We are truly two countries now, and one of them is truly insane

* Mizgîn and anon in the comments here add some info about the Turkish company that pays Grossman $1.2m p.a. - including the fact that it is 'Islamic-leaning' and that it just sold it's TV interests to Murdoch and Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records:

Ertegun is definitely someone to watch, because . . . (drumroll) Atlantic Records is an Aegean member of the ATC.

Geez, what a shock.

* if you missed it, there was an update to my post about Hastert's shenanigans - with some help from viget, miguel and notjonathon in the comments.

* the drifter:

"The Dubya Debacle is the confluence of so many, many horrifying plot lines that it's easy to get lost in the veritable forest of Bush Administration scandals and failures, but this particular part is not a long story.

This is, in fact, a very short story.

The head of America’s premier intelligence agency came to the President’s closest advisor -- his National Security Advisor -- and warned her that the United States was about to be attacked by a known enemy of the United States.

An enemy that had attacked and killed Americans before.

But he wasn’t talking about Iraq, which was the ONLY subject this Administration wanted to discuss, so she told him to fuck off.

And two months later, 3,000 American citizens died.

And that is the end of story, except for this: if you still stand behind these thieves and liars and cowards and miscreants, how can you live with yourself?"

* drifty:

"Because the terrible truth is, it would not matter one iota if George Bush started randomly executing people in the Rose Garden or if Denny Hastert got caught fucking dogs with a Bible; 43 percent of this country would stand up and cheer for the former, and blame Clinton and gays for the latter.

Hell, the public execution of random scary brown people would probably drive Republican numbers up a tick or two.

Rove has finished the work Atwater started: gathering up the various species of scum this nation has produced into a single Party, and keeping them warm and yelping mad on a steady diet of lies and demagoguery.

We are truly two countries now, and one of them is truly insane."