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The Robotic Chair (1984 - 2006) is a generic-looking wooden chair with the capacity to fall apart and put itself back together. With shuddering force the chair collapses to the floor then with persistence and determination proceeds to seek out its parts and upright itself. Found at the online art gallery VVork.
Open thread below…
Today’s Ashwin Madia Blog Day in Minnesota. Bloggers there are having a heyday exposing Republican reactionary Erik Paulsen and spotlighting the leadership abilities of ex-U.S. Marine officer Madia. It’s a very winnable race in blue-trending Twin Cities suburbs (MN-03) and Ash is a superlative replacement for retiring Republican Jim Ramstad. Over at DownWithTyranny we tried showing Ash’s courageousness and dedication to principles and values by highlighting his stand on one of the most difficult of all issues for politicians to talk about: gay rights. Ashwin doesn’t hide behind fake constructs like “civil unions.” Here’s the MTV profile that will give you an idea of what this guy is all about– and here’s the Minnesota united blogs ActBlue page.
AP:
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Party’s vice presidential candidate in 2000 and now an independent who is one of John McCain’s strongest supporters, will speak at the Republican National Convention, an official said.
Lieberman will deliver a speech when Republicans gather in St. Paul, Minn., to nominate McCain for president, a party official told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The official requested anonymity because a formal announcement had yet to be made.
Lieberman’s office declined to comment.
Four years ago, former Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat, praised President Bush and mocked the Democratic ticket as weak on defense in a speech at the GOP’s national convention. Read on…
So my question for Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid is: how soon can we kick the pr*ck out of the party?
David Isenberg, UPI [h/t MF]
Say whatever you want about Blackwater Worldwide — and hardly a day goes by when something isn’t being said about it — it does not put all its eggs in one basket. Long before the company’s recent announcement that it would seek to de-emphasize its personal security work in the future, it had created a diversified corporate structure. To use military terminology, it is a combined arms operation.
While most attention is focused on Blackwater Security Consulting, the unit that provides contractors for work in Iraq and elsewhere, there is far more to it than that. Blackwater has long sought to be a one-stop shopping center, a sort of Wal-Mart for all the U.S. government’s military outsourcing needs, and a review of its business units shows it has gone a long way toward meeting that goal.
Notorious cross-dresser and miserable failure of a Presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, has been chosen to give the keynote speech in Minneapolis-St. Paul on Sept. 2. For a good idea of what 9iu11ani will say, see: here.
[Newsday]
UPDATE: It looks like Rudy’s first gig as GOP keynote speaker, a conference call with the press today, didn’t go so well. Politico’s Ben Smith is reporting that McCain goons cut the line of Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporter Ron Kampeas after he began pressing 9Iu11ani on some of his shady business dealings.
Rudy Giuliani’s appearance on a McCain conference call got off to a rocky start when Ron Kampeas, the Washington, D.C. of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, compared an Obama advisor’s trip to Syria — the subject of the call — to Giuliani’s and McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann’s paid work on behalf of Georgia (in Scheunemann’s case) and Venezuela’s Citgo and the Saudi government (in the case of Giuliani’s law firm).
“You’re making an issue of him taking a hotel room?” Kampeas asked — and then dropped off the call mid-sentence.
“I think they cut me off,” he said in an email just now.
Scheunemann noted that his lobbying contract, unlike Obama advisor Daniel Kurtzer’s trip to Syria, was publicly disclosed and not “covert.” Giuliani said that Citgo, which is owned by the Venezuelan government, is an “American company.”
“I never represented Saudi Arabia,” he said.
The Associated Press reported that Bracewell & Giuliani, a Texas-based energy firm, has represented Saudi Arabia.
As I’ve written before, Republicans will inevitably throw some sort of hissy fit over something real or imagined that happens at the Democratic convention in order to try to prevent any kind of convention bounce for Obama. Be prepared.
Drudge will rule the world and Mark Halperin will be in awe of his incredible influence. Then…when you see most pundits on TV—they will never be talking to you or me, but to each other.
Maher…You’re a Senator. You are one of the very few people are really running this country. It worries me that people are running my country, who think, who believe in a talking snake.
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Heather:
A clip from Maher’s movie Religulous. He’s debating Mark Pryor on whether he actually believes a literal interpretation of the Bible.
(7 min clip)
Check out the trailer here.
CNN reported earlier that she passed away from an aneurysm, and now they are retracting that and reporting she is in critical condition. Out of respect for her and her family we are pulling the story until we have further word.
Our best wishes to her….
Update: There are continuing conflicting stories, her doctors are holding a press conference. Our continued best wishes to her and we are sorry for any part we played in the confusion…
Wapo:
A federal judge ruled today that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) will face trial in Washington next month, denying Stevens’s request to transfer the case to a court in his home state.
…Stevens, 84, was indicted July 29 by a federal grand jury on charges he failed to report on Senate financial disclosure forms that he accepted more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from executives of Veco, a now-defunct Alaska oil services company.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that moving the trial to a federal court in Alaska would cause “delay and additional expense.”
Aw gee, Judge Sullivan, I’m sure there are some former Veco executives who would be happy to help with the cost (snark).
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The only disappointment, as KO pointed out in his DK diary, is that there was no pie.
Gareth Porter today examines the deeply flawed relationship between Musharraf of Pakistan and the Bush administration - one that sacrificed US national security for the mere appearance of alliance.
The problem faced by the Bush administration when it came into office was that the Pakistani military, over which Musharraf presided, was the real terrorist nexus with the Taliban and al Qaeda. As Bruce Riedel, National Security Council (NSC) senior director for South Asia in the Bill Clinton administration, who stayed on the NSC staff under the Bush administration, observed in an interview with this writer last September, al Qaeda “was a creation of the jihadist culture of the Pakistani army”.
If there was a state sponsor of al Qaeda, Riedel said, it was the Pakistani military, acting through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.
… For the next few years, Musharraf played a complicated game. The CIA was allowed to operate in Pakistan’s border provinces to pursue al Qaeda operatives, but only as long as they had ISI units accompanying them. That restricted their ability to gather intelligence in the northwest frontier. At the same time, ISI was allowing Taliban and al Qaeda leaders to operate freely in the tribal areas and even in Karachi.
The Bush administration also gave Musharraf and the military regime a free ride on the A. Q. Khan network’s selling of nuclear technology to Libya and Iran, even though there was plenty of evidence that the generals had been fully aware of and supported Khan’s activities.
Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins wrote in their book “The Nuclear Jihadist” that one retired general who had worked with Khan told them there was no question that Khan had acted with the full knowledge of the military leadership. “Of course the military knew,” the general said. “They helped him.”
But the Bush administration chose to help Musharraf cover up that inconvenient fact.
I hope all the Bush-cheerleaders who backed Musharraf simply because Bush called the ex-dictator a bulwark against terrorism are thoroughly ashamed of their support for such an amazingly dangerous lie. The motive for that cover up seems to have been providing an appearance of progress in the War on Terror rather than an actuality. Style over substance. But Musharraf’s Pakistan gave nuclear know-how to Iran, North Korea and Libya as well as providing safe haven to myriad of Islamic extremist terrorist groups.
Still, I really don’t expect the situation under Zardari, a man who is legendary for his corruption in a land of incredibly corrupt politicians, to improve any. Which mounts a serious challenge to the foreign policy plans of both the presidential candidates. Does either have the courage to call a spade a spade and to call Pakistan a major sponsor of terrorism?
Scotty asks Obama not to investigate his peeps in the White House if he wins in November because it will taint Obama.
Scott McClellan advises Obama, in an interview with my colleague Daniel Libit, not to investigate the Bush Administration — because it would, McClellan says, damage Obama’s image…read on
That’s good enough for me… More at Will Bunch.
On Saturday night, at the forum at Saddleback Church, the Rev. Rick Warren asked John McCain to name “the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration.” McCain listed three people: Gen. David Petraeus, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), and eBay CEO Meg Whitman.
It was nice, I suppose, for McCain to mention Lewis in this context. Indeed, I don’t doubt for a moment that Lewis is quite wise and would have a lot to offer McCain in the way of advice.
But it was more than a little odd to see McCain tout his support for Lewis’ wisdom given that McCain has largely ignored Lewis during their decades of concurrent congressional service. Jonathan Stein has the story:
At the time of McCain’s Selma speech, a Lewis associate told my colleague David Corn that McCain has never been close to Lewis. Lewis was not told about McCain’s speech in Selma in advance, nor was he invited to attend.
In response to McCain’s latest invocation of his name, Rep. Lewis said in a statement requested by Mother Jones, “I cannot stop one human being, even a presidential candidate, from admiring the courage and sacrifice of peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge or making comments about it.” But, he added, “Sen. McCain and I are colleagues in the US Congress, not confidantes. He does not consult me. And I do not consult him.”
Well, no, of course not. McCain is a conservative Republican with an underwhelming record on civil rights. Lewis is a progressive Democrat who has championed civil rights throughout his life.
McCain is going to “rely … heavily” on Lewis if elected? We should be so lucky.
Undiplomatic: According to the Bush administration’s definition of torture, John McCain was not tortured.
P.M. Carpenter: Be a conservative’s friend and promote Bob Barr
The Brad Blog: A lot of voting zeitgeist in the media of late. What took ya so long, folks?
democracy arsenal: Why does the anti-science Bush administration’s Secretary of State need a science advisor?
Roger Ailes (not that Roger Ailes): All Veepstakes, all the time.
HOLY CRAP: It’s official, Obama not the Antichrist!…I’m not a molester, you’re a Jesus-hater…Ya gotta have faith…Wonder if Javon’s parents voted? Yeah, they did…slacktivist on Saddleback…Will our new national pastor also have ethics?…bizarre mash of paranoia and fantasy…More crazy sh*t…Christian body care & soaps…Family News…Mega-church pastor endorsing politicians from the pulpit…Ten Commandments back in court…The State Department’s religious blog…Theocrat Rod Parsley attacks Pastor Dan…Texas roots of the Religious right
Believe it or not, Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity are still, even now, laughing like school children over the notion of properly-inflated tires.
A lot of Republicans have said a lot of stupid things about energy policy in recent weeks, but this may very well be the single most inane comment any of them have uttered publicly. (Worse than a House Republican from Texas exclaiming, “Let’s bring up the Paris Hilton plan”? Yes, even worse than that.)
Ben at TP valiantly goes to the trouble of pointing out why Gingrich’s argument is demonstrably ridiculous — explaining why tire maintenance is a good idea, and wouldn’t “enrich Big Oil” — but I’d just add that it’s worth remembering just how idiotic Newt Gingrich’s worldview can be.
About a year ago, the WaPo’s David Broder said the former House Speaker has “earned the label ‘visionary.’” That’s absurd; Gingrich is a little more than pseudo-scholarly nut.
I’m not just talking about his nutty behavior. Gingrich, as Speaker, shut down the government (twice) and he pursued presidential impeachment over an adulterous affair (while carrying on an affair of his own), which certainly sounds nutty, but I’m talking more about his bizarre worldview.
We talked recently about some of his greatest hits, including Gingrich’s sincere arguments such as the notion that the homeless should get laptops and that women shouldn’t be permitted to serve in combat roles because “males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”
But poking around a bit the other day, I was also reminded of Gingrich’s habit for blaming liberals, government, and liberal government for just about every societal ill he can identify.
* In 1994, after Susan Smith drowned her two young sons, Newt Gingrich, just three days before the midterm elections, equated her crime with the values of the Democratic Party. Gingrich told the AP, “The mother killing her two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change. I think people want to change and the only way you get change is to vote Republican. That’s the message for the last three days.”
* In 1999, shortly after the Columbine massacre, Gingrich argued that American “elites” bear responsibility. “I want to say to the elite of this country - the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse you in Littleton…of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made,” Gingrich said, “and being afraid to take responsibility for things you have done, and instead foisting upon the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don’t have the courage to look at the world you have created.”
* Last year, after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Gingrich blamed liberals for supporting “situation ethics,” adding, “Yes, I think the fact is, if you look at the amount of violence we have in games that young people play at 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years of age, if you look at the dehumanization, if you look at the fact that we refuse to say that we are, in fact, endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God, that if you kill somebody, you’re committing an act of evil.” Gingrich, explaining the VT tragedy, went on to condemn Halloween costumes and the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law.
Broder may think this clown is a “visionary,” and the DC establishment may perceive him as some kind of “big thinker,” but I look at Gingrich and see a strange partisan hack with a PhD.
MTV