Caturday

I did little with the camera this week, so here are some older shots.

Gracie in one of the cat condos:


Her younger half-brother, Rocky.


Jake, just being cool.


And, of course, the OC, George.

Part-Time Vigilance

"We must remain vigilant against ... prejudice in all its forms," Obama said Wednesday.

Except, of course, when it is the job of the government to defend prejudice.

Gay rights groups expressed dismay with the Obama administration Friday over its championing of the Defense of Marriage Act, a law the president pledged to try to repeal while on the campaign trail. ... U.S. Department of Justice lawyers argued that the act - known informally as DOMA - is constitutional and contended that awarding federal marriage benefits to gays would infringe on the rights of taxpayers in the 30 states that specifically prohibit same-sex marriages.

I'm sure glad that we didn't have this current Department of Justice around in the 1960s, otherwise they'd have been in front of the Supreme Court to argue that the miscegenation laws were appropriate.

Screwing the Troops, Russian Style

At least we don't usually house our military families in converted mold-infested tool sheds.

Usually.

If You Line Your Windows With Tinfoil

You may not be entirely crazy.

The next fad in surveillance technology is "surveillance blimps".

This shit is starting to get a little too creepy.

I wonder what the going rate is for a nice laser pointer in the 500W range.....

UPDATE: About a kilobuck (or AMU) per watt, it seems. Waaay too rich for my blood.

Domestic Terrorism

One general rule seems to be shaping up, at least in this country:

Right-wing terrorists kill people. Left-wing terrorists destroy or disrupt property.

While the Federales, from the FBI to the Army, have wasted no effort to try and make sure that the Quakers cause no trouble, it is the lunatics on the Right who are killing people. Yet when the DBP released a report about Right-wing extremism, the Wingnuts went off the rails in their outrage. Janet Napolitation, the Secretary of the DBP, was forced to backwater and apologize. That report doesn't look so nutty now, does it??

When even Fox News is now starting to show qualms at the hate they have ginned up, we are in a scary place.



(Before you start citing specific cases to dispute my point, do yourself a favor and look up the definition of a "general rule" before you hit the comment link.)

Stephen T. Johns

He left behind a wife and a son when he was gunned down by the D.C. Nazi.

UPDATE: Officer Johns's obituary by the Associated Press.

The Man Murdered By the D.C. Nazi

This is Special Police Officer Stephen T. Johns, the man who was murdered at the Holocaust Museum this afternoon:

He had worked security at the Holocaust Museum for six years.

If you are the prayerful kind, send one in his memory and for his family. Much ink, airtime and pixels will be devoted to parsing the life of the D.C. Nazi (may he eventually rot in Hell), but we should not forget that Officer Johns died at his post. No doubt the D.C. Nazi took some sadistic glee at the idea of murdering an African-American guard at the Holocaust Museum and I would not be a bit surprised that the D.C. Nazi gunned down Officer Johns because of his skin color.

Do not forget the name of Stephen T. Johns.

An Old Nazi Walks Into the Holocaust Museum

and opens fire on the security guards.

This is a developing story, so a word to the wise: Don't take any of the details as the gospel truth for at least a day or so. A lot more details will emerge and what they have reported as of now may be wrong to some degree. Maybe a great degree.

Obama Administration: Naked Political Cowardice

In this morning's WaPo:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- The remote Pacific island nation of Palau said Wednesday it has agreed to a U.S. request to temporarily resettle up to 17 Chinese Muslims now held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. ...

Two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. was prepared to give Palau up to $200 million in development, budget support and other assistance in return for accepting the Uighurs and as part of a mutual defense and cooperation treaty that is due to be renegotiated this year.

This is nothing other than political cowardice. Nobody has shown an iota of evidence that the Uighurs have done anything wrong. They were sold to the US by bounty hunters and kept imprisoned by two administrations that both lacked the guts to admit to a mistake. The Obama Administration is running scared of the goons in the GOP who are frothing at the mouth at the idea that any detainee from GITMO, regardless of whether or not they did anything at all, might set foot in this country.

So rather than resettle these men in our country, we'll bribe pay Palau $200 million to exile take them? For $1.7 million a head, we could resettle them nicely in this country, complete with a first-class education and language classes, and save $170 million.

This is not an act of generosity and humanitarianism towards the Uighurs. This is an act of craven political cowardice on the part of the Obama Administration.

Good News From Virginia

State Senator R. Creigh Deeds beat Terry McAuliffe (and some other guy) in the Democratic primary for the party nomination for governor.

Besides the point that a conservative Democrat is likely in a better position to win the general election, seeing McAuliffe lose is just icing on the cake.