News this (well, last, really) week

South Carolina is proposing legislation that will give felons time off their jail sentence in consideration of their organ donation. Revolting. What happens to the innocent or wrongly accused person desperate to get out? How many organs can you donate?

Is there a limit? To the number of organs, or discount on the sentence, like, you can't get ten years off an eleven year sentence if you donate the bleeding lot?

It's more of this disgusting trend of using poor people for their body parts.

Rich? Need a heart, lungs, or liver? Travel to some third-world country and have someone executed so their still-palpitating body part(s) can be transferred to you.

Want a baybee of your own? Working too hard to conceive one? Disgusted by childbirth, or unwilling to deal with the biological difficulties? Rent-a-uterus and have your partner's genetic material mixed with yours, dumped in the Womb Mit Ein View, and par-tay! Your very own blue-eyed blond Little Precious can be decanted at your convenience.

Don't forget to throw a few pennies at the walking womb who nurtured it for the requisite time period.

And with the passage of this legislation, you won't even have to leave home.

I have visions of people agreeing to part, as it were, with their parts, coming to regret the pact with the devil. Or, worse yet, the potential donee ready for the part before the donor is done with it. "Oi!" they'll scream, as their livers, lungs, or kidneys are ripped out, "Not done with that yet, give us a year!"

Workers are, supposedly, less satisfied with their jobs than ever, according to this article.

Just one thing I want to say about this. What kind of people think it's news that people making $15K pa or less don't much like their jobs? Is that newsworthy, or surprising in any way? Oh, and once you hit 60 hours per week, your job satisfaction goes down. No!!! Really? Who'd'a thunk?

Did you, like me, think there was plenty of reason to suspect voter fraud put Dim Son and a bunch of other Rethugnican twits into power? Suspect no more. Bradblog has the story.

I actually like Tom Lantos quite a bit, though I don't always agree with him. However, overall, I've found him honest, which is more than you can say for most congresscritters. In any event, I believe he meant to say that Bush was treating both Congress and the American public like mushrooms here, you know, "Keep us in the dark and feed us nothing but horseshit," but was too polite to so state.

Apparently, Winston Churchill would have agreed with this pathetic excuse for a man. Anti-Semitism is alive and well among Christianists. (Christianists are to be distinguished from true Christians, who, while I may not believe in their deity, nevertheless strive to make the world a better place. Also, criticizing Israel's policy towards Palestinians and the post-60s wars of territory does not make you an anti-Semite. By throwing that term around so carelessly, the AIPAC/Israel First types are cheapening its meaning.)

Best News of the Week: SCOOTER LIBBY CONVICTED!!! Noted purveyor of porn now also a convicted felon. Even Better News:

Rules Governing Petitions For Executive Clemency:

No petition for pardon should be filed until the expiration of a waiting period of at least five years after the date of the release of the petitioner from confinement or, in case no prison sentence was imposed, until the expiration of a period of at least five years after the date of the conviction of the petitioner. Generally, no petition should be submitted by a person who is on probation, parole, or supervised release.

Post on Daily Kos, thanks to the person who posted this. Of course if the BoyEmperor George decides he's going to do what he damned well wants and screw the rest of us, we're, well, screwed, I guess. But he seems to be losing steam - or at least some of the hot air that has fueled his recent imperial excesses.

WARNING: NOT WORK-SAFE! JoeMyGod discovers that the Repuglicans' latest love affair is with a gay porn star. Oh-KAY, WHATEVER!

Michael Savage comes over all hissy-fitted, anaconda big bad Media Matters pointed out that he's a jerk for attacking Melissa Etheridge and bloviating the usual venomous hate speech. Big WOW.

Meanwhile, the rats continue to trample each other underfoot in their zeal to escape the sinking ship:

Rep Hensarling of Texas does not look like the kind of guy I would trust around small children or animals, but hearing him call GOP actions similar to a wino's certainly warmed the cockles of my heart.

Snotty McTellEmNothing, erstwhile White House spokestool and master of obfuscation sure has a lot of nerve, telling the WH to come clean on the Scooter Libby fiasco.

In other news from around the world:
Headline in the Independent reads:

British company claims ownership of Kenya's colourful national cloth

How's that for chutzpah?

A corrupt official narrowly escapes having a brand of rat poison named after him, in China.

Indian man calls home, interrupting sorrowing family's funeral service for him. Yowza. All's well that ends well, at least. Sheesh.

Okay, after reading that nearly half the population of China cannot effectively communicate in their own national language, I don't feel so bad about being really, really rusty in Chinese. And Bahasa Melayu. And Bangla. And Hindi. And Tamil.

Mexican women report violence from their boyfriends, which increases with their attempts to gain independence and autonomy. Really. I am so surprised.

Goodbye, Cruel WOOAAAAGH!

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