Twenty Bucks, Same as in Town

Blogwhoring. You do it, I do it, we all do it. What have you been up to?

---

Looks like George W. Bush is the guy who put the "mental" in fundamentalism. Clive Hamilton at Counterpunch passes along a highly disturbing story recently confirmed by former President of France Jacques Chirac. According to Chirac, when Bush was forming the Coalition of the Willing prior to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Bush cited his reason for going to war was dictated by the story of Gog and Magog. The then French President was "said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush’s invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and 'wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs'."

In other words, Bush's apocalyptic millenarian fundamentalist beliefs regarding Gog and Magog left Chirac, well, Agog.

---

The Rude Pundit has, predictably, some salty words for the GOP regarding the Sonia Sotomayor nomination. Let's hear what he has to say:

So Roberts and any Republican who might want to vote against Sotomayor are automatically lumped in with the titanic assholes who are hogging the microphones of America like a Nebraska twink hogs sailor cock on his first trip to Fleet Week in New York.

Oops, that wasn't very PG-rated. Let's see what else he says...

There's something viscerally thrilling about watching the GOP die not with a bang, but a whimper. In attacking Judge Sonia Sotomayor for her ethnic identity and her education, the Republican Party hasn't just gone over a cliff. Oh, no. They plunged off that craggy fucker in 2004 like Wile E. Coyote on a sputtering rocket, landing on the canyon floor with a cactus shoved up their ass and their bones broken.

Uh... Let's try this, instead:

By the way, the other story here is the huge influence of bloggers on the process as it plays out in the media. Out here in Left Blogsylvania, we immediately hit our Nexis bookmarks and went to searching, finding how utterly inane and/or hypocritical the attacks on Sotomayor have been, whether it's digging up the context for her quotes, finding out how Republicans overlooked the very same things she's said when spoken by or about Republican-nominated justices, and more. Everything they put up, we can hit down quickly. It's damned impressive.

Indeed. As a whole, the better side of the tracks has been doing at least as impressive a job analyzing Sotomayor's past rulings as the MSM, who insist on giving the GOP freakazoids opposing her nomination tons of air time.

---

As well as traveling through time and posting 24 hours before any of us, d r i f t g l a s s has reached a milestone: His 2000th post. Sir Drifty, an alumnus of the Group New Blog, started out as a commenter until the late Steve-O told him to shut the fuck up and hang his own shingle. He did and the rest, as they say, is hysterics. So go on over and give Uncle DG a pat on the head for a job well done and that we look forward to the next 2000.

---

William Grigg at Pro Libertate brings up an excellent point that I myself have been meaning to bring up, namely,

We need to dispense immediately with the idea that releasing the second batch of photos depicting torture and other abuse at Abu Ghraib and six other installations would create an unacceptable danger to U.S. troops in the region.

Though it seem callous of me to point out as much, we should recognize that people who enlist in the military are paid, trained, and equipped to confront danger.

Uh, huh, uh huh. What he said.

---

Rounding out the list is Stardust at God is For Suckers, who passes along the news that France has taken the first official steps to ban L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology cult from of their country. Despite the blog's moniker, Stardust asks whether or not any nation has the right to ban a religion.

Of course, the first question we should ask ourselves is, is Scientology a religion at all or a cult? It's obvious from Hubbard's own words about forming his "religion" was really all about money. But the cult's problems aren't restricted to France: They've already been banned from Wikipedia, as well.