July 17, 2008 archive

You should read dday on digby, and click all the links.

No matter how many times John Yoo and David Addington try to rewrite the plain reading of the Constitution, what has been done in America’s name violates federal law, international treaties and war crimes statutes.

In a just world, as Jerrold Nadler said yesterday, Bush and Cheney would be impeached.

But this goes well beyond removal from office.

This is about indictment for murder and war crimes, by definition.

In case you were wondering, however, here is the official Village pronouncement about what we should do with the fact that our leaders, in a complete breakdown of the rule of law, have tortured, detained without charges, and murdered:

Dark deeds have been conducted in the name of the United States government in recent years: the gruesome, late-night circus at Abu Ghraib, the beating to death of captives in Afghanistan, and the officially sanctioned waterboarding and brutalization of high-value Qaeda prisoners. Now demands are growing for senior administration officials to be held accountable and punished. Congressional liberals, human-rights groups and other activists are urging a criminal investigation into high-level “war crimes,” including the Bush administration’s approval of interrogation methods considered by many to be torture. It’s a bad idea. In fact, President George W. Bush ought to pardon any official from cabinet secretary on down who might plausibly face prosecution for interrogation methods approved by administration lawyers.

Which is the better take on McCain’s response to the “Viagra vs. Birth Control” question?

This

or this

or should people roll their own?

Thank you for responding to the poll, if you do.

The Humpty Dance  (w/ Humpty Hump aka Shock G & Digital Underground)

Before and after (but please not during) Energizing America:  Setting an Agenda for Progress, Friday morning, 9-1015, at Netroots Nation, you will have the opportunity for an Energy COOL tour.

The Austin Independent School District is one of the few in the nation participating in the Plug-In Hybrid Electric School Bus (PHEB or PHESB) test program. Energize America has arrange with the AISD for that bus to be outside the Convention Center, Friday morning, from 8 through noon.  Take the opportunity for an Energy COOL moment to see part of what our future should be.

the clouds own this little country. the low lands… my new home, The Netherlands.

it’s 22:00 hours and we’re driving back from brussel

and then i see them: a mountain range of blue-black sapphire clouds filling the horizon…

the sky is kind of a green turquoise…

with a charcoal glaze and somebody just turned the dimmer switch way down low

we speed by a row of white windmills, modern and obelisk-like, they strike me as incredibly imposing,

and science fictional in this late daze of twilight

and yet. yet, i like them.

and the graceful movement of blades cutting through air

we pass signs for antwerpen, gent, brugge, breda, rotterdam, utrecht, den haag, delft on our way home to leiden. and i think about how lucky i am. to be here. to experience life on this side of the world.

i’ll have to take some pictures of the daytime clouds. fluffy. floats. in a macy’s day parade. pastels in pink and purple. but the drama is in alfred hitchcock-perfected shades of gray. caught in folds, on the tips of its fleece, or invading the entire cloud.  i don’t know… the gray gives it a perspective. like they are bigger than they should be. or something.  like they have more than three dimensions. it’s the light, i think. over this flat (i mean flat) unending landscape that tricks the eye because it, in so many places, is below sea level.

yeah. clouds here are as much a part of the landscape as the windmills. an intricate part of the land’s texture, color scheme, and scenery. and sometimes, they just hang there. with peaks like a perfect merangine. well, maybe you need to visit and see them and then the Dutch artists’ rendition of them…

this is Vermeer’s view on delft… awesome painting and i recommend going to the Mauritshuis in Den Haag to see it first hand.

it’s weird. to be happy. in these times. and yet, i am angry too. it’s a weird mix. . .

You have to love despise a leader of a country that has their priorities straight on a their own personal front.  Taking care of the citizens of their country is a leader’s first and foremost mission, right?

A leader that feels that out of one side of his mouth he can drawl about protecting the citizens of his country from Terrarists and Mooslem bad guys, all the while making sure that war’s are fought to bring Democracy PROFIT to other countries to himself and his corporate whore cronies and being an all around bad ass while doing it?

Not our Profiteer in Chief!

In the United States of America, we have an leader that IS an ass and he is definately bad.  Once again, OUR President and Fearless Leader Profit Coordinator has opened his big mouth and out of it pours idocy and bullshit on a level never before seen in the history of our planet.

From Politico:

President Bush said Tuesday that he will not call on Americans to conserve gasoline despite the rising price of oil, saying consumers are “smart enough” to figure out for themselves that they should drive less.