Feel better

h/t Ellroon.

Americans who believe that America can and should and will win in Vietnam should vote for John McCain

A man, a plan, a canal…

Rudolph Giuliani for President of September 11

Do you think Judith gets jealous of September 11?

h/t ellroon.

Well as long as he doesn’t admit to it, never mind the judge and jury

Hat-tip thehim.

You can’t make this up…

SFGate:

Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations — and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents.

* * *

Christopher Matthews, a Canadian citizen with no experience in statewide politics, was hired this month after the California Republican party applied for, and received, an H1B visa specifically to fill the role of “political director,” according to U.S. Department of Labor data.

Hat-tip Donna Woodka.

Related post:

• Cohen & Grigsby: A Pittsburgh law firm teaches employers how not to hire Americans

Update: Phoenix Woman has more:

Lordy, the jokes just write themselves, don’t they? (Though I’d rather see an H-1B, which is intended to boost the American economy, go to him rather than to somebody Bill Gates hired at cut-rate wages to be trained here so that particular somebody can then go back to China or India and help Gates finish the job of totally offshoring Microsoft, as it’s all too obvious he intends to do.)

I agree with Charles, we should offshore the Republican party. Maybe they can help out in Iraq?

No, that might be worse than what Bush did to them. They deserve friendship, not our cast-offs.

Right fucking now.

Katie Couric: Plagiarist

Passing someone’s words off as your own without attribution is plagiarism. Reading someone else’s words in first person, saying things like, “I still remember when I got my first library card, browsing through the stacks for my favorite books,” is dishonest if it was not your own recollection. But having ghost writers in news reporting is one thing, and having ghost writers who themselves plagiarize other writers is another. If you read a work-for-hire, you claim credit, so you must also accept responsibility.

Katie owes the American public an apology, a correction for the record, and very possibly her resignation unless she can demonstrate some reason we should trust her now.

And I owe more thanks to Melissa McEwan for this:

Update: It’s interesting to Google for “Katie Couric plagiarist” — you find gems like this.

Update 2: I should have included the direct link to Oliver Willis above. It’s a gem:

She clearly wasn’t involved at all. She had no idea what she was saying. They stuck something on a teleprompter and like she’s done for years now, Couric just read the darn thing.

Sad, but if true, it’s hardly an excuse.

High society

Copyright be damned, and torturers go to hell real quick

Here is Terry Jones. Via Why Now?

Call that humiliation?

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch

Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this – allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world – have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head? That’s what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can’t be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Of course they’d probably find it even harder to breathe – especially with a bag over their head – but at least they wouldn’t be humiliated.And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What’s more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting “stress positions”, which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It’s all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is “unhappy and stressed”.

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her “unhappy and stressed”. She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer – whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq.

· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net

Ever seen a sandstorm?

Ellroon says, “Try fighting in this.”

Dong Hits 4 Kenneth: 420Hz on your radio receiver

Kenneth Starr loves the Clenis.

Recommended listening:

• And for a minute there, I lost myself

So easy even a caveman could understand it

Glenn Greenwald:

First, the President began his Press Conference by admitting that the administration’s explanations as to what happened here have been — to use his own words — “confusing” and “incomplete.” Why, then, would Congress possibly trust Bush officials to provide more explanations in an off-the-record, no-transcript setting where there are no legal consequences from failing to tell the truth?

Related posts:

• A real problem for somebody
• First denial, then anger. Next up?
• Impeachment testimony

Bite-sized morsels of obstruction of justice stay crisp and crunchy in milk

WASHINGTON – Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.

Source: McClatchy.

I believe every word that man just said — because it’s exactly what I wanted to hear

Anntisocial

Hat-tip Gen. JC Christian, Patriot.

Tell congress to investigate the vice president

Juan Cole on the convicted liar — former chief assistant to the assistant chief — Irv Lewis Libby aka “Scooter.”

Via Doctor Snedley — personal assistant to Doctor Biobrain — who has the complete defense of the Richard Bruce Cheney aka “Shooter.”

And now, a word from one of our many non-sponsors

Hat-tip skippy.

Briefly noted

Henry Edward Hardy points to a report from Simon Tisdall in the Guardian today,

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq – or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

That’s only one Friedman Unit away. All snark aside, it’s not good for American soldiers to be put in this situation, which could rapidly turn into a meat grinder if their supply lines get cut, especially with the British now withdrawing from the south of Iraq. I’d give some credit to the administration if they’d withdraw under the pretense of a surge, but I don’t rate it as being very likely.

for Idiots

Hat-tip Ellroon.

Happy bloggiversary, Watertiger

Two years old today, she says.

President ELIZA

Eliza: Hello. I am ELIZA. How can I help you?
You: Hi, I’d like your advice.
Eliza: What about your own advice?
You: Make the pie higher?
Eliza: Please go on.