We are amazed but not amused
By all the things you say that you’ll do

Though much concerned but not involved
With decisions that are made by you

But we are sick and tired of hearing your song

Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong

‘Cause if you really want to hear our views

“You haven’t done nothing”!

It’s not too cool to be ridiculed

But you brought this upon yourself

The world is tired of pacifiers

We want the truth and nothing else

And we are sick and tired of hearing your song

Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong

‘Cause if you really want to hear our views

“You haven’t done nothing”!

Jackson 5 join along with me say

Doo doo wop – hey hey hey
Doo doo wop – wow wow wow
Doo doo wop – co co co
Doo doo wop – naw naw naw
Doo doo wop – bum bum bum
Doo doo wop

We would not care to wake up to the nightmare

That’s becoming real life

But when misled who knows a person’s mind

Can turn as cold as ice

Why do you keep on making us hear your song

Telling us how you are changing right from wrong

‘Cause if you really want to hear our views

“You haven’t done nothing”!

Jackson 5 sing along again say

Doo doo wop
Doo doo wop – oh
Doo doo wop – co co co
Doo doo wop – sing it baby
Doo doo wop – bum bum bum
Doo doo wop – um
Sing it loud for your people

Doo doo wop – um um um
Doo doo wop – stand up be counted, say

Doo doo wop – co co co
Doo doo wop – ow
Doo doo wop – bum bum bum
Doo doo wop – ah hum

Cross-posted from Rational Resistance

We knew that when Pat Leahy ascended to the chair of the Judiciary Committee he would regularly be called on to stand up for rights, for civil liberties.. In light of today’s news we canall be glad he’s there.

What are we trying to establish in Iraq? Democracy, right? American-style democracy, with due process of law and all that stuff?

Maybe, depending on what you think due process of law and all those other inconveniences mean.

Here’s what Bush’s people think it means:

“I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”

Yup, that was Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. He’s the guy in charge of detainees, and presumably in charge of the show trials they’re getting. He’s also a lawyer who graduated from George Mason University. Maybe while he was there he missed the day they talked about John Peter Zenger, and his court-appointed lawyer, Alexander Hamilton. So if there’s any question in his mind, here’s a little tip: you don’t have to prove you’re innocent in order to qualify for a lawyer.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wrote to President Bush on Friday asking him to disavow Mr. Stimson’s remarks. They’re trying to distance themselves from Stimson, but since they’re the same people who fired a Navy lawyer for taking them to the Supreme Court on the Hamdan case, it’s hard to take what they say very seriously.

I’ve been thinking about my blogging a lot lately. Sometimes I worry that I’m just too cranky. And lately I’ve thought about de-emphasizing the latest ‘Christofascist idiocy’ and all the other dumb things that the right-wingers and Christianists do to outrage sensible reality-based people on a daily basis. But it’s sooooooo hard. Like Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III: “Everytime I try to get out, they pull me back in.”, and so it goes. I don’t know why I keep doing it; their power is on the wane, their ridiculous ideology bound to be the used, discarded condom of history(yeah, I know, I’ve used that analogy before but it’s just so appropriate and rude). So, dear readers, I’m still going to try to squeeze in more lighter, positive fare. But not right now. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert “An Inconvenient Truth.”

After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a computer presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists’ findings.

“Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher,” said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. “The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.”

Yeesh, where to begin? The stupid hurts my eyes.  This guy is partially correct, however, in that if we don’t act on climate change soon, everything will ‘burn up’, in a manner of speaking.

School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a “credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented,” that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an “opposing view.”

The requirement to represent another side follows district policy to represent both sides of a controversial issue, board President Ed Barney said.

Ok, fair enough, present an opposing view. Seems reasonable. But, unfortunately for ‘Frosty’, like in the evolution/ ‘intelligent design’ controversy, there’s pretty much a consensus in the scientific community in regards to global warming and its reality. Sure, there are a few ‘scientists’ out there that deny it, but more often than not, they usually are funded by think tanks and policy centers that get huge amounts of money from petrochemical companies. This notion of presenting an ‘opposing view’, no matter how ridiculous is truly one of the few weapons that makers of fringe claims still seem to use. I know you’ve probably heard it before, but by that (il)logic, when classes teach about the Holocaust, should they give equal time to holocaust deniers, as well? And don’t tell me it’s not the same thing, because it is.