Internal Monologue

If you ever needed a reason to kick Joementum out of the Senate, here's one : Apparently, being scandalized that a member congress would solicit cybersex with teenage congressional pages and trying to find out who is responsible for enabling this is "the wrong way to go at it". Providing political cover to a hypocritical creepy sex solicitor and those who cover-up for him is Lieberman's idea of bipartisanship. And this from a man who expressed deep moral outrage about the Lewinsky affair. Can there be any question at this point who Lieberman's true masters are? I hope he goes down in flames. Support Ned Lamont and throw this sanctimonious, torture-enabling, self-absorbed Republican ass-kisser into the private sector.

Sullivan hopes that Tory (i.e. conservative) leader David Cameron can offer a new guiding light for conservatism: Isn't it refreshing to hear a conservatism that isn't riddled with prejudice, unreason, and religious zeal? Isn't it a relief to hear a conservative actually asking people to sacrifice something for the next generation, instead of stealing from them? Isn't it encouraging to see a conservative leader actually treat gay people as human beings rather than political pawns? I don't know much about British politics, but I do know that a lot of the ridiculous fights we have in this country on issues like creationism and gays in the military don't happen in other countries because they aren't even an issue there. I'm not sanguine that the American right-wing can disentangle itself from religious fanaticism, corruption, anti-environmentalism, and longing for authoritarianism. They've been in bed together too long. But maybe a midterm drubbing wi

In light of this , this needs to be seen: When Foley checked himself into an alcohol rehab center and claimed (via his lawyer) that he was abused by a clergyman when a teenager, I took a look over at the Internal Monologue skepticism-o-meter and found a pretty high reading. I have no information as to whether these claims are true or not, but they smell pretty fishy to me.

We've heard things like this from captured Al Qaeda communications before, but here's another one : The most important thing is that you continue in your jihad in Iraq, and that you be patient and forbearing, even in weakness, and even with fewer operations... Do not be hasty. The most important thing is that the jihad continues with steadfastness and firm rooting, and that it grows in terms of supporters, strength, clarity of justification, and visible proof each day. Indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest, with God's permission. [emphasis Abu Aardvark's] (HT: poputonian on Hullbaloo ) Now of course we don't need this captured messages to know that the Iraq occupation is good for Al Qaeda. Our own National Intelligence Estimate identified it as the greatest terrorist recruiting tool there is. Anyone with an ounce of strategic sense could figure out that Al Qaeda and its spin-offs benefit enormously from having us distracted, over-extended, pissing off musl

Michael "heckuva job" Brown, George "War Criminal" Bush, and Mark "Instant Message" Foley: three great reasons to throw the Republicans out in 2006. Image from Andrew Sullivan . I love the swagger in the picture. Their expressions are a bit worried though. One would hope that they were worried about Hurricane Katrina, but there's little evidence they spent very many brain cycles on that until it became a question of controlling the political fallout (or determining the status of the teenagers Foley had been "grooming"). The stop sign in the background seems to plead, "Stop these guys from completely ruining our country!"

Via this Kos diary , more evidence that FOX is "fair and balanced": They show disgraced congressman Foley as a "D" (Democrat), when of course everyone (except perhaps regular FOX viewers) knows he's Republican.

Via Feministing , here's a YouTube clip from the film Dildo Diaries about sex toys in Texas. If you want to buy a dildo in Texas, you have to ask for an "educational model" or "personal massage device". But butt plugs you can ask for by name, because the anus is not considered a sexual organ. If you have 6 dildos, apparently that's a felony because they assume you are promoting or distributing them. If you have only 5, then you're just a "hobbyist".