Website Launched to Build Public Voice

You are all cordially invited (see, I can be nice!) to hop on over to Progressive Politics, Popular Voices to take a look at my latest effort to help build a public voice for populists and progressives. The idea is to turn the current monologue of politics where voters are told what they think and what they should do into an ongoing chaotic dialogue (or maybe multi-logue would be a better word - if it is one).

On one page, you can get the latest news, words from the grassroots communities (blogs), policy initiatives from think-tanks (ivory towers), and an occassional word or two from our elected officials (hallowed halls). Once you feel duly outraged, you can click through to the associated forums and join the discussion. Add your voice to American politics - and it's FREE!

Or you can check out the forums directly, too.

Everyone has an opinion - we want to hear yours!

XT

Okay, jihad.

We have seen democracy, and it is called "advertising week."

Please, people. Fuck this all until time ends. This is death.

"Who do YOU like more: Toucan Sam, or Thanatos himself? Good for you!!!"

Donning the Cowboy Hat

Months ago I darkly speculated with Dr. Emile as to the American threat of a nuclear deterrant in the "War On Terror". I did the blog entry when Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (R) actually proposed one of my more vile conjectures as to the limits of American capabilities: nuking Mecca in response to a terrorist act. With a US Congressman already broaching the mad notion, the scope of a grimly imaginative "response" is constrained only by whatever resides deep in America's arsenal: it could be done with a "filthy bomb", detonated with a isotope laden sleeve (strontium-90?) insuring a radioactive half life deadly enough to kill any pilgrim attempting to visit for, say, the next couple centuries. And what would Islam then be without the Hajj? Gruesome, and despicable reasoning, to be sure -- but such an exercise can only, at its worst, be slightly ahead of the creative thinking curve going on in the bowels of the Pentagon. Think not?
WMD threat could spark American nuclear strike.
and:
Pentagon draft plan calls for preemptive use of nukes.

What is the psychological and strategic impact of simply making the threat, even if qualification and disavowal follow? Would it be a deterrent?

Not even a lead umbrella will protect

Oddly, very tiny, very dense bits of curious matter from long ago appear to be slamming their way through the earth. What next, eh? Tiny "strangelets" are bits of Big Bang era matter, and it looks like researchers have found sign of their passing through our innocent little planet at preposterous speeds.

Intelligent design, indeed.