You thought this was going to be about Bush again, huh? It would’ve been a good guess, but not this time. Instead, a thoughtful and readable essay on animal rights and the right to protest, by he utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer.

Want to read a good story? Maybe you want to read The Good Story? 

Here you go.

Maybe you even want to bookmark that blog. Up to you.

Bush Threatens Attacks In Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan — An ambush of a military convoy that killed 17 troops near the Afghan border Wednesday pushed the death toll in a series of attacks to at least 101 Pakistanis in the past five days — and brought President Pervez Musharraf, according to a local newspaper headline, to a "Moment of Truth."

    The Bush administration, after publicly demanding that Musharraf rein in militants linked to al Qaida, on Wednesday threatened to launch attacks into Pakistani territory if it sees fit.

    "We certainly do not rule out options, and we retain the option especially of striking actionable targets," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "But it is clearly of the utmost importance to go in there and deal with the problem in the tribal areas."

The Shrub is trying to collect war like some people collect snow globes or cats. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan. The only one on his list he hasn't threatened so far is North Korea. And that's only because he knows that Kim is crazier than he is, or even Cheney.

The ironic stupidity of this is that Bush has been ignoring Pakistan for years, and that's where our resources should have gone – if anywhere – in late summer of 2001. The only military action that was even arguably justified was to hunt down Bin Laden. Bush promised to hunt 'em down, run 'em to ground, lasso 'em up, move 'em out and corral 'em, etc. But instead, he made wars in irrelevant places, and opened a great faucet of blood on the earth.

This ain’t no chicken joke.

“DENVER, Colorado (Reuters) — A California mother was charged with beating her children, ages 2 and 4, on a commercial aircraft and interfering with the flight crew….

An FBI affidavit quotes passengers as saying Freeman appeared intoxicated, was abusive with her children before she boarded the plane and repeatedly hit and yelled at them during the flight.”

Boy, some people, you can dress ’em up, you can liquor ’em up, but you just can’t take ’em anywhere.

But seriously, some people should not have children. I feel bad for the kids; their mother is Joan Crawford X Anne Coulter, with wings. I hope the little varmints find a way to have a peaceful life.

“While opposition to the war has been stronger and more visible on the East and West coasts, small towns in the heartland and the South have provided the Bush administration with some of its most steadfast backers. But that support has cracked amid the echoes of graveside bagpipes and 21-gun salutes, which have been heard with greater frequency in recent months in small Midwestern communities.” [Washginton Post]

It makes one wonder how those Red State/Blue State maps of the 2004 election would look today.

Senator Boxer on Iraq

"How many more explosive devices are going to blow up in the faces of our troops before we start bringing them home?  How many more Iraqis are going to die, women and children?  How many more faces are we going to look at on the front page before we get the guts to do the right thing?  

"The President doesn't listen.  He didn't listen after the election…he said he had a new strategy.  What was it?  The surge.  The surge is not a new strategy; it's a military tactic, and it isn't working."

— Senator Boxer, speaking in debate on the Defense Authorization Bill.

Lovely. [Sigh] I don't know about you, but I'm growing weary of the almost an election year rhetoric. I'm all for cutting the funding and bringing the troops home, but it's also time for the government to suit up, shut up and show up.  It's time to hang up Gunslinger Bush's sixguns and show him the road outta Dodge. It's time to impeach.

“The recipe is simple, like the directions on the back of a shampoo bottle. Damaging reports of Bush administrations malfeasance emerge. Warnings of imminent terrorist-borne doom immediately follow, all spread far and wide by said Bush administration. Lather, rinse, repeat. There are many more instances of this curious timing to be found, but apparently, no one in the administration is concerned this dubious pattern – spreading fear among the populace to change the subject, an act of terrorism itself – might start to wear thin.”

– William Rivers Pitt | We’re All Gonna Die

Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams came from Ireland to Texas to declare that President Bush should be impeached.

In a keynote speech at the International Women's Peace Conference on Wednesday night, Ms. Williams told a crowd of about 1,000 that the Bush administration has been treacherous and wrong and acted unconstitutionally.

"Right now, I could kill George Bush," she said at the Adam's Mark Hotel and Conference Center in Dallas. "No, I don't mean that. How could you nonviolently kill somebody? I would love to be able to do that."

About half the crowd gave her a standing ovation after she called for Mr. Bush's removal from power.

CommonDreams.org » Nobel Laureate Calls for Removal of Bush

So it goes, we make what we made since the world began:

“Army officers were furious that Charles could deliberately provoke a second war when his defeat in the first had been so clear an indication of God’s favour to the Parliamentarian cause. Tired of his deceptions and intrigues, the Army denounced King Charles as the ‘Man of Blood’. Parliament was purged of Presbyterian sympathisers and moderates in December 1648 and left with a small ‘Rump’ of MPs that was totally dependent on the Army. Parliament appointed a High Court of Justice in January 1649 and Charles was charged with high treason against the people of England. The King’s trial opened on 20 January. He refused to answer the charges, saying that he did not recognise the authority of the High Court, but he was found guilty of the charges against him and sentenced to death on 27 January 1649. The King was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall on 30 January.”

King Charles the First 1600-1649

There endeth the lesson.

On Global Warming, MoveOn Voters Pick Edwards:

“In a recent virtual town hall meeting on climate change with the Democratic presidential candidates sponsored by MoveOn.org, former Senator John Edwards renewed his call to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 80 percent by 2050 and said that his plan for getting there was the “most aggressive” of any of his opponents.”

An Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi – CommonDreams.org

by John Atcheson

Honest men and women can no longer doubt that there is more than probable cause to impeach Bush and Cheney on the most serious of charges and the highest of crimes.

In the end, their chief offense has been nothing less than to treat the Constitution as a document of convenience. They have substituted their theory of governance for that of our founding fathers.

The Tech – Domenici Breaks With President, Republican Support For War Fades

Support among Republicans for President Bush's Iraq policy eroded further Thursday as another senior lawmaker, Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, broke with the White House just as congressional Democrats prepared to renew their challenge to the war.

"We cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress," said Domenici, a six-term senator who until now has been a steadfast supporter of the president.

Well. Am I beginning to scent from time to time a freshening wind? That's nice. Pretty little, very late, but nice.