catch up time

I've been falling behind with blogging again lately, reducing my chances of winning a Bloggie this year.... :) So, now seems like a good time to purge the backlog of articles that I've read and saved over the past couple of weeks. So, in no particular order, here ya go: Bad news for Democrats. RFK, Jr has decided not to run against Andrew Cuomo (his brother in law) for Eliot Spitzer's vacant AG position in New York. The Buffalo Beast has this hilarious list of 2004's most loathsome people. Check it out, it's definitely worth reading from top to bottom. Also check out their list of top 10 Hacks of the 2004 Presidential election. Slate has this piece on Why Bush's foreign policy hawks are driving Priuses? Josh Marshall offers this first hand account of Frank Luntz' diabolic wordsmithing on Social Security. Independent Media Television has this piece on Bush's 3 profiteering brothers. Check it out. They're also running this story on Bush's entirely-too-cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. The Washington Post has an editorial today about the ongoing suffering in Darfur. ['For the Triumph of Evil']. The crazy crackheaded ex-mayor of DC apparently studied chemistry in college, and last week he got the opportunity to show off his big brain to the students at Ballou High School. This is the same school where students broke in the chemistry lab last year and proceeded to contaminate the school and what seemed like most of the Washington Metro region, forcing Ballou to close it's doors for nearly a month. Need a rocket launcher? Bids are at $16k now at E-Bay. Larry Greenmeier at the Information Week blog had an awesome entry this week which puts the reality of homeland security into perspective (finally). Naturally, it took a cop to state the completely obvious point that has seems to have eluded the Bush administration.

"The next attack will be thwarted not by some supercomputer that spits out some formula, but by some cop on the beat whose suspicion is aroused by some tidbit of information,"

Senator Frist is a fear-mongering whacko. Here's proof. Scared yet? So is President Crisis... who was in West Virginia scaring old people into giving their grandchildren's retirement money to Merrill Lynch.

"'The administration is once again manufacturing a crisis,' Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) said at the Capitol Hill event. 'It is not accurate to say, as the president did just the other day,' that Social Security will be 'flat bust, bankrupt' when retirement time arrives for workers now in their twenties, he said."

Reuters also has this: [Bush Accused of Scaring Public on Social Security]

Mother Jones has this [What Kind of Freedom? An Interview with Christian Parenti] , a reporter's first hand account of Operation Total Clusterfuck, more commonly known as the US's current occupation of Iraq.

Google is running a BETA of their new Video Search, allowing users to search for recent television programming and archived video footage.

How to Create Terrorists: Part MLXXIV

Joyce McGreevey has an excellent alternate version of Bush's inaugural address here: [Bush's inaugural address exposed]

Bush's group of shillers for hire grows to 3... [HHS says it paid columnist for help]

and last... but certainly not least: ABC's People of the Year for 2004...... ? Bloggers