This (presumably updated from when I saw it last time) list comes courtesy of a fellow Transcripter whose Xanga blog is called Quest for Balance:

Here's some food for thought:
Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?
Give up yet?

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

There. Now do you feel safe? Let em know ... especially next November.

… zzyzx probably hasn’t had time for as much blogging as has had before starting monitoring that bloated Gasbag, Rush Limbaugh (R-Lying Nazi Media Whore). Rock on, dude!

Proof Positive That Drinky McDumbAss Just Doesn't Get It

Yes, ladies and germs, this is an actual quote from pResident Pinhead:

"We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great country and rid the world of evil."

I have to go now before my brain explodes...

This one is for my compatriots at the Rush Limbaugh Transcripts web page:

The God Squad Strikes Again

Another victory for the forces of repression theocracy today:

Justices Clear Way for Abortion Rules

The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for an Indiana state law that places some of the nation's most severe restrictions on abortions, including requirements that a woman be counseled face-to-face about the risks and offered pictures of what her fetus might look like.

…

The high court action means that Indiana may begin fully enforcing a law passed eight years ago that requires in-person counseling and an 18-hour waiting period before a woman can get an abortion.

In practice, the Indiana law and similar measures on the books in four other states require women to make two trips to an abortion clinic. Opponents said that makes the procedure especially difficult to obtain for poor women, or those who must travel long distances.

Making two trips often means leaving work for two days, finding a place to stay overnight and arranging child care at home, said Janet Crepps, staff lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights. Women may also have a hard time explaining their absence from work, school or a husband or partner who does not know about the pregnancy, Crepps said.

…

"Waiting periods will not end abortion," said Erik Whittington (R-Fourth Reich), spokesman for the Control Women’s Lives Movement American Life League. "Although these bills may be well intentioned, they do not address the fact that abortion kills a baby and should never be allowed under any circumstance."

Here at the Funny Farm, we have always maintained that anti-choice protesters are engaging in this behavior for one reason only: they want to control what people do in their personal lives. Legislating morality has never worked, and never will. Maybe if these idiots ‘compassionate conservatives’ showed some concern about the children who have been abused and orphaned instead of the ones who haven’t been born yet, I could empathize (slightly) with their position. And, if the people who are so hopped up about this issue weren’t a bunch of old farts who cannot reproduce anymore, it might make me feel a little differently. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: nobody has the right to tell others how to live their lives. I personally know of a number of people who have had an abortion. Almost every single one of them has said that it was the hardest decision they ever made, but it was the right decision for them. How do you think you would feel if you were constantly told you were a mistake, or ’if it wasn’t for you, I could have been somebody’, or any of a zillion variations on that theme? How would that color your interactions with your children?

This topic (as you may have noticed) is a hot button issue for Your Humble Narrator. I was brought up in a Catholic family (the phrase rearing the children is particularly germane here) with an alcoholic father. And I consider myself fortunate. I had it pretty good when I grew up. I can only imagine what a severely dysfunctional family upbringing would be like. I was (and still am) loved by my parents, siblings, and assorted relatives - even though I am the original black sheep of the clan. And about 180 degrees from the rest of the family on this particular topic.

Bottom line: Everyone should be able to make their own decisions about this sort of thing. Don’t have kids unless you are willing to take on the responsibility for bringing them up. If that means you have an abortion, then you have an abortion. It’s a hell of a lot better than bringing a child in this world, only to abuse them because you didn’t want to have them in the first place.

I went and actually read some of the Rush Limbaugh (R-Lying Nazi Media Whore) transcripts we’ve been putting together as a public service for all of the rest of you out there. What a bloated gasbag this corpo-shill is! Did you know that France is only country motivated solely by oil in this upcoming conflict? Neither did I. But, listen to El ChupaCabra:

There is only one country on this planet right now that's motivated entirely by oil, it's France! Yeah, there's a war out there about oil, but it's, it's all about France. France is doing everything it can to avoid this war for a host of reasons, but at the top of the list is oil! And their own, continued, uninterrupted supply from Iraq!

How can anyone listen to this for three hours a day? I’m hurling just reading these fabrications. You have to be some kind of Cheese-Headed Ditto Monkey to buy this crap. Oh, wait. I think I just answered my own rhetorical question…

We’re picking up the Elitist Ignorant Bellicosity network from Atlanta for this project (for now). So, please make sure you are not supporting any of the sponsors, particularly the local ones, of this farce.

If you’ll excuse me, I have to wash my brain out with real thinking. A mind trip to Tom Tomorrow, Overboard, Kos, Atrios, and Hesiod’s blogs should do the trick… Talk to you later!

I Am Not Making This Up

The United States has "serious concerns" about Egypt's extension of emergency laws which allow it to detain suspects without charge and try civilians in military courts.

Go to this post by Kos and read the linked article.

Just when you think you've seen it all, something like this comes along...

The unmitigated gall of this administration is short-circuiting my melon and making me sick to my stomach. Now I know how Ann Slanders feels about parodying AnnThraxx Coulter. There is literally no way that any satire could be any worse than this truth.

From uggabugga:



And, no - I don't support either of these thugs...

These Guys Are Good

Maybe, just once in my life, if I am really inspired and have had lots more practice, I will be able to write as well as some of my fellow denizens in Blogistan. Day in, day out, there are a few noteworthy writers who not only have something important to tell us – they also manage to say it with style. They stir the rest of us up, so that we are inspired to try and talk to them, or to emulate them, or just to mention it to others (did you see what xxxx wrote / found today?).

We used to have people like that in the mainstream media at one time. But now the bar has been considerably lowered. When people like Howard Fineman, Peggy Noonan and Ann Coulter are considered as the standard of journalistic excellence, it is indeed a sad day for those of us who have to endure their ‘talents’.

Thank goodness there is another place to turn. I am of course referring to my compatriots in the weblog community. I would like to point a few of them out to you, gentle readers, and ask that you take some time and read their words. Not only today, but as often as you can, head over to their little corner of Blogistan, and hear what they have to say. It may surprise you, or shock you, or anger you – but I am reasonably certain it will not leave you unmoved…

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Atrios has to be close to the top of the list. This is not only one of the best sources for breaking news. A lot of people get interested enough to look at the story behind the posts. Take a look at the comments on this weblog. Today, there are posts about:
- an article by Fred Reed in the Washington Times with decidely prejudicial undertones;
- an article in NewsDay informing us that “The lawyer who recommended the American Bar Association's highest rating for controversial appellate judge candidate Miguel Estrada took part in partisan Republican activities during his term as a nonpartisan judicial nomination evaluator for the Bar, according to records and interviews."
- an upcoming appearance on Hardball by Eric Alterman;
- an overview of some of the writers for the Washington Times who haven’t bothered to hide their prejudice;
- a fellow blogger’s destruction of the latest reason to go to war with Iraq;
- an unbelievable article on judicial callousness;
- an article about another setback for AmeriKKKa’s shotgun diplomacy strategery;
- another blogger’s objection to the fellow who shot down the latest pro-war argument;
- an explanation of his/her reasoning behind keeping an open mind on the whole Iraq question; and
- a couple of short links to some other cool stuff.

There are a total of 251 responses to these posts (as of 21:15 EST Monday night). And that’s for one day!

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Kos has been having some help from a couple of others from time to time. Not that he needs it! Today, he prepares for another of his weekly series of essays on the Democratic nominees for President in 2004 by asking his audience for their opinions on the front runners. He also discusses the current National Governors’ Association annual meeting, and their difficulty in getting a chance to discuss their problems with Smirky McWarhardon. Oh yeah, and North Korea’s continuing bellicose behavior on the world stage. And Senator McCain’s fight with his own party about campaign finance reform. Remember that? He also puts out an open thread daily for others to tell him what’s on their minds.

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Hesiod, over at CounterSpin Central, also has his finger on the pulse of the news of the day. I think he’s from my neck of the woods somewhere in the metro Detroit (Michigan) area. And I think he is very good with words. He tends to be a little more, um, vociferous in his posts. Another reason why I think he’s native to this zone (it’s hard to be a kind and gentle person around here. Sample slogan : Detroit – where the weak are killed and eaten).
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Tom Tomorrow and Overboard can also be considered to be of this caliber - or even better than these guys - but they are in a somewhat different category. They do this sort of thing for a living (or will be - Overboard's still in college, fer Koresh's sake!) - both are professional cartoonists and more or less write for their daily bread. Not that they need to when their cartoons are so frelling good...

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And, of course, there’s BartCop. Always entertaining, often insightful, and usually accurate. As well as being one of the best people I have had the pleasure of meeting. And an inspiration and rallying point for an awful lot of disgruntled citizenry here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

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Well… that’s the short list for today. I could go on, but most of you are probably nodding off already…

You can go and look at the web sites for each of these people by clicking on their links over to the left in the Funny Farm Links Zone. And, tell ‘em Tom sent ya!

Those Wacky Germans!

Is it just me, or has the anti-German rhetoric in AmeriKKKa gotten worse than at any time in our lives? I can think of only one other era when it was more virulent than this: World War One. I personally have to give them massive props for standing up to Drinky McDumbAss and the God Squad^TM. He is a frelling moron, and I'm glad that somebody had the cojones to say it. A Canadian was also heard to make the same sort of remark, but the Cretin in charge there had to get rid of her in order to be able to continue sucking on that big AmeriKKKan teat.

Anyways,... here's their cover from last week.



And here’s the story that goes with it. Thanks to Atrios for pointing the way to this article. Enjoy!

One For My Baby

I couldn't resist putting up a link to this: Top sixteen signs your cat may be plotting world domination.

Thanks to Sugarfused for a most excellent list!