Burn, Tom, Burn

Texas political expert Molly Ivins has some insight into The DeLay Defense.

For the one-zillionth time, of the 15 cases Ronnie Earle has brought against politicians over the years, 12 were against Democrats. Earle was so aggressive in going after corrupt Democrats, the Republicans never even put up a candidate against him all during the '80s. Partisan is not a word anyone can honestly use about Ronnie Earle, but that sure doesn't stop the TV blabbermouths.

and

Sometimes, but not that many, it is hard to tell the difference between playing political hardball and operating with no moral compass whatever. But in DeLay's case, we have a very long record, and what it shows is that this is a man who has repeatedly crossed ethical and legal lines, and then claimed he was just playing hardball politics -- and that anyone who complained about it was just a partisan whiner.

Onion Vol. 41 #39

Onion day!

• Bush's Approval Rating Of Other Americans Also At All-Time Low
  While Bush finds that 40 percent of Americans are "on the right track," he said he believes only 30 percent will do a good job supporting him in the event of another disaster or terrorist attack.
  
  
• Women Have To Stop Starving Themselves Past The Point Of Hotness
  While there are many ways to get hot, one of the simplest, fastest, and most effective is through self-starvation. However, anorexia, like all things, is best used in moderation. For example, you should never get so thin that you lose your tits.
  
  
• There's No Problem I Can Handle
  When life gives me lemons, I wish desperately for lemonade. But as I lack the sugar and ice necessary to make it, the lemons instead rot away in the drawer of the refrigerator until several months later, when I eventually throw them away.
  

This Here's My Momma

This here's my momma.
I got all my smarts from her.
She learned me real good.

DailyHaiku.com

Twisty's Junk Mail

Twisty Faster, my favorite spinster aunt blogger of all time, is mad at her junkmail, which reportedly amounts to exactly 100% of her mail. As usual, she has a solution or two for the problem. (Oddly, however, she neglects to blame the patriarchy. Maybe that's just assumed.)

An identical effect, from both the forests' and the catalog companies' perspective, would obtain if they simply cut down the trees and shipped them directly to the landfill, leaving me the fuck out of it. I have, in fact, suggested this cunning scheme to several of the mail-order catalog companies. In response they sent more catalogs.

GYWO - Katrina Edition

The Get Your War On guy is back, with some post-Katrina strips.

Onion Vol. 41 #37

World's Fattest Town
Makes, Consumes World's
Largest Mozzarella Stick

Onion day!

• Bush Nominates First-Trimester Fetus To Supreme Court
  "Already, this experienced and capable embryo has demonstrated during his or her in utero existence a deep commitment to the core principles of the Constitution," Bush said. "It is with great pride that I nominate this unborn American patriot to the highest court in the land."
  
  
• Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses' Teeth
  "The gold we recover from the human rubble of Katrina can be used to make fighter-jet electronics, supercomputer chips, inflation-proof A-grade investments, and luxury yachting watches."
  
  
• Infographic on the Slumping Box Office
  
  • Increasing ticket prices to make moviegoing seem more sophisticated
    
  • Creating knockoffs of only the absolute biggest blockbusters
    
  • Fixing Robert Ebert's thumb in permanent "up" position
  
  
• Elf Finger Found In Box Of Keebler Cookies
  Riverside County police are investigating the grisly incident, obtaining warrants to access workelves' compensation records and interviewing employees in hopes of locating the finger's owner.
  

Please Pay Attention

...to Molly Ivins, in The Graft Goes On:

Many a time in the past six years I have bit my tongue so I wouldn't annoy people with the always obnoxious observation, "I told you so." But, dammit it all to hell, I did tell you, and I've been telling you since 1994, and I am so sick of this man and everything he represents -- all the sleazy, smug, self-righteous graft and corruption and "Christian" moralizing and cynicism and tax cuts for all his smug, rich buddies.

Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.

The Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

I haven't actually downloaded iTunes 5 yet, but nonetheless had a good laugh at Daring Fireball's dramatization of iTunes 4's UI theme ("brushed metal") getting the shaft.

Brushed Metal: Calculator? I’m out of iTunes and you tell me I’ve still got Calculator? When is the Special Event scheduled for the next version of Calculator? Oh, that’s right, there is none, because no one gives a shit about Calculator.

Onion Vol. 41 #36

Belatedly, this week's Onion.

But first, in all seriousness, The Onion is matching $100,000 in donations to the Red Cross. Give through them and double your money!

• Disaster In The Delta Report: God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again
  
  • Louisiana National Guard Offers Help By Phone From Iraq
    The Guardsmen also "would love to send generators, rations, and Black Hawk helicopters for rescue missions," but, said Schneider, "we desperately need these in Iraq to stay alive."
    
  • Government Relief Workers Mosey In To Help
    "Well, I do declare, it's my job to see if any of these poor folks need any old thing," Brown said from his command rocker on the command post porch, adding, "Mighty hot day, ain't it?"
    
  • Refugees Moved From Sewage-Contaminated Superdome To Hellhole Of Houston
    Authorities apologized for transporting survivors to a city "barely better in any respect," but said the blistering-hot, oil-soaked Texas city was in fact slightly better, and that casualties due to gunfire would be no worse.
    
  
  
• I'm A Cloud Factory! by A Smokestack
  I have other friends, too. Like the little birds. I love to watch them swoop and soar. They are so beautiful and graceful, and they bring me great joy. I'm so full of joy! I can barely hold it in! So I give them something beautiful back. Just as they approach, I pop out a great big pink cloud!
  
  And when the birds fly straight into the cloud, they do a "rain dance" down... down... down... to the ground. Like a hundred little feathered raindrops!
  
  Come back soon, birds!
  
  
• The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is The Chupacabra
  People of Mexico, our cities have fallen under siege by thieves and murderers, but we stand together against lawlessness. The criminals and the gangs will not win! The Chupacabra, on the other hand, might. For, although hardened criminals cannot hop over trees to attack their prey, rumor has it the Chupacabra can.
  

In Pursuit of Priorities

Via This Modern World, Chris Floyd's close study of the exact text of the President's declaration of emergency summarizes why the whole "us Feds were just waiting to be asked" story is bullshit.

This is a president who has acted time and again to stretch the limits of presidential power beyond the bounds of the Constitution into the area of outright tyranny. He has declared that he has the right to imprison anyone, indefinitely, on his own authority, if he decides, arbitrarily, that they are an "enemy combatant" or "terrorist." He's given himself the power to order "extrajudicial killings," anywhere in the world, of anyone he deems -- again, arbitrarily -- a "terrorist." He has launched a war of aggression against another nation in flagrant breach of the United Nations charter. His legal minions have declared that he is "above the law" when it comes to ordering torture in the worldwide gulag of prisons he has set up for the captives of his "war on terror."

This is a president who obviously feels no restraints whatsoever on his executive power in pursuit of his priorities. But when it came to the destruction of New Orleans and the surrounding areas, when it came to the fate of the thousands of victims who were abandoned to flood, fear, chaos and needless death for days on end, we are now supposed to believe that Bush was a helpless giant, his hands tied by red tape, that he could do nothing, that someone else -- anyone else -- was responsible for the sickening, shameful incompetence displayed in the response to the storm. We are supposed to believe that a president who could go to war against the will of the entire world could not impose his authority on government agencies in his own country.

Bob Harris has more, graphically illustrating a typo that was either very unfortunate or very evil...

Hurricane Tom - An Analogy

[With regard to the Official Rovian Party Line and Ass Covering that's been coming out everywhere and anywhere a Republican can be found this week.]

Suppose Tom DeLay is heading to my 2nd grader's elementary school, carrying a machete in one hand and a spiked club mace in the other. His eyes are wild, his back is hunched, and he is growling an unending stream of obscenities, through which phrases like "blood, blood!", "mess them up" and "KILL!" are readily audible.

The local news, police and fire departments all know about Tom's heated rampage through my neighborhood. They're not exactly sure where he'll end up - maybe the school; maybe the park next to it; maybe the calm, quiet street behind it - but they know generally where he's headed. The news crews head over immediately, some to follow him, and some to monitor the school's preparation.

All the teachers, the school nurse and the principal also know he's headed their way. They do everything they can to protect the children: they lock the doors to the school, lock the doors to the classrooms, turn out the lights, and hide. Or maybe they flee. They call for school buses, and use the faculty's own cars, loading everybody up as fast as they can. Or, for that matter, maybe they do nothing, and let the kids run around at recess, blissfully ignorant of the approaching monster. In this analogy, their response doesn't actually matter a whole hell of a lot.

Because when Tom arrives, his bloodlust knows no bounds. He smashes through locked doors (or, chases down kids trying to scramble into cars, or, charges around the swingsets), smashing in little heads and chopping off little arms and legs with gleeful abandon. By the time his rampage is finished (he got tired, and fell asleep under a rock similar to the one he crawled out from under in Houston, years ago), more than a hundred children and teachers are dead or gravely wounded.

So, following guidelines analogous to those purported by Republicans and Bush-apologists around the country this week, all the emergency responders stay away. The police cars, fire engines and ambulances stay parked, gleaming in their respective garages, while the first responders sit around, playing poker and watching daytime TV. They obviously should not lift a finger yet. This is still a job for the school nurse. If, and only if, she thinks she might, just maybe, need a little help, she should consult the principal. The principal will handle it; no sweat. If however, on the outside chance that this little situation is more than the principal thinks she can handle, then by all means she should call 911 and see if anybody is available, and if they might be able to find time to stop by?

Fucking idiots.

HurricaneHousing.org

Interesting and innovative way to directly help Katrina refugees, if you live in the Southeast U.S.: HurricaneHousing.org.

In addition, of course, to your contributions to The Red Cross, Mercy Corps, etc.