Contaminated Beef Recalled - 5 States Involved

Normally, I feel pretty safe eating food her in the US, but lately I am really beginning to wonder. There is a recall just issued for frozen beef patties that are contaminated with e-coli. The disease has made children sick in Napa County, California. The problem is that happened two weeks ago and the recall just went out today! The meat was produced in 2006, so this stuff was obviously not carefully inspected. This is another example of the private sector doing a better job than the government. NOT! The FDA has been steadily gutted by the Bushies, allowing the private sector to self-inspect in many cases.

Now if you are concerned about profits, you want as little interference from things like health inspections as possible; slows things down! So, you skimp and you vacillate and people get sick and the gutted Centers For Disease Control take weeks to get the warning out and the FDA waits a week to issue a recall and voila! Sick kids, possible complications in others who have eaten this contaminated meat and all in the name of the bottom line.

Makes me want to grow my own food.

Listen To The Real Veterans - Our People In Iraq

This is one of a series of informational videos featuring real Iraq War Vets. Listen closely to what they have to say. It isn't pretty, and it is very telling about the lack of a real plan for this immoral war.

New Taliban Beheading Video & More Executions In Texas

Another grisly video has surfaced in Afghanistan. This one my be the most graphic yet, showing a 12 year old boy beheading an accused “spy”. The video making the rounds in Pakistan shows a captured Pakistani militant making what appears to be a forced confession. Then he is blindfolded and held down while a boy who appears to be no older than 12 screams about vengeance and hacks through his neck with a knife.

The whole thing is awful, and it is made worse by that call for vengeance. It seems that the remnants of the Taliban, who perpetrated this crime, base their justice system on revenge. Funny thing, so do we. Our system of justice is more sanitized, but no less horrible. No we don’t behead our victims; we kill them nicely with drugs. Here in Texas we kill lots of them, 12 in the first part of this year!

Are we preventing crime? If we are, then Texas should be crime free by now. We execute more people than any other state, so if execution works as a crime prevention method where are the results?

The truth is that execution in Texas is just simple revenge. The old “eye for an eye” thing is big here in the Lone Star State. The problem is that often the people executed are actually innocent, or more often just had really bad lawyers. This makes the execution even worse. What capital punishment has become in Texas is a method of killing the poor and uneducated. This state-sanctioned killing may look more civilized than the brutal stuff in the latest Taliban video, but don’t be fooled. The victims are just as dead.

Jon Stewart Roasts Gonzo

Gonzales Lies, Yet Bush Still Has Full Confidence In Him

After Alberto Gonzales embarrassing testimony yesterday when he uttered the phrase "I don;t recall that" over 50 times, the President announces he has full confidence in the Attorney General. That is a pretty telling statement in my book. Sounds like Bush is either completely clueless or relieved that Gonzales continued his stonewalling and kept his mouth shut.

The most disturbing fact is that by all testimony, Gonzales has repeatedly lied to Congress and yet Bush still "has confidence" in him. I have to wonder what he is protecting? Sounds a lot like Bush has something to hide and Gonzales is complicit in helping him do it.

Personally, I would be much happier if Gonzales did the ethical thing and resigned. Of course ethics are in very short supply in the Bush administration, so I won't get my hopes up.

Chuck Schumer Clubs Gonzales "Like A Baby Seal"

Gonzo isn't doing well at the hearing. A Republican source told a CNN reporter he was being beat "like clubbing a baby seal". This exchange with Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) shows just how poorly Attorney General Gonzales is doing and it isn't good.

Raw Story has a video clip that is painful to watch, especially considering that the Attorney General of the US is supposed to uphold the law. The lies and obfuscation is sickening.

Gonzales Getting Grilled In Senate Hearings

Watching CSPAN today and the testimony of Alberto Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee was like watching a past-his-prime prize fighter get pummeled in the ring. Sometimes they have the stamana to keep standing but they don’t have the sense to just fall down.

Gonzales is being beat up by Republicans and Democrats alike. Neither side seems to believe him and Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma even called for him to resign. Gonzo just won’t give up. Some might find that heroic, but in reality it’s just pathetic. He has no credibility left and yet he refuses to resign from an office where credibility is key.

Whatever happens as a result of these hearings, it is painfully obvious that Gonzales has no friends left in the Senate. More importantly, these hearings give a good idea of just how popular the entire Bush administration is becoming in Congress. When will Bush realize he has become a liability to the Republican party and a disaster for the country.

Rumors Say Dennis Kucinich Will Introduce Articles Of Impeachment

Latest rumor via www.rawsory.com says Dennis Kucinich will introduce articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney next week. Couldn't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

Abstinence Only Sex Education Doesn't Work - Anybody Surprised At That?

The idea that you can teach young people to "just say no" to sex before marriage is not only wrongheaded, its ineffective. That is the conclusion of a study of the governments "abstinence only" education programs.It seems that students who had the "no sex" solution fared the same as students who did not attend classes. In other words these government-sponsored programs have the same effect as no program at all!

So what does the Family Research Council think we should do? Well more of the same that’s what. As a member of a 12-step program I was taught that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results was a good definition of insanity. I think it’s time the folks over at FRC had an intervention. The abstinence only program is a failure, just like most sane people said it would be. Now after spending $176 million a year on this tripe, it’s time to give our young people the real sex education they need and want.

Justice Department Fails To Meet Subpoena Deadline

The showdown has begin. The Department of Justice missed their 2:00pm deadline to turn over documents to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Congress has promised to take all legal actions to get the DOJ to comply with the subpoena.

More soon.

Bush Speech - More Lies About 9/11 And Iraq!

Bush is really desperate. He referred again and again to 9/11 in his speech about Iraq today. He keeps trying to keep the lie alive that Saddam was behind 9/11 or that there were ties to Al Qaeda. Both those lies have been debunked by Bush administration investigators as well as independent sources. Why does he keep lying?

I suspect Bush is incapable of telling the truth about anything. He has to keep the terror level high so people will at least listen to him. Otherwise, we'd all just laugh at him to his face.

His latest crap sounds like the script from the Haunted Mansion in Disney World. "Careful or a ghost will follow you home." Just switch the word ghost for terrorist and that's his pitch. Fight them there so we don;t have to fight them here.

Well just in case anyone is listening to him, we already have fought them here...remember 9/11? And the people we are fighting there are not the same terrorists, they are just combatants in a sectarian civil war. Enough lies Mr. Bush!

Gays Being Executed In Baghdad - Sexual Cleansing

We are allegedly fighting in Iraq to secure the freedom and safety of the Iraqi people. I guess that does not include gay Iraqis? Seems the lovely folks there have been doing a little "Sexual Cleansing" to rid Iraq of gays. Over the past three months over 30 gay men have been found executed in Baghdad.

How do we know it was a gay hate crime? Well they left convenient notes with the bodies warning others of the same fate if they strayed from Islam. Great! Let's defend the rights of Iraqi's to murder gays just like the hate mongers in the US do. Now that's freedom on the fucking march!

Bill Maher On Regent University & DOJ

Bill Maher of HBO's Real Time skewers Bush, Monica Goodling and Pat Robertson in his monologue last week. Watch it here from CrooksandLiars.com.