From the Ghost of Xool Past ...

A new school year has begun, so I only have time for lesson planning, test grading, behavior management and listening to NPR. It was so much easier to post to this blog when I had a boring office job with no oversight to see what I was actually up to. Anyway, I was thinking the other day about the "compromise" between those "rebellious" Republican senators and the admin, and in particular about those people (or rather, "people") who seem to think that water-boarding is an acceptable way to extract information from people. (Side bar: And with all the careful phrasing of always calling the people we are holding in Gitmo and around the world "detainees" or "terrorists", let us not forget that they are in fact people.) The thought of drowning has always been one of my secret fears, ever since I was wolloped by a huge wave many years ago and got tumbled along a rocky beach, and so I thought of what might be the perfect solution to convince those "people" that water-boarding is in fact a form of torture: water-board them. See how they like it. And then let's hear what they have to say about that being an appropriate interrogation technique.

Spare me your sanctimony, sweetheart ...

Yes, I'm sure you only have Democrats' interests at heart ...

Vice President Dick Cheney grieved over Lieberman’s loss, calling it “an unfortunate and significant development,” and fretting about “the direction the (Democratic) party appears to be heading in when they, in effect, purge a man like Joe Lieberman.”

from here

Meanwhile ...

Lieberman is giving new meaning to the phrase "mud-slinging".

And he's a serious one-note Joe ... "Who is Ned Lamont?" He's the one with his foot in your ass, muthafucka.

Initiate cognitive disconnect ...

... now:


And the bumper message? "Responsibility Matters"

*bonking head on desk*

Move along, nothing to see here ...

First it was our phone records, and now this:

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror

WASHINGTON, June 22 — Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

Pardon me if the government's assurances that it's a "limited" program don't pass my laugh test. After every Orwellian thing this admin has done over the past 5 1/2 years, do they honestly expect us to believe them? I'm sure our congresscritters will once again be rolling over to defend this ridiculousness. I'm sorry, but this hen isn't too comfortable with the foxes guarding the door.


"Doop-de-doobie-do, don't mind me ..."

There's something drastically wrong with this paragraph ...

Now Zahrani's father Talal al-Zahrani has told the BBC he believes his son, who was 17 when he was sent to Guantanamo Bay five years ago, died as the result of an incident in the prison last month.

bolds added to point the way ...
(via here)

Things I should have tattooed on my face ...

Ah, Spring ...

Some "Ah, Spring" moments from my back yard:


Big Daddy chillin' at the spa.


Hot sun, cool shade - doesn't get better than this.


Love is in the air.