Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Tom Carper (Del.)
Tim Johnson (S.D.)
Mary Landrieu (La.)
Frank Lautenberg (N.J.)
Bob Menendez (N.J)
Bill Nelson (Fla.)
Ben Nelson (Neb.)
Mark Pryor (Ark.)
Jay Rockefeller (W. Va.)
Ken Salazar (Co.)
Debbie Stabenow (Mich.)

Joe Lieberman (Ct.)

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick.

[...]

He asked to be taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known.

A teddy bear has been implicated in 2,500 deaths -- trout deaths, that is.

State officials say a teddy bear that fell into a pool at a Fish and Game Department hatchery earlier this month clogged a drain. The clog blocked the flow of oxygen to the pool and suffocated the fish.

Hatcheries supervisor Robert Fawcett said the bear, dressed in yellow raincoat and hat, is believed to be the first stuffed toy to cause fatalities at the facility.

"We've had pipes get clogged, but it's usually with more naturally occurring things like a frog or even a dead muskrat," he said. "This one turned out to be a teddy bear and we don't know how it got there."

The deaths prompted Fawcett to release a written warning: "RELEASE OF ANY TEDDY BEARS into the fish hatchery water IS NOT PERMITTED."

He said it's not known who dropped the bear, but urged anyone whose bear ends up in a hatchery pool to find a worker to remove it. "They might save your teddy bear, and keep it from becoming a killer," he said.

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones [are as] strong pieces of brass; his bones [are] like bars of iron.
19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach [unto him].
20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him [with] their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.
23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, [and] hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24 He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.

Two teenagers Wednesday drove a stolen car onto the U.S. military base that commands much of the war on terror, triggering an investigation into the security breach, police and military officials said.

[...]

Police had been monitoring the vehicle as it sped through the Florida Gulf Coast city after eluding a police speed trap, said police spokeswoman Laura McElroy.

The car then "blasted through the gate at the base," and police at that point took up the chase and were waved through by military police, McElroy said.

There was nothing at the gate preventing entry to MacDill, which houses the U.S. Central Command, responsible for U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa, Middle East and Central Asia and therefore for much of the U.S. war on terror.

I have a suggestion. Today's Washington Post gives a rundown on some of the techniques being debated:

While it is not clear exactly what techniques the White House wishes to keep, sources have said those previously used include nakedness, prolonged sensory assault and deprivation, the imposition of "stress" positions, and water submersion to the verge of drowning. Bush has said none of those amounts to torture.

Since the White House says what it's doing isn't torture, they need to set up a demonstration. Take someone like Karl Rove or Ken Mehlman, and apply some of those techniques. Do it on live TV (although no nakedness from either..ick). I wonder what kind of confessions could be wrangled from those two after a little waterboarding. Their boss says it's not torture.

"Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," he was asked by a reporter. "If a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state feels this way, don't you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you're following a flawed strategy?"

"If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic," Bush said. "It's just -- I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective."

Of course it's acceptable to think that there's "any kind of comparison."

And in this particular debate, it is not only acceptable, it is obviously necessary, even if Mr. Powell never made the comparison in his letter.

Some will think that our actions at Abu Ghraib, or in Guantanamo, or in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, are all too comparable to the actions of the extremists.

Some will think that there is no similarity, or, if there is one, it is to the slightest and most unavoidable of degrees.

What all of us will agree on, is that we have the right -- we have the duty -- to think about the comparison.

And, most importantly, that the other guy, whose opinion about this we cannot fathom, has exactly the same right as we do: to think -- and say -- what his mind and his heart and his conscience tell him, is right.

All of us agree about that.

Except, it seems, this President.

With increasing rage, he and his administration have begun to tell us, we are not permitted to disagree with them, that we cannot be right, that Colin Powell cannot be right.

And then there was that one, most awful phrase.

In four simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp focus what has been only vaguely clear these past five-and-a-half years - the way the terrain at night is perceptible only during an angry flash of lightning, and then, a second later, all again is dark.

"It's unacceptable to think," he said.

It is never unacceptable to think.

And when a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning of a phrase extracted from its context, he takes us toward a new and fearful path -- one heretofore the realm of science fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries.

That flash of lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has become unacceptable to think.

Thus the lightning flash reveals not merely a President we have already seen, the one who believes he has a monopoly on current truth.

It now shows us a President who has decided that of all our commanders-in-chief, ever, he alone has had the knowledge necessary to alter and re-shape our inalienable rights.

This is a frightening, and a dangerous, delusion, Mr. President.

"The White Planet,"a documentary about life in the Arctic, was delayed by a year as filmmakers waited for a herd of nearly half a million caribou to gather for their yearly migration up north.

Well I got news for you, I'm the first to have said it, but I'm not the last to have said it. I said it a year ago. Maybe we should bring back Saddam, a Sunni, because he knows how to control the Shia. No. You can laugh all you want. He knew how to control them; he knew how to keep these maniacs under control. And he was also a counterbalance to Iran.

Republicans chide
The press, when it tells the truth.
Dems decry press lies.

Though I, technically speaking, have never actually read your blog, I've always admired you from a distance and thought your writing was among the best on the net. It's hard to put into words, but I really like that thing you do, and it's really great and important. Not that you should let my meager words influence you. But I assume you must get this kind of praise all the time and won't actually consider this to be cheap flattery intended to influence your decision. Because it's not. I just happen to think you're the best, whoever you are.

• I received a nerd score of 85 even though I wasn't a science major.
  
• I still own a lava lamp.
  
• I did not go to my high school senior prom.
  
• I watched the first episode of "Star Trek" on a Zenith black and white teevee.
  
• I packed two capes when I left for college.
  
• I continued to read comic books as an adult.
  
• I was the class projectionist in Junior High and had a card from Bell & Howell to prove it.
  
• I do not have an athletic bone in my body.
  
• I have a set of gold plated "Trivial Pursuit" wedges, but no one in my family will play with me.
  
• By age ten, I had a chemistry set, a telescope, and a microscope.
  
• I wear socks with sandals.
  
• I camped out for the first "Star Wars" movie.
  
• In college I could recite most of the "Firesign Theater" albums.
  
• I built the "Visible Man" model kit.
  
• I point out the mistakes in historical movies to those sitting next to me.
  
• I blog.

Bug and mosquito sprays and repellents
Liquid lip glosses or other liquids for lips
Mouthwash
Meat Cleavers
Cricket Bats
Mace/Pepper Spray
Hand Grenades
Gas Torches
Pudding
Whipped cream
Yogurt

Gel-filled bras
Knitting Needles
Toy Transformer Robots
Diabetes - liquid or gel low blood sugar treatments, including juice
Mobile Phones
Wrenches and Pliers
Baby formula
Personal lubricants

Personal lubricants

It is to our deep national shame—and ultimately it will be to the President’s deep personal regret—that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies—or even question their effectiveness or execution—to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
-- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

"Bin laden and his terrorist's allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is `Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?"'
-- G.W. Bush, 9/5/06

Asked if she still thought the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was right, considering the cost in lives and treasure, Rice said, "Absolutely."

Rice then offered a parallel between critics of the administration's Iraq policies and "people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War (in this country) to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold."

"I'm sure that there were people who said, "why don't we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves."

The creepy spectacle of watching one warrior after the next insist that we must risk other people's lives and bomb more people so that we don't feel girlish and scared and submissive is repugnant enough, in itself, to have to witness on a daily basis. But the fact that these same people are the ones whose deep, irrational fears of The Terrorist override virtually all other considerations, and who demand that we change our nation and relinquish all of the values and liberties which have always defined it and which make it worth fighting for, all because they believe that doing so is necessary to allow them some marginally greater chance of avoiding death, renders their accusations and warrior dances -- on top of everything else -- an exercise in the grossest and most absurd hypocrisy.