Osama's New And Rather Pathetic Message

Osama bin Laden has subjected the world to another of his ridiculous and unwanted audio messages -- the first since last September. The message was played on the Arabic-language news site of Al-Jazeera. The authenticity of the message has not been established, but in the past the CIA has confirmed tapes given to Al-Jazeera from bin Laden.

Osama once again tries to put forward his pitiful excuses for attacking innocent civilians. He says, ". . .the United States will not dream of enjoying safety until we live it in reality in Palestine. It is not fair to enjoy that kind of life while our brothers in Gaza live in the worst of miseries."

That part of the message is, as David Axelrod says, ". . .the same hollow justification for the slaughter of innocent people." For me, the surprising part of the message comes when bin Laden takes responsibility for the rather pathetic December attack on Delta flight 253 as it neared Detroit.

Is this now the best al-Queda and bin Laden has to offer in the way of terrorism -- an attack so poorly planned and executed that it resulted in an embarrassing and abject failure. I would have thought they would be too humiliated at the utter incompetence of the failed attack to want to claim any responsibility. They are truly grasping at straws now in their efforts to frighten Americans.

I really hope that Osama and his al-Queda buddies are equally as successful in all their future efforts at terrorism -- that is, that they blow up their own genitalia and fail to harm a single innocent person. That sounds like poetic justice to me.

Speaking For The Underdogs

Political Cartoon is by Stephane Peray in The Nation (Bangkok).

Finally - A Bipartisan Bill !

I was just beginning to think the current Congress was so divided that it would be impossible to actually have a bipartisan bill. But last week, the Democrats and Republicans in Congress proved me wrong. Of course, it took an unprecedented disaster to make it happen.

Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow contributors of cash to Haiti disaster relief to take that contribution off their 2009 taxes, instead of having to wait and take it off their 2010 taxes. The bill had been introduced by leaders of both parties, and passed by a wide margin. On Thursday, the Senate also passed the bill -- unanimously.

They bipartisan move was to encourage Americans to donate to cash to Haiti relief efforts (so far, over $200 million has been donated by Americans). Donations that are made between January 12th and February 28th can be used as a deduction on 2009 taxes. Text donations would also be deductible with a phone bill showing the contribution.

But don't get too excited, especially if you only made a small donation and will be filing either the 1040EZ or the 1040A form. The contributions must be a part of itemized deductions on the 1040 long form, and you'll need a significant amount of deductions to make it worth your while to file the long form and itemize.

But even though this deduction won't actually be available to most tax filers, it is nice to see that Democrats and Republicans can agree about something. Now if they could only carry this over to health care reform, climate change, energy policy, job creation and reform of financial regulations, we would all be better off.

But I'm just dreaming. That could never happen.

Lost And Found

Political Cartoon is by David Fitzsimmons in the Arizona Daily Star.

Dream Team (For Democrats)

From the though-provoking web site of BartCop.

This Is Not Funny !

After all the trouble Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers put you through at an airport, how would you feel if they then made you the butt of a prank or joke? That's just what happened to a student at the Philadelphia airport.

Rebecca Solomon is a 22 year-old student who was returning to the University of Michigan on January 5th. As her bags were being screened at the airport, a TSA worker suddenly pulled a plastic bag of white powder out of the case holding her laptop computer. He demanded to know where she had gotten it.

The girl was horrified. Had a terrorist slipped some kind of explosive into her luggage? Had a smuggler slipped some drugs into her bags? She stammered for an explanation she did not have. Solomon later wrote in her student newspaper, "He let me stutter through an explanation for the longest minute of my life. Tears streamed down my face as I pleaded with him to understand that I'd never seen this baggie before."

Then the TSA worker smiled and said it was his. Solomon said he "waved the baggie at me and told me he was kidding, that I should've seen the look on my face. I had been terrified and disrespected by an airport employee. He'd joked about the least funny thing in air travel."

She's right. If she had been the one pulling the "prank", she would have been arrested and very possibly served significant jail time. But he thought it was really funny when he did it. Well, it wasn't funny. Ms. Solomon did the appropriate thing. She demanded to see a supervisor and filed an official complaint.

At least the TSA seems to have acted in an appropriate manner. TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis would not say whether the worker quit or was fired, but did say he no longer worked for the TSA. She went on to say, "TSA viewed this behavior to be completely inappropriate and unprofessional. The employee was immediately disciplined by TSA management at the Philadelphia airport."

That was the least they could do.

Out Of Touch

Political Cartoon is by Lee Judge in the Kansas City Star.

The 'Chupacabra' Is Still A Myth

Move over Bigfoot, because there's another mythical beast that's been stealing your headlines in recent years -- the Chupacabra. The name is derived from combining the Spanish words chupar (to suck) and cabra (goat). The story is that this beast likes to suck the blood from livestock, especially goats.

The Chupacabra is especially popular in Hispanic lore, but sightings of the beast have supposedly been made as far north as Maine and as far south as Chile. Sightings have also been made in Puerto Rico and, believe it or not, in Russia.

In Texas, strange-looking animals were found and thought to be Chupacabras in 2004, 2007 and 2009. But after genetic tests were done on the animals, they turned out to be coyotes with a kind of mange that caused them to lose their hair.

In the last couple of weeks, another "Chupacabra" was found in Wise county, Texas. The dead animal (pictured) was definitely not a coyote or a dog. It was hairless, but had died in good health. Naturally, the rumors began to spread that at last a Chupacabra had been found.

But it was not to be. State biologist Jennifer Barrow said, "It was a raccoon, no doubt about it. It's feet were a real giveaway. It had long toes, narrow feet. . .everything right for a raccoon. He didn't appear to be sick -- except that he was dead. But he wasn't skinny. He had real smooth skin."

Barrow didn't know how the animal had died, but theorized that it has fallen into the nearby lake during freezing weather and died. She said the extremely cold water preserved the body, and after a while caused the hair to fall out.

So the Chupacabra, like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, remains a myth. I suspect it always will.

Destroyed By His Dark Side

Political Cartoon is by Kevin Siers in The Charlotte Observer.

A Cause For Deep Concern

From the excellent site of Atheist Cartoons.

Why You Should Worry About Texas Education

The Texas State Board of Education is currently in the process of determining what the curriculum should include and exclude for students in Texas schools. Now some of you may be thinking "This doesn't affect the kid's in my state's schools", but you would be very wrong in thinking that. When the Texas State Board of Education meets, parents of children in most states should pay attention and be very afraid.

That's because Texas is such a large state with so many school children, that most school book publishers wait until the Texas curriculum is finished and then write or adjust their textbook offerings to meet the Texas standard. Most other states will then have to use textbooks written for Texas, or do without books.

If the Texas State Board of Education valued the education of its students above all else, that might not be such a bad thing. But they don't. The board is dominated by ultra-right-wing fundamentalists who think their personal politics and religion are much more important and they are determined to turn Texas education into nothing more than propaganda for those views.

They have already set the science curriculum, and science barely carried the day. They were within one vote of requiring the teaching of creationism in science classes. They still hope to get that one vote in the upcoming elections, and they well might do exactly that. If they do, you can expect the science curriculum to be reopened and altered to fit the views of fundamentalist christians.

They are currently in the process of setting the standards for the social sciences curriculum, including courses like history and political science. Some on the board have already proposed replacing some real heroes like Cesar Chavez with right-wing losers like ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich, anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly and architect of "red scare" blacklists Joseph McCarthy.

Is this the kind of history textbook you want your children reading from? Don't think it couldn't happen, because these are not very bright people on this board. Consider their latest action which proves their stupidity and incompetence.

Some people wanted to put children's books author Bill White Jr. on a list with others like Laura Ingalls Wilder to be studied by elementary children as people who had made cultural contributions. Mr. White had written the Brown Bear series of children's books, including Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? This was a very popular and successful series of books for kids, and certainly not controversial in any way.

But at their last meeting, board member Pat Hardy moved to exclude Mr. White from that list of cultural contributers because he had written some adult books that contained "very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system" (although she admitted she had not read those books). The board approved the motion by Ms. Hardy.

The problem is that the Bill White who wrote the children's books is not the same Bill White who wrote the adult political books. The author of the political books is Bill White, a philosophy professor at DePaul University. How could Hardy have made such a stupid mistake?

It seems she was acting on a memo another board member had sent out. Terri Leo had sent her memo to other board members earlier in the week accusing White of writing all the books in question. She also had not read the books in question and none of the board members had done any proper research on the question, including Terri Leo. The board had gone off half-cocked and acted without having the proper facts (or probably any facts at all).

This is the caliber of the individuals on the Texas State Board of Education. These folks make the Three Stooges look like genius doctoral candidates at an Ivy League school. They don't have the facts and are too lazy or uncaring to do the research to get the facts. They simply don't care as long as they can foist their right-wing political and religious views on students.

The board is currently in recess. But be very afraid, because in about three months they'll be meeting again. And whatever they wind up approving will wind up in textbooks used all across this nation.

The Owners Of American 'Democracy'

Political Cartoon is by John Darkow in the Columbia Daily Tribune.

No Recession In Texas ! Not A Bit !

In case you all didn't know it, our illustrious governor, Rick Perry, has decreed that there is no recession here in Texas. The rest of the country (and world) may be having a serious recession, but we're immune to that in Texas.

For example, Texas just dumped another 23,900 jobs and saw its unemployment rate rise from 8% to 8.3%. Of course, when you add in the people who've given up on finding a job and the people who've taken a part-time job because they can't find full-time work, the real unemployment rate is around 15%. But that has to be an anomaly, because Gov. Goodhair assures us there is no recession.

Thanks guv! Thank you for keeping that nasty old recession out of Texas. I sincerely hope you get what you so richly deserve in the November election.

Toasting Higher Premiums

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.