1792 - The guillotine was first used to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier.
1957 - Operations began at the first experimental sodium nuclear reactor.
COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!
“For the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptibility of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.
If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the constitutional ideal of human dignity.”
-- William J. Brennan
FROM THE CHURCH OF INEFFABLE STUPIDITY:
a) 4th Positive HIV finding in VA hospital re-using dirty equipment.
Folks, this is BASIC HYGIENE 101!
If anything, this is criminal negligence. Pity that military docs and aides cannot be sued for malpractice. However, we can transfer them to Dick Cheney's personal staff of physicians.
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b) Jay Bybee's PR spin controllers fight back.
"Oh, I was under so much pressure!"
"Oh, my boss demanded answers yesterday!"
"Oh, I never knew they would actually rely on this!"
"Oh, I forgot to proof read it. "
"Oh, it was all my assistant John Yoo's fault!"
And so it begins. An effort larger and more dedicated than the whole reconstruction program for post-invasion Iraq. As the pressure mounts for Bybee to resign from the 9th Circ. Court of Appeals, he and his closest fiends start to rewrite history, pretend to show that he really didn't mean what he wrote, and he never approved of the documents he signed. Really. Trust him. He's a judge.
balderdash.
"I've heard him express regret at the contents of the memo," said a fellow legal scholar and longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while offering remarks that might appear as "piling on." "I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context -- of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Mr. Bybee, you lied your way into the judiciary. You deliberately misled the Senate. You have no ethical, moral, or legal business sitting in judgment of others.
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c) Michele Bachmann
Is there a fool moon out? Has someone been dipping into their secret stash of kool-aid? Did someone slip too much PCP into her morning Cap'n Crunch?
Bachmann took to the House floor on Wednesday night, delivering an impassioned speech about the government tagging decent Americans as extremists for being pro-life, pro-gun rights and anti-illegal immigration -- and asking whether Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has gone "absolutely stark raving mad":
There's no doubt that Bachmann has a genuine stake in this argument. For one thing, she is staunchly pro-life. She is also in favor of gun rights, and wants to secure the borders. Oh, and she's called for revolution against President Obama's tyranny and Marxism.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
She makes one good point. We should inquire whether someone has gone absolutely stark raving mad. Anyone who ignores members of her own party who advocate an armed million man march on DC, or who cheers when Palin supporters suggest that lynching a black presidential candidate would be fun, or who ignores Timothy McVeigh, or who ignores the real danger posed by untreated, mentally ill Iraqi vets who have no job, no health, no future, and no medical care really should look into a mirror. Unless her image does not appear.
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d) Porter Goss
The man who demanded that that his CIA do political work, change their findings to suit Bush/Cheney, and who harassed, demoted, and fired the best and brightest, replacing them with ass-kissing sycophantic neocons, now claims the moral high ground and objects to President Obama releasing the memos which led to the illegal torture of over 200 detainees.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Goss was probably the worst person to ever run down the CIA. The worst person, at the worst possible time, using the worst possible staffers, and enacting the worst imaginable policies and decisions. For him to appear and complain is a bit disingenuous.
Of course, the GOP has so few bullets left. All of the Neocon policies and decisions have been completely discredited and those who created them bounce back and forth between denial that they created the policies, denial that their policies were abject failures, blaming the "Democrat Party" for policies the GOP created, and claiming that the Democrats are equaly at fault. That is why we see so much of Cheney, and other future guests of a federal institution near you. That is also why Porter Goss dares raise his mug and complain about a transparent look into his and others' crimes.
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"There was never a good war or a bad peace."
Benjamin Franklin