Pacific Views

Tuesday Reading

The Dean campaign wishes everyone Eid Mubarak.

For anyone still fuzzy on why it was a good thing that the energy bill got blocked, the Hamster lays it out.

Eschaton points to a discussion of some alarming provisions of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment.

Pandagon on fundamentalist alarm that Bush hasn't bashed Islam, one of the few things he's managed not to utterly screw up during his term. Also, he reviews a book that pits Jesus against 'Jesus'.

Daily Kos wonders if Bush really is a Republican, and posts a defense of Terry McAuliffe, who turns out to have been engaged in something useful after all.

Been meaning to post a link to this for a while, but Electrolite points to a disturbing discussion of black box voting.

And speaking of black box voting, Talk Left notes that the infamous internal memos are posted on Kucinich's House site, reminds us that Sen. Orrin Hatch is a hypocrite, two bad bills, and points us to Mother Jones' expose of jails for Jesus.

Asia Times: Afghanistan asks for help as America prepares to wrap things up. American support for mujahideen fighters in central asia may have spilled into Turkey and other countries. As a backdrop to all the crowing over our growing economy, foreign capital inflows have fallen sharply. India makes friends in the Muslim world, should probably be hired to handle our diplomacy for us.

TBogg found that in addition to offending the Queen by bringing his own chefs, Bush's entourage also wrecked the garden at Buckingham Palace. Class all the way. He also touches on the Iraqi Governing Council's decision to close Al-Arabiya's operations in Iraq.

Rummy's press briefing today, a clip of the transcript, because when I heard a portion played on the news I couldn't believe that I was really hearing it:

...Q Could we get a clarification on a pretty serious implication that you slipped into one of our answers earlier? It was in response to Martha's question about the missiles. And you said that Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyah are often there to videotape these terrorists conducting these attacks.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't know if I said "often," but certainly they are there from time to time.

Q Do you believe that in any way, either one of these news organizations is cooperating with these terrorists? And do you agree with the Governing Council's decision to shut down Al-Arabiyah inside Iraq?

SEC. RUMSFELD: You know, if you don't have evidence, you ought not to be making charges. I opined, accurately, that from time to time, each of those stations have found themselves in very close proximity to things that were happening against coalition forces.

GEN. MYERS: Before the event happened.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Before the event happened, and during the event. Now, there are only so many events in the country, and there's a relatively finite number of their people. So it's -- how it happens is for time to tell, but it happens. ...

Not that he's implying anything, of course...