It makes me absurdly happy to hear that Glenn and omooex and bystander and others here are caring for some beautiful, beautiful dogs.

Here is a pic of my girl, also rescued from a life of abuse, at sig.

I hope to see more pieces like this in the future.

As a devout apatheist (someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningful nor relevant to his or her life; nor to human affairs), along with Bill Maher, I am sick to death of being marginalized by certain Christians, who, while they are dismissing me and others like me, are at the same time actually claiming to be a discriminated-against minority!

It boggles the mind. Of course, this has long been a tactic of the right--to scream and gnash their teeth about the "liberal" tyranny (look at the moronic teabaggers, who are protesting against the BUSH tax policy currently in place, but are too ignorant to know that), even when, as during the Clinton and much of the Bush administrations, they are in power.

Thanks for so beautifully proving my point.

HA HA! Good one, Glenn.

You see a parallel to this bizarre paranoia in the letters section of today's Salon article, "America is not a Christian Nation."

On the preposterous claim of certain Christians that they are a discriminated-against minority in the U.S., I wrote,

this has long been a tactic of the right--to scream and gnash their teeth about the "liberal" tyranny (look at the moronic teabaggers, who are protesting against the BUSH tax policy currently in place, but are too ignorant to know that), even when, as during the Clinton and much of the Bush administrations, they are in power.

after which a delightful poster wrote:

. . . thanks to the left we only have one religion its called Liberalism. The leaders of the religion of liberalism are running the country presently. So it is no wonder that they disavow it.

Large government and control is their deity and they honor it as their life’s ambition. The end result is always a larger God by any means. It is in direct opposition to Christianity so it is only fitting to demonize Christianity along with any other political opposition. The end game for Liberalism is absence of any opposition.

I thanked him/her for proving my point.

I heard Rush Limbaugh, the bouncing buffoon of bullshit, say on the radio this morning, with all possible earnestness, that what we have now with the teabaggers is a "genuinely grassroots movement" springing up all over the country.

Right.

As Jane Hamsher writes (link at sig):

Teabaggers are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that "grassroots" demonstrations aren't orchestrated by corporate lobbyists. Understandable -- if you didn't have any experience organizing a demonstration that didn't have millions in free PR from Fox News and well-funded GOP fat cats providing a national infrastructure, you wouldn't know the difference.

They seem to be particularly upset about links I sent out yesterday on Twitter (using the teaparty hashtags #tcot and #teaparty) regarding a report by Lee Fang at Think Progress documenting the involvement of corporate lobbyists FreedomWorks in organizing the teabaggers. FreedomWorks is run by ladies' man (and registered lobbyist) Dick Armey, and if they're not "organizing" the Tea parties, it's news to them.

Gee whiz, how come my local peace group never got a big check from any corporations or any fat cats?

I took a look at the Corn article, too.

You know, this reminds me of the time Bush joked about not finding WMD at the Correspondents' Dinner.

Really funny to make an ongoing joke of war crimes and torture. And all the journalists, true to form, laughed and laughed. WTF.

sorry! Not RPM. Gah!

and mentioned that Obama used to be a constitutional lawyer.

I don't know about you, but I am exhausted from this exciting day of true grassroots agitation. It is thrilling to see the people come together in dissent, for all the right reasons!

Like you, Olbermann remarked on the vas deferens between a real grassroots movement and a corporate-driven one.

Kossacks are reporting a shitload of racist signs from sites all over the country, like No (red circle with slash) Watermelon, so the teabaggers have made one of the main driving forces behind this travesty quite clear.

On a lighter note, I believe that many of the attendees just showed up to poke the beehive, as this hilarious picture at my sig shows (first pic on page).

A bunch of big sick fucking assholes.

The article references the banality of evil, which has to do with the fact that great evils were "not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal."

After the initial waves of revulsion I felt upon reading the details of the torture, my first question was how anyone could do that. But the only way to know that is to look back at any situations I have been in where I went along with a group or organization in activities that caused harm in one way or another. It was much easier to do when the consequences were never examined. I hope I can learn never to shut up about anything for the sake of my own comfort again. That might mean, e.g., not taking a job with a company that tortures animals, even if it means being homeless.

The only way to stop or prevent such horrors is to be vigilant in shining a bright light on them. The antidote to the banality of evil is to rightfully bring shame to a monstrous activity that had become normative within a group, organization, or culture.

The ACLU is sending a letter to Eric Holder to demand investigations on this. They are asking for signatures.

Link at sig.