[with apologies to Isaac]

Carnegie-Mellon University has created robots for the rest of us. The Telepresence Robot Kit [Terk] provides a reasonable path to building your own robot from parts purchased at a local hardware store controlled by a Qwerk Linux-based computer.

The computer has a built-in wireless module so you can control your home-built robot over the ‘Net. This is a truly evil way to annoy pets when you are at work.

They are at it again, but apparently only CNN thinks you should care: in Austin, Texas Bomb found at women’s clinic.

It was a real device, not a fake, and it had to be detonated in place after an Interstate was shut down and several buildings were evacuated.

Everyone else found space for the story about someone named “Eve” crashing a Maserati and getting arrested, but not for the story of our own, all-American, Christianist terrorists latest assault on innocent people. The Christianists will all line up to say: “We condemn the violence, but we can understand why people might feel this way…please donate more money to our sacred cause.”

They really believe in the “sanctity of life.”

In their effort to pressure Congress, the administration is planting stories. Stars and Stripes runs a story showing the DoD is willing to terrorize the troops:

The Air Force said Wednesday [04/18/07] that it might not be able to pay its airmen in the coming months if the Pentagon is forced to shift some $800 million to the Army to fund the war in Iraq.

They are talking about shift a total of $1.6 billion to cover about two months in Iraq. If you assume that the Army is kicking in another $1.6 billion from its budget, it looks like they can operate in Iraq for under $2 billion a month, but they have asked for over $8 billion a month in funding. What in hell is going on? What are the real numbers? Where is all this money going?

So on the day that the Shrubbery’s popularity drops to 28%, the White House spokeshamster, Dana Perino, tells reporters the Senate had passed “defeatist legislation” (House [218-208] & Senate [51-46]). The “defeatist legislation” authorizes $100 billion for the Shrubbery’s elective war in Iraq as well as the real war in Afghanistan.

In a masterful stroke, Congress is going to present the bill to pResident “Sub-30%” on the fourth anniversary of Mission Accomplished.

Pardon me while I exit stage left to laugh manically for a while. [Unfortunately Maru is on vacation. She will love this.]

I’ve been contacted by a media person who is looking for information about the treatment conditions at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso or Fort Bliss. It needs to be direct information, not hearsay, the guy is looking for facts and hasn’t been having any luck trying to talk to the Army.

If you know anything, or know someone who has a direct connection, I can send you the contact information.

If the media wants to do its job, help them.

I don’t want him subjected to a “flame war” or buried with “hate mail,” or I’d post the information directly.

From Dr. Cole at Informed Comment – Iraq Casualty Numbers Doctored:

Since the Bush administration doesn’t actually have any good news on Iraq, they are just making it up. It confirms your worst suspicions. They haven’t been counting victims of car bombings when they say that violence is down in Iraq! Bush administration spokesmen and officials are just saying that fewer bodies are found in the streets, victims of death squads. But the number of victims of car bombing has actually increased in this period.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is withholding statistics on Iraqi casualties from the United Nations.

It is official: The real parts of the Iraq War are being treated as imaginary, and the imaginary parts are being treated as though they are real.

When I heard “administration officials” claiming that sectarian violence was down, I wondered what planet they were on. They have been performing some creative “surgery” on the facts to save Miss Laura from the brutal reality.

In the real world Riverbend of Baghdad Burning is preparing to leave Iraq. Things have deteriorated to the point that her family has decided to abandon their home and history.

Oh, and a cell phone.

CNN reports U.S. prison chief in Iraq charged with being “too friendly,” having tacky taste in viewing material, using White House procedures for dealing with classified, bad money management skills, and succumbing to “feminine wiles” while not being a Republan elected official [or something like that].