Via Atrios comes Matt Taibbi's smackdown of Andrew Sullivan in particular, and the nattering nabobs of nasty in the mainstream media in general, in New York Press (emphases mine):

On the Internet, a volunteer army of bloggers escalated their guerrilla war against the mainstream media… Nevertheless, they stay on the margins—because, like all insurgents, they're about sniping, not governing. —Andrew Sullivan, in Time's "Person of the Year" issue

[snip]

Sullivan is trying to compare bloggers to the Iraqi insurgency—a wrongheaded and unfair comparison to begin with, one that outrages both parties—but the way he writes it, he implies that the real media's natural role is to govern. In the shaky parallel structure of this sentence, bloggers and guerrilla insurgents make up one pair, while mainstream media and legitimate ruling government make up the other.

It's a very odd thing, watching the reaction of the so-called mainstream media to the phenomenon of blogs. The response is almost universally one of total disdain and disgust, but the stated reasons vary.

An argument I see sometimes and occasionally even agree with is that bloggers don't have the same factual and ethical standards that the mainstream media supposedly has, which leads to such fiascoes as the bogus Kerry-mistress story sweeping the country, or the name of Kobe's accuser being made public.

But more often than not, the gripe about bloggers isn't that they're unethical. It's that they're small. In the minds of people like Sullivan, not being part of a big structure intrinsically degrades the amateur, makes him a member of a separate and lower class; whereas in fact the solidarity of any journalist should always lie with the blogger before it lies with, say, the president. Journalists are all on the same side, or ought to be, anyway.

[snip]

Not Time magazine, though. Time lay with the president. Time big-time lay with the president. What was great about Sullivan's "Year of the Insurgents" column last week was how beautifully it threw the rest of the "Person of the Year" issue into contrast. Here's Sullivan bitching about bloggers needing to stay on the margins where they belong; meanwhile, his "respectable" media company is joyously prancing back and forth along 190 glossy pages with George Bush's cock wedged firmly in its mouth.

A ghastly, disturbing, and disgusting image, to be sure...But don't let that keep you from reading the full article.

Normally I don't make New Year's resolutions. I've always found them just another way to fall short of my own expectations of myself and give me a reason to feel rotten. Nothing ventured, nothing lost, I say. But this year I have some very reasonable and eminently do-able resolutions:

1) Get back to working out daily as soon as my lungs get back to normal from this month-long upper respiratory infection I've had.

2) Clear out all the holiday junk from my arteries and lay off the office chocolate.

3) Paint the ceilings, walls, and trim in the rooms in the house where the new windows were installed.

4) Reface the kitchen cabinets (yes, I already have the supplies).

5) Get some decent curtains; no more K-Mart specials. Besides, they donate to Republicans.

6) Pay off all remaining credit card debt from 2004 home improvements.

7) Stay employed.

8) Try to regain some hope for the future of my country.

Those are mine. What are some of yours?

I know I should join the chorus of Happy New Year, and offer my wishes for 2005, but frankly, I'm just too tired from being sick virtually the entire month of December and witnessing the relentless march of horrors that the Bush regime continues to rain upon us, capped off with near despair over the fact that hundreds of thousands of people in Asia have lost everything, including their own lives, and there are still people who believe this.

Yesterday I posted about how information about emergency contraception does not appear in the Justice Department's guidelines for treating rape victims. This further got me to thinking about Evan Scott, the Florida 3-year-old who has been ordered returned to his biological mother, Amanda Hopkins, because his biological father, who was in prison for assaulting at the time, didn't approve the adoption.

Not only is a child being wrenched from the only family he's known, but he's being returned to a mother who only tried to give him a better life and get him away from her abuser, who's controlling the whole situation, even though he and the mother were never married -- not that marriage should give him proprietary rights, but in this case, the rights of someone who is essentially a sperm donor are being held paramount over both the rights of the biological mother AND the child.

So I got to thinking...what happens to a woman who is raped and is denied emergency contraception -- and finds herself pregnant, and is unable to procure an abortion due to lack of funds or availability of abortion services? If she lives in Mississippi, there is only one facility in the entire state now that performs abortions. Does she then have to get permission from the rapist in order to put the child up for adoption?

Do you need further proof that in the eyes of the so-called Christian males who are running things now, pregnancy and childbirth are punishment for women they deem unchaste?

To add fuel to this particular fire, Steve Gilliard directs us to yet another case of America returning to the Middle Ages, and an increasing tendency in the courts and culture to regard a woman as simply a vessel with no rights of her own once she becomes pregnant:

A Spokane woman trying to divorce her estranged husband two years after he was jailed for beating her has been told by a judge she can't get out of the marriage while she's pregnant.

The case pits a first-year attorney who argues that state law allows any couple to divorce if neither spouse challenges it against a longtime family law judge who asserts that the rights of the unborn child in this type of case trump a woman's right to divorce.

"There's a lot of case law that says it is important in this state that children not be illegitamized," Spokane County Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine told The Spokesman-Review newspaper.

Further complicating things, Shawnna Hughes claims her husband is not the child's father.

The bottom line, says Hughes' attorney, Terri Sloyer, is that there's nothing in state law that says a mother can't get a divorce if she's pregnant.

"We don't live in 15th-century England," Sloyer said. "I am absolutely dumbfounded by it."

Hughes' husband, Carlos, was convicted in 2002 of beating her. She separated from him after the attack and filed for divorce last April. She later became pregnant by another man and is due in March.

Her husband never contested the divorce, and Court Commissioner Pro Tem Julia Pelc approved it in late October.

However, the approved divorce papers didn't note that Hughes was pregnant. Sloyer filed amended papers to correct the omission, and the next day, she spoke with Bastine by phone. Bastine said he planned to rescind the divorce and then did so following a Nov. 4 hearing.

"It's not the child's fault that mom got pregnant," Bastine said. "The answer is, you don't go around doing that when you're not divorced."

So these are the "moral values" we can look forward to in 2005, and for three years after that -- the further dehumanization of women in the name of "Christianity."

Is this what you voted for?

"I feel like I've been hit in the stomach...It is like 9/11 but so different. There is no one to blame." -- Bill Frist (R - Animal Vivisection)

These are the remarks of our supposedly educated Senate Majority Leader about the aftermath of the tsunami.

He could, of course, always follow the time-honored conservative tradition of blaming first Bill and Hillary Clinton, then Hollywood liberals.

Of course you all know that in my own personal pantheon of gonzo film reviewers, Vern has no equal. Still, every now and then Mark Ramsey of Movie Juice comes up with a showstopper.

Actually, The Aviator isn't as big a target as you'd think. It's not as good as it should be, given that it's Capital-S-Scorsese, but it's a good-looking, well-paced, enjoyable film. So that Ramsey was able to come up with a snark index this high is pretty impressive.

I myself spit out my tea and nearly coughed my lungs out at Jude Law being a cinematic Whack-a-Mole. How about you?

...women are already starting to be denied even basic information about their reproductive health options....even if they are raped.

The U.S. Department of Justice has issued its first-ever medical guidelines for treating sexual assault victims - without any mention of emergency contraception, the standard precaution against pregnancy after rape.

The omission of the so-called morning-after pill has frustrated and angered victims' advocates and medical professionals who have long worked to improve victims' care.

Gail Burns-Smith, one of several dozen experts who vetted the protocol during its three-year development by Justice's Office on Violence Against Women, said emergency contraception was included in an early draft, and she does not know of anyone who opposed it.

Most Americans, even those opposed to abortion, favor some kind of exception in the event of rape. But not the Bush Administration....it's clear that they regard women who have been raped as being somehow complicit in the crime against them, and therefore they must be punished by being forced by the government to bear the offspring of the men who raped them.

There was a time when we complained that Republicans were trying to return us to the 1950's. It's worse than that; they're trying to return us to the Middle Ages.

Are you a reproductive-age woman? Do you have a daughter of reproductive age? Did you vote for George W. Bush? If so, you voted for this, you got it.

Faye Wachs said she was impressed by the efforts of the Thai government and the International Committee for the Red Cross, but "she was appalled at the treatment they got" from the U.S. government, her mother said.

At the airport in Bangkok, other governments had set up booths to greet nationals who had been affected and to help repatriate them, she said.

That was not the case with the U.S. government, Wachs told her mother. It took the couple three hours, she said, to find the officials from the American consulate, who were in the VIP lounge.

Because they had lost all their possessions, including their documentation, they had to have new passports issued.

But the U.S. officials demanded payment to take the passport pictures, Helen Wachs said.

The couple had managed to hold on to their ATM card, so they paid for the photos and helped other Americans who did not have any money get their pictures taken and buy food, Helen Wachs said.

"She was really very surprised" that the government did so little to ease their ordeal, she said.

Yes, let's nickel and dime American tsunami survivors to death. And here I thought it was only the brown people of Asia that the Bush Administration told to go Cheney themselves. Silly me.

Link...

As John in DC over at Americablog points out, if "do-overs" were what we do when an election result seems inconclusive, the 2000 Presidential election would have been subject to a revote as well.

But when Republicans can't outright steal an election, they ask for a "do-over", like any other playground bully:

Edged out of the closest governor's race in state history, Republican Dino Rossi urged his opponent to accept a revote, saying the uncertainty surrounding the back-and-forth election was bad for the state. Democrat Christine Gregoire's camp immediately rejected the idea as "irresponsible."

Sore Loserman indeed.

Boingboing has links to a number of bloggers in SE Asia who have been covering the tsunami, both before and after. Fascinating eyewitness stuff, and devoid of the "But what about the inconvenienced white people?" spin of the American MSM.

Wouldn't you think that the Leader of the Free World could take some time out from clearing brush on his holiday vacation to show his face to the world and say something out of his own mouth about the biggest natural disaster of our lifetime?

Apparently not. I guess George is just too important a man for such trivialities.

I am a proud American who is disgusted and ashamed to have this man be the face my country presents to the world.

From yesterday's White House Press Gaggle:

I think the State Department has briefed recently about some of the efforts underway. I'll quickly summarize them. There has been an initial commitment of $15 million to support the relief efforts. USAID has just recently added $20 million to that, for the earthquake relief. Included in that is $2 million for Sri Lanka, $1 million for Indonesia, $100,000 each for India, the Maldives and Thailand; as well, an additional $4 million has been sent to the International Red Cross to support their efforts.

The United States military is also playing a role. The Thailand government has offered the United States a base to use as a regional support center in the recovery effort, and we welcome that. There are a dozen C-130s from the Pacific Command that are hauling in relief supplies as we speak, including food, water, blankets, emergency shelter -- you name it, it's on its way and those relief supplies will continue to flow.

Translation: We haven't a fucking clue what else we're going to do. Meanwhile, $100,000 each for India, the Maldives and Thailand? Is he fucking kidding?

Q Trent, we've heard your statements about -- for two or three days about the President's sentiments, but we haven't actually seen him, and, more importantly, the people in Sri Lanka or Indonesia or the other locations have not seen him step out, as he did so often after, say, September 11 and some other tragedies. Can you tell us why?

MR. DUFFY: The President has already sent letters of condolences to the leaders in the seven countries. He has directed the United States to play a leading role in the recovery effort and we will continue to do that. The President is doing what is needed most, which is to authorize the U.S. government to play a leading role in the relief and recovery effort. And so he has extended his condolences -- I have, on his behalf -- and he continues to express his condolences.

Q Trent, I'm not questioning his -- the actual question is whether the people of Asia and those who are suffering from all of this, whether there would be any benefit from seeing and hearing from him directly.

MR. DUFFY: I think the people of the region and around the world know that the President of the United States is saddened and has extended his condolences for this terrible tragedy.

I hate to tell Mr. Duffy, but 11, not 7 countries were affected. So who are the ones who didn't get the President's e-mail?

As far as people of the region knowing that the President of the United States is saddened, I think they know no such thing. All they know is that he loves to kill a lot of brown-skinned people (Iraq) or ignore them (Darfur). As for "knowing" anything, I think they're thinking more about how they're going to get drinking water.

Q As the relief efforts recedes, will the President be making any requests of Congress to free up more funds for this?

MR. DUFFY: I have nothing to announce at this time. Obviously, as we just try to grasp what the scope of this tragedy and the response effort that's needed, we'll continue to assess the needs going forward. So I don't have anything to announce at this point, but should there be a need for additional resources I have every expectation that the President would seek those.

Translation: The $35 million is it. We know Americans have short memories, and there will be no outcry for more help, so we're not going to bother. After all, we have a war in Iraq to spend $177 million a day on, and a $40 million party to throw on January 20.

Q A follow up on David's question. Does the President not see any utility as to him taking a personal or a very public leadership role at a time like this worldwide?

MR. DUFFY: The President is taking a personal, public leadership role in this. He is -- as I said, he's been involved and he's authorized the U.S. government to play a leading role in the relief and recovery efforts, and that's what's needed most, is to speed the relief and the recovery, the manpower, the materiel, the supplies to the region and to help with the recovery effort. And that's what's most important right now.

And I am Marie of Rumania.

Meanwhile, if you want to know what C-Plus Caligula is doing that's so pressing that he can't sober himself up long enough to get in front of a microphone and actually play a leadership role in the world, here ya go:

Q Besides getting his morning briefing, what else is the President doing?

MR. DUFFY: The President is continuing to think about the Inauguration and the State of the Union speech; he's clearing some brush this morning; I think he has some friends coming in either today or tomorrow that he enjoys hosting; he's doing some biking and exercising as he normally does, taking walks with the First Lady; and thinking about what he wants to accomplish in the second term.

63,000 people dead, and this nimrod is clearing brush (how much fucking brush IS there on that God-forsaken piece of Texas land?), working out, entertaining friends, and trying to cram for his second term.

Swell. Just swell.

I know that images of a swimsuit model with big tits generate eyeballs for the print and broadcast media, and therefore the ordeal of such a person outweighs all other considerations, but since the media seems to be focusing on the ordeal suffered by Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova while on a vacation most Americans only dream of, I thought some photos of what some people are enduring who may not have perfect bodies, perfect Caucasian skin and huge pneumatic hooters might be in order. Yes, Nemcova's experience was horrific, and her survival may be miraculous. I certainly wouldn't want to go through it. But she has a nice home and the best possible medical care and a glamorous career back home to return to, whereas these people have nothing to look forward to but pain and suffering and the short memories of Americans who will in all likelihood tune out the minute another guy murders his pregnant wife.

Maybe the gutting of Social Security really DOESN'T matter.

My spouse, who can sit and watch programs about geology until I am ready to tear off my own head, has enlightened me to the existence of what's called a "caldera volcano" in Yellowstone National Park. You know Old Faithful? That's there as a result of this volcano.

National Geographic offers reassurance that this volcano is in all likelihood dying or no great threat. Others are less optimistic. This volcano his historically erupted about every 600,000 years. It's been 640,000 since its last eruption.

The most recent caldera-forming eruption about 650,000 years ago produced a caldera 53 x 28 miles (85 x 45 kilometers) across in what is now Yellowstone National Park (Figure 2). During that eruption, ground-hugging flows of hot volcanic ash, pumice, and gases swept across an area of more than 3,000 square miles. When these enormous pyroclastic flows finally stopped, they solidified to form a layer of rock called the Lava Creek Tuff. Its volume was about 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic kilometers), enough material to cover Wyoming with a layer 13 feet thick or the entire conterminous United States with a layer 5 inches thick. The Lava Creek Tuff has been exposed by erosion at Tuff Cliff, a popular Yellowstone attraction along the lower Gibbon River.

[snip]

The current rates of seismicity, ground deformation, and hydrothermal activity at Yellowstone, although high by most geologic standards, are probably typical of long time periods between eruptions and therefore not a reason for immediate concern. Potentially damaging earthquakes are likely to continue occurring every few decades, as they have in the recent past. Eventually Yellowstone will erupt again, but there is no indication that an eruption is imminent or what kind of eruption may come next. For the foreseeable future, the same powerful forces that created Yellowstone will continue to animate this slumbering, but restless, volcanic giant.

So don't put off those home improvements you've been wanting to do! You never know.

Steve Gilliard (who has really been on a roll lately) again:

I was watching ABC News and every picture had a white person in it. They talked to white people. The fact that entire provinces were wiped from the earth, people had lost their homes and their families and the economies of several countries were torn to shit with no warning, all I'm hearing about is how tourists had vacations ruined.

The fact that they will all go home to clean water and standing homes, and that only the richest Westerners can even visit these places, seems to have escaped the news, except as horrible pictures. The idea of talking to wogs and finding out how they feel about losing everything is not nearly as important finding out how Oprah's designer buddy and his boyfriend survived in their luxury hotel most locals can't even enter.

It doesn't seem to occur that the important story is not the tourists, who need to go the fuck home, but the people who live there. The people who live there only exist as tragic figures, not fellow humans. We'll get plenty of pictures of the poor unfortunate nig nogs, but we will not be allowed to relate to them as people, with families, who grieve at the horror of their losss and ruined lives. Only white tourists get to tell their stories, despite the large number of English speakers in the region. Tragedy only counts when the skin is white and a vacation ruined.

I have to give props to my local paper, the Hackensack, NJ Record for bucking this media trend of what Gilliard calls "Tsunami kills tourists, other people affected as well". Perhaps it's just that this area has a great many Asian immigrants, but its coverage of the anguished wait for news of family and friends has outweighed its brief mention of tourist inconvenience. Again, I'm reminded of the UN-assisted evacuation of European tourists as depicted in Hotel Rwanda: "Get the White People To Safety First!"

Perhaps most heartbreaking is the nonstop parade of photographs of parents anguishing over their dead children. With a death toll of 44,000 already and climbing, and some estimates indicate that at least one-third of the casualties are children, this is tantamount to the destruction of the better part of a generation.

Meanwhile, the Administration, on the heels of George W. Bush's admonition of already-strapped-for-time Americans to go out and volunteer to help out those citizens whose lives his policies have adversely affected (while he didn't even show up for his customary soup-kitchen photo-op to rub the heads of African-American children), promised $15 million for relief aid. $15 million. Think about that. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn't it? Perhaps, until you take into account that $15 million represents about two hours worth of Iraq war costs (according to the Iraq War Clock in New York City).

44,000 people dead, homes, lives, livelihoods ruined, and the richest nation on earth can only afford $15 million to help people rebuild their lives, while we are willing to give the government a blank check to kill people indiscriminately in Iraq? And we're unwilling to ask the richest Americans to forego a new Ferrari this year by rescinding some of their tax cuts so that we can perhaps repair some of the damage to our world reputation that this Administration has done? What the fuck is wrong with these people? What the fuck is wrong with us as a country?

In the face of the biggest natural disaster of many of our lifetimes, The White House has issued only a terse statement via some press flack, presumably Scotty McLellan:

On behalf of the American people, the President expresses his sincere condolences for the terrible loss of life and suffering caused by the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis in the region of the Bay of Bengal.

The United States stands ready to offer all appropriate assistance to those nations most affected including Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand, and Indonesia, as well as the other countries impacted. Already relief is flowing to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. We will work with the affected governments, the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, and other concerned states and organizations to support the relief and response to this terrible tragedy.

Again, we extend our sincere condolences to all the people of the region at this time of suffering.

"Condolences" -- yeah, that's gonna help people bury their dead and rebuild their lives. Typical Bushit. Let Them Eat Sewage.

Meanwhile, Colin Powell, in perhaps his last bid to salvage something of his reputation, is walking out the door by promising an additional $20 million in aid, saying "The United States is not stingy." Swell. So now we're up to $35 million. That's just under FIVE hours of Iraq war costs, and less than the cost of C-Plus Caligula's inauguration next month.

That tells you how much Bush values human life that isn't rich, white, and American.

Are you willing to let this Administration, who seems to think that saving people overseas is less important than killing them, speak for you? I'm not.

Here's how you can help:

ACTION AGAINST HUNGER
247 West 37th Street, Suite 1201
New York, N.Y. 10018
212-967-7800 x108
www.actionagainsthunger.org

AMERICAN JEWISH WORLD SERVICE
45 West 36th Street, 10th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10018
800-889-7146
www.ajws.org

AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE
AFSC Crisis Fund
1501 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, Pa. 19102
215-241-7000
www.afsc.org

AMERICAN RED CROSS
International Response Fund
P.O. Box 37243
Washington, D.C. 20013
800-HELP NOW
www.redcross.org

CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES
Tsunami Emergency
P.O. Box 17090
Baltimore, Md. 21203-7090
800-736-3467
www.catholicrelief.org

DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL
27 South La Patera Lane
Santa Barbara, Calif. 93117
805-964-4767
www.directrelief.org


DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
P.O. Box 1856
Merrifield, Va. 22116-8056
888-392-0392
www.doctorswithoutborders.org

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS
Earthquake/Tsunami Relief
1919 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 300
Santa Monica, Calif. 90404
800-481-4462
www.imcworldwide.org

AMERICAN JEWISH JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE
South Asia Tsunami Relief
Box 321
847A Second Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10017
212-687-6200 ext. 851
www.jdc.org


MERCY CORPS
Southeast Asia Earthquake Response
Dept. W
P.O. Box 2669
Portland, Ore. 97208
800-852-2100
www.mercycorps.org


OPERATION USA
8320 Melrose Avenue, Suite 200 Los Angles, Calif. 90069
800-678-7255
www.opusa.org


SAVE THE CHILDREN
Asia Earthquake/Tidal Wave Relief Fund
54 Wilton Road
Westport, Conn. 06880
800-728-3843
www.savethechildren.org


ISLAMIC RELIEF USA
Southeast Asia Earthquake Emergency
P.O. Box 6098
Burbank, Calif. 91510
888-479-4968.
www.irw.org/asiaquak

And to all my little cybertrolls who visit here, and you know who you are, yes, I have already donated. I chose Doctors Without Borders.

Note to Secret Service/FBI: I got this list from the New York Times. So if you have a problem with Islamic Relief USA, go talk to the Times. I'm just passing on the information they provided to the public.

Steve Gilliard:

What everyone in DC is fearing, but what is increasing clear, is that it's Howard Dean's job to lose. If there was a vote, he'd win in a landslide. DFA and other groups are already praising his name to the skies. Simon Rosenberg is probably the compromise candidate, but either way, Dean brings cards unheard of into the DNC chair debate, namely massive popular support. Now, the Dems can ignore him or shove him aside, but they risk triggering a real civil war. They still want to have business as usual when it is clear that will no longer suffice.

People who think Dean should wait until '08 are living in a fantasy world. He will no more have a chance in 08 than he did in 04 if the same people run the party. They will preclude a Dean candidacy as sure as rain falls from the sky. The only way for Dean's principles to dominate the party is for him to run it. He cannot do it from outside, and all this talk about moving to the Greens is a joke. They can't shit and wipe their asses at the same time. The Greens are infighters like it was a college English department. That's not ever going to be a serious vehicle for change. Nader? He says the right things, but takes money from Grover and friends.

The threat I would take seriously is the threat to withhold funds. The DNC was able to raise money in the streets, unprecidented. If they push a loser like Roemer, someone who's also pro-gutting Social Security, as head of the party, then why would I or anyone else raise a dime for them? What would they stand for?

Gilliard is one of the smartest people in Blogistan, but he sees Kerry/Edwards as the ticket again in 2008, once again on the "electable" meme. God, I hope he's wrong. Yet there just doesn't seem to be anyone else in the pipeline who's even remotely tolerable. I will NOT support some misogynistic hack who thinks he can sell out a woman's reproductive system for a couple of fundie wingnut votes, nor one who thinks he can sell out the environment for a few fundie wingnut votes, or who thinks he can sell out on prayer in school for a few fundie wingnut votes. And there are hundreds of thousands just like me out there -- progressives who were good soldiers this time, but won't be fooled again. Kerry Just Plain Didn't Want It That Badly. He conceded before the votes were even counted; why on earth should he get another chance?

If the Democratic Party is going to survive, it's going to have to do what the hapless New York Mets SHOULD be doing if they weren't owned by the hopelessly inept Wilpon family -- building a farm team. You don't trade for washed-up sluggers. You trade washed-up players for young pitchers. You grow your own team. The fact of the matter is that the Democratic Party doesn't even have washed-up sluggers; they have overpaid washed-up journeyman ballplayers that no one wants (Kerry), overhyped prospects (Evan Bayh), an attractive kid who hits great during the season and then chokes in the playoffs (Edwards) and the team owner's nephew (Hillary Clinton). So this is going to take time. You have to scout these players in the town halls and state houses across the country. We have one of them in Barack Obama, but let's not turn him into Darryl Strawberry circa 1983. We can't ask him to carry an entire team. Give people candidates at the local, county, and state levels, and candidates for Congressional seats who will STAND for something.

This is what Dean can do. You don't rebuild this party from the top down, any more than you build the Green party by running candidates for president and nothing else. You build from the bottom up. This is what Howard Dean is uniquely equipped to do.

Stay tuned.

Josh Marshall points out the ways in which the Administration's Social Security reform planning resembles that which preceded the Iraq war -- something apparently the Administration itself has proudly admitted.

As I get older, reading about people younger than me dying is always somewhat disconcerting. It's always sad when a life is cut short. However, with the paeans to Reggie White that are going to be occurring over the next few days, let's remind ourselves that the man was a wingnut bigot of the first order. Americablog has some of the man's particularly egregious views, from which he backtracked not one iota.

In the triage of charitable donations, it's a good thing I took care of USO Cares last week, because now it's time to open the old wallet and share my bounty with earthquake victims.

I loathe the Red Cross, but if you don't have a beef with them, you can donate to them here (select "International Response Fund"). Or, you could really piss off the wingnuts and give money to UNICEF instead.

Atrios is hosting this particular hayride and I thought I'd get there early so I can get a good seat and first pick of the canapés.

Some samples of Truly Tasteless Easter Humor from some of his commenters:

"Easter? Isn't that where Jesus was killed and then was buried and came out of his tomb and saw his shadow and we have six more weeks of winter?"

"They went to the cave where Jesus had been buried. The huge rock that had blocked the door of the cave was rolled away.

And Lo, the Lord saith,
'Fuck you morons! You guys were a lot of help when my ass was fucking nailed to the cross!
Kiss my ass and roll that rock back!'"

"I'm just waiting for O'Reilly to wonder why those damned PC types won't let us have Easter pogroms against the Christ-killers like we used to have every year, back when we were a moral society."

"Attention: Easter 2005 has been canceled - They found the body."

"I was discussing the anti-Semitic underpinnings of the "Protect Christmas" campaign with an observant Jewish friend of mine. The talk turned towards the Jewish emphasis on universal literacy and a different interpretation of Leviticus. His comments: 'We WROTE Leviticus, we should bloody well know it means!'"

And our friend Jazz Shaw of Running Scared once again reminds us:

Easter is actually a modernized spelling for the festival of Esther. She was a north European pagan goddess who held sway over the springtime rituals of regrowth and fertility. Her symbols were a rabbit and an egg. Tell me, do you remember any stories about a "St. Easter" or rabbits or eggs in the Bible story of the ressurection?

No, he's NOT the "liberal Ann Coulter." Moore is kind of a gonzo documentarian, but at least he's not in the "oughta be in a rubber room" category...and contrary to popular belief among those who listen to wingnut radio, he is NOT a spokesperson for the Democratic Party the way Ann Coulter is for Republicans.

Here's your girl, wingnuts:

To The People Of Islam:
Just think: If we'd invaded your countries, killed your leaders and converted you to Christianity YOU'D ALL BE OPENING CHRISTMAS PRESENTS RIGHT ABOUT NOW!
Merry Christmas

She should either be ashamed of herself or get some help. And so should anyone who regards her as knowing what the fuck she's talking about.

(via ModFab)

You can write the rest of THIS story for yourself:

President Fidel Castro said a crude oil deposit has been discovered off Cuba containing up to 100 million barrels, good news for a country that imports about half the petroleum it needs.

"This is the first discovery since 1999," Castro said Friday in a speech to a closed session of the National Assembly. His comments were aired on state television Saturday.

Castro said the deposit was located off the coast of Santa Cruz del Norte, east of Havana, during an exploratory drilling. He said production at the site could begin during 2006.

Well, Christmas came and went. People opened presents, drank eggnog, fought with their relatives, went to church, and sang carols.

Looks like the liberal plot to destroy Christmas failed.

I guess we'll just have to try again next year.

Meanwhile, us all-powerful liberals who are such a threat to the established order can take comfort in the fact that a movie in which a majority of the leading characters are obviously Jews, and which stars Barbara Streisand, was the #1 film at the box office over Christmas weekend.

Interesting:

And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten -- indeed the word "terrorized" is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

I wonder what he meant by that?

(via Buzzflash)

Ron Beasley at Middle Earth Journal wonders how long it's going to take before either Falwell or Robertson points out that the areas hit by today's horrific earthquake are largely Muslim and Hindu.

The clock starts ticking now, so place yer bets here...

It's looking more and more like a battle to the death between the Washington/appeasement wing of the Democratic party, and the progressives who want the Democratic Party to actually stand for something. The latest name to be floated is former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer, whom Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have endorsed.

Here are some goodies from Roemer's voting record (via "blogswarm" at Kos):

Voted YES on banning human cloning, including medical research. (Jul 2001)

Voted YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad. (May 2001)

Voted YES on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes. (Apr 2001)

Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortions. (Apr 2000)

Voted YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion. (Jun 19