Too many old piled-up bookmarks to make a coherent narrative out of them, just a textdump. I realize it doesn't make compelling reading this way, but I'm not really trying to do this for anyone but myself.

Our friends the Saudis threaten terrorist attacks on London if the UK doesn't stop investigating their arms deals.

Separate but unequal. Or, our fair and unbiased media and their balanced treatment of Obama and McCain.

An enemies list eight million names long. To be rounded up in the unlikely event of a declaration of martial law. Surely I'm on it, and you too.

Terence, this is stupid stuff. Or, why I don't generally read the comment threads on unmoderated blogs such as the one at Sadly, No.

Anglophilia. The Tories are so much more practiced in their hatred that our right-wingers are taking lessons. Olive oil as a vile butter substitute. Torture as sexual thrill. "Tory discourse has only two topics: hatred of the new and foreign, and grief for the old and familiar."

U.S. now accused of operating floating prison ships where they can torture accused terrorists without the pesky media looking over their shoulders. (Via, of all places, Fark.)

Too many McCain bookmarks accumulated, got to post a few.

His attitude on science:

• Junk science is good. There's absolutely no scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism, and the push to keep kids unvaccinated is endangering not only them but everyone else due to the increased spread of disease and the likelihood that older people with weakened immunity get infected. But that doesn't stop McCain from pandering to the know-nothings he thinks are his base. More, more, still more.
• A broader look at McCain and science. It's not just the vaccination thing. It's not just that, as a pusher of abstinence over more realistic sex education, he is objectively pro-abortion (abstinence causes unwanted pregnancy causes abortion) and pro-AIDS. It's not just that he makes fun of a good scientific study using DNA to count bears in Montana as a waste of government money. It's not just that he's proud not to understand anything about economics. It's not just that he's anti-evolution. It's not just that he thinks the invisible hand will fix climate change problems without pain. It's not just that as the only senator missing from a crucial vote, he doomed a renewable energy bill. Well, maybe it's not anyone of those things, but put them all together and what do you get? A senator who earned the lowest score, zero, of the League of Conservation voters.

His "senior moments" in foreign policy:

• Can't tell the shiites from the sunnis. Or, those brown people all look the same to me, just kill them and let God sort them out. No wonder the surge hasn't made any progress.
• TPM follows up with a broader look. "In almost every discussion of foreign policy, not just today but in previous years, what stands out is McCain's inability to see beyond the immediate issues of military tactics to any firm grasp of strategy or America's real vital interests."

His reputation as a backer of clean campaigns:

• Campaign spending limits don't apply to mavericks. He wrote the campaign finance reform rules himself, but now finds it inconvenient to stick to them. Laws are for little people.

And a broader look at his honesty in general:

• Straight talk McCain. An anti-campaign site, kind of a cheap shot but thorough.
• Steve Benet's big list of McCain flip-flops.
• A closer look at McCain's media credibility. Why are they giving him such a pass on all these issues? More.

Actual newspaper headline: “McCain refuses to pander.”

McCain disagrees with the administration on torture but trusts them anyway. Or does he disagree? Is he shooting himself in the face or is it simply that he can't keep his stories straight? He was against waterboarding before he was for it, but now he has to avoid phone calls after his courageous stance in favor of torture.

The great right wing conspiracy considers McCain a maverick despite his holding the second most conservative voting record in the senate, but if he chooses to compromise his principles, shows off his financial creativity, huddles with his close advisors the lobbyists, and routinely issues false and self-contradictory statements more often, maybe they'll come around. What would the Vietnam-era McCain think?

A fine piece of demagoguery from the Obama camp: content-free, sure, but still inspiring.

McCain and free speech, two things that don't go together.

Regulating bloggers:

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/12826.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/13/mccain-war-on-blogs/
http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2006/12/12/john-mccain-wants-to-regulate-blogs/

Outlawing (left-wing) advocacy organizations:

http://www.saysuncle.com/archives/2004/08/26/bush_mccain_to_pursue_emcourt_actionem_to_suppress_free_speech/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/14/politics/main3262322.shtml

Given a choice between his campaign reform legislation and the first amendment, he'd choose...

http://valsbien.blogspot.com/2006/04/senator-mccain-no-free-speech.html
http://www.policyalmanac.org/government/pr/campaign_finance_001.shtml
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmVhYjdlYzJjNzI0NGE2MjRlYTNlMDc0ZDlkZGVhNTg

General authoritarian tendencies:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/118937.html
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=10907

Too many to post long insightful dissections. Just the links.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated for trying to tell us that Omar Sheikh murdered Bin Laden in December 2001. Sheikh was condemned to death for murdering Daniel Pearl, and remains imprisoned, despite Pearl's family and US officials concluding that he was innocent; Pearl was investigating a story that could have led to the truth about Bin Laden. And more terrifying connect-the-dots tinhattery.

Angry white racist libertarians caught in their past bigotry while running for president. And why, despite what his zombie army will tell you, Ron Paul should be held responsible for his own words.

And finally,

Foreigners aren't people, U.S. Court of Appeals rules. What more need be said?

Futures...

As president, Giuliani would grab even more executive power than Bush and Cheney. Giuliani’s team ... advocates bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible,” calls for screening Muslims in government jobs, wants to revoke the ban on state-sponsored assassination, and thinks health care is an issue only Democrats care about.

Tells us: freedom is slavery.

...and pasts

“When someone says waterboarding is similar to harsh interrogation techniques used against the mafia in New York City, they do not have enough experience to lead our military,” McCain shoots back after Giuliani thinks it's a good thing to claim to be a torturer. And yet, about that mafia thing: Giuliani is the godfather... “I wonder if he noticed how much becoming part of his team resembled becoming part of a mafia family,” Mr. Kerik wrote. “I was being made.” And it's just good business; there's no political subtext to his deals with Hugo Chavez and a Qatari 9/11 mastermind.

"When he divorced her, surrounded by the most sordid rumors": which marriage does that refer to? Creative accounting hides the security expenses for the assignations with his mistress. Fitting with his pattern of hiding everything else: a reputation of resistance — even hostility — toward open government, the First Amendment and the public's access to simple facts and figures. Supposedly the agencies in whose budgets the expenses were hidden were reimbursed, but from what funds? And did he place the emergency command center in the World Trade Center, against written advice after the center had already been a terrorist target, to make a love nest for his mistress?

Someone other than Giuliani deserves the credit for lowered crime rates in NYC and Rudy didn't like his limelight being stolen. Each of the claims in Giuliani's self-serving account (of his prowess as a terror warrior) is inaccurate. ... All of these statements are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong.

Shame on us. Ronan Bennett points out the bigotry inherent in the anti-muslim rhetoric spewed by English master of the new unpleasantness Martin Amis. Not that it's any prettier when it's on this side of the water... Amis responds unapologetically that it's ok to be prejudiced when it's about religion instead of skin color. It is?

Republicans in a panic as the realization hits them that the same theocrats they've been pandering to for years may now finally be in the driver's seat. Via Shakes; More from TPM and Mefi.

Wireless enthusiast intercepts government secret radio band and uncovers secrets and scandals of deceitful type proportions

Aghast goes next door to his neighbor, secretly excited, as aforementioned was a hunter whom radio enthusiast wanted friendship and favor of

A muscular, thick-skinned, slit-eyed neighbor is at the table poisoned just thirty seconds before by parties who knew of wireless operator's forthcoming revelation

A prickly line of sweat covers enthusiast's forehead as the realization hits him that the same government he and his now dead neighbor voted for, backed, talked of on cream porches have tricked him into their war against the people whom enthusiast and dead hunter would have wished torture on. A servant of government walks in and arrests wireless fan in kitchen for murder of his neighbor

The dead cannot contradict
Sometimes the living cannot