Insta-Hoglets 30th Nov.

Some non-Iraq stuff I missed writing about in the last few days.

Feministe has a post on what she describes as the most disgusting thing she has ever read. Conservative blogger Vox Day gets into her comments with the opinion that "Being raped doesn’t confer some mystical moral superiority on a woman, it just makes her a victim. And unfortunately, in all too many cases, it just makes her a stupid one." Honest, that's what he said! Talk about sociopathic.

The Feds are probing a $10,000 donation made five years ago by SunCruz Casinos to a Republican campaign committee on behalf of an Ohio congressman. If you didn't know, the contract-hire assasination of the ex-owner of Sun Cruz is still being investigated down there in Florida too. The name tying it all together? Abramoff, of course.

Another entry for the most disgusting thing I've ever read - Paul at Powerline agrees with claims that McCain shouldn't talk about torture being ineffective since he admits to breaking under torture and giving useless information and a false confession himself. He then goes on to say that "In this instance, Cheney, not McCain, is the American hero." because Cheney defends torture. I kid you not - I couldn't make stuff like this up after a week of nightmares. Middle Earth Journal provides the smackdown.

The Christian Science Monitor provides an article on how India may have handed the USAF a few lessons in their recent exercize and provides a link to an Indian defense-wonk forum where the whole matter is being discussed. I wonder where they got the inspiration for the story and that Indian link? A name-check would have been nice but I'm just a blogger and they are real journalists... Ah well, I'm still thankful to DefenseTech for the 1200 or so readers they sent my way.

USA Today shamelessly runs an op-ed by the Heritage Foundation touting the Heritage Foundation's findings that recruits to the US army come from middle class, not poor, backgrounds. Yeah sure, if you accept "middlle-class" as being anyone earning over $30,000 a year. I debunked this three weeks ago when the WaPo ran it, but its seems there is no lie too small or obvious that it doesn't bear repeating by the Right. Guess USA Today doesn't read Newshog. Maybe they should ask their colleagues at CSM if Newshog is any good.

Highest wages in East, lowest in South. Would it surprise you to learn that 19 of the poorest 20 States voted Bush and 14 of the richest 20 voted Kerry? Given the way that the deck is stacked against registering poor voters, leading to a cycle of non-representation and voter apathy I wasn't at all surprised.

Why is it all going so badly for BushCo? Well, if you believe tinfoil-hatter and neo-con Powerline blogger John Hindraker, it's because the CIA are waging a secret war of leaks on Bush. Hang on John - if it were true then Bush is still Prezi-didn't, right? He could just fire the evil-doers and get some cronies in, right? I'm sure you would be as qualified as Director of the CIA as his last FEMA director was for that position, John...

The ever-excellent Steve Soto reveals that one of the two defense contractors who bribed recently convicted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) also raised at least $100,000 for the Bush re-election campaign.

Lastly, Kevin Drum gets at the heart of the Bush economic good-times fable. If wages don't rise then any betterment in the economy is illusory, being fuelled by a credit bubble that has to eventually pop.