Here
are the nine who voted against the McCain now-that-we-think-about-it,
four-years-later, torture-is-bad Amendment, which passed 90-9 with one
abstention:

The measure was supported by Colin Powell and 28 other retired senior military officers.

Naturally, the Monkey King threatened to veto the measure.  It would limit his power to inflict war at all costs.  After all, he does really think he’s doing god’s work. 

Oh… and that last part is from the BBC, which is now openly reporting that Bush has claimed the war is god’s work.  Chris, incidentally, was writing about this exact thing over two years ago.

You haven’t seen that headline yet.

And with a little luck, you won’t.

But I won’t be blogging much this week, if at all.

There’s plenty to play with in the links on your left.  See you next week.

How will Bush help America prepare for a possible deadly outbreak of Avian Flu?
Letting everyone get sick, trusting the free market to cure us all
423   39.6%
Using the morgue as a photo op after his vacation is over
319   29.8%
Filling the CDC with political hacks and fixers
215   20.1%
Transfering medical research money into the Iraq war
112   10.5%

OK, but what if Bush — who was DUI at age 30 and caught on video drinking at a wedding six years after he claims he stopped cold turkey — is actually drinking again?  (Not that the Enquirer is any less riddled with inaccuracies than CNN or Fox News, or vice versa.)

If Bush is drinking, what’s the possible upside?

New poll at upper left.

This is a picture I took last year of downtown Ketchikan, Alaska:

That’s really the downtown.  You’re looking at the throbbing heart of the metropolis.

And here is a map of the $223 million "Bridge To Nowhere"
(which will probably cost over $300 million) pet project of Alaska
Republican Don Young (R-Pure Evil), overlord of the GOP transportation
committee, who insists that no, the money would not be better spent helping Hurricane Katrina victims:

Notice that the bridge is, in fact, larger than the ENTIRE TOWN.

Look at the giant city, above.  And imagine that 8000-resident
community getting something the size of a Golden Gate bridge.  Instead
of hundreds of millions of dollars going to help hurricane victims.

The ferry ride the bridge would replace, incidentally, takes exactly seven minutes.

This is the single most wasteful transportation project in American history.  No exaggeration.

And the GOP values this over the well-being of American citizens.

No exaggeration.

UPDATE: I’ve been informed by several emailers that my memory was
mistaken; the above photo is not of downtown Ketchikan but of a
thriving section sometimes more frequented by passers-by like myself.

My mistake, and I apologize.

Two emails accused me outright of lying, which is kinda funny.  Because, um, Ketchikan is so utterly memorable that no one could possibly have made this honest mistake.  Well, obviously.

Whatever.  My apologies for the confusion.  If you’d like to see downtown Ketchikan, there’s a lovely view of it here, and another one would be here (scroll down), except in this shot the town seems to be completely obscured by the cruise ships.

Yes, I chose this picture to buttress my point.  But if anyone thinks there’s any deception, by all means, Google image search "downtown Ketchikan"
and let your breath be taken by the throbbing metropolis which surely
deserves hundreds of millions of dollars to build a bridge roughly the
size of the Golden Gate.

Given that the proposed is explicitly designed to tower high
enough that the cruise ships can pass below, I think this also should
explain what I meant by the perhaps hyperbolic phrase "bigger than the
entire town."  If "big" means "up" it pretty much has to be.  And if
you look at the map, the proposed new roadway sure looks like it’s of
greater length than the town itself.  So that’s two dimensions
covered.  No, it’s not wider.  In that sense, yes.  I am humbled.

If anyone wants to push the discussion into further dimensions of
string theory, they’re welcome to do so.

He’s tanned.

He’s rested.

He’s very, very tiny.

Pudu.  For A Puduier America.

PS — Pudu cleans up pretty good, doesn’t he?

PPS — If you’re new to the site, the pudu is the world’s most adorable ungulate.  And apologies to all who missed the little guys for the last couple of weeks.  The pudus were all in their enclosures, too sad about Katrina to come out.  Four trotters up to Richard for the smile-inducing artwork.