You Call That Humiliation

post from Crooks and Liars on 01 April 2007 02:33:24 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Terry Jones of Monty Python fame gives us his take on the circumstances the British soldiers held hostage in Iran are enduring. (h/t Gregory)Guardian: No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunchI share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused [...]

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/01/you-call-that-humiliation/

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ARE THE REPUBLICANS TRYING TO POISON YOUR LITTLE
FIDO NO, BUT THEY DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS IF THE CHINESE DO

post from DownWithTyranny! on 01 April 2007 02:10:00 PM. © DownWithTyranny!

Steven Porter is a progressive Democrat running for Congress in northwest Pennsylvania against a garden variety Bush rubber stamp loon, Phil English. English, like almost all Republicans, has been busy pushing deregulation on everything. "Let the buyer beware" and "let the market regulate itself" are the GOP catch-phrases they're chanting like mantras as they attempt to take away the consumer and worker protections that had made America-- until the advent of Bush-- the strongest and most prosperous country in history. Dr. Porter explained to voters in PA-03 how English and his Republican brethren and their insane ideological slash and burn tactics have endangered our country-- and killed our pets:

While our Congressman, Mr. Phil, and his pals in international business have presided over, and in some cases profited by, the outsourcing of jobs to China, they have failed yet again to warn us about the unseen dangers of that endeavor, and one of them has recently reared its ugly head.

I refer to the additive in wheat gluten which has been put into an untold number of pet products. The list of recalls grows daily.

It is difficult enough for the U.S. Government to keep track of dangers in the American-produced food chain. You all remember the spinach problem last year. I cannot see how an American company can with any guarantee of safety keep track of dangers in the stuff they import from China.

For those like me and my wife whose work on behalf of animal welfare has been a lifelong concern, the contamination of food products coming from China is really intolerable. Not only has the short-sighted greed of outsourcing harmed our own economy and our own workers, but now the products of that outsourcing are returning to harm us after they have been manufactured.

I cannot tell others what to do, but for us, we will now make sure we know if the manufacturers of any brand of pet food we buy do business with China. If they do, we will discontinue buying their products until the practice is stopped. I also hope that pet owners whose pets have been killed or injured by this episode will be compensated by the pet food companies for their losses-- and I hope that the compensation is great enough to wipe out any gains made by the outsourcing.

Finally, I call for the defeat of Congressmen like Mr. English who has stood by for 14 years and tolerated this kind of thing, tolerated the spread of global warming, the war in Iraq, the lack of health care, the threats to Social Security. These are not men of character.

We do not need more politicians like them. What we need are caring statesmen.

David Goldstein up in Washington has been following this story as well and he's done some research into the tainted wheat gluten the regulations-hating Bush Regime has opened our ports to and it looks like the Regime and their regulations-free Chinese associates have allowed the stuff into the human food chain enough.

The FDA announced today that it has traced the contaminated wheat gluten to a single processor, Xuzhou Anying Biological Technology of Peixian, China, but has not released the name of the U.S. distributor who supplied the product to Del Monte, Menu Foods, Nestle Purina, and Hills Nutritional. In all, more than 70 brands and over 60 million cans and pouches of dog and cat food are now part of this massive recall, as well as at least one brand of dry cat food.

Public statements have indicated that the contaminated gluten was distributed by a single U.S. company, but since the FDA refuses to name the supplier, it is not yet known if this company also supplies human food manufacturers. It is also not yet known if Xuzhou Anying sells direct to food manufacturers in the U.S. or abroad.

While cats seem particularly susceptible to the effects of melamine poisoning, there is little research on the substance?s human toxicity. Unless and until the FDA determines otherwise, one cannot help but wonder if our sick and dying cats are merely the canary in the coal mine alerting us to a broader contamination of the human food supply.

It boggles the mind to imagine that one single Republican could be elected to any office anywhere (except Utah).

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http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/04/are-republicans-trying-to-poison-your
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DK4 Plans Shelved: We're Moving to phpBB

post from Daily Kos on 01 April 2007 02:09:37 PM. © Daily Kos

After much consideration, we've decided that building a new backend for DailyKos simply isn't necessary or practical. However, we had already decided to move from Scoop, so we started looking for alternate platforms to build on.

Per our needs, we wanted something that would sustain our vibrant community. We considered MT, Wordpress, Drupal, and even Soapblox, but none of them made the cut.

Ruby-based platforms were tossed out because the fact that integers are objects, not primitives, just seemed weird.

In the end, we decided to go with a proven platform with a large installation base: phpBB 4.1.

Lots of folks may freak out over the changes, but I think the community at large will enjoy this new version of DailyKos with its many comments, avatars, and sig lines with pictures. I know I will.

Forums on the new DailyKos will include: Elections, Politics, Open Forum, Humor and Jokes, and any others that occur to us.

One feature that will excite many of you is that there will no longer be front page stories, diaries, or mojo, thus simplifying the DailyKos experience for everyone. It might take some getting used to, but we'll all be happier for it afterward.

Orange will remain the color scheme, so you needn't worry that that'll be changing. We wouldn't want to shake things up too much.

Let's all look forward to the bright new future that's in store for us!

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Iraq Timeline & Chickenshit Dems - What
Don’t They Understand

post from All Spin Zone on 01 April 2007 02:08:00 PM. © All Spin Zone

News item:SIOUX CITY, Iowa - If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker “wants to play chicken with our troops,” Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday…I’ve said it a hundred times - if the war [...]

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http://allspinzone.com/wp/2007/04/01/obama-fund-iraq/

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Towelie vs. John McCain

post from William K. Wolfrum on 01 April 2007 02:01:12 PM. © William K. Wolfrum

Towelie? Designed to automatically be able to adjust his absorbency level depending on the dampness of the surface he is used on? Created to be a nearly worthless character? Baked all the time? Claims drugs make him smarter? "I'm so high right now, I have no idea what's going on."Vs. John ...

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http://www.williamkwolfrum.com/?p=439

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Graham’s Signs Of Progress In Iraq:
‘I Bought Five Rugs For Five Bucks’

post from Think Progress on 01 April 2007 02:00:00 PM. © Think Progress

Today, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) held a press conference in Iraq. Both McCain and Graham charged that the media are not giving the American people “the full picture of what’s happening here.” As evidence of progress, they spoke of the time they were able to spend in the Bab al-Sharqi market, [...]

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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/01/graham-mccain-rugs/

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"No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These
Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch"

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 01 April 2007 01:45:00 PM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

Terry Jones of Monty Python fame weighs in on the horribly uncivilized treatment of the UK Marines in the custody of the Iranians. A snippet:

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

(Hat tip: C&L)

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Americablog/~3/105872702/no-hoods-no-electric-shoc
ks-no-beatings.html

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Playing Truthiness And Dare With Sailor's Lives

Despite compelling testimony from a career diplomat who headed the Foreign Office's maritime section from 1989 to 1992 to the effect that there are no recognised boundaries in the Shatt al-Arab area of the Gulf, testimony that has now been confirmed by the prestigeous German "University for the Federal Armed Forces" in Munich, both Iran and the UK continue to insist that they are definitely in the right.

In Iran, that stubborn insistence on what isn't true has led to the televising of scripted "confessions" from the detained British seamen and to noisy, scripted protests outside the British embassy in Teheran. Yet behind the scenes, the crisis is probably as much about factional jockeying for supremacy as about anything the Iranian's old Imperial master might have accomplished with 15 seamen in a rubber boat.

In the UK, that same stubborn insistence on what isn't true has led to more and more hardline rhetoric from wannabe Colonel Blimps, pining for the glory days of an Empire now past, at conservative newspapers such as the Telegraph and the Times. The Blimpoids have even spilled over into the American press, where they have had a meeting of minds with other wannabe Blimps - led by George Bush - who are pressuring Blair to be their proxy in wiping out what they believe to be the stain on their American Empire's honor dating from the Teheran embassy hostage crisis of '79.

Yet the Col. Blimps of both old and new Empires forget that Britain could only afford to act like an Empire when it still had one. The massive navy and army it took to conduct gunboat diplomacy could never be sustained by such a small island except by raping the resources of its colonies. We Brits took a decision that we would hand back the Empire, with all that entailled - and I for one am still happy we did.

On both sides, the game being played is "truthiness and dare". It isn't helping.

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http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/04/playing-truthiness-and-dare-with.html

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Attorney Purge = Stacking The DOJ To Suppress
Voting Rights

(Guest blogged by Logan Murphy) As Gonzalesgate continues, more and more people are starting to come forward. After spending more than 35 years fighting for voter's rights in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, Joseph D. Rich retired from the DOJ in 2005. Unhappy with what he saw during his time working under [...]

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/01/attorney-purge-stacking-the-doj-to-suppr
ess-voting-rights/

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In Our Hands

Scout Prime e-mailed me the other day to let me know that she and Athenae and several readers of First Draft were going down to NOLA to help do some renovation and recovery work. I asked Scout to keep me updated on how things were going, and got an[...]

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http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/01/in-our-hands/

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