Internal Monologue

This has been known for a while, but it's such an outrage that it bears repeating: the government claims that it is unable to locate one of the videos of Padilla's interrogation. It has "disappeared". Greenwald is on it: Associated Press now furthers the story by reporting that Bush lawyers seem to have committed themselves to the position that the video will not be found: "'I don't know what happened to it,' Pentagon attorney James Schmidli said during a recent court hearing." Judge Cooke is reacting exactly how she should -- with utter disbelief in the veracity of this claim: U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was incredulous that anything connected to such a high-profile defendant could be lost. "Do you understand how it might be difficult for me to understand that a tape related to this particular individual just got mislaid?" Cooke told prosecutors at a hearing last month. It is difficult to put into words how extraordinary t

I'm not sure what alternative Star Wars history would have R2-D2 taking over the postal system of a subdivision of a primitive planet in a galaxy far, far away and in the distant future of his own reality. But whatever alternative Star Wars reality that is, it is our actual reality. Behold: (Photo stolen from TheForce.net via Boing Boing via Sullivan )

I was looking at this YouTube video introduction to our church when who should I see in it but...me! Sarah, Quinn, Anne, and I can be seen entering the church after the part where the three ministers speak.

Paul Krugman's editorial in the Times asks the right question (HT: Jim in Chicago on Kos ): The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance. Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats . The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny. [emphas

This is a timid little start of something that needs to go a lot further: churches stepping up and addressing adolescent sexuality in a realistic and useful manner (HT: Sexuality and Religion ). It's way too vague and non-specific, but it does start from good premises that sexuality is normal and healthy but can have severe consequences. I've lamented the lack of viable, constructive outlets for adolescent sexuality in our culture . I'm glad to see someone stepping up to try to fill that gap.

What sex ed should look like : That's why this past week my son's 8th grade OWL class had a homework assignment to go buy condoms. To be clear, this exercise is not to make sure these young people have condoms in their possession but have the experience of buying them LONG before they ever need them. Indeed, the teachers collect them. None of the parents object. As I explained to my son, I hoped that when he was in his late teens or a young adult and was in a loving, committed relationship, he would remember that he had been able to purchase condoms even at age 13 with minimal effort. It will be natural and expected if and when he needs them. My only criticism of this would be that it is naive to assume that age 13 is "LONG before they ever need them". For most of us, that would be the case, but I seem to recall that a not-insignificant percentage of 13-year-olds have had sex. According to this , in 2002 13% of girls and 15% of boys had sex before age 15. I guess ev

SSquirrel reminds us that Americans are against this war: Results of the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll * 67 percent oppose sending additional troops to Iraq. * 64 don’t think the war with Iraq was worth fighting. * 63 percent feel they cannot trust the Bush administration to honestly and accurately report intelligence about possible threats from other countries. * 58 percent want Congress to limit the number of troops available for duty. * 56 percent feel the U.S. should withdraw its military forces from Iraq in order to avoid further U.S. military casualties, even if that means civil order is not restored there. I'm going to keep posting polls like this until Congress steps out of the warped right-wing reality it seems to be inhabiting. Is the groupthink in Washington D.C. so bad that these people can't read polls anymore? Are the pro-war lobby groups that powerful? If November 2006 didn't get their attention, what will? UPDATE: Liberal Congressfo