Teabagger redux? ...

" ... the rest were slaves in fact, but without the name; they imagined themselves men and freemen, and called themselves so. The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor."

-- A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT by MARK TWAIN (Samuel L. Clemens) Part 2., Chapter 8

The US Supreme Court decides in favor of The Torturers ...

..The decision does not bode well for either state secrets cases or for suits trying to hold Bush Administration officials responsible for torture (such as the Yoo appeal being heard in the 9th Circuit today).

Which I guess means we’ve officially become a country that finds protecting those who commit torture more important than justice for those who were tortured.

Fascism is what I'm expecting ...

More ominously perhaps, I'm guessing that leadership with fascist inclinations will find a very willing audience.

We seem to be emulating the Germany that allowed a Hitler to take hold. George Bush, with Cheney as his backbone, set us on course. Barack Obama not only fell right in line with the Bush/Cheney corruption but is formalizing the worst and going even further in some instances. I think Obama is furthering unrest by catering to the Media Scolds and the GOP mafia and ignoring the people of this country, specially the ones who elected him. Though I don't expect Obama to be the US's Hitler I think he is setting the stage for such a person.

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ADDED: The US's own special brand of Court Jesters (who apparently seriously consider themselves journalists) will also, undoubtedly, take their place in the roll call of those who help turn the US into Hitler's Germany's copy cat government. Of course, the US will be 'bigger and better' in that we really do have the power to destroy the world. That is the power to destroy the earth's ability to support us even faster than we already appear determined to do.

... all of this just [...] reveals what our nation's leading "journalists" really are: desperate worshipers of political power who are far more eager to be part of it and to serve it than to act as adversarial checks against it -- and who, in fact, are Royal Court Spokespeople regardless of which monarch is ruling. That's why they're invited into the heart of Versailles to frolic with the King's most trusted aides: it's their reward for loyal service as Court courtiers. Just marvel at the self-abasing joy in which Ed Henry wallows by virtue of getting to play water sports with Emanuel and the Bidens. He sounds like a gushing pre-adolescent who just met his favorite boy band idol and got his water gun signed. ...

Digby gives up ...

... the authoritarian torturers win.

Talk about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face ...

Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers ...

.. Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan. ...

... "We looked at all the options and implications," said the charity's president, Edward J. Orzechowski. "This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city's new requirements and remain faithful to the church's teaching." ...

One wonders what the term 'social services' actually means to the Catholic Church. Something like "Burn, baby, burn"?

So we continue using Afghanistan for one of our wars ...

... so that Dianne Feinstein's husband Richard Blum (among others) can increase his millions through the deaths of thousands of Americans (and others).

Democrats and Afghanistan: what's at stake

Trust gone, trust betrayed ...

Dog Day Afternoon: The Militarization Of American Police

Yesterday, as I drove by I saw a policeman handcuffing a woman who was standing by her car which I assume she had pulled off the road onto a side road as part of a traffic stop. It looked quite peaceful, no apparent Tasers or force.

The difference is in me. Even 10 years ago I would have assumed that the policeman was doing his job in a responsible manner. Now I wonder if he was handcuffing her for no reason. Was the stop legitimate? Did it warrant an arrest? Was he bullying her. Did she have to cringe to keep him from Tasing her?

This is Tucson --not Los Angeles which has had an occupying army of cops for decades-- and though I have not had an unpleasant interaction with the police force, I am very aware that it can and will happen to an increasing number of us over time. I was always aware that there are individuals who will abuse their power but I trusted that most police officers were professional and human. Now I know that the majority are no long professional and that as a group they behave more like a gang than protectors of the community.

This trend started before Bush, but the downward spiral from community service to gang behavior accelerated during his disastrous reign.

Read ...

The peasant mentality lives on in America

and

Who are the undeserving "others" benefiting from expanded government actions?

The media and show business' plasticised dolls, both male and female, pronounce Susan Boyle ugly ...

I guess I didn't get the message soon enough. I watched the clip of Susan Boyle because someone said her singing was powerful. And it was.

But the clip itself was not fun to watch.

The three plasticised people who behave as schoolyard bullies in the beginning of the clip did not redeem themselves at the end. They just showed themselves for what they are.

For years I favored BBC TV productions over US TV because the actors looked more like normal human beings than the plastic dolls, molded and modified to fit someone's ideal of human fakery, who became the norm in US productions. However, with time, American 'values,' invaded the BBC as well.

Susan Boyle is not ugly. With or without her talent, Susan Boyle is not ugly.

And if she had really been ugly to everyone in the world it shouldn't have mattered. Why was it OK to cruelly mock a contestant because she wasn't young and skinny enough for them? And if her performance had not been so good, what would they have done then?

Say it ain't so ..

Was Binyam Mohamed brutalized at Guantanamo in the last month?

There's no reason to believe this report is not true. The US has no credibility left in these matters. Obama has to do more than tweak the edges of the US's illegal and immoral behavior.

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Today's QUOTES:

Out with the Bush World, In with the Obama World. "Anonymous sources, secret meetings, and zero tranparency. Change we can believe in?" --Comment by JClausen to post 'Social Security: White House Triangulates Against Pete Peterson' by Jane Hamsher, firedoglake.com "If we're embarking on a new effort to convince the public that government can work, you don't start by bragging about starving it of resources. You can't win a fight with Republicans about cutting taxes. It's a race to the bottom and the losers are the least of society." --Giving Away The Tax Argument by dday, Hullabaloo

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You know, this shouldn't really be such a surprise ...

Secretly stressed. Bears show deleterious effects from being captured and handled.

I'm somewhat confused by the 'secretly' stressed claim. As if the bears were attempting to hide the fact that attacking them, sedating them, pulling their teeth etc would have a negative effect on their bodies and their minds.

A very sad state of affairs ...

The beginning of a very sad post at Gorgon Poisons.

MEN SHOULD NEVER, EVER, EVER BE LEFT ALONE WITH CHILDREN. I repeat MEN ARE DANGEROUS. REALLY FUCKING DANGEROUS. DO NOT LEAVE MEN WITH CHILDREN.

MEN

ARE

****DANGEROUS****

Is it my imagination that we always seems so surprised that animals could be quite similar to us in many ways?

Again, from McClatchy:

• Another new fact: Birds, like people, have accents

  Humans aren't the only creatures whose regional drawls and twangs give them away. The same thing goes for songbirds. A scientist at Duke University has found that birds, just like humans, learn their songs from one another and "talk" like the birds they grow up with.

Whether one believes in evolution or that God created the world in six of our current calendar days and then rested on the seventh day, it's difficult to have all that much respect or admiration for an animal, or a creation, that fouls its own nest so thoroughly. That's us, not the birds I'm referring to!

Bob Feinman, an American with a conscience ...

Tucsonan wants to help migrant who saved boy

by Sheryl Kornman and The Associated Press

Tucson businessman Bob Feinman says he doesn't want to look like "some ugly foreigner trying to make a headline," but he does want to offer a hand to Manuel Jesus Cordova Soberanes.

The Magdalena de Kino, Son., man quit his two-day walk from his hometown across the Arizona-Mexico border to help a 9-year-old Arizona boy orphaned by his mother's death in a van accident.

Christopher Buztheitner was wandering in the desert in shorts the evening before Thanksgiving when Cordova, 26, a bricklayer, spotted him. . . .

Some of the comments to the above Tucson Citizen article demonstrate how too many of Arizona's 'red-minded' think about an individual who just demonstrated the kind of character we should consider inviting into this country instead of continuing the current catch-22 environment that entices them in on one hand and works to deport them in the most humiliating manner on the other.

Appearing human means making humans comfortable ...

In France they have developed software for virtual characters "that mimics human gaze patterns. Their characters are capable of saccades, tracking moving objects like humans, and fixing their gaze on the same features as humans for similar periods."

Virtual human has a roving eye

80 million years without sex ...

I love these titles, as if any number of years without sex was a big deal for asexual critters:

The benefits of 80 million years without sex --Scientists have discovered how a microscopic organism has benefited from nearly 80 million years without sex.

Must have something to do with human perspective on the world, you think? Of course from our perspective the only perspective is the human one. Human but not necessarily always humane.

Can the Cylons of a Battlestar Galactica like future be far off?

Technology Review reports on an article in Science about running robots on real muscle power, just like the rest of us:

Researchers at Harvard University have made several small mechanical devices powered by heart muscle harvested from rats. The mechanical devices include pumps, a device that "walks," and one that swims. [...] In one example, Feinberg made a rectangular strip of plastic that curls up on itself, with the diameter of the resulting tube decreasing, then increasing again, as the muscle repeatedly contracts and relaxes. The researchers say that the device could serve as a pump. Another strip of plastic opens and closes like a pair of pinchers at a rate determined by electrical signals sent to the device. A curled triangular piece of plastic walks across the bottom of a petri dish as muscle tissue repeatedly contracts, and another triangular sheet, with a different arrangement of heart-muscle cells, mimics the movement of a fish's tail to swim through a solution.

For now "the beating muscles only survive for a few weeks."

Looking forward:

... future designs could mimic natural heart tissue in more detail to extend longevity. For example, the researchers may also try constructing a three-dimensional tissue, rather than the flat arrangement they have now. Previous experiments have suggested that three-dimensional structures may be key to the survival of the cells.

NOTE: I'm not really suggesting that the human race will have a future like that portrayed in Battlestar Galactica. I have my doubts that we are rational enough to survive our own intransigence and will annihilate ourselves long before we can travel among the stars. Sad thoughts, indeed ...

A Fox 'news' kind of person ...

Photo given to FOXNEWS.com by Elias Bermudez of InmigrantesSinFronteras.com

'Pears Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio takes the above 'photoshopped' image as a threat to him instead of a portrayal of the threat others feel that he represents.

Threats aren't new to the sheriff, with about a dozen received in the past that led to convictions. This stunt is part of a bigger picture against his efforts, Arpaio said.

Though Arpaio doesn't claim to have Mexican friends he does claim compassion (something like Bush's compassionate conservatism, no doubt).

Last week, Arpaio banned visits by illegal immigrants to friends and family in his jail. The sheriff also launched a hotline for tips on illegal immigrants, which received about 1,400 calls so far.

In response to criticism that the hotline uses racial profiling, Arpaio said police must have probable cause to check out a tip.

"We don't go around knocking doors down. We have to have probable cause," Arpaio said. "I'm not a racist. I have compassion for the Mexican people."

The world has not changed ...

Rick Perlstein writes:

Different America than the one all of us grew up in, this. Tell your kids to pay close attention. They're living through history.

I'll say this is a different America. But it's not a different world.

In my youth I disdained the crimes of the Germans. Now we are the Germans.

In my youth I respected the courage and tenacity and understanding of the Jews. Now Israel is carrying out the same kind of injustices against Moslems that were carried out against them.

No, the world has not changed. The players have just changed sides.