“This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed.”

– Condoleezza Rice, in response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia.

(more…)

Two men from Georgia are making a disappointing claim: they possess a corpse of the legendary Bigfoot:

I’m not disappointed because of some latent desire to find a Bigfoot, it’s just… if you’re going to go through the trouble of staging these hoaxess, the least you can do is use some materials that look convincing. The fur is all wrong and looks too “arts and crafts” to be anything but.

Also, why doesn’t there appear to be any muscular or skeletal structure to this thing? You could have gotten the same results by dumping hair clippings into a box and placing a mask on top of it. Dressing up like Chewbacca would have yielded better results. Nice try guys, but you’re no Jim Henson.

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Saw this in the New York Times today:

Condemning as unacceptable what he called Russia’s “bullying and intimidation,” President Bush said Friday that Russia must withdraw its troops from all of Georgian territory and said the United States would stand with Georgia in the conflict.

“Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected,” he said.

Irony. Mr. Bush needs to take his own advice.

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Shitting Christ, here we go again! The LA Times reports that, guess what, Hillary Clinton’s name is going to be on ye olde ballot at the Democratic National Convention. Apparently, the hardcore Hillary-or-bust clowns haven’t been paying attention to the vapid sermons of John McCain and his bumbling aspirations to lead the country into the future–which, to him, seems to be 1950.

Even though the Republican’s plan for getting us on the right track means doing everything exactly the way it has been done, these crybaby pisspants morons who claimed fealty to the Clinton machine are going to betray it by voting for McBush. How pathetic.

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Am I the only one anxious about this McCain/Obama face off being hosted by a pastor? Why a pastor? This is a secular country, wouldn’t it make more sense for someone else to moderate and pitch the questions? Someone distinguished, perhaps, like a provost of a university or a Nobel Prize laureate. What makes this pastor so great? Is it because he’s popular? Rockstars are popular, might as well have one of them. His being a pastor gives him no authority or qualifications on the issues, so why this guy?

Reading the article, he doesn’t seem so bad, he really doesn’t. At least, he talks a good game and I haven’t read about him being involved in any racist/sex/sexist/bigotry/fraud scandals. Their church has had a number of popular non-conservative speakers, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Unfortunately, I came upon this gem while reading the article:

Roberts: As you know, John McCain in 2000 during the primaries ran afoul of evangelicals when he criticized Pat Robinson [sic]. He’s tried to repair the relationship. Has he gone far enough?

Warren: The religious right, fundamentalists and evangelic evangelicals aren’t synonyms for each other. I think John may have been talking about certain groups that he was worried about at that time. But he certainly rebuilt bridges among them today.

Rev. Rick Warren has it wrong. See, they are synonymous and the people within them only vary by degrees of crazy. Average Christian: slightly crazy. Average fundie: moderately crazy. Pat Robertson: hella crazy.

I’m hoping this debate doesn’t become a Jesusfest, and I was hopeful it wouldn’t until I got to that question. Honestly, haven’t you people done enough damage in the past 2000 years?

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I’m not sure what to say about the shooting of Bill Gwatney. The police are looking for a motive as you read this, but one thing is painfully clear: he was shot because of who he was. Deranged or not, this was not a random killing, it was political.

Conservatives, what the fuck is wrong with you? From reports of threatening campaign workers and racist slurs about Obama to the hostage situation at the Clinton campaign office, Raymond Geisel’s threat to assassinate Obama, et cetera, one thing is clear:  your ideology is fucking crazy, and this is the kind of behavior your batshit, alarmist rhetoric leads to.

I’d be surprised if one of you knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers hasn’t already opined,”if he had a gun, he coulda shot back!” Y’know what I’ve realized as a result of the river of hatred and aggression flowing from the right during this election? People who desire guns the most ought to be the least likely to acquire them.

Thankfully, there are still a few sane people on your side.

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The Burning Man festival is coming up soon. I’d really like to attend one of these sometime. Anyone up for a road trip for Burning Man ‘09?

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Other noteworthy items:

Big business continues to measurably fuck up the environment.

McCain Campaign pulls a Napster.