William H.T. "Bucky" Bush, brother of Bush 41 and thus uncle to the Chimpinator, just pocketed almost half a million dollars, thanks to a sweetheart no-bid contract the Pentagon just coincidentally gave the company he worked for.  (See "Uncle Bucky and the Rocket-Fueled Breasts" and links, below.)

This was hinky enough that even the DoD’s own inspector general is quietly taking a second look.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA for whom I actually enjoy voting) has now asked Rumsfeld to hork up the contracts so the rest of us can have a look-see.

As an aside on bias in news reporting: can you imagine the media firestorm if say, Hillary’s second cousin’s company had pocketed $450,000 from a no-bid Pentagon contract.  Can you imagine?

The howling and hissing would frighten wildlife.

Been meaning to link to this for a couple of days now.  Thanks to Kathy at the Consumers Union for the heads-up.

Great music, funny as hell, dead-on.  Enjoy.

Then bug your Congress to behave with the slightest bit of sanity.

On a related topic, I know a lot of folks are trying to get Canadian drugs into the country… but wouldn’t it just be a lot faster if we imported Canadian legislators?

As we cross the threshold of 1500 U.S. deaths…

What’s "indecent" here?
Actual people being blown to bits every day, and an FCC which has allowed corporate consolidation to eviscerate the news itself
643   86.4%
A three-second glimpse of a human female nipple
83   11.2%
Actors pretending to be eviscerated while using naughty, naughty words
14   1.9%
Actors pretending to be eviscerated
4   0.5%

And in this supposedly developed country, scores of millions of people seem to think that self-flattering displays of religiosity will somehow help fix everything, that what we need isn’t more rational thought, but less.

That is so profoundly misguided words fail me.  Fortunately, someone more articulate has already spoken:

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

— Thomas Jefferson, 1813

New poll at left.

The Supreme Court just abolished the death penalty for juvenile offenders.

Oh, great.  Remember, an essential argument for the death penalty is its deterrent value. 

Which means, logically, that if death penalty advocates are right… our nation faces an impending siege of pubescent bloodlust.  I know the crew at Zooboomafoo look innocent enough.  But don’t be fooled.  21 Jump Street just became a freakin’ documentary, do you understand?  Toys ‘R’ Us is about to become the bad part of town, people.  And that battle between Lindsay Lohan and Hillary Duff?  It may very well spill over into the streets.

I don’t even want to think about attending that Wiggles concert next week.

Starting today, under no circumstances should you turn your back on a nine-year-old.  It could be the last thing you ever do.  And here we all thought Spongebob was our biggest concern.

Of course, it’s also possible that the pro-death penalty people might be wrong…

Looks like emails, phone calls, and media pressure may have finally convinced the Medicaid paper-pushers that pulling the plug on a helpless little girl isn’t actually a form of public service.  (Link via Atrios, with a thanks to several alert readers for the heads-up.)

This doesn’t exactly mean Lauren Rainey has it easy from here out; she has more health challenges to deal with than almost any random twenty people combined.  But at least it looks like her family won’t have to keep fighting insanely callous official policies, too.