Justice Department's inspector general says in a newly released critique of government missteps." LINK
5 times. 5 times. ill give mr binladen a tip. next time, [either hire people who already know how to fly planes, or at least teach them somewhere else. theres no reason to have all this interaction with the fbi, and all the parking tickets and all that. hell, its probably much cheaper to train people elsewhere, anyways.
and the same thing is true for any of this sleepercell nonsense. save yourself the money and the risk of getting caught. if you wanna pull of a terrorist attack, you dont need people sleeping.