Obama in Berlin

Vietnam then, Iraq now

Thank you and goodbye from Colombo

h/t Monkeyfister for the video.

Arthur C. Clarke, writer

We are all actually

Most Illuminated Being, Saint Robert Anton Wilson

There are more perspectives than two

Quark metaphysics

[Zoom]

Dreams cannot be killed

Choose your adventure

Benazir Bhutto

“I call it ‘The Aristocrats!'”

Walking & Falling

We’re all going to rise up, right now, and save the country

Naomi Wolf explains how, but you’ll have to be patient enough to listen to an explanation of what’s going on, first.

Hat-tip Monkeyfister.

On October 18, 2007, Robin Prosser took her own life

Update: Lee Rosenberg found her last blog entry. Go read.

I hope some other bloggers will be writing about her as well.

Update 2: Date corrected.

A musical offering and other observations

[odeo=http://odeo.com/audio/17137793/view]

NTodd is wicked smart.

Interview

Conthesis

Whose mission?

Hat-tip Ellroon.

Must read

Xeni Jardin posts comments on the situation with the media equivalent of RNC (“Faux”) News in Venezuela.

Might also watch, per recommendation:

Make up your own mind, and speak it.

Monica Goodling admits breaking the law

She didn’t mean to do it.

Remember, she has immunity. Whatever acts she undertook they were not of her own devising, she was working for people who wanted it done.

Hat-tip Paul Kiel.

I do recall

Comey explained yesterday:

COMEY: Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.

SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?

COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself.

Hat-tip Space Cowboy.

Here is the testimony of (former) acting attorney general James Comey to the senate judiciary committee.

And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me. He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me — drawn from the hour-long meeting we’d had a week earlier — and in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general.

Related post:

• The man who saved America

Major General Paul Eaton: George Bush does not listen to commanders

Hat-tip Think Progress.

Related post:

• Major General John Batiste left the army in protest in order to speak out

Congress has exclusive authority to issue letters of marque and reprisal

“Congress owes it to the American people to take down the curtain of secrecy surrounding these shadow forces that often act in the name and on the payroll of the people of this country.”

Hat-tip Cookie Jill.

Republican congressman quotes founder of Ku Klux Klan on house floor

The Carpetbagger Report has the story, Think Progress has the video, via Meme.

It wasn’t an accident, he cited to Nathan Bedford Forrest as a Confederate general. Somebody should also remind him that the Confederate military lost that war.

Former US Attorney John McKay on Alberto Gonzales

Thanks to Josh Marshall.

Jon Stewart with Bill Moyers

Hat-tip Monkeyfister.

Recommended viewing:

• Really?

It’s got a kind of catchy rhythm

Hat-tip Egalia.

Related posts:

• It’s downhill from here for Republicans
• Who killed Mychal Judge?

Support the family farmer, save the earth, listen to Willie

“I now understand I was involved in a conversation with the president.”

Hat-tip Ellroon for the quote.

Well, you know, I would find it kind of surprising if he showed up here in the comments, which would be fine, but still surprising and worth noting, especially if he had been using some pseudonym and I’d been conversing with him for awhile and then, all of a sudden he goes, hey I’m the president, I’d be like, yeah, I now Understand I was involved in a conversation with the president, or maybe it was just a troll.

Jon Swift: “I had another point to make but it slipped my mind.”

Related post:

• I’m reassured, are you?

Souma yergon, sou nou yergon

If we had known, if we had only known — how to speak to one another.

Hat-tip Egalia.

And now, for something completely different

Hat-tip Mark Frauenfelder.

Roy Zimmerman has a whole lot of really funny songs.

Right fucking now.

Advice from Kurt Vonnegut

Wear sunscreen.

Click.

Update: I have been hoaxed, as Ombudsben points out in the comments below. The commencement address was never given, and it was not by Kurt Vonnegut. Here is one account of the story.

Still, it’s good.

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.

Ten things I hate about commandments

Hat-tip Skippy.

Related posts:

• Do you prefer plagues of locusts?
• Beautiful vision.

War. What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Hat-tip Nicole Belle.

My wife: “I just agreed with Geraldo. I feel icky.”

This is where Bill O’Reilly went off the deep end without checking first to see if there was water in the pool.

Unfortunately (for him), no water.

Hat-tip Think Progress.

Related post:

• O’Reilly abuses and cuts the mic of retired 29-year veteran Colonel

Update: More from Brad Friedman.

Schmuck

Jackie Mason.

Nicole Belle writes,

I heard this yesterday and it had me laughing.  Jackie Mason, Borscht Belt comic and apparent Republican, has written a book entitled “Schmucks” which he went on The Young Turks to publicize.  When asked to name a political schmuck in the book, Jackie hems a bit and then says “Al Gore” and questions why Al Gore thinks he’s such a expert on global warming.  The conversation devolves from there.

This is my church.

Related post:

• Here.