Maddow and Isikoff on Obama Recalcitrance on Prosecutions of Bush Officials

I think I'll let this stand on its own: very informative. One comment I'd like to make, however: when have Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or any of that crowd been so honestly, frankly critical of anyone on the right?

OK, Science Can Stop Now: There's Nothing More to Accomplish

Now that we have achieved glow-in-the-dark monkeys.

HT: Drug Monkey

Mindless Right Wingers so Worked up over Over Sotomayor, They Forget Basic Math.

This is why I can't vote Republican anymore. Stupid overload.

So Tuesday afternoon, the Washington Times (Motto, "All the news everyone else would be embarrassed to print") cries to the world that 3 out of 5 of the decisions that Sotomayor was involved in which came before SCOTUS were overturned. That, they claimed was a 60% reversal rate.

AHHHHG! EVERYONE RUN AND HIDE!!!!!!!!! ACTIVIST JUDGE COOTIES!!!11!!!

But even a casual perusal of the data easily shows that the Times is (surprise!) full of it. Sotomayor participated in 380 cases as an appellate judge. That's a helluva body of work. Of the decisions in which she participated, only 5 were granted a Writ of Certiorari by the SC. Of those 3 were overturned. That's a 1.3% review rate and only a 0.79% reversal rate. Pretty damned impressive, actually.

May 2009 Matthew Stucky Award: Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

Haven't given an award out lately, but I felt I needed to when I read this. The good cardinal who oversaw a Church which systematically brutalized generations of Irish children has declared that the greatest evil facing us is... atheism.

Really.

Not priests who anally violate little boys.

Atheism.

Fucker.

New Leap Forward in Tech: Artifical Gravity!

Honestly, the state of science reporting in this country is deplorable. This bit of drivel today from David Perlman of the SF Chronicle:

Working two at a time, spacewalkers Michael J. Massimino, Michael T. Good, John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel labored tirelessly through five ventures into the large and weightless cargo bay of Atlantis. Their colleagues, comfortable in the artificial gravity of the shuttle's main cabin, guided, encouraged and applauded them as they worked.

Mr Perlman, artificial gravity only works in Star Trek. I suppose it might be possible to spin the shuttle end-on-end to simulate a small gravitational force in either end of the craft, but that would cause chaos for the astronauts trying to work in the cargo bay. Exercise a little gray matter when you write, dude.

Oh, Goody: a Sarah Palin Memoir!

Well, this should be all of seven pages.

In 26 point Comic Sans

Oh, Sarah, the epic tale you have to tell. The salons, the boutiques, the racist trailer-trash rallies: Sean Hannity trying to crawl head-first up your skirt on national TV...

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi "commits suicide": oh, isn't that convenient?

Just when the hue and cry for an investigation is heating up... this.

Can we send Bush and Chaney before the Hague NOW?!

US Air Force Col Scott Turner is an Idiot

So now we know the name of the twit who decided that the public didn't need to be notified about the Obama administration's little Air Force One photo op. USAF Colonel Scott Turner, commander of the Presidential Airlift Group.

It's somewhat satisfying that Cabrera was forced to resign over this fiasco, but in the end, his wasn't the decision that fucked everything up: it was Turner's. Turner was the one who decided that the information regarding the flyover was to be for "Official Use Only", meaning that it would not be disseminated to the public unless someone specifically asked for it:

The White House report states that while some officials decided on “public outreach efforts” to notify people in advance about the flight, the commander of the Presidential Airlift Group, Col. Scott Turner of the Air Force, decided that the memo warning New York-area officials of the flyover would be marked “official use only,” and that it would tell government agencies not to disclose the event. Information would be provided, the report said, “only if asked.”

Sorry, but 30 years of service or no, this man needs to lose his job. There is no conceivable reason that a flyover by an empty airplane, which is equipped with high tech defensive systems and is being escorted by TWO FUCKING FIGHTER JETS, needs to be secret. The decision this man made casts serious doubt on his fitness to command a McDonalds, much less act as the pilot for a plane that carries the President of the United States and who knows how many foriegn heads of state.