Once Around - In color

Once around - words, words, words.............

Over at Kos, Hunter points out how the "corporate media" has a vested interest in Republican rule.

"Every time I hear talk of a blogger ethics conference, I laugh so hard my stigmata starts acting up. If we want the newsmedia to get back to reporting news -- and I mean actual, politically sensitive news, not breathless on-the-scene reports from whatever stagelit tropical scene White Girl Number 23 has disappeared from this week -- we need to surgically detach the news organizations from the conglomerates that have subsumed them."

The article that set him off is in the LA Weekly.

Shakespeare's Sister and Kid Oakland highlight the Catholic church's movement towards the Middle Ages or Dark Ages, you decide.

“You know, it’s really unbelievable that the Catholic Church continues to insist that gay priests are its biggest problem, even though there are priests who are crazier than shithouse rats doing all sorts of weird and evil crap, like molesting and raping kids and, in a recent bizarre incident in Texas, exposing them to disease…”

"The Bishops are simply buying time in avoiding a wholescale reassessment of the priesthood that is decades overdue. Further, they are pushing a divisive and destructive issue straight through the heart of every American parish in order to help the current Pope push the Church rightward."

Over at Democratic Veteran the question of H5N1 comes up. If you don't know what H5N1 is, please don't clog up the prescription counter of my local drug store looking for Tamiflu when the shit hits the fan.

"And apparently, the 1600 Crew have done nothing to prepare for it. We know its coming, have known for a while it seems, but Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid that the Department of Health and Human Services start working with drug companies to get vaccines out, or preventatives like Tamiflu, which is made by Roche Laboratories in mass quantities."

At the Pen and Sword, Commander Huber refers us to the Washington Post, where we find the raving lunatics of the Republican right calling for spending cuts while vowing to fight to the death to preserve tax cuts for the rich. Some Republicans are advocating more privatization of the Army Corps of Engineers. Those pesky folks who kept asking for money to keep New Orleans safe. Who needs them? Commander Huber asks,

"Hmm. If we take away money from the Army Corps of Engineers, who in the private sector do you reckon we'll pay to fix the levees?"

I know! I know! Call on me..... Halliburton. Right?

Wasn't it just last week that Tom Delay sat back in his big leather "congressman" chair, sucked on a Cuban (cigar...) and declared that the Republicans had pared government back about as far as humanly possible? This article in Time magazine suggests he may have been a wee bit premature.

"As money flows into the Gulf States faster than water is pumped out of New Orleans, it's safe to say the recovery from Hurricane Katrina has entered a new phase: the financial free-for-all. The President was careful not to get specific about what the "generosity of a united country" might cost, but economists estimate that Katrina's final price tag could easily top $200 billion.

With money flowing so freely, nearly every group--from hard-hit farmers to federal contractors--is angling for its piece of the action. The Federal Government is forking over as much as $800 million a day to cover everything from temporary housing and debris removal to generators and bottled water. The next stage of the gold rush should take place near the end of October, when the White House expects to return to Congress for another cash infusion..."

Is there a final word for tonight?

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress." Mark Twain