Our Future: How to celebrate Labor Day? Support the Empoyee Free Choice Act

about.com: How GM derailed public transportation to sell more cars

The Brad Blog: Over 16,000 votes "unaccounted for" in Palm Beach county primary election 'recount'. "Severe repercussions, dire consequences for Novemeber elections and all elections" says Broward County election supervisor candidate.

Calculated Risk: Gustav takes aim at NOLA, oil prices

Philosoraptor: McCain's actual choice for V.P.

The Opinion Mill's Sunday Bookchat: Harold Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam to lay old ghosts to rest -- and deplore the creation of new ones in Iraq. Sidney Blumenthal on the self-destruction of the GOP. Plus: How American workers are getting squeezed, how a unique ecosystem is being threatened, and how publishing thinks small.

Cynics' Party has recovered McCain's press release (recently scrubbed from the Psychogeezer's website) announcing disgraced AG Troy King as Alabama State Campaign Chair.

The Agonist: Our long national obsession with cars

naked capitalism: The death of globalisation consensus

Fafblog! Veepstakes 2008: Turgid For Change Edition

NotionsCapital: Turdblossom found

BlondeSense: Over There

What a wild story. The guy looks like a pretty sick individual:

A mentally unstable man wearing what appeared to be a bomb strapped to his chest was arrested hours after he walked into a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign office Friday, took hostages and demanded to speak to the candidate in a standoff that dragged into the night, authorities said.

Eisenberg made local headlines in March when he held a news conference on the steps of Rochester City Hall to complain about a police policy of placing fliers in unlocked cars warning motorists to lock their doors. "This is nothing more than a gimmick to get around the Constitution and go around in the middle of the night upon unsuspecting citizens in their own yard and search their vehicles," Eisenberg said.

I'll have more later...

Crooks and Liars celebrates the return to the blogosphere of Baghdad Burning. Much love and good wishes to Riverbend and family.

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.

We were all refugees- rich or poor. And refugees all look the same- there’s a unique expression you’ll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow, tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.

The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming relief and overwhelming sadness… How is it that only a stretch of several kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?

via Nonny Mouse in the UK:

BBC is remarking on how calm the public was during the 'car bomb' attack on the Glasgow airport, how little panic or 'terror' there was - mostly just people whipping out their mobile phone cameras and filming everything in sight.

Arrests made on the M6 motorway in Cheshire last night as well. People got out of cars and offered to HELP the police.

Glasgow Airport is back up and running, passengers being interviewed coming off planes have said things are running smoothly, no problems. A bit of a hassle walking around the cordoned off bits of the airport, but no one's complaining. Lots of smiling faces.

It's almost psychology in reverse - the more fanatics try to terrorise the British, the more the British refuse to be terrorised. We're more worried about the goddamned rain at the moment.  

The hits just keep on coming on this story. There's a chance that this gluten will show up in human food now. It's telling that the FDA has yet to release the name of the US distributor of this gluten.

David Goldstein has more:

Del Monte Foods has confirmed that the melamine-tainted wheat gluten used in several of its recalled pet food products was supplied as a "food grade" additive, raising the likelihood that contaminated wheat gluten might have entered the human food supply.

"Yes, it is food grade," Del Monte spokesperson Melissa Murphy-Brown wrote in reply to an e-mail query. Del Monte issued a voluntary recall Saturday for several products under the Gravy Train, Jerky Treats, Pounce, Ol' Roy, Dollar General and Happy Trails brands.

Wheat gluten is sold in both "food grade" and "feed grade" varieties. Either may be used in pet food, but only "food grade" gluten may be used in the manufacture of products meant for human consumption. Published reports have thus far focused on tainted pet food, but if the gluten in question entered the human food supply through a major food products supplier and processor, it could potentially contaminate thousands of products and hundreds of millions of units nationwide.

Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine said the FDA is not aware of any contaminated gluten that went into human food but said he could not confirm this "with 100 percent certainty." Wheat gluten is a common food additive used as a thickener, dough conditioner, and meat substitute. It is widely used as an additive in commercial bakery items and special purpose flours.

The FDA announced today that it has traced the contaminated wheat gluten to a single processor, Xuzhou Anying Biological Technology of Peixian, China, but has not released the name of the U.S. distributor who supplied the product to Del Monte, Menu Foods, Nestle Purina, and Hills Nutritional. In all, more than 70 brands and over 60 million cans and pouches of dog and cat food are now part of this massive recall, as well as at least one brand of dry cat food.

In related news, pet status as property may shift after recall (h/t Ilena Rose)

Continue reading »

Republican Peter King is a total embarrassment to NY. Growing up there I cringe every time he spouts his nonsense and this ladies and gentlemen is complete idiocy that demeans our troops in Iraq and everybody that has any semblance of intelligence in our country,

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King: Conditions on the ground are different than what you see on television.---As we go through the city of Baghdad, it was like being in Manhattan. I’m talking about bumper to bumper traffic. Talking about shopping centers, talking about restaurants, talking about video stores, talking about guys--on the street corner, talking about major hotels. And so, at that moment, people must be amazingly resilient and you would never know that there was a war going on...

...in Mosul---I remember seeing news reports about roller coasters. Where you had two or three parking lots filled with their cars on a Sunday afternoon. Again, that’s not something you’d see on television, and at any given time a suicide bombers can walk into an amusement center, but the point I’m making is that the situation is more stable than you think....

Let's all book our flights to the joyous and refreshingly amusing--Mosul. OK, suicide bombers can go off at anytime, but the sun is still shining for King. He says as long as the Iraq forces keep training then maybe two, three or four years we will draw down. Way to go Peter! He made this speech in the Merrick Jewish Center. I played many a gig out in Nassau County.

From the AP:

More than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams.

The military's desperately overstretched as a result of this reckless war. With typical Republican logic, they've resorted to using unscrupulous bottom-feeders as recruiters and letting them run wild. Military recruiters have always tended to be sleazy, but it's gotten much worse. They lie, cheat, and manipulate young people - especially disadvantaged young people - to make up for the planning mistakes of their superiors.

Now we're learning that they rape and abuse recruits, too. It's not just Abu Ghraib and Gitmo anymore. Like the old country song says, "War Is Hell On The Home Front Too."

"This should never be allowed to happen," one 18-year-old young woman said. "He had my future. I trusted him."

She might as well be speaking for the entire country.

"Hastert and other members of Congress drove off in the Hydrogen-Fueled cars only to switch to their official cars to drive back the few block back to the U.S. Capitol...read on

(h/t Catherine)

Jon joined Larry King last night and talked about the administration and Democrats in depth. Larry asks him if he'd like things to be bad, kinda like O'Reilly saying that left wing websites want the US to fail because Bush is in charge.
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(transcript)

KING: You don't want Medicare to fail?

STEWART: Are you insane?

KING: No.

STEWART: You're literally asking me if I would prefer -- yes, Larry, what I'm saying to you as a comedian I want old people to suffer, old and poor people to suffer. That is -- that is -- what we want is -- what seems absurd to me is the length that Washington just seems out of touch with the desires of Americans to be spoken to as though they are adults.

I mean when you listen to Bush's speeches, and I'm leaving the Democrats out because I honestly don't feel that they make an impact. They have 49 percent of the vote and three percent of the power. At a certain point you go "Guys, pick up your game."

But Bush, you know the other day when he had the speech about us being addicted to oil, he says those things as though, you know, he just thought of it and we're disagreeing with him, like everybody's been saying that. Jimmy Carter said it I think in 1978.

And he comes out, "What people don't realize is we're addicted to foreign oil" and he's saying it like you're going "Get out of here." We're addicted. You don't get it people. You know he was the guy on the stump a few years ago making fun of hybrid cars because it wasn't manly. And -- and his vice president did shoot a 78-year-old man in the face. Aaron Burr was the last vice president to shoot a guy in the face, Alexander Hamilton.

KING: And that was a duel.

STEWART: That was a duel based on personal integrity. This vice president thought a 78-year-old man was a bird. It happens. What are you going to do?

KING: We've declined as a society right?

STEWART: I cannot tell you how many times I'll turn around and go, "Grandpa," oh no it's a pigeon.