] Supposedly he was a great warrior and a mighty leader.
] Yet his sole contribution to the almost disastrous
] attack on the second death star was to spin round in his
] chair,waving his flabby hands about, shrieking "It's a
] twap! It's a twap!".
]
] Yet, contrary to popular belief, this idiocy was
] NOT a failing on the part of Ackbar. Nay.
] In one single day of sustained jestering, the
] Admiral managed to kill the emperor, destroy the evil
] empire and save Anakin Skywalker from the clutches of the
] dark side.

] We once thought that the power of the force
] lay with the jedi knights, but we can now see
] that it does not. The true power of the force
] lies with risible Vaudevillian comics like Admiral Ackbar.
]
] VOTE ACKBAR

Admiral Ackbar For President

Hamdi's case, decided by the Supreme Court earlier this year, was supposed to represent a high-water mark for American freedoms during wartime. He had fought for and won his day in court, an opportunity to question his captors, and a chance at national vindication at the end of it all. Hamdi's name stood for the proposition that the Bush administration couldn't run roughshod over the courts and the law in its pursuit of the war on terror. It now stands for precisely the opposite: With a yawn and a shrug, the administration sidestepped the courts and the judicial process once again, abandoning this criminal prosecution altogether and erasing the episode from our national memory. Hamdi has been stripped of his citizenship and his freedom to travel, and sent packing to his family. The rights and processes guaranteed him by the Supreme Court have been yanked away one last time, by an executive branch that held him for years for no reason and smugly claims now that it was finished with him anyhow.

Nevermind - Hamdi wasn't so bad after all. By Dahlia Lithwick

] The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass
] mailings to residents of two states warning that
] "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings
] were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for
] President Bush.
]
] The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned"
] and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A
] mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be
] Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent
] to West Virginians.

[ It's simply stunning that this kind of shit is considered acceptible public discourse. Really, remarkably low. -k]

Republicans Admit Mailing Campaign Literature Saying Liberals Will Ban the Bible

] No argument is more central to the Republican attack on
] Sen. John Kerry than the assertion that the Democrat has
] flip-flopped on Iraq.
]
] ...
]
] Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200
] speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums
] and answers to reporters' questions does not support the
] accusation.

[ Thank you Marc Sandalow. Remarkably, there are some reporters who cling to the notion of Journalism. Of doing research and presenting conclusions rather than penning endless, identical, he-said/she-said tripe that does nothing to inform the public. Objective does not mean divorced from the world. And balance implies fairness, not equal space for unchecked garbage. It's immensely gratifying to encounter these solid grains of truth in the undifferentiated mass of spin and shill that populates the majority of mainstream news.

And even better, it appears that this was on page A-1. I wonder if it got above the fold. -k]

NEWS ANALYSIS / Flip-flopping charge unsupported by facts / Kerry always pushed global cooperation, war as last resort

] JON STEWART: Well Stephen, what do you think is going to
] happen now at CBS News?
]
] STEPHEN COLBERT, Daily Show Senior Media Correspondent:
] Jon, there's got to be some accountability. Dan Rather is
] the head, the commander in chief if you will of his
] organization. He's someone in the ultimate position of
] power who made a harmful decision based upon questionable
] evidence. Then, to make things worse, he stubbornly
] refused to admit his mistake, choosing instead to stay
] the course and essentially occupy this story for too
] long. This man has got to go!
]
] STEWART: Uh ... we're talking about Dan Rather...?
]
] COLBERT: Yes Jon, Dan Rather. CBS is in chaos, it's
] unsafe, riven by internal rivalries. If you ask me,
] respected, reputable outsiders need to be brought in to
] help the rebuilding effort.
]
] STEWART: ... at CBS News?
]
] COLBERT: Yeah, at CBS news! What possible other unrelated
] situation could my words be equally applicable to?! Now
] people need to be held accountable. The commander in
] chief, the vice president, the secretary of defense, the
] national security adviser -- everyone at CBS News needs
] to go! Jon, I can tell you, Walter Cronkite is rolling
] over in his grave.
]
] STEWART: Walter Cronkite is still alive.
]
] COLBERT: Not according to my sources ... at CBS News.

[ Brilliant. -k]

Daily Show Transcript on the Great Leader's Mistake

] What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men,
] armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!),
] rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding
] out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the
] country? What if they completely controlled Seattle,
] Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas,
] Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal
] troops could not go into those cities?
]
] What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly)
] bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los
] Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and
] other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of
] "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of
] children and little old ladies?
]
] What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in
] the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous,
] especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC,
] and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95
] anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk
] being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed
] with machine gun fire.

What if America was Iraq?

] Even as John Kerry struggles to establish
] national-security credentials nationally, an exclusive WW
] straw poll shows his campaign dominating one skeptical,
] warlike demographic: Klingons.
]
] "A good war is based on honor, not deception," says K'tok
] (Earth name: Clyde Lewis), a 40-year-old Klingon from
] Lair Hill. "The first warrior, President Bush, deceived
] us all with this war."
]
] "On the home world, if there had been a contested
] election between Gore and Bush, the honorable thing would
] be for Gore to kill Bush," explained Khraanik (Earth
] name: Jason Lewis), a 38-year-old from Southeast
] Portland. "Or the other way around. And then ascend to
] the head of the High Council."

[ Heh. -k]

Kerry Dominates Crucial Klingon Demographic

] Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to
] expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even
] as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a
] package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a
] vote in the Senate today.

Bid to Save Tax Refunds for the Poor Is Blocked (washingtonpost.com)

This is no longer an interesting coincidence. It is an unmistakable message from God. I hope everyone is listening.

[ Heh. Funny. -k]

message-from-God.gif (GIF Image, 744x900 pixels)

] One of this year's candidates for president, to hear his
] opposition tell it, has a long history of policy
] reversals and rhetorical about-faces -- a zigzag trail
] that proves his willingness to massage positions and even
] switch sides when politically convenient.
]
] The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush.
] Over the past four years, he abandoned
] positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution
] or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex
] marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of
] creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a
] major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing
] to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president
] yielded to pressure in supporting an independent
] commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept.
] 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about
] whether he would allow his national security adviser to
] testify, or whether he would answer commissioners'
] questions for only an hour, or for as long they needed.

Yahoo! News - Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label