For two terms we were governed by cowards

Lawrence O'Donnell has the most accurate definition of why torture works for Republican "warriors" like Hannity and Cheney.

Hannity willing to be waterboarded for charity?

Gosh ... ain't that the most impressive public statement about the horrors of torture.

Glad he's willing to do it. Course ...

it won't amount to much unless he does it for charity 186 times

Much more useful information and things to learn than what we saw in Charlie Wilson’s War.

Link of the week

Tom Englehardt: The Empire v, The Graveyard

Excerpt:

“When it comes to the neocon architects of global Bushism, hubris remains a weak word. Breathless at the thought of the supposed power of the U.S. military to crush anything in its path, they were blind to other power realities and to history. They equated power with the power to destroy.

Believing that the military force at their bidding was nothing short of invincible, and that whatever had happened to the Soviets couldn't possibly happen to them, they launched their invasion. They came, they saw, they conquered, they celebrated, they settled in, and then they invaded again -- this time in Iraq. A trillion dollars in wasted taxpayer funds later, we look a lot more like the Russians. “

Uninformed opinons on Immigration: I agree with this commenter at Seattle Examiner.com

Article written by Examiner Chad Shue.

Excerpt from commenter Ray A. follows:

Then there’s your reference to the Heritage Foundation. Ya’ know the old saying, “liars figure, and figures lie”? That adage has been shortened over the years. Its original verbiage was, “The Heritage Foundation figures, and its figures are lies.”

Now you know the source of the distortions that Lou Dobbs blathers during his TV tirades.

Eighty-five percent of eminent economists surveyed have concluded that undocumented immigrants have had a positive (seventy-four percent) or neutral (eleven percent) impact on the U.S. economy.

“Undocumented immigrants actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services. Moreover, undocumented immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of ‘essential worker’ positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs”

The GAO concurs.

Link of the day: vegetarian opportunity

Kathy Freston at Huffington Post

Excerpt:

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

● 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;

● 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;

● 70 million gallons of gas--enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;

● 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;

● 33 tons of antibiotics.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:

● Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;

● 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;

● 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;

● Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.

My favorite statistic is this: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads. See how easy it is to make an impact?

Seems to me that Spain is only being true to the Bush doctrine

"we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." - G. W. Bush, American War Criminal

I for one refuse to support harboring terrorists. If it ever comes to a vote, i vote to extradite George, Dick and Donald whereever there's a country of courage willing to prosecute terrorists.

If we have in our recent past outsourced terrorist torture via rendition, we can certainly - in the tradition of corporate outsourcing of all our moral values - outsource justice for terrorists by letting Spain and others do our job for us.