Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Not to beat a dead horse or anything but... 22 million missing emails from the Bush administration have finally been found. In case you've forgotten your ancient history, the Bush White House developed quite a case of  "Gosh, we can't find that," during the stink over the attorney general firings and the brouhaha surrounding the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame . It will be interesting to see if the inquiring minds who are all a-twitter over the so-called "Climategate" emails will find this bit of news worthy of their pronouncements. The newly discovered emails cover 94 calendar days of email backups that include the periods where the above events took place. These are, by the way, mandated by federal law to be preserved. The reason given for their missing status was they were "mislabeled." Uh huh. While I'm sure there may be a fair amount of potentially explosive material to be discovered (well, not before 2014 at the earliest), th...

Clifford May , President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies , attempts to defend the Bush White House torture policies on the Daily Show. God bless Jon Stewart. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Cliff May thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days The above is the televised excerpt; the complete un-edited interview is available on the Daily Show website. Excellent stuff. As always.

This just in... Blackwater , America's favorite secretive private "security" (read: paramilitary) corporation has decided to change its name. Henceforth the company name is " Xe ." Officials helpfully point out this is pronounced "zee." Which is interesting since Erik Prince's little business venture already developed quite a name for itself as the Bush administration's mercenary army in Iraq. Not a particularly good name -- they've been accused of atrocities, killing innocent civilians , weapons smuggling, intimidation of US politicians , all on our nickel, and that's just for starters. The Iraq government no longer allows them in the country. Like other creatures that live on death and decay, Blackwater doesn't especially like the harsh light of publicity. So what do they do to restore their good name? They change their name. The cynic in me says this practically unpronounceable name is designed to keep the average person from t...

I was going to write one of my whining, witless screeds and happened to read the following by Andrew Sullivan: Obama for President . It is one of the most rational and chilling indictments of the criminal administration about to pass that I have run across. Sullivan leads by recounting the horror of the 9-11 attacks seven years ago and then makes the case that a far more insidious, damaging attack on our nation has taken place at the hands of George W. Bush and his cronies: their cynical disregard of the rule of law and contempt for the constitution. The biggest task Obama faces (should he win) will be to restore the unequalled damage to our nation and institutions done by the hands of the Bush, Cheney, et. al. It's recognition of this Katrina scale devastation that has caused so many thoughtful Republicans and conservatives to come out for Obama. Read the article -- then go vote if you have not already.