…it was in the stomach of this baby albatross. Photographer Chris Jordan explains:

The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

He and a team of creative folks are documenting what they find in the Midway Atoll and posting their work on a blog. It’s devastating.

James Kunstler posts his architectural Eyesore of the Month. The gem above is his April, 2009 entry, from Johannesburg, South Africa.

John Caruso says it better than I possibly could. I urge you to read it as his blog, but for posterity (and convenience), I reproduce it here in its entirety:

What it takes to win a Nobel

President Obama 'orders Pakistan drone attacks'

January 23, 2009 – Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.

Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven "foreigners" – a term that usually means al-Qaeda – but locals also said that three children lost their lives.

————

US air-raid kills over 100 civilians in Farah

May 5, 2009 – Residents of the Bala Boluk district in western Farah province on Tuesday claimed more than one hundred 'innocent people' have been killed in the Monday's air offensive by the US forces. […]

Following the militant attack, locals say, the American forces bombarded Grani village, inflecting huge casualties to non-combatants.

Dr Atiqullah, a resident of the village, told Pajhwok Afghan News the bombardment destroyed the whole village and some of the mutilated bodies were beyond recognition.

He said they had so far retrieved 123 dead bodies from beneath the debris of the destroyed homes by using tractors.

————

Obama warns Iran: 'come clean' on nukes

September 25, 2009 – Backed by other world powers, U.S. President Barack Obama declared Friday that Iran is speeding down a path to confrontation and demanded that Tehran quickly "come clean" on all nuclear efforts and open a newly revealed secret site for close international inspection. He said he would not rule out military action if the Iranians refuse. […]

"Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct 1 they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice" between international isolation and giving up any aspirations to becoming a nuclear power, he said. If they refuse to give ground, they will stay on "a path that is going to lead to confrontation."

————

Nobel prize win 'humbles' Obama

October 9, 2009 – US President Barack Obama has said he was "surprised and deeply humbled" to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, less than 10 months into his presidency. […]

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the Norwegian committee said in a statement. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

————

Obama's acceptance speech:

I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.

Now, these challenges can't be met by any one leader or any one nation. And that's why my administration's worked to establish a new era of engagement in which all nations must take responsibility for the world we seek. We cannot tolerate a world in which nuclear weapons spread to more nations and in which the terror of a nuclear holocaust endangers more people.

No, really: Barack Obama just used his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to reiterate his threats against Iran.

UPDATE: Best headline so far: "Some Analysts Warn Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Complicates War Efforts".

Sometimes the Associated Press really, really confuses me:

BIG CREEK, Ky. — A part-time census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago. The word “fed” was written in felt-tip pen on 51-year-old Bill Sparkman’s chest, but authorities have released very few other details in the case, such as whether they think it was an accident, suicide or homicide.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally stripped someone naked, hogtied them, bound them with duct tape, written “fed” on their chest, and left them hanging in a tree! It’s so easy to do, those rolls of duct tape should come with warning labels!

Well… I know it’s been “only” nine months since the inauguration of President Obama… and I know I’m supposed to give him the benefit of the doubt (because, after all, he only has a majority in Congress)… but really, this just takes the cake:

“Habeas rights under the United States Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.”

That’s the Obama administration’s Department of Justice filing (PDF) in three court cases brought by “unlawful enemy combatants” who are challenging their detention by the United States at Bagram Airfield.

Note that these three detainees were kidnapped off the streets in places like Thailand and Tunisia, and were then flown to Bagram for detention. The OBAMA administration is arguing that the U.S. government has the right to kidnap people off the streets anywhere in the world, fly them to Afghanistan, and hold them incommunicado without charges or access to counsel for as long as they’d like, no questions asked.

As Glenn Greenwald so aptly noted, it was Obama himself who spoke these beautiful, stirring words last year:

By giving suspects a chance–even one chance–to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit. . . .

Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody’s right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe.

But, you know, they’re being held in Afghanistan, not Cuba: truly, THAT is CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

You know things are bad when, eight years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the alleged mastermind – Osama bin Laden – remains at large, continuing to school Americans in the realities of our foreign policy apparatus:

Here is an important point that we should pay attention to with regard to war and stopping it. When Bush assumed power and appointed a defense secretary who had made the biggest contribution to killing more than two million persecuted villagers in Vietnam, sane people predicted that Bush was preparing for new massacres in his era. This was what took place in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Obama assumed power and kept the men of Cheney and Bush — namely, the senior officials in the Defense Department, like Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus — sane people knew that Obama is a weak person who will not be able to stop the war as he had promised and that he would procrastinate as much as possible. If he were to decide, then he would hand over command to the generals who oppose this aimless war, like the former commander of troops in Iraq, General Sanchez, and the commander of the Central Command who was forced by Bush to resign shortly before leaving the White House due to his opposition to the war. He appointed instead of him a person who would escalate the war. Under the cover of his readiness to cooperate with the Republicans, Obama made the biggest trick as he kept the most important and most dangerous secretary from Cheney’s men to continue the war. The days will show you that you have changed only faces in the White House. The bitter truth is that the neoconservatives are still a heavy burden on you.

Good times.

Yeah, it’s the last panel of one of Tom Tomorrow’s cartoons. He’s also got a pretty nifty blog, if you’re into that sort of thing.

What’s this?

A woman at Congressman Barney Frank’s Town Hall forum on health care reform referred to President Obama’s “Nazi plan” and asked Frank why he supported this “Nazi plan.” In his response, he snapped, “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.”

See it below on Larry King Live:

An oldie but a goodie from my archives, recently resurrected. (Full-size version).

“Two is Greater Than One.”

TWO:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

In a situation similar to last week in Portsmouth, N.H., cameras caught a protester with a pistol holstered to his leg outside of today’s event with the president.

Police on the scene were standing right next to the gentleman and were keeping a close eye on him. He’s well behind a security barrier outside the convention center in a crowd of protesters.

A second man, who appeared to be interviewing some of the protesters, also had a pistol strapped to his leg. He was also being watched by police.

[Source: MSNBC]

ONE:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Leslie Weise and Alex Young were ejected from one of President [Bush]’s speeches in Denver, Colorado, for arriving at the event in a car with the bumper sticker reading “No More Blood For Oil.”

[Source: ACLU]