While it is generally the policy of your friendly fake consultant to avoid direct contact with the American legal system, contact is sometimes unavoidable, which is why we have recently spent a couple of days as a guest of the King County, Washington, Superior Court...and came about as close as a non-criminal can get to being compelled to remain longer.

That’s right, it was time for Jury Duty—and if my mind wasn’t so oddly warped I’d be going back tomorrow to hear testimony...but it is, and I’m not.

All of that explained; a few words about the similarities between this process and flying, and then finally a few kind words for a handy espresso shop and we should have a complete story for today...and a couple things to discuss tomorrow.

So let’s get to it.

Yesterday’s news about the Interior Department’s finally listing polar bears as a threatened species seemed to cause hardly a ripple on the pond of public concern. And why should it at a time many are suffering from “concern fatigue.” Some are expending so much mental energy on the Democratic presidential primaries that they have heart for little else. Even wars, the economy, and a global food crisis have taken a temporary backseat to concern about the cataclysmic natural disasters in Myanmar and China.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

Although I have done versions of this before, this was inspired by a Daily Kos Diary:

This is what happened Monday, Aug. 29, 2005...the day Katrina hit, John McCain's 69th birthday...the day America realized that Republicans don't give a shit about Americans.

Hurricane Katrina:

I remember the radar images from the weather channel the night before landfall. I remember distincly watching it and thinking, "My god...that's going to be bad." I also remember thinking that the government had better be ready to get people out and to deal with the situation.

I was right...it was going to be really, really bad. I mean THIS bad:

(Cross posted from Docudharma)

We have come to a place unimagined even by Orwell who got so much right.  

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

cross-posted @ This Week With Barack Obama

Congratulations to Hillary Clinton and her supporters for the win in West Virginia.

Clinton netted 137,410 of the popular vote.

Many estimated that West Virginians would vote upwards or over 500,000 to 600,000, but that was not the case.

The turnout was lower.

Moving on....

I was still in 'Nam, counting down the days, real short, in returning back to 'The World' and my discharge after 4years of service, when 'Winter Soldier Investigation '71' took place.

The Congressional Testimony then would follow the Detriot testimony of my brother 'Nam Vets who had already returned from that Debacle and Occupation!

Sadly the Country that said, almost as one {many of us 'Nam Vets said we would never allow again} we would remember the lessons of, We Didn't, and history repeats!

Winter Soldier Investigations '71

The soldier who saw hell

Winter Soldier is a harrowing film in which Vietnam veterans confess to atrocities. How did it come about? John Patterson finds out

Shattering testimonies... Winter Soldier

Otherwise reasonable people who fall under the spell of Barack Obama's mesmerizing TV persona soon learn to dispense with common sense when it conflicts with the pretensions of their new Messiah. The latest example of this silliness is the claim that Rush Limbaugh gave the Indiana primary to Hillary Clinton.

No kidding, he's thinking about it! He was already baptized when he was a baby, but that was Episcopalian so it "doesn't count" with the religious right.

So he's thinking about doing it again, because, goddammit, he needs the religious right. Look:

(continued)

I just saw this on the morning post on the MAINblog and about choked on my coffee.

It seems Phyllis Schlafly has taken an interest in seeing judges elected in Johnson County Kansas vs. having them appointed in a non-partisan process that costs tax payers little to nothing.

"Voters in Johnson County, Kan. will have a proposition on the November ballot that could send shock waves through the tenure of state court judges.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

What is this Country waiting for?

This is Our Government, those in Washington work for Us!

Little georgie likes to say "His Government", it ain't his, He Works For Us, as do everyone appointed and hired to federal jobs!

The Government we have isn't just Incompetent, It's Totally Corrupt!