Noted...

The person who sent this pic to me swears it is real. Our boys. Y'gotta love 'em.

As many have noted, our current military policies constitute a back-door draft. As too few have noted, the draft has a tendency to shift societies to the left. According to one oft-told (but probably apocryphal) anecdote, a British soldier in World War II explained his vote against Churchill with these words: "I went into the army slightly pink and came out bloody red." A couple of decades later, the Vietnam-era draft gave rise to groups like Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Perhaps a similar phenomenon is taking place in Bagram...?

Pat Robertson goes sane! Read it here....

Diebold and the disabled: One of the few semi-persuasive arguments the voting machine profiteers have ever made concerns equal access for the disabled. Evidence published on Brad Blog suggests that disability advocates have received hidden payments from the big voting equipment vendors...

In other vote news: The Republicans are going on another purge, this time in Indiana...

Do you hear the sound of a bursting bubble? In California, mortgage default rates have risen 67%. Some may smile at the prospect of lowered home prices, but others -- such as yours truly -- worry about the inevitable rise in rents, which are already impossibly high for working people.

A lot of those working people will end up living on the streets or in their cars -- at a time when food pantries are running out of food.

Here! Have some drugs! From Sploid (by way of the esteemed Professor Hex):

A new paper by Trudo Lemmens and Paul Miller, both at the University of Toronto, says physicians are regularly being paid $2,000 to $5,000 for every patient they convince to be part of a clinical trial.

Rather than paying patients for risking their lives, drug manufacturers pay "finders fees" to doctors who bring them fresh meat.

Heil Kitler! You are hereby ordered to visit www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com. Und you vill laugh.

Why we went to war in Iraq: Greg Palast has uncovered an important State Department document. I hope the full text will go online, so we can get a better view of context. For now, feast on these words:

Saddam Hussein has demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon to manipulate oil markets... United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq, including military, energy, economic, and political/diplomatic assessments

And yet some people still scoff when you tell them that BushCo had "crude" motives.

Finally: As long-time readers know, red became this blog's semi-official color in homage to Daredevil, my favorite superhero when I was a kid. Red, alas, is also the semi-official color of those Ghastly Old Profiteers. I propose a hue re-assignment. From now on, color that party yellow -- in honor of the military records established by their leaders. Not to mention their preferred brand of journalism.