Extremism + American-style detention = Extremism²: 

U.S.-run detention camps in Iraq have become a breeding ground for extremists where Islamic militants recruit and train supporters, and use violence against perceived foes, say former inmates and Iraqi officials.

Extremists conducted regular indoctrination lectures, and in some cases destroyed televisions supplied by the Americans for use with educational videos, banned listening to music on radios, forbade smoking and stoked tensions between Sunni and Shiite detainees, they said.

Iraqis swept up in security operations and held indefinitely while the Americans try to determine whether they have any links to the insurgency are susceptible to the extremists' message, former detainees said. 

Nobody stopped to think that maybe swooping in and arresting en masse Iraqi’s who were in the wrong place at the wrong time might be a bad move?  Ruining the lives and families of petty criminals and innocent bystanders through forced cohabitation with legitimate extremists amounts to nothing more than sending them to insurgent university. 

I’m sympathetic to the necessity of neutralizing a credible threat when you’re in a war zone.  Politics aside, war is – obviously – chaotic and dangerous.  However you feel about whether or not we belong there, there are those who pose an imminent threat to the lives of those around them and preventing that is the least we can do.  But once again the Pentagon’s policy of shoot first think later, well … when they get around to it, has inserted ourselves as a causal factor in the very conflict we purport to address.  

Sweet catch by August:

Discussing the news that Mary Cheney's baby will be a boy, a FreeRepublic poster concedes:

I thank Mary for having the baby and not having an abortion. Kudos for her on that anyway.

Responds another poster:

Yes, it is good that more and more women who find themselves pregnant after undergoing the arduous process of artificial insemination are choosing to give birth rather than getting an abortion.

If you visited on Sunday, you probably noticed I took the site down to do some upgrades that I'd been putting off for a while.  It seems the site has been buggy every since.  I thought I had caught most of them, but people are starting to report errors such has pictures covering posts, etc. 

If you encounter any problems with the site, you would be doing me a big favor by reporting them through the site's contact form.  Describe what is happening and, if you could, also tell me what browser and version you are using.  It would be much appreciated!

Grudge match of the week: National Embarrassment vs. Lucifer Incarnate!  Big kudos to Rivera for turning this playground tantrum into a plug for FOX News.

This is just surreal.  Even though bin Laden publicly referred to Hussein as an infidel and the very core of vanguard Al-Qaedism explicitly sought to overthrow such non-orthodox regimes, Team Cheney somehow convinced the American public otherwise.  Even though everyone now knows better, it does nothing to alleviate the quagmire in which we find ourselves. 

I find it strange that people think we can’t somehow blame the administration for lying and also accept our circumstances as they are and work to move forward.  The two are not mutually exclusive.  But the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But even in the face of overwhelming evidence, it is clear that Cheney has not yet reached this point: 

The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, continued to insist yesterday that there was a link between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al-Qaida, in spite of the publication of declassified intelligence documents showing the opposite.
… 

But interviewed yesterday, Mr Cheney, who was one of the hawks favouring invasion, reiterated his claim that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before the March 2003 invasion. 

"He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organised the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June," Mr Cheney told a radio interviewer yesterday. "As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq." 

Intelligence analysts say Zarqawi was not then part of al-Qaida , but became its leader in Iraq after the invasion. 

Notice that Cheney is not saying Hussein had ties to Al-Qaeda, but that at least one Al-Qaeda cell was operating in Iraqi soil.  Like finding a fly in my soup constitutes proof that the restaurant was trying to make me eat bugs.  Worse still, by this logic we are obligated to attack any country upon which Al-Qaeda operates. In Rumsfeld’s own words, this is at least 60 countries.  I guess we’d better get ready to invade Italy.  Not to mention ourselves.

I remember reading in one of Jim Hightower’s books (sorry, can’t remember which) about how EMT’s, those capable heroes in charge of saving your life, are a relatively new entity. In fact, it wasn't too long ago that ambulance services were provided exclusively by another organization – your local funeral home. Now if that’s not a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is. Oh, wait – here’s one:

The telephone number looks like any other university extension. And when students call with questions about financial aid, the recorded voice at the other end says, "Thank you for calling Texas Tech University's student financial center."

But what is remarkable about the center is not so much that it is actually located hundreds of miles away from Texas Tech's Lubbock campus. It is that the people giving advice are not university employees at all -- instead they work for Nelnet, a company that made more than $68 million last year off of student loans.

Nelnet's role staffing the help line -- which is not disclosed to callers -- is a window into the often hidden relationships between loan companies and the colleges that students rely on for advice about how to finance their schooling. Nelnet is one of several lenders that the university recommends to its students, though it is not among its 10 largest lenders.

As long as we’re on a role, why not put pharmaceutical companies in charge of healthcare, oil companies in charge of energy policy, and Halliburton in charge of national defense. Oh, crap … looks like all those are already taken!

Having lived in Europe for six years now, I've become one of those people who seem to constantly be flying the transatlantic corridor.  Problem is, since TSA took over airline security, I honestly can't stand flying and am always looking for alternate methods of travel.  My top choice so far has been transatlantic cruising, though the cost and time are hard to justify.

Well, thanks to Google Maps, I now have the solution - Driving!  Seriously, give it a shot.  It even includes directions such as “swim across the Atlantic Ocean – 3,462 mi.”  They don’t mention it, but I assume that I'll need to tie the car to my ankle with a rope or something?

Mu-ha-ha: 

This year the contest is a little different. We all know that a good plot to blow up an airplane will cause the banning, or at least screening, of something innocuous. If you stop and think about it, it's a stupid response. We screened for guns and bombs, so the terrorists used box cutters. We took away box cutters and small knives, so they hid explosives in their shoes. We started screening shoes, so they planned to use liquids. We now confiscate liquids (even though experts agree the plot was implausible)...and they're going to do something else. We can't win this game, so why are we playing? 

Well, we are playing. And now you can, too. Your goal: invent a terrorist plot to hijack or blow up an airplane with a commonly carried item as a key component. The component should be so critical to the plot that the TSA will have no choice but to ban the item once the plot is uncovered. I want to see a plot horrific and ridiculous, but just plausible enough to take seriously.

Creationists rejoice! A plastic-haired wingnut has finally disproved that silly "theory" of evolution using a jar of peanut butter!