Thagomization

"Now this end is called the thagomizer, after the late Thag Simmons." One of my favorite Far Side strips has actually spawned a new term - the spikes at the end of a stegosaur's tail are now referred to by paleontologists as the "thagomizer".

Democratic Underground unveils their Top 10 Conservative Idiots of the week. All I can say is that Trent Lott is a perfect fit for the people who voted for him.

The NFL Europe championship game took place this past weekend, with Hamburg beating Frankfurt. The halftime performer? Meat Loaf. I kid you not.

The Supreme Court took another step toward limiting free speech, ruling that a student who unfurled a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner at the running of the torch for the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002 could be suspended from school for advocating drug use, despite the fact that the incident didn't take place on the school grounds.

Glenn Greenwald notes that now all the people we're killing in Iraq are "Al-Qaida militants"... see, we did attack Iraq because of terrorists! Propaganda at its best. Or is that worst?

On a roll, Greenwald also gives a good exposition of the Bush administration's "good vs. evil" mentality and how it has led us much further along the path to war with Iran than was ever necessary.

The New York Times gives an interesting detail of how Rupert Murdoch came to be so evil.

Finally, the Boston Globe talks about why most citizens of this country want to impeach W, but most members of Congress don't... could this possibly be connected to Congressional approval ratings in the 20s? Nah. My personal view is that impeachment proceedings are political dead weight, but they need to be done. From the article:

Most Democratic politicians and strategists see impeachment as a loser. Right now, President Bush is one of the least popular presidents in American history, and Democratic leaders don't see any point in turning him into a political martyr.

I agree with those sentiments. However, more importantly, impeachment must be preserved as a threat to dishonest, incompetent, and outright criminal politicians everywhere. If a politician brazenly lies to the American public, time after time, and it results in a war that has killed thousands of our citizens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, for absolutely no gain whatsoever, doesn't get impeached - who does?

Congress doesn't want to get sidetracked with the impeachments and lose popularity. I ask - what popularity? It's becoming increasingly apparent that the majority is so slim that they'll never pass anything of consequence with Bush and his veto power sitting there. So they may as well spend their time impeaching him, and running the risk of martyrdom.

Still, I don't think turning Bush into a martyr is a big risk. First of all, impeachment proceedings would bring to light additional evidence of exactly how big a scumbag Bush is, further turning public sentiment against him. Second, it would put the GOP in the awkward position of facing the possibility of President Cheney, a leader even they don't want. If Bush gets impeached, and Cheney resigns rather than assume the title, it looks horrible for the GOP. If Cheney ascends to president, he can't be any worse, effectively, than Bush, and he's unpopular enough within his own party that he won't be able to move any legislation.

Rrgh. Mondays.