The wankery alert system is in the red today – let’s start with Chairman Michael Steele, who thinks that the days of the GOP apologizing for its sins are in the past, that they’ve turned the corner!

First, the Republican Party will be forward-looking – it is time to stop looking backward. Republicans have spent ample time re-examining the past. It has been a healthy and necessary task. But I believe it is now time for Republicans to focus all of our energies on winning the future by emerging as the party of new ideas.

New ideas? Bwa. Fucking. Ha.

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Just when you thought it was safe to resume fucking pigs, the swine flu is back. Not that it went away, but once we realized it wasn’t going to decimate the world population by week’s end, we got distracted by iPhone Myst.

Swine flu remains a “phase 5” threat, somewhere between contagious yawning and Black Death. Under World Health Organization rules — which some nations are challenging because it would be a bummer — if the flu spreads just a little more, we’ll have a grand old pandemic on hour hands.

The problem is that the virus isn’t following God’s Plan for weeding the garden of humanity. CDC guidelines, for example, cover typical settings like hospitals, nursing homes, and day-care centers. Nobody expected high schools to be the cesspools of Armageddon:

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David Waldman for the smackdown:

[ Daily Kos Flash video not available. ]

Chris Cilizza, on torture:

Asked whether such tactics were justified, 53 percent of the overall sample said they wereand 34 percent said they were not. […]

On the question of whether such techniques have yielded information that has made the country safer, 52 percent of all respondents said they had while 39 percent said they had not.

It doesn’t matter if 53 percent or 100 percent of the respondents think torture is justified.  It’s a federal crime.  It’s an international crime. And we are required by treaty to prosecute everyone involved.

Cilizza Uses GOP Poll to Claim that ‘Most’ Americans Say Torture is ‘Justified’ [ThinkProgress]

So we’re watching SNL — no, not the sketch where they beat Family Guy to the network-promo gag — and some prescription drug commercial comes on, and as the soothing announcer recites the side effects, we start dreading whatever disease would require suffering these consequences:

Sleepwalking, and eating or driving while not fully awake, with amnesia for the event, as well as behaviors such as being more outgoing or aggressive than normal, confusion, agitation, and hallucinations have been reported. Don’t take it with alcohol as it may increase these behaviors. In patients with depression, worsening of depression, including risk of suicidal thoughts or actions may occur.

Not to mention an unaccountable urge for demon wieners.

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GQ has a slideshow of actual cover sheets used for intelligence briefings in March-April 2003 — when we invaded Iraq. They’re the work of Major General Glen Shaffer, and despite objections from within the Pentagon, Shaffer argued the bosses were cool with it:

When colleagues complained to Shaffer that including a religious message with an intelligence briefing seemed inappropriate, Shaffer politely informed them that the practice would continue, because “my seniors” — JCS chairman Richard Myers, Rumsfeld, and the commander in chief himself — appreciated the cover pages.

We’ll have to double-check our Gideon, but we weren’t previously aware of a Book of Quagmire.

Onward, Christian Soldiers [GQ]

And He Shall Be Judged [GQ]

Title: Deb & Seby’s Real Deal on Global Warming

Author: Al Sonja Schmidt

Rank: 520,655

Blurb: “In and out of the classroom children are bombarded with graphic images of earth’s destruction and drowning polar bears due to global warming. They worry that we must all fix the problem FAST! Or they worry that it’s already too late and we’re all DOOMED! But is man-made global warming really settled science, or the last environmental scare? Deb and Seby’s Real Deal on Global Warming is a contemporary, fun and entertaining book for children (ages 11 and up) and adults who want to learn more about the other side of global warming without big scientific words!”

Review: “London was hit by its first October snow since 1922.”

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