Why I hate Ann Coulter

I hate Ann Coulter so much, it's like- flames. Flames, on the side of my face... heaving breaths...

The supreme psycho-bitch of the right wing's most recent rant involves the accusation that liberals and environmentalists want humanity to die.

Yes, Ann, that's it. You've revealed our secret motive. We want to drive our own species into extinction.

Ann, are you fucking retarded?

Probably. Blinded with hate and stupidity.

The great thing for us here in Colorado is that we have our own local versions of Coulter and Bill O'Reilly on News Radio KOA, which hosts a number of delusional propaganda-spewing bullshit artists, like Gunny Bob Newman and Mike Rosen, both of whom engage quite liberally (pun intended) in the perpetuation of essentially racist statements against anyone remotely socialist or Democratic.

I love to debate, and I love talking about politics, but what I can't fucking STAND is people who won't give anyone else the time to speak their mind without cutting them off. It makes me want to throw things.

I feel you, Sean Penn. I feel you.

Can't you hear the clicking?

They're listening! They can hear everything! At least, according to Fox News, they can.

Fucking weird. I'm not sure what to make of this, but Fox says the Fibbies can remotely activate anyone's cell phone microphone and listen to conversations that way, so in effect, nobody's safe from Big Brother.

Unless you toss your cell phone.

But why would Rupert Murdoch want you to do that? How strange...

Hillary versus Giuliani?

It's still incredibly fucking early in the presidential races, but the numbers are already giving us a preview of 2008. If they hold up (which they may), then it'll be Clinton and Giuliani, the two New York Giants, going head to head for the White House. If that does happen, I'm not sure Clinton will be able to beat Giuliani, particularly because he's so moderate and because the Krazy Khristians fucking hate Hillary.

Still, says the Washington Post, Obama's made incredible strides:

On the January weekend when she announced her candidacy, Clinton led the Democratic field with 41 percent. Obama was second at 17 percent, Edwards was third at 11 percent and former vice president Al Gore, who has said he has no plans to run, was fourth at 10 percent.

The latest poll put Clinton at 36 percent, Obama at 24 percent, Gore at 14 percent and Edwards at 12 percent. None of the other Democrats running received more than 3 percent. With Gore removed from the field, Clinton would gain ground on Obama, leading the Illinois senator 43 percent to 27 percent.

And since Gore ain't runnin', it's more like 43-27, but Obama's shown he can make up ground, though, so I think the real battle is going to be for the Democratic nomination, since McCain isn't doing anything but alienating moderates and Christian conservatives alike.

I'm already willing to bet that Giuliani's going to be our next president, which, honestly, ain't that bad. He'll certainly be a mountain of improvement over our little retarded Shrub.

Cautiously optimistic

I'm honestly not sure what to make of this story, given Shrub's disdain for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group Report last year, but I'm willing to allow a flicker of hope to endure in my stomach.

From the New York Times:

Plans for talks between Iraq and its neighbors, including Iran and Syria, to find ways to curb the nation’s sectarian violence is now expected to involve the United States and Britain, Iraq’s foreign minister and American officials said today.

Taking part in such talks would represent a shift for the United States. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended in December that Washington hold direct talks with Syria and Iran to help stem the violence in Iraq, but the Bush administration was cool to the idea.

The United States has accused Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq and of supplying weapons that have been used in Iraq to kill American troops. American officials have also accused Syria of letting foreign fighters cross its border with Iraq...

The Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshiar Zebari, said the regional meeting on Iraq would include Iraq; its six neighbors; the United States, Britain and the three other members of the United Nations Security Council; the members of the Arab League, and The Organization of Islamic Conference.

Because of security concerns, he said, the delegates would be officials at the rank of deputy minister and below rather than the foreign ministers themselves. But he said he expected the meeting to lead to others.

The American embassy in Baghdad confirmed the participation of American officials in the talks.

Seriously, I'm not sure if this is a sign that Shrub's people are willing to admit that Syrians and Iranians might be better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq than they are, or perhaps they're just playing politics, but I'm encouraged by this. Whatever the administration's intentions, it seems like only good can come of this.

Thoughts, anyone?

Ze plans, mein fuhrer!

It's very simple, and very insane. Shrub and his people are going to bomb Iran.

Apparently, writes the New Yorker's Sy Hersh, the reason is just as elemental as Shrub thinks the solution is: our illustrious president really believes that Iran itself would be better off without Ahmadinejad, who he thinks is behind the push for Iranian nuclear power. So in order to bring that about, the Pentagon has started putting together a last-minute bombing schematic, an outline of targets, strike capabilities, and strategic Q&A's for der fuhrer, for when things come to a head.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

That's not all. The bushies don't just want to bomb Iran. They want to nuke the fuck out of it.

The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”...

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.”

The worst part, though, is that the Dems don't seem to give a shit.

In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been “no formal briefings,” because “they’re reluctant to brief the minority. They’re doing the Senate, somewhat selectively.”

The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

I may be beating a dead horse on this one, but I just can't get around the fact that our military is stretched practically to the breaking point, we're already involved in two ground wars that have no end in sight, and perhaps most importantly, Iran has fairly solid ties to both Russia and China, who are both supplied with Iranian oil. Taking perceived unilateral action and bombing Iranian nuclear sites would be, at best, incredibly fucking stupid.

But, of course, that's never stopped our criminal-in-chief before.

Asshole.

Linda Hamilton's gonna go ape

Looks like artificial intelligence has progressed far beyond what many people thought possible. Incredibly, a batch of European scientists are beginning to design robots that emulate people and can learn behavior.

From the BBC:

The project involves building a series of robots that can take sensory input from the humans they are interacting with and then adapt their behaviour accordingly...

The robots will learn from the feedback they receive from humans.

The robots will get the feedback from simple vision cameras, audio, contact sensors, and sensors that can work out the distance between the machine and the humans.

"One of the things we are going to use to detect expressions in faces and patterns in motion is a (artificial) neural network."

Artificial neural networks are being used because they are very useful for adapting to changing inputs - in this case detecting patterns in behaviour, voice, movement etc.

Within a decade, the machines will take over and war will begin. Just wait. You'll see. Then you'll be sorry.

Dems? With spines? No way!

Apparently tired of passing non-binding resolutions, now Senate and House Democrats are getting prepped for the real fight over Iraq. Particularly in the Senate, where legislation is being prepared that would "effectively revoke the broad authority granted to the president in the days Saddam Hussein was in power, and leave U.S. troops with a limited mission as they prepare to withdraw," according to CNN.

The Senate, however, couldn't even get a non-binding resolution to pass, and with Joe Lieberman about to become a Republican because of his pro-war stance, chances are dicey at best that the Dems will be able to get anything solid passed.

Meanwhile, the Big Dick has decided he's taking matters into his own hands as far as Iran. He's not going to wait and see what the Decider wants, oh no! He's going to throttle Ahmadinejad with his bare hands, that dirty towel-headed camelfucker!

Whatever the U.S. winds up doing, though, it's going to have to do without its old whipping boy, Tony Blair:

The London Times reported earlier Friday that senior British government officials fear Bush will launch an attack on Iran before his final term in office ends in a little less than two years.

They fear that Bush will seek to "settle the Iranian question through military means," the daily reported, quoting unidentified senior British government sources.

"He (Bush) will not want to leave it unresolved for his successor," one of the sources told The Times.

A day earlier British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted on BBC Radio that there is "no planning" under way for an attack on Iran, adding that he knew of "nobody" in Washington who was planning an invasion either.

"You can't absolutely predict every set of circumstances that comes about but sitting here now talking to you, I can tell you Iran is not Iraq," Blair said.

I guess the Brits have finally wised up, since their royal family is now at risk thanks to shrub's warmongering. Congrats to the U.K.

Kentucky Fried Rats

This is rather stomach-turning. A very good reason to pass on fast food in New York City, though.

Chimps making weapons, plotting worldwide coup of humanity

The monkeys are making spears. And killing babies.
From the Washington Post:

Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the hand-crafted tools to hunt small mammals -- the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans.

The multi-step spear-making practice, documented by researchers in Senegal who spent years gaining the chimpanzees' trust, adds credence to the idea that human forebears fashioned similar tools millions of years ago.

No way!

It gets better, though:

Using their hands and teeth, the chimpanzees were repeatedly seen tearing the side branches off long straight sticks, peeling back the bark and sharpening one end, the researchers report in today's on-line issue of the journal Current Biology. Then, grasping the weapon in a "power grip," they jabbed into tree-branch hollows where bush babies -- small monkey-like mammals -- sleep during the day.

After stabbing their prey repeatedly, they removed the injured or dead animal and ate it.

"It was really alarming how forceful it was," said lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University in Ames, adding that it reminded her of the murderous shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho." "It was kind of scary."

Next thing you know, they're going to mutate and start calling themselves things like "Donatello" and "Splinter."

Who you gonna bomb?

It looks like Ahmadinejad is as dumb as Shrub. Instead of chilling out and giving the neocon warhawks less and less reason to attack, the Iranian presidente is ramping up his country's nuke program.

Like a bull in a china shop, the NY Times writes, Ahmadinejad is stubbornly insisting that nuclear power is his country's right and he's going to keep doing whatever the hell he wants because the United States is an immoral foreign power with no rightful authority over the Middle East. Of course, this is nothing new. He's been singing the same Arabic version of Bush's "I'm the decider" for years now.

What is new, though, is that for reasons some of us can't quite fathom, Shrub has apparently decided we need to fuck up Iran, too. And we probably will.

The Times:

Since the last report by the atomic agency, President Bush has ordered two aircraft-carrier groups to patrol the waters off Iran, an unsubtle reminder that if diplomacy fails, Mr. Bush could rapidly order air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The BBC:

US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.

It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres...

diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.

That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say...

For right now, Shrub's got nothing. But that's likely to change, especially since U.S. officials have been trying to convince everyone that Iran's been channeling roadside bombs and other weapons into Iraq for use against American soldiers. And half the fucking Bush Administration isn't even keeping their designs a secret.

From Newsweek:

At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for," says Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs.

The magazine concludes:

With Americans and Iranians jousting on the chaotic battleground of Iraq, the chances of a small incident's spiraling into a crisis are higher than they've been in years.

And U.S. forces are already playing cat-and-mouse with the Iranians, as the Newsweek article illustrates. They're looking for any excuse they can to brawl, and often creating situations where none previously existed, simply because... well, I don't know. I can't say for sure why Shrub or the U.S. forces would want to push Iran around, other than the fact that Ahmadinejad, like lil' Kim and Hugo, has been stepping on Shrub's toes for a long time and that he's tired of not getting his props.

Let's see... it took Shrub a year and a half after 9/11 to invade Iraq, but he had a lot more clout back then. This time, he'll have to sufficiently manipulate Ahmadinejad's scornful disrespect of the U.N. to get any backing for bombing runs, but my guess is they'll begin before the year is out.

Any wagers?

Mmmmmm, hummus...