From the Associated Press : PARKFIELD, Calif. - A strong earthquake struck Central California on Tuesday, and it was felt from San Francisco to the Los Angeles area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. There was no immediate report of injuries. The quake, which struck at 10:15 a.m. PDT, had a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 and was centered 9 miles south of Parkfield. The area is 17 miles northeast of Paso Robles, scene of an earthquake that killed two people in December 2003. An aft...

Surrounded by yellow banners and flowing blue writing, they're the Falun Gong, who claim a thousands year old mystical tradition, but seem to be some kind of offshoot of Buddhism. All over the city, they've set up cages with horribly bruised young women -- faces swollen, caked with blood -- with stolid guards seated nearby, swing their billy clubs. They say -- and I see no reason to doubt them -- that in China they are repressed, imprisoned, beaten, and sometimes killed. They are everywh...

From Chillinois : Modern Vertebrate has discovered a blog that appears to be written by Alan Keyes' daughter, Maya Keyes, who also appears to be a lesbian. I stopped by the blog and was astounded. And then I did a little more checking and now I'm just floored. Follow the link for evidence and h0t-L3sbian-gir1-0n-girl action photos. How crazy is that? Rabidly conservative Illinois Senate Candidate and talk show host Alan Keyes not only has a lesbian daughter, but in at least one photo she...

From the Ice Planet Hoth : Supposedly he was a great warrior and a mighty leader. Yet his sole contribution to the almost disastrous attack on the second death star was to spin round in his chair, waving his flabby hands about, shrieking "It's a twap! It's a twap!". Yet, contrary to popular belief, this idiocy was NOT a failing on the part of Ackbar. Nay. In one single day of sustained jestering, the Admiral managed to kill the emperor, destroy the evil empire and save Anakin Skywalker fr...

From Slate : "Nevermind, Hamdi Wasn't So Bad After All" by Dahlia Lithwick If you've followed the government's claims in the Yaser Esam Hamdi case, you would think the guy was some unstoppable, lethal killing machine, the Taliban's own Hannibal Lecter -- a man so evil, he requires permanent warehousing down a bottomless hole . So the Bush administration's decision to release Hamdi is stunning, given that only months ago he was so dangerous that the government insisted in front of t...

From the New York Times : The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush. The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virgini...

From Fuck the Vote : SEXY LIBERALS OF THE U.S. UNITE in taking back the government from the sexually repressed, right-wing, zealots in control! Everyone knows liberals are hotter than conservatives - we look hotter, we dress hotter, our ideas are hotter, and we are infinitely hotter in the sack. We must use our sexual appeal to our advantage, as one more weapon in our already diverse arsenal. By stripping conservatives out of their clothes, we can also strip them of their power. At Fuck T...

This is a little old, but awfully relevant. From CNN : The decision of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which ordered its seven ABC stations not to broadcast Friday's "Nightline," has received criticism from U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona). Friday's show will air the names and photographs of the more than 500 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war. "Your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war's terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservi...

From the San Francisco Chronicle : No argument is more central to the Republican attack on Sen. John Kerry than the assertion that the Democrat has flip-flopped on Iraq. Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation. The crux of the flip-flopping charge is based on pitting Kerry's pointed criticism of the war against his October 2002 vote to authorize the...

This is a transcript from the Daily Show (via Salon): JON STEWART: Well Stephen, what do you think is going to happen now at CBS News? STEPHEN COLBERT, Daily Show Senior Media Correspondent: Jon, there's got to be some accountability. Dan Rather is the head, the commander in chief if you will of his organization. He's someone in the ultimate position of power who made a harmful decision based upon questionable evidence. Then, to make things worse, he stubbornly refused to admit his mist...

From Bartcop : Elsewhere in the news, George Bush claimed it was actually a terrorist scheme. UPDATED 12:59 PM, 9/24/04 People took this post more seriously than I had expected. You realize this is a joke, right? Do you really think that God sends storms based on how people vote? Anyway, Snopes discredits the idea that Democratic areas were left untouched by the hurricanes. A more general observation about the whole country: While more people voted Democratic than Repub...

From the Willamette Week Online : Even as John Kerry struggles to establish national-security credentials nationally, an exclusive WW straw poll shows his campaign dominating one skeptical, warlike demographic: Klingons. "A good war is based on honor, not deception," says K'tok (Earth name: Clyde Lewis), a 40-year-old Klingon from Lair Hill. "The first warrior, President Bush, deceived us all with this war." "On the home world, if there had been a contested election between Gore and Bu...

Okay, I know one thing you've all been wondering about is what music blogic listens to, when he's not spewing hate about Republicans. You might be surprised. Oh sure, I spend my weekends listening to Moaist Cultural Revolution Music, and blogging wouldn't be the same without inspiring Brezhnev's Music of the Vanguard in the background, but none of that works so well for jogging. Presumably my music tastes reveal something about me. My wife says mine reveal I have terrible taste, but h...

From the Associated Press : WASHINGTON - A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Maine when it was discovered that passenger Yusuf Islam — formerly known as singer Cat Stevens — was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country. United Airlines Flight 919 was en route to Dulles International Airport when the match was made Tuesday between a passenger and a name on the watch list, said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. The...

From the New York Post (scroll to end): The hot rumor in New York political circles has Roger Stone, the longtime GOP activist, as the source for Dan Rather's dubious Texas Air National Guard "memos." Stone was a leading organizer of a Republican attack on three Florida Supreme Court justices, during the 2001 Florida recount, and he's had legal problems because of laws broken by that scheme. He's also a longtime acquaintance of Karl Rove.