Many today including Barack Obama are saying that rap music needs to be looked at in the wake of what Don Imus said on the radio that got him fired. You see, we are trying to get at root causes here. If black rappers didn't say nappy headed hos, Don Imus apparently wouldn't be a racist misogynist.

There is a long article today in the Boston Globe about Monica Goodling and all of the graduates of Pat Robertson's law school who are members of the Bush administration. Regent University is considered not very academically serious, but they had an in of course. The head of Regent's government school was picked as the head of the Office of Personnel Management for the executive branch, meaning that they were in charge of hiring decisions for the Bush administration in the thousands of executive branch jobs that needed to be filled. Here is a little highlight.

Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium in the last three months, adding some 1,000 centrifuges which are used to separate radioactive particles from the raw material.

The development means Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb by 2009, sources familiar with the dramatic upgrade tell ABC News.

There is a disturbing story today in the NY Post. Judi Nathan worked for US Surgical for four years, and demonstrated their stapling technique. What the company would do was procure dogs, cut them open, staple them up to demonstrate the product's efficiency to the doctors. Those dogs who survived the surgery were euthanized. She worked there for four years.

In Sunday's Post, Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign spokesman, Michael McKeon, said of Judi Giuliani's work with U.S. Surgical, "She was in the operating room hundreds of times, using her nursing skills and training doctors in the stapling technique."

Do not go gentle into congressional oversight
Old email should be burned, not saved at close of day
Rage, rage and invoke your rights!

David Broder, the wise man his time is near
His tongue forked, prose dishonest suggests you
Ignore the subpoenas because he supports the right.

2,974 people died on 9/11. 24 others are presumed dead. That is just under 3,000 who perished from that horrible act.

Since that terrible day, other bad things have occured as well. Around 42,500 Americans die in traffic accidents annually. Most of these could be prevented. It has been 5 1/2 years since 9/11. Approximately 275,000 Americans therefore have been killed.

Kevin McCullough at the epicenter of political thought known as Townhall.com asks some important questions about democrats that need to be addressed. His thoughtful queries are devastating and made me look in the mirror this morning, and see shame welling across my face. There was also a pimple. My eyes were a bit puffy too. But anyways...

Please explain something to me. What is this obsession that liberals have with seeing America destroyed?

Why are they so intent on humiliating their fellow citizens? And why don't they have at least some modicum of pride about the greatest nation the world has ever produced?

This story really pisses me off. It's a puff piece on how wonderful and compassionate the right wing blogosphere has been regarding Elizabeth Edwards' illness. I wrote a post on Thursday, detailing some of the lovely reaction by Free Republic members to the news. Here are a few selected quotes.

Thank God that we aren't living under Edwards socialized medicine plan. She has a great chance for recovery.

He could be using this as a cynical ploy to get a sympathy vote later. He is a sleazy trial lawyer after all. I don't put anything past them.

Perhaps I looked too early. Maybe the tone had changed.

Charles Krauthammer, the psychiatrist/lunatic wingnut, is infamous for several things. He is often wrong, he violates professional ethics by diagnosing democrats with mental disorders for disagreeing with him, and for his monogrammed colostomy bag.

Today, he suggests that Alberto Gonzales should resign, but not for reasons that rational people might suggest.

Liberals and conservatives have two different ideas of what it is to be a media critic. Liberals often expect accuracy.

Conservatives expect the media to admit the moon is made out of green cheese, Clinton fathered Anna Nicole Smith's baby, and that the ACLU is a plot by Satanists to bring along the new world order replete with black helicopters piloted by UN militia ready to take conservatives to re-education camps. These are not the nice internment camps that Michelle Malkin likes, but ones where you have to "read books", and be tolerant of other people; torture in other words.

Today, conservative media critic Cliff Kincaid takes on that bastion of Marxism that we know as Fox News. Apparently Fox is going wildly socialist with their new hire. He is a famous supporter of Trotsky, Mao, and I believe Stalin too. Let's let Cliff Kincaid of AIM tell you more about this horror that is hitting the studio where Sean Hannity works.

A lawsuit nearing trial has opened a rare window into the inner workings of Pat Robertson's Virginia Beach-based media empire. The lawsuit accuses Robertson of abusing his tax-exempt status by using the resources of his nonprofit TV ministry to promote a commercial product - a high-protein diet shake.

You can take away my delicious milkshake, when you pry it away from my cold dead fingers.   Read more…

The South Carolina legislature sure are busy bees. Fresh off the proposal to give prisoners six months off their sentences if they become human organ farms and donate kidneys, they now have come up with a new doozy of a proposal. If you want an abortion in the Palmetto state, there is a new catch.

On Monday, Mrs. Greenspan was full of shit as per usual when she said that most Americans wanted Scooter Libby pardoned. Actually 18% wanted him pardoned according to a CNN poll released that same day, but I guess that is just being a stickler for details.

In the wake of General Pace's remarks against homosexuality and for the military ban on adultery, chickenhawk Jonah Goldberg whose military expertise consists of watching Red Dawn (The Director's Cut) about 18 times pontificates on the random enforcement of the adultery provision.

Male birth control products are getting closer to market—really—but the question remains if men will use them.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's recent denial that the Japanese military forcibly rounded up women into sexual slavery and that there is any need to apologize is having ripple effects. Among other things, a resolution calling for Japan to apologize will pass in the United States House of Representatives is more likely to pass as a result of Abe's words.

Republican Party member Dana Rohrabacher, the only member of the Foreign Affairs Committee to openly declare he would oppose the resolution, reportedly changed his mind after Abe's public denial.

Today, the Conservapedia honors us with an economics lecture by world renowned economist Andy Schlafly. He's Phyllis Schlafly's kid who isn't the one whom Ann Coulter would call "a faggot". He is well qualified to teach economics because he is a lawyer who specializes in medical malpractice cases accusing doctors of creating cancer through abortion.

Schlafly also is the legal counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a right wing medical organziation that opposes manditory vaccines, opposes HIPPA regulations, and filed a brief defending Rush Limbaugh for his hillbilly heroin usage. I am ready to learn from the economic master now!

Jenna Bush, in a rare interview, says her forthcoming book for teens — about a 17-year-old single mother in Panama who is living with HIV — will end with a "call to action."

The president's daughter, 25, says the book is not political. It's aimed at "getting kids thinking and involved," Bush said Monday by phone from Panama, where she has worked since September as an unpaid intern for UNICEF.

Doctors have diagnosed a blood clot in Vice President Dick Cheney's lower left leg, AP reports.

"Vice President Dick Cheney made a visit to the hospital today after experiencing what his office called some 'discomfort' following his recent trip overseas," the Associated Press reports. "A statement from cheney's office said an ultrasound revealed a deep venous thrombosis (DVT) or 'blood clot' in his left lower leg and added his doctors will treat him with blood thinning medication for several months."

SEASIDE, Ore. (AP) - Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid looks like it's picking up steam in Oregon.

Giuliani easily won a straw poll Sunday taken among delegates to the Dorchester Convention, an annual gathering of influential Oregon Republicans. He picked up 60 votes from attendees, nearly twice that of his closest competitor, former Georgia Rep. Newt Gingrich, who finished with 35 votes.

From wingnut central, there are reports on Newt Gingrich's comments last night in a debate with Mario Cuomo.Sure, I have mocked Newt's giraffe hunting analogies, as well as his lack of faithfulness to his wives, but another thing that is incredibly understated about Newt is that he has some really crazy ideas. He is a historian, the conservatives say. He's actually got ideas about things other than hitting Jack Abramoff up for more money. Here is historian Newt discussing the Iran situation.

Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt, accused of genocide in an international court, said on Wednesday he would probably not run for president this year.

The 80-year-old retired general, who rights groups blame for a ruthless scorched earth campaign against Maya Indians during his 1980s rule, unsuccessfully ran for president in 2003 but said he would likely sit out this year's race.

Rios Montt's daughter, Zury Rios Montt, married to Illinois Republican Congressman Jerry Weller, has been rumored to be a possible future presidential candidate.

Those of you who watched the SOTU speech saw Michelle Bachmann (batshit crazy-Minnesota) try to dry hump the President on the floor of the house after the speech. This is the same person who said she fasted for several days and prayed about running for the house. She is proof that there is balance in the universe. Crazy Bush lady Katherine Harris leaves the house, and the very same day Bachmann is there to take her place. There must be an unwritten law that there has to be one.   Read more…

Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.

Gelpi said that while Americans may not view Iraqi deaths through the same prism as American losses, they may use the Iraqi death toll to gauge progress, or lack thereof, on the U.S. effort to promote a stable, secure democracy in Iraq.

The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,002 adults, conducted Feb. 12-15, had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

ISRAEL has asked America for permission to fly through US airspace in Iraq so it can launch pre-emptive strikes on Iran.

The Israelis were reported yesterday to be planning attacks on nuclear facilities to stop them making a bomb. With a US fleet - including two aircraft carriers and destroyers - already in the region, it increases pressure on Tehran.

A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations to create an air corridor had already been opened with the Pentagon.