The Way Coretta Would Have Wanted It.

Bush Gets Reemed at King Funeral
This is AWESOME!

Sit up straight, George. Show some respect you dolt. Laura's so pissed that some uppity negro is giving her drunk husband some akright. I love it!

Republican Wacko Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry
I hope these are signals that the rats are jumping the ship.

"A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program."

Heat continues: Wall Street Journal says Bush, Abramoff woes persist

Crooked is as crooked does.

"'Their refusal to release information is inexcusable,' says Tom Fitton, president of conservative legal organization Judicial Watch. As a result, the scandal 'is now in the White House.'"

Boehner Rents Apartment Owned by Lobbyist in D.C.
Boehner sure is a breath of ethical air for the Rethugs.

State Department sees exodus of weapons experts
Why? The experts are being pushed out by Bush's appointed political operatives who don't know jack shit about weapons. They can tell you the sex of a 2 year old equine, though. Pitiful.

The Roof IS NOT on Fire. We don't need no fear....

Operation Backfill and the NSA Hearings
This entire diary is a necessary read.

"And when your house is on fire, you grant privileges to the rescue personnel you would never allow under any other circumstances: permission for total strangers to enter your house, whisk your baby out of sight to safety, toss your belongings out the window, hose down your Reniors, hustle you off to the nearest Red Cross center. We granted intrusions into our lives in those shaky days right after 9/11 (appropriately so, in light of possible other follow-up attacks) that we would never allow under any other circumstances.

But we are now in a preventive phase and have been for several years. The questions we're grappling with as a country now are not about putting out a current fire; rather, they focus on any and all ways to avert another one. To carry out the fire metaphor: We know there is an arsonist in the neighborhood who wishes us ill. The powers we granted to the rescue workers during the fire are no longer appropriate, and at any rate would not yield the results we need. After all, four years after a home fire, we don't allow firefighters to roust us from our beds at 3 AM, to kick down our doors, to destroy our property in the name of 'rescuing' us when there are only rumors of planned flames some vague time in the future.
...
Someone's got to tell Mr. Bush the fire's out and that what this country needs more than boogeyman visuals from its attorney general are firm, well-reasoned, coordinated, legal policies to ensure we don't catch fire again. Don't like the surveillance restrictions in FISA, Mr. Attorney General? Well, now's as good a time as any to offer calm rationalizations in front of the cameras of this country, using old, verifiable, truthful instances (the Brooklyn Bridge plot doesn't fly, Mr. Gonzales) or clear-cut, specfic hypotheticals in which these "backfilled" rights violations should be legalized to spare us an attack. Then we can have a national conversation about what rights we're willing to give up in the trade-off for personal security. Simply relying on crisis-granted powers - and even those considered by most legal scholars as illegal - is not selling me.

Ex-President Carter: Eavesdropping Illegal

"Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision — we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people," Carter told reporters. "And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act."

Cable news is worthless

News of the Net:
Blogs Catching On With Web Users

News of the Cool:
'Lost world' found in jungle

Spying and Lying and We'll all soon be Cryin'

Senate Republicans Refuse To Put Gonzales Under Oath
This is so sick. The bastard lied the last time he testified in Congress. What is the Republican party's problem with the truth?

Bush Caught on Tape: “A Wiretap Requires A Court Order. Nothing Has Changed.”
April 2004

For Some, Spying Controversy Recalls Nixon

Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects

Specter says Bush broke the law

DBT at the South Pole - Patterson Update

Check out Patterson's Website for an update. Here's a taste:

DBT's new single FEB 14 is available for free download on our website.
Don't let the feds fool ya, play that shit loud and blow those eardrums up.
Rock has been making folks deaf since the 50's, shoulda happened sooner.
By the way, contrary to popular op. it ain't a love song or even a valentines day song.
It's a big loud fuck you and the shelf life for that goes way beyond the 15th.
...
Don't forget to keep checking in, both here and at the DBT site, as the new album is coming soon, lots of tour dates are about to be announced, and we promise to keep the propaganda flowing like sweet cheap wine.

Sweet, sweet fuckin' DBT propaganda.

Hat tip to the fine folks at Nine Bullets. They linked to my blog from their front page today and it has just tinkled me pink. That's the first ever front page linkage to Alabama Ass Whuppin. They do one hell of a job over there. If you love DBT you should be checking them out daily.
___________

If you don't think DBT is going world wide with the release of ABAAC, then check this out:

Apparently a friend of the DBT named Andrew works at the South Pole. Now we know how Patterson came up with Mrs. Klaus' Kimono.

These pics came from DBTJenn over on DBT's Yahoo Group

Jenn is the moderator of the Yahoo group and the webmistress for DBT and a host of other kick ass bands. I've never had the privilege to meet her but I've swapped a few emails with her and there ain't a cooler person under the sun You won't find anybody who will say any different, either. And if they do they better watch their ass 'cause they'll have a crew of motherfuckers looking for it. The band and the fans are lucky to have her around.

DBT Lyrics Tour - River Lore

The Tennessee River and Wilson Dam are referenced in several DBT/Solo DBT songs. The River has a strong hold on those who have grown up and lived in the Shoals and are of the "Tennessee Valley". Quite a few folks in the Shoals and surrounding area are natural born water babies who have been baptized a thousand times over a hundred summers by that "dirty ol' water". Learning how to water ski wasn't just for the children of "doctors, lawyers and musicians". The children of factory workers, school teachers and TVA employees also learned how to be properly dragged behind a motor boat.

The River has been a life force of the area for millenniums. The natives called the river the "Singing River", oddly enough. I like the think that this initial name set the stage for the area becoming "The Hit Making Capitol of the World".

"The Yuchi people believed that in the Tennessee River there was a young woman who sang beautiful songs. They called it the Singing River".

The Trail of Tears began in the Shoals. One of the sadder historical points concerning the river.

Some of the pictures below were taken by me and others I lifted from the web. I've provided some links that will describe the history of the River and the dam much better than I can.

There is one sneaky picture in the series that's more DBT related than the rest. I'm wondering if anyone will catch it. Leave a comment it you do.

Hope you enjoy a tour of DBT's River Lore!

Never Gonna Change - You can throw me off the Wilson Dam...

Uncle Frank - They flooded out the hollow....

Boys From Alabama - They might find your body in the Tennessee River...

Uncle Frank - The banks around the hollow sold for lake-front property where...

...Doctors,....

...Lawyers,...

....and Musicians teach their kids to waterski.

TVA - Thank god for the TVA
Puttin' People on the Moon - Double Digit unemployment, TVA be shutting soon

In elementary school we'd take field trips to the dam. The most frightful place they took us to was the corridor that ran underneath the damn from bank to bank.

Way before 9/11 we would go down by the locks and sneak off to one of the neo-classical arches and drink beer, make-out..... Good times, good times.

"Towering in size, incomparable in scale and ambitious in design, the Wilson Dam project, constructed from 1918-1927, established a standard for the nation for future waterways improvement. The largest mass concrete United States lock & dam yet built, it was the first federal hydroelectric project as well as the first Corps of Engineers multipurpose effort. Congress, noting the combined benefits of flood control, aid to commercial navigation and the production of hydroelectric power in a single project, soon mandated these elements be evaluated in all new investigations. In 1933, the completed project amazed and inspired newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt to create the Tennessee Valley Authority. This act revitalized a region and provided a blueprint for development of water resources nationwide.

Wilson Dam marked the first successful attempt to tap the potential of the Tennessee River. Efforts to develop the river for economic purposes dated back to the 1830's. Inadequate, they failed to achieve significant results. The barrier of the Muscle Shoals continued to divide the residents of the Tennessee Valley geographically and socially. Poverty stricken, the region led the nation in grim categories like illiteracy, lowest per capita income, infant mortality and the availability of electricity and running water. Initially authorized for national defense, the completion of Wilson Dam paved the way for a period of development that harnessed the river. Rapid industrialization and economic diversification swept the valley".

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sits in the rear of a touring sedan Jan. 21, 1933, at the Wilson Dam hydroelectric plant on the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Ala

Uncle Frank - They powered up the city with hydro-electric juice.

...Now we got more electricity than we can ever use.

I think the sign below would make a good album title

TVA - Me and my daddy use to fish....

....next to Wilson Damn.

Commercial and recreational fishermen proudly display their “catch of the day” below the Wilson Dam outside of Florence, Alabama (circa 1940).

TVA - In that dirty ol water sometimes we couldn't tell...

TVA - Where me and my daddy use to bow to the river and pray...

TVA - ...he put up the damn that powered most of the south...

Uncle Frank - T.V.A. had a way to clear it off real fast...

Lots of men and machinary, build a dam and drown the rest

Failure Friday

Bush Is Running Out of Alibis
by Pat Buchanan.
I love it when they eat their own.

"American leaders from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan rejected isolation and retreat."

Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration? The answer is a simple one, but it is not an easy one for Bush to face: His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right.

NASA's Inspector General Probed
More fucking incompetent cronyism from the Shrub.

They allege that Cobb, appointed by President Bush in 2002, suppressed investigations of wrongdoing within NASA, and abused and penalized his own investigators when they persisted in raising concerns.

Judge Slams Ex-EPA Chief Over Sept. 11
Yet another Bushie crony endangering American lives.

A federal judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday for reassuring New Yorkers soon after the Sept. 11 attacks that it was safe to return to their homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood.

Pre-1776 Mentality

Pre-1776 Mentality

"I've seen some strange things in my life, but I cannot describe the feeling I had, sitting on the House floor during Tuesday's State of the Union speech, listening to the President assert that his executive power is, basically, absolute, and watching several members of Congress stand up and cheer him on. It was surreal and disrespectful to our system of government and to the oath that as elected officials we have all sworn to uphold. Cheering? Clapping? Applause? All for violating the law?"

-Sentor Russ Feingold

Senate Panel Rebuffed on Documents on U.S. Spying - New York Times

Five American Servicemen Killed in Iraq - For no good goddamn reason

Still have doubts about who owns Bush?

"President Bush defended the huge profits of Exxon Mobil Corp. on Wednesday, saying they are simply the result of the marketplace and that consumers socked with soaring energy costs should not expect price breaks."

Really? You can't make the connection between the Bush administration and the oil industry? Really? Really-Really?!:

Other Things Bush Said That You Shouldn’t Take Literally

"One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America’s dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn’t mean it literally."

Bush withholding on Documents on U.S. Spying

Head Fake. Don't Believe It

The Capitol's Tempest in a T-Shirt

They can't decide how corrupt they want to be. It's hard work!

Update:
Take a look at the liars on the butt-crazy right side of the blogosphere and their responses to Cindy Sheehan being removed from the SOTU. I expect their retractions to be pouring in today about the same time I expect the penis enlargement cream I bought on line to start working.

Murtha - THE man with THE plan.

John Murtha's Letter To Bush

Dear Mr. President,

This March will mark the beginning of the 4th year of the war in Iraq. In contrast, U.S. involvement in WWI came to an end after 19 months. Victory in Europe was declared in WWII after 3 years 5 months. In the Korean War, a cease-fire was signed after 3 years and 1 month. But after more than three and a half years into the war in Iraq, your administration finally produced what is called a "Plan for Victory" in Iraq.

State of the Lies in our Union

Check out Think Progress for a complete debunking of the lies set forth by Dear Leader last night.

Bush Skips Complex Realities in Address

Bush Stretches to Defend Surveillance

Assertions on Spying, Jobs And Spending Invite Debate

Update:
Watch this MOV for the best part of the SOTLU last night. Classic!
"Congress did not act on my proposal to save Social Security".

GAO Faults Federal Government for Katrina Response

Five Ways To Keep Your Google Searches Private