Per aspera

Also via Avedon, Jay Rockefeller, Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, lies to try to get the Get Out of Jail Free Act passed for the telecom companies who helped the Bush administration illegally spy on Americans without warrants, from its beginning (it turns out that the Bush administration - and this is true, I am not […]

All environmentalists are French hippie pussies:
Goodwin leads me over to a red 2005 H3 Hummer that’s up on jacks, its mechanicals removed. He aims to use the turbine to turn the Hummer into a tricked-out electric hybrid. Like most hybrids, it’ll have two engines, including an electric motor. But in this case, the second will […]

Via Making Light, a link to a spiritual safety tip about what godly children should do if they encounter an atheist in the wild.  The linker, Cory Piña, hopes it isn’t real, and I can’t tell, myself.  It doesn’t have any obvious irony markers.
I love the idea of “very advanced witnessing techniques,”  because a) it […]

Go read this post:
What Color Are the Holes in Your Parachute?
For real. If you don’t have the time now, put aside fifteen minutes later and read the whole thing.

Fred Clark over at slacktivist is writing a multi-part series on the possible reasons that evangelical Christianity has come to devote such a huge amount of its energy to the gay-hatin’, to the extent that this survey by a Christian polling group found
a new image that has steadily grown in prominence over the last decade. […]

Via Shakes:
What does our poll show about the black vote in the Democratic race?
Well, it shows that black voters respond to other things besides race.
Another white guy who thinks it’s remarkable that black people live and think, just like you and me. I always get this image in my head of them running around […]

I’ve developed this weird new emotion over the last five years or so, where I can be absolutely flabbergasted while simultaneously thinking ‘oh, not this same old crap again’.
-The Editors

I’m sure it’s a perfectly wonderful sign for the armed forces, not to mention the republic, that so many generals lately have felt compelled by their sense of duty to their country to retire from the military:
Sanchez: Iraq war ‘a nightmare with no end in sight’
Sanchez, who retired in 2006, said it was his duty […]

BBC News:
Climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The committee cited “their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change”.
Mr Gore, US vice-president under Bill Clinton, said he was “deeply honoured”.
Mr Gore, 59, won an Oscar for his climate […]

And like all people everywhere, we hate Rudy Giuliani.
While I’m on the subject, is it weird that I was pissed when they hired Rodriguez, but now will be pissed if they don’t re-sign him?
Signing the Ghost of Roger Clemens for a fraction of a season, on the other hand, I expect to remain pissed about.

…is here.

Jesus Christ.

Also via Atrios, Ezra writes a very clear distillation of why those poor “liberal hawks” deserve every bit of abuse they get from the dirty fucking hippies on the blogs.

Via Atrios, the most hopeful news I’ve heard a very long time.  Look!  Democrats who aren’t reflexively craven.  It’s like seeing a school of coelacanths.

“The cloak appears to be finely-tailored velvet, and has an inside pocket to hold Mr. Fry’s cell phone.”
For real: Stephen Fry has a blog, and his first entry reveals him to be an Olympic-level gadget geek. He makes my own technolust look like chastity. Maybe I associate him too much with Jeeves, but […]

As of about 45 minutes ago, there’s no longer a “2″ in the tens column of my age.  Which is fine by me.  I wasn’t doing anything with that 2 anyway.
Happy birthday to me, Gandhi, Sting, and Peanuts.