While you're getting riled up over fake outrages like a Spanish version of the national anthem, here comes a doozy slipped under the door:



And that's not all. While we're protecting the terrorists (who not long ago were so dangerous we couldn't even put them on trial) from harm, an even greater threat is being confronted here at home:



Sometimes, what emanates from the White House defies all attempts to mock it.

Today's Washington Post reports:



The connections that we make among disparate events are often confusing and random, with the deeper meaning not immediately apparent. When I read that paragraph, I thought of Michael Moore's infamous Oscar acceptance speech from 2003:



It's a sign that the universe indeed has a nasty but healthy sense of humor that while all the strenuous efforts of the so-called "Reality-Based Community" to discredit the fictitious President and his fantasy-based agenda using facts and reasoned analysis have met with at best mixed success, the Republican majority in Congress may hinge on an issue that is... fictitious.

The government can't put the genie of high gas prices back in the bottle. Democrats will have no better luck than Republicans. You can't legislate away the growing demand from China and India combined with a global production peak. Congress and the President are along for the ride on this, just like the rest of us.

But if high gas prices prove to be the undoing of the Republicans, there's a certain pleasing symmetry in it. They will leave power much as they gained it -- in a noxious cloud of obfuscation and misdirected popular angst.

Congratulations to former Fox News "analyst" Tony Snow, who has been promoted from parroting administration talking points to issuing them.

Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher, reeling from scandals and low poll numbers and facing a tough re-election campaign, reached into the GOP Toolbox this month and pulled out the Gay-Bashin' Hammer.

On April 11, Fletcher celebrated "Diversity Day in Kentucky" by removing any mention of sexual orientation from the state's anti-discrimination policy.

Then, while announcing $370 million in cuts to state projects, including $312 million in university projects, Fletcher awarded $11 million to the University of the Cumberlands, a Baptist college that had recently made headlines by expelling a gay student because the student was, well, gay. The money is contingent on a favorable outcome in a pending court case, but both the Fletcher administration and Senate President David Williams -- whose district includes the university -- are pushing hard in favor of the funding.

The fact that Fletcher is an ordained Baptist minister surely has nothing to do with his decision in this matter.

I think I can speak for all my gay friends when I implore the governor not to celebrate any further "diversity days," or we won't have any diversity left to celebrate.

When you can get Glenn Reynolds and MoveOn.org to unite in common cause, you figure it's got to be a slam-dunk issue. And this one is. With almost no noise in the media, the government is mulling ceding control of the Internet to the major ISPs, allowing them to selectively throttle bandwidth or block sites and services as they see fit. It doesn't take much imagination to see the damage this could do to (what people of any ideological stripe can see as) the communications miracle of the Internet.

So check out savetheinternet.com, and drop some stamps to your Congresscritters.

Here's a short video that explains what's going on.

There's no excuse for losing this one.

Griz likes to lurk.

After a career as a Marine officer, a top aide to Stormin' Norman, and a UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, lifelong Republican, sounded the alarm before the Iraq invasion that there were no WMDs, no matter what the US government (Republican or Democrat) said.

It was a gutsy stand, but he has been proven right. Now in an interview with San Diego CityBEAT, he takes on Bush, the CIA, Clinton, Rumsfeld, the media, military fetishism, the peace movement, and (most compellingly) the American citizen. It's a breathtaking interview, and an absolute must-read.

Found on Uncharted Territory. Glenn doesn't have funny pictures or discussions of music piracy, so I'm not totally redundant. Yet.

Time for a party!



You know it's gone too far when someone shaves the cats...

I'm proud to report that this blog has gone on approximately 198 posts longer than I expected it would, given my inherent laziness. For that I thank my loyal readers and commenters (who are threatening to break into double digits any day now) and, of course, the world, which never fails to serve up an endless parade of worthy topics.

Special thanx to Tyrone for agreeing to join me in this lunacy and TBogg for linking to it. (He's a national treasure, you know.)

Look forward to the return of catblogging later today, as well as yet another fantastic article torn from the pages of Glenn Greenwald's blog. It'll be worth it.

No, no! Put down the cable modI*N #o97y(O Y3v8o o8473yO 75oviu

NO CARRIER

Excuse me while I fix up a big bowl of popcorn and settle in to watch the theological smackdown between the Christian right and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. A member of the Kansas state school board, after voting in an anti-evolution curriculum, asked a skeptical science teacher to remove a picture of the FSM from his door:



Learn more about the revealed truth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and be touched by His Noodly Appendage.

Rolling Stone, for those few who still pay attention, has been slowly descending into a lad-magazine morass for quite a while now. Happily, though, they have continued to produce some fine current-events reports and analysis.

The new issue features what is perhaps the most comprehensive indictment of the Bush administration committed to paper. Nothing new, but it's like a comprehensive CD box set, covering all the familiar material in detail and creating a greater whole.

Also worth a read is Matt Taibbi's report from the Gulf Coast, which is the clearest (and clearest-headed) summary I've read of the issues facing the poor in the cities levelled by Katrina. While the ADD-afflicted national eye has already turned away from this issue, the real tragedy is still unfolding.

As long as stories like these continue to appear, I can forgive the ever-expanding coverage of celebrity gossip and People-caliber record reviews.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the festivities at the White House Easter Egg Roll included kids from the Gulf Coast singing the praises of the government:



Is this true? Has the President reached the point where he needs small children to sing his praises at public events? Especially on the issue that has probably damaged him more than any other?

How embarrassing.

On an issue that no one can accuse him of bandwagon-jumping, Al Gore is making people notice his film on climate change.

Meanwhile, oil prices continue to soar as demand increases and supplies continue to become more uncertain.

At this point, one could be forgiven for not wondering if the world's coming to an end, but instead which end it will come to.

Here's one for all the struggling grant writers out there (you know who you are).

The Department of Health and Human Services wants you to know that federal dough is available for programs telling kids to keep it in their pants until safely in the protective bubble of a government-sanctioned heterosexual marriage, at which time their judgement will become infallible.

Since we wouldn't want this valuable money spent on programs that don't reflect our American values, HHS helpfully provides the following mandates:



Golly, Beav!

So, no "stimulation" at all until marriage, no matter how old you are. No contraceptives (unless you talk about how unreliable they are). And since gays can't get married, they must remain celibate. Forever.

Sounds like a can't-fail plan to me.

The President speaks from a position of moral authority on this issue, since he notoriously enjoyed a lot of women (among other things) as a younger man before his marriage at age 31. Since that clearly impeded his "best life outcomes" (why, he might be President today if he'd only abstained), who better to tell unmarried people today to keep their hands to themselves?

The "liberal" Washington Post has a bizarre hit piece on lefty blogs today that seems straight out of the "Dean Scream" school.

It all starts with the photo:



and gets better in the copy:



Get it? Lefty bloggers are borderline insane people so consumed with rage that they ignore their kids and sit around at their computers all day, faces contorted with unending hate, composing profanity-laced, barely grammatical screeds. (And probably twisted by childhood trauma for good measure, as the piece makes sure to talk at length about O'Connor's father getting killed in Vietnam before she was born.) Because, you know, you can't oppose the administration without being stupid, crazy or both.

Michelle Malkin must be beside herself with glee this morning.

Pardon me if this is obvious, but you can cherry-pick comments from any semi-popular blog or message forum to prove that the inhabitants are deranged. (Except this one, of course. We aren't even semi-popular, and all our posters and commenters are intelligent, reasonable and unusually attractive.) The Post doesn't care about the impassioned, provocative writing at Whiskey Bar or the expert commentary at Unclaimed Territory or the unending parade of incriminating evidence at Crook and Liars. No, they primly gasp in shock as they point at The Rude Pundit, totally missing the whole point of his blog (or the idea that the Internet is big enough to contain all different styles of commentary). They grab comments from the baying mob over at Eschaton -- gosh, the Internet is full of hasty, angry message postings? Who knew?

And all this is portrayed as somehow confined to the left. Where's the blockbuster expose of the genocidal racism of Little Green Footballs? The fact-free bizarro world of WorldNetDaily? They're probably too busy trawling those places for the next Ben Domenech.

More importantly, how can I get distorted by the WaPo? I need the hits.

UPDATE: Here's how Maryscott O'Connor would rather we see her:



I like the fact that it's on the Fox News set.

Her side of the story is on her blog (linked above).

After reading a bit over there, it struck me how much the writer missed the "gallows humor" aspect of so much of the "angry" commentary he talked about. The fact that he never read a blog before starting on the piece says volumes. It's sort of like someone who's never heard rap before writing a big article on it and never getting past the fact that there's no melody.

Billmon cuts through the fog and asks the fundamental question:

Is America really deranged enough to become a nuclear aggressor?

In the process, he conjures the image of the conservative media establishment spinning a nuke strike as a good thing and turning it into yet another "blame game," which I for one have no trouble imagining. Honestly, would it surprise you to read something along the lines of, "If Iran had complied with our demands to cease its nuclear program, we wouldn't have been forced to nuke them. It's their fault. Don't blame Bush."?

Check it out. Real content soon. (Really.)

UPDATE: Slate also has an interesting take on this question.

Apropos of nothing, here (via Wikipedia) are some choice highlights from the original 1954 version of the Comics Code.

• Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals.
  
• If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity.
  
• Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation.
  
• In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds.
  
• Scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited. Scenes of brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gunplay, physical agony, gory and gruesome crime shall be eliminated.
  
• No comic magazine shall use the word horror or terror in its title.
  
• All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted.
  
• All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated.
  
• Inclusion of stories dealing with evil shall be used or shall be published only where the intent is to illustrate a moral issue and in no case shall evil be presented alluringly, nor so as to injure the sensibilities of the reader.
  
• Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited.
  
• Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden.
  
• Nudity in any form is prohibited, as is indecent or undue exposure.
  
• Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable.
  
• Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities.
  
• Illicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at nor portrayed. Violent love scenes as well as sexual abnormalities are unacceptable.
  
• Seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested.
  
• Sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden.
  
• Nudity with meretricious purpose and salacious postures shall not be permitted in the advertising of any product; clothed figures shall never be presented in such a way as to be offensive or contrary to good taste or morals.
  

No wonder all the boomers freaked out in the Sixties.

My headline below might be better worded as "Bush told Cheney to use discredited classified information to attack war critics in any way he pleased, so Cheney instructed Libby to leak to Miller."

My apologies for the error.

Seymour Hersh has written an extensive piece for The New Yorker on the possible outcomes of the standoff with Iran. It's not pretty.



And if that wasn't enough:



As with any article with so much deep background, the veracity is whatever you want it to be. But I see nothing in the administration's behavior over the last five-plus years that casts doubt on any of this.

Hoo, boy.



Bush in February 2004:



Not that this is a surprise. We've known for some time that all "national security" means to the White House is a bludgeon to attack their domestic enemies and control the narrative in the media. We've also known that Judith Miller was used by both Chalabi and the administration to cheerlead for the war.

All this we know, but the Democrats are still scared to challenge him on national security.

My life is consumed at the moment with matters that I'm sure you would find exceedingly dull, but I couldn't in good conscience let my loyal readers (all three of you) go any longer without fresh outrage to consider. So, in time-honored Internet tradition, I'll steal an idea from somewhere.

Over at Glenn Greenwald's excellent blog, Anonymous Liberal dissects a recent column by Mark Steyn, in which Steyn argues that if we just stop saying nice things about Islam, success in Iraq will follow.

In the comments, a fascinating contradiction in the neocon agenda is teased out. On the one hand, we're reminded often that we're helping the Iraqis, and the Muslims in general, by invading and/or threatening their governments into granting them greater "freedom." Over and over, Bush says something like, "Some people believe Muslims can't be free. I disagree, and that's why I invaded Iraq."

And then, of course, the reason we were given *before* the invasion was all about the evil Muslims wanting to nuke us, about striking against "terrorism" in its "geographical base". It's as if people like Cheney (quoted in the previous link) wanted people to think that as long as we bombed things in the general vicinity of bin Laden and killed people who looked like him, we were fighting terror.

And so, at its core, the case for war is dissonant. We're trying to liberate people that we're being told to fear for their irrationality and violence. Eventually, that mindset must collapse in on itself.

And as if on cue, we read Andy McCarthy at National Review Online:



Catch that? The American people have understandably come to view Iraqis as not nearly grateful enough for all we have sacrificed on their behalf.

So what's your view? Is the best way to fight terror to demonize Muslims as angry, violent people who freak out over cartoons, or to "liberate" them and spend billions rebuilding their countries after we blow them up? How long can those exist simultaneously in the American brain?