Via a post on RASSF:
U.S. embassy owes a million pounds congestion charge
19 October 2006
LONDON: The U.S. Embassy in London owes more than a million pounds for the congestion charge in the capital, the mayor’s office said on Wednesday.
London authorities say the charge on driving in the centre of the city is a road toll and diplomats have to pay it like anyone else. Washington says it is a tax and diplomats are exempt.
The U.S. embassy has refused to pay the charge since July 2005. Several other embassies have also refused but London says the U.S. embassy is the worst offender by far.
…and 51% of this country really voted to let this guy be second in line to the (metaphorical) big red button?
Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.
…and I don’t mean karma.
I was reminded of a wonderful coinage I was witness to on RASFF:
“The Napoleon-Clarke Law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice”
Trying to find the exact phrasing, discovered it cited on someone’s blog.
This in turn led me to another USENET post, one I missed, pointing out that the original phrase was older.
The point of this? Not much, other than being continually reminded of it by the Bush administration… which clearly manages a sufficiently advanced level of incompetence.
From: Walgreen’s puts 4 Illinois pharmacists on leave for refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception at AmericaBLOG
I go to the pharmacy for medicine, not spiritual advice. If you’re opposed to the death penalty, don’t apply for a job as an excecutioner. If you’re allergic to animals, don’t become a vet.
Refers back to this boston.com article if you prefer to look directly.
What’s the Average Age Of The 2000+ US Soldiers Who Died In Iraq? 30.
The average age of the soldiers who died in Vietnam was 19. It’s a sobering statistic — you can’t help but think about all those young lives cut short.
Thanks to the end of the draft, the story is quite different — but just as sad — in Iraq. After 2000 deaths (and 15,000 wounded), I added up all their individual ages to find out what the average was. It’s 30.
The whole Iraq war situation is depressing and a national disgrace, but this figure was particularly unwelcome on the week before my 30th birthday. I hope el Shubbito is excoriated in the judgement of history.
The sad thing is, despite the popularity of suggesting total withdrawal, I tend to agree with Kerry’s assessment/malapropism during the 2004 campaign — “you break it, you fix it” — we have to take responsibility for a mess of our own making there, and as such… we are probably (as Bernard predicted on RASSF) going to have to be entangled there for a long time to come. I hope those who support partial withdrawal are right.
And as long as we are there, where are all the people who supported the unelected President when he went to war? They should be signing up. And for those too old to serve, where are the war bond drives, so they can bear the cost in dollars? Chickenhawks, the lot of them.
On AMERICAblog: The Normalization of Treason, the Republicans’ gift to America
If a senior White House staffer had intentionally outed an American spy during World War II, he’d have been shot.
We’re at war, George Bush keeps reminding us. We cannot continue with business as usual. A pre-9/11 mentality is deadly. Putting the lives of our troops at risk is treason.
Then why is the White House and the Republican party engaged in a concerted campaign to make treason acceptable during a time of war? That’s exactly what they’re doing.
Go read the rest, now. How can anyone, even of right-wing values, continue to defend this administration? It will go down those of Nixon and Buchanan as among the worst ever.
(Updated tonight for crap html.)
This is global warming, says environmental chief
As Hurricane Rita threatens devastation, scientist blames climate change
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Published: 23 September 2005
Super-powerful hurricanes now hitting the United States are the “smoking gun” of global warming, one of Britain’s leading scientists believes.
The growing violence of storms such as Katrina, which wrecked New Orleans, and Rita, now threatening Texas, is very probably caused by climate change, said Sir John Lawton, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Hurricanes were getting more intense, just as computer models predicted they would, because of the rising temperature of the sea, he said. “The increased intensity of these kinds of extreme storms is very likely to be due to global warming.”
Bully for them for having the courage to say it. Where is the US scientific establishment on this one?
via AMERICAblog
Bush Rules Out Tax Hike to Fund Recovery
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Friday ruled out raising taxes to pay the massive costs of Gulf Coast reconstruction, saying other government spending must be cut to pay for a recovery effort expected to swell the national debt by $200 billion or more.
Remember all the complaints about “Tax and spend liberals” a few years ago? Well, they beat the heck out of “Borrow and spend Republicans” … can’t even call ‘em conservatives, since they show no fiscal restraint… that’s not *exclusively* a conservative value, but it sure is a core part of what they claim to believe.
Sorry for the lack of content lately, guys. Busy life, should be back to my regular procrastinating and blogging soon…
One of the greatest hours in radio history
The Jounal of MultiMedia History has put on its website one of the best and most important dramas ever presented on radio, the 1954 Canadian play “The Investigator” by comedy writer Reuben Ship. It’s a laugh-out-loud parody of Joseph McCarthy and his hearings, where Joe goes to Heaven and takes over the committee that decides who stays and who goes “down there.” He replaces the original officials with Torquemada, Cotton Mather and The Hanging Judge, and they then proceed to “deport” people like Socrates and Thomas Jefferson.
The Realaudio is at the Jounal of MultiMedia History… I heard an audiotape recording of this radioplay as a kid (my mom probably still has it somewhere) and it is incredibly funny. And given the present political climate climate, it deserves a listen as well.
Here’s another interesting link on the subject.
From Attaturk on Eschaton:
Today is the 80th Anniversary of the indictment of John T. Scopes. Makes you wistful for the good old days when William Jennings Bryan at least had some progressivism about him doesn’t it?
Minister ex-communicates members for not backing Bush
The minister of a Haywood County [North Carolina] Baptist church is telling members of his congregation that if they’re Democrats, they either need to find another place of worship or support President Bush.
Already, the Reverend Chan Chandler has ex-communicated nine members of East Waynesville Baptist Church. Another 40 members have left in protest.
During last Sunday’s sermon, he acknowledged that church members were upset because he named people, and he says he’ll do it again because he has to according to the word of God.
Chandler could not be reached for comment today, but says his actions weren’t politically motivated.
Via MyDD (selected quote theirs)
