idea by Cloned Poster

Tom DeLay commenting Terri Schiavos death:

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another."

A blood-covered girl screams after her parents were fatally shot by soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division

January 18, 2005; Photo Chris Hondros; Link

At least this girl may not die of hunger as so many others kids are now dying in Iraq and so many more will in the coming Great Iraqi Famine.

But this girl will take her revenge – slowly but determined.

The girl will follow "holy" words, more than De Lay may anticipate, following these lines:

The unit’s chaplain, Capt. Ed Willis, says there’s no reason to feel guilty: "If you kill someone on the battlefield, whether it’s another soldier or collateral damage, that doesn’t fit under ‘Thou shalt not kill’."

That girl, not Terri Slave or Tom DeLay, will define where the next battlefield is. And it may not be in the Middle East.

(The sun shined today, it was quite a dark day.)

.. One of the most outrageous aspects of the whole sorry Schiavo circus was the willingness, nay, eagerness of complete idiots — and even their inferiors, the cable news people — to second guess the doctors. People you wouldn’t trust to fix your downstairs toilet suddenly thought they know more about neurology than men and women who spent, oh, ten or twelve years of their lives learning to be doctors, and another two or three decades as practicing board-certified neurologists, and who repeatedly, over the course of ten years, two trials and more appeals than you can shake a catheter at, examined, tested and diagnosed Terri Shiavo — making her probably the world’s most over-treated patient.
…
For better or worse, good or evil, her time on this earth is over. But when I think of the thousands, or even millions, of lives that could ride on the next big trial-by-media — when the topic might be war with North Korea or the reality of global warming or the copyright laws governing the music industry (I’m kidding! I’m kidding!) — I get worried. Because right now, the corporate media (and the dumbed-down culture it’s helped create) are beginning to look more and more like the intellectual equivalent of Dr. Kevorkian. And any of us — or all of us – could be their next patient. …

Link

An answer to critics of Billmons grand Freak Show piece. Again a good one …

The Soldier Who Saw Everything Twice
Today’s key document, I think, is former Sen. John Danforth’s op-ed in the New York Times, which can be read as both his own personal declaration of independence from the religious right, and a manifesto calling upon the Republican Party to do likewise.

…

The fact that the movement’s radical agenda can’t be satisified within the rule of law, and the New Model Army’s growing frustration with the lip service it is getting from the politicos, may rattle the nerves and offend the sensibilities of the Republican pundit class, but the real GOP leaders, the ones who have power and know how to use it, realize the ships have all been burned and there’s no going back.

The UN has come out with its Millenium Environmental Assessment.

The Financial Times’ pessimist take: World ecosystems in danger, UN warns

Meteor Blades’ optimistic outlook: The Gloom-and-Doomers Say There’s Hope

Which side are you on?

Cont. reading: Optimist or Pessimist?

The Spirit of Enterprise plus a Coming Attraction

Why is this hard to not believe anymore?

News, views and visions …

Please share yours here.

Mr. GuckertGannon has been invited to a panel on blogging by the National Press Club.

The "professional whore" at the Whiskey Bar, Billmon, calls this a Freak Show.

Guckert is on the panel for the same reason Wonkette is: anal sex. Jeff gets paid to give it and Anna Marie gets paid to talk about it, and the "bottoms" at the National Press Club get paid to . . . well, you know. How anal sex got to be THE ticket to blogging fame and fortune (instead of just a sore bottom) I don’t fully understand…

…

What’s next? An interactive NPC panel session on masturbation? A guest lecture on bestiality and blogging? A press conference by the North American Man Boy Love Association? No, wait, the House isn’t in session this week.

A great piece full of love.

Dr. Rice, there is an urgent call from Canberra …

From the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, a poll on public opinion and foreign policy (PDF, 500KB).

Looking beyond our shores, Australians feel most positive about the countries with which we have longstanding, deep and stable relationships. New Zealand (94%), the United Kingdom (86%), Europe
(85%), Singapore (83%) and Japan (84%) are our favourites, quite closely followed by China (69%).

The glaring omission from this list is the United States, for which only 58% of Australians have positive feelings. … So what is it about America that we don ’t like? For a start, 68% of Australians think we take too much notice of the views of the United States in our foreign policy. When we asked respondents
to rate a series of potential threats, we discovered that by one measure both Islamic fundamentalism and United States foreign policies are worrying to 57% of Australians: a startling equivalence. By the same measure, China ’s growing power worries only 35% of Australians, and comes last in a list of threats.

Really Sick Joke of the Day Billmon sez and luaghs and goes to hell
—

"… to recyle an old Vietnam War slogan, it looks like it’s Sink or Swim with Abdelaziz Hakim"

WASHINGTON (RBN)  Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions to treat erectile dysfunction, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.

Cont. reading: Pharmacists’ Rights Debated

Billmon scoop: Christian Soldier Bill Tierney,  torturer in Iraq and Schiavo supporter.

And let me add:

Bill Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector, said the evidence pointed directly to Saddam preparing to launch chemical attacks.

He said: "The key point is that the Republican Guard have been issued this new equipment. It would indicate that they are prepared to use chemical weapons."

there is more to google
—

Et Tu, Gigot?
—

As Helena Cobban points out.

57 … days since Iraqis elected an Assembly with a UIA-list majority, without that list being allowed to take power. This delay eats into the time left to negotiate a Constitution, which was 213 days in all.

Billmon’s Let’s Make a Deal takes an even longer view.
—

Please allow me to introduce myself – I’m a man of wealth and taste…

The Omen

Fitting Jérômes Great Game piece, Billmon writes about managed democracies In the Steppes of Central Asia

Oil & gas in the Caspian has a long history – indeed it is one of the earliest oil production regions in the world, with Baku a major oil center in the second half of the 19th century and beyond. What makes the situation today interesting is the simultaneuous appearence of three things: (i) new reserves disovered offshore, (ii) the fact that, with the break up of the Soviet Union, the oil is located in (new) countries that are keen to have foreign investment and (iii) these countries have no direct access to the world markets, the Caspain Sea being a closed sea.

(picture from the US Energy Information Agency’s Caspian area brief)

(Warning: about 200kb of maps after the jump)

Cont. reading: The Great Game

Parental Guidance Suggested

That the Judges May Judge Them

So far Moon of Alabama does not have a blogroll. A blogroll is a collection of hyperlinks to other blogs of interest and usually only of affiliated direction.  I do think this concept falls short, but I do want an equivalent.

Cont. reading: Blogroll

Happy Newroz, Purim, Easter, Nouruz, Shunbun no Hi  or your favorite spring equinox festivity.

We had fun on the beach with traditional Easter fires at the river Elbe in Hamburg.

"Steinbeck’s message, I think, was that there are worse things than injustice, even when the stakes are very high. And one of them is fanaticism — the kind of by-any-means-necessary mentality that’s willing to grind ordinary human decency, and honesty, into the dust in the pursuit or some supposedly higher moral purpose."

Terry and Terri – Mac and Jim

Lobbying for Halliburton: A Family Affair

Moral Relativism – indeed

Sanitation Measure – wash hands, its easter, Pilatus did so – any evidence …

"But it definitely fascinates me, much as the charismatic rituals of the
evangelical churches — talking in tongues, faith healing, snake
handling — have always fascinated me. These are symptoms of mental
states I’ve personally never been able to attain without the use of
powerful psychedelic drugs, and I’ve always been a little jealous of
people who can get there for free, every Sunday, simply through the
power of group suggestion."
…
"..the emotional intensity of the event — and the depth of the
self-righteous hatred it has stirred on the religious right — will be
hard to forget. It feels like we’ve passed another milestone in the
descent of our deeply divided, culturally inflamed society towards . .
. well, I’d rather not think about what."

The Passion of Terri