I think its going to take a long time for the American people to digest their passive participation in the performance of torture.  Massive psychological traumas can take years to fully process, especially considering the scale of other events in which American torture took place.  There are varying degrees of recognition though, much among arts, film and television, like this.  Coney Island has a new ride:

But it was still shocking to many when artist Steve Powers created a Coney Island attraction called the Waterboard Thrill Ride. It's not really a ride, it's more of a peep show.

This is an act of artistic brilliance I believe.  In the historic heart of urban American leisure, we are confronted with our collective guilt.  

And the Democrats gain 700,000:

In the 29 states (plus the District of Columbia) where voter affiliation is kept by party, the Democrats have scored perceptible gains since the presidential election of 2004 while the Republicans have suffered significant losses. To be specific, the number of registered Democrats in party registration states has grown by nearly 700,000 since President George W. Bush was reelected in November 2004, while the total of registered Republicans has declined by almost 1 million.

November is going to be kick ass...

I'll just say I work in financial management in a substantial government subdivision in a Northwest state.  We've been working on our budget for 2008-2009 since January and its just about ready.  I make a presentation to our governing board next Monday, and I've been asked to make a presentation on what I see happening in the near future that could affect our financial position.  I did some research today.  I'm trying to be positive, because we employ over 300 people in our small town and pump around 26% of the payroll in to this part of the county.  We are the largest professional employer here and pay double the median salary here.  If we get a cold the community gets the flue.

More below....

Every feel like livestock when you fly?  DHS is exploring a new technology (warning, Moonie Times link) which, if it makes to airlines, will guarantee I will never fly again:

A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers.

Check out what this piece of terror would do...

David Postman, political reporter for the Seattle Times, has written a profile of Washington wheat farmers Roger and Mary Dye that gives some fascinating insight into the mind of some former GOP stalwarts.  In 2000 and 2004, the Dye's were local leaders in Washington State GOP politics; this is how they feel now:

Mary stayed involved in politics up until mid-2004. She was a Bush supporter and leading the Washington state effort to draft that year’s party platform. Then as her family and friends struggled she no longer wanted to be part of the system that had once energized her.

She quit the campaign and all the party business. She didn’t tell anyone why and everyone was apparently too polite to ask.

   "George Bush has betrayed me personally. ... I just definitely thought he understood."

What brought about this reversal?  

Reflecting perfectly why caucus goers in Iowa turned her away, Hillary resorts to fear to revive her campaign going into New Hampshire:

Five hours after her chartered flight from Des Moines landed in New Hampshire, Clinton gave what may be the most striking speech of her campaign so far. Reeling from her surprisingly big loss in the Iowa caucuses, she is clearly reaching for a bold new way to combat winner Barack Obama -- though it doesn't appear she has settled on a consistent argument.

Clinton usually only talks about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when she speaks of her work helping Ground Zero workers cope with medical problems.

But in an airport hangar this morning, she said: "We have people who are plotting against us right now, getting ready to repeat the atrocity of Sept 11. We know it, I see the intelligence reports."

She also said, "I don’t think there has ever been a more important decision for the citizens of New Hampshire."

I made a mistake today.  I followed a link from Drudge and saw this.  Did you look at that photo?  Looks to me like something a freeper would have dreamed up (and given the rep of The Note, probably did).  The photo at that link heads up an article on ABC's The Note titled "Trading Places:Obama, Clinton Swap Roles as Dems Prepare for Radio Debate".  There is a long history of disrespect in the American press for politicians, but generally when its overt as this, its attached to opinion pieces, not reporting.  Will ABC publish doctored photos of the leading Republican female candidate's head superimposed on the body of their black candidate?  Oh wait, the GOP has no female or minority presidential candidates (they can't even be bothered to show up for minority sponsored events now, can they?)?

ABC, you suck.  Thanks for lowering the bar even further in what is already the incredibly sad state of our political discourse.

I just finished reading Confessions of An Economic Hit Man by John Perkins.  While the main topic of the book was the corporatocracy and its role in American imperialism (both economic and otherwise), the content of the book has completely changed my views on illegal immigration.  If you haven't read the book, Perkins goes into great detail describing how the US Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the US Departments of Treasury and State and multinational engineering and construction firms work together to exploit emerging nations to gain military advantage or easy, secure access to those nations' natural resources (Ecudoran, Iraqi, or Saudi oil and the Panama Canal are all prime examples cited by Perkins).  This blend of covert and overt imperialism has been practiced by the US for a long time, but Perkins descriptions of its effects on Central American and South American  has done more than educate me as to tactics and methods of the corporatocracy; it has radically altered my views on illegal immigration.

It was a rumor mill issue in the '04 elections, with much speculation as to the necessity of implementation compulsory service.  With stopgap measures like the use of mercenaries and extended deployments and rapid recycling of our current standing military forces, Bush has managed to avoid a draft (that is unless you are in the State Department).  With the GAO recently revealing that costs for Iraq and Afghanistan will approach 2.4 trillion over the next ten years the question that comes to mind is this:  does this imply that we will have a military presence in these countries for the next ten years?  Add in that Army recruiting has reached its lowest point since the draft ended in 1973 and I get much more concerned for the future of my 15 and 13 and 11 year old sons.  Now, Chuck Hagel has said this:

Sen. Chuck Hagel, speaking to an audience of Lincoln High School students, warned Tuesday that the nation may need to turn to compulsory military service "or some kind of draft" to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If there is a definitive sign of GOP decline, this may be it.  ABC News is reporting Democratic presidential candidate fundraising numbers for Q3:
Barack Obama: $19 million
Hillary Clinton: in the ballpark of $17 million to $20 million
John Edwards: $7 million

Now check out the republicans, as reported by Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic:

First, Mitt Romney is likely to wind up having raised the most money this quarter... somewhere north of $10M...maybe around $12M. Rudy Giuliani raised less than that. Fred Thompson raised more than $8. John McCain, north of $5.

Republican supporters are either tapped out or not nearly as excited as their Dem counterparts.  This snapshot is a great barometer as to where we are going.  Obama and HRC have almost doubled Romney and Guiliani.  McCain should just quit now.

At this point, I had given up on being disturbed.  Too much seriously weird shit has been happening in the past six years that I have damn near been convinced that we were living in an unreal time, a surrealistic novel about the complete transformation of a society.  Here's the latest chapter: a public high school in Maryland will soon offer a new magnet program.  The title of the program?

In late August, Maryland's Joppatowne High School became the first school in the country dedicated to churning out would-be Jack Bauers. The 75 students in the Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness magnet program will study cybersecurity and geospatial intelligence, respond to mock terror attacks, and receive limited security clearances at the nearby Army chemical warfare lab.

Truly, the culture of terrorism is becoming deeply ingrained in the American psyche when public high schools work to create the future administrative staff of Blackwater.

The United Church of Christ of Simi Valley California is part of the New Sanctuary Movement, a faith based effort whose mission is:

..religious leaders across a broad spectrum of denominations from 10 states are coming together to begin a New Sanctuary Movement to accompany and protect immigrant families who are facing the violation of their human rights in the form of hatred, workplace discrimination and unjust deportation...

The UCC in Simi Valley is currently providing sanctuary to Liliana and her infant child:

Liliana, 29, was born in the state of Michoacan and was caught trying to cross the border from Tijuana to San Diego about nine years ago. She said she earlier applied for a student visa but was turned down. She crossed the border again in a different place and came to Oxnard. Her husband, who works two jobs and is a homeowner, is a U.S. citizen and so are their three young children.

More below the fold...

Guess what?  You could be taking a urinalysis and not even know it:

Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city's sewer plant.

The test wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, such as methamphetamines, across the U.S.

I have mixed feelings about this.  On one hand, it seems okay, because meth is damned scourge and I support its eradication and treatment of addicts.  It destroys so much.  On the other hand, I wonder about the application of this strategy on a more granular basis.

I'm a vet of the 04 primary wars and have since abstained from such activity here.  And I'm willing to give any of the candidates the benefit of the doubt and watch as the campaign unfolds.  But statements like these really give me pause about Hillary Clinton:

New military tactics in Iraq are working but the best way to honor U.S. soldiers is "by beginning to bring them home," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told war veterans Monday.
---
"It's working. We're just years too late in changing our tactics," she said. "We can't ever let that happen again. We can't be fighting the last war. We have to keep preparing to fight the new war."

Is this the infamous triangulation at work?

More below...

This guy is undoubtedly a small fish in a the big GOP pond but provides another example of the reality of family values at work in today's Republican Party:

The tomcatting of the elected prosecutor in this conservative rural town has jeopardized as many as four cases brought by his office and prompted a complaint to the state bar association.

Liam Michael Golden, a Republican who ran unopposed for Lewis County prosecutor last November, is facing allegations that he did not properly disclose past sexual relationships with the mother of a victim in one case and the mother of a defendant in another. His office also charged someone with cyberstalking a woman Golden had slept with, though Golden recently turned that case over to a prosecutor from neighboring Thurston County.

The fourth case involves a 16-year-old boy charged this month with providing drugs to the mayor's 20-year-old son, leading to his fatal overdose. Some locals have questioned why any charge was brought in that case and suggested it was timed to deflect bad press.

This guy has future GOP presidential nominee written all over him, huh?

The Bush administration puts more value on political gains than actually working for national security.  Juxtapose the incredibly coordinated effort to politicize the Justice Department with the inherent inability of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recognize a real threat:

Undercover congressional investigators set up a bogus company and obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March that would have allowed them to buy the radioactive materials needed for a so-called dirty bomb.

The investigators...demonstrated once again that the security measures put in place since the 2001 terrorist attacks to prevent radioactive materials from getting into the wrong hands are insufficient, according to a GAO report, which is scheduled to be released at a Senate hearing Thursday.

"Given that terrorists have expressed an interest in obtaining nuclear material, the Congress and the American people expect licensing programs for these materials to be secure," said Gregory Kutz, an investigator at the accountability office...

How could anyone say that Bush is strong on security?  That horse left the barn August 6, 2001.

Hey, look over there!  At the shiny Libby outrage!  You're right to be pissed about that but something is sneaking under the radar right now and I think it deserves wider attention.  House Democrats are at war with George W. right now and they deserve praise and affirmation because they are doing the right thing: nothing short of stopping another phase in the extension of the unitary executive.

The AP's story on it has this headline:
Bush order spurs conflict with Democrats
The tone is "Oh those pesky democrats just being contrary."  OMB Watch really has a much more informative title to their analyis: House Moves to Curb Bush Regulatory Power Grab.  Cause its not just conflict for conflict's sake.  Its about how much you're worth to Bush's corporate patrons.

I just watched what I think is the premier episode of Lil' Bush, Comedy Central's new show.  It was incredibly biting satire, with prepubescent versions of the current white house criminals (Lil' Bush, Lil' Laura, Lil' Cheney, you get the idea).  I mean, any television show that features Iggy Pop providing the voice of Donald Rumsfeld is worth a check.  According to Wikipedia, Lil' George episodes were originally distributed via cellphone.  Other highlights:

Lil' Dick (Cheney) is seduced by Babs Bush (ala The Graduate, natchg), because, as Babs says, George HW just hasn't visited the First Lady parts often enough lately.  Lil' Dick also has a penchant for capturing birds, beheading them and sucking all the blood from their bodies.  Brilliant!  

More below....