I have another bunch of news stories open in my browser window, and no time or energy to rant about them individually, so it’s link dump time!

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

The former Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

Wow. You mean even Republicans can become terrorist sympathizers too? Who knew!

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Wednesday that one of the biggest threats to U.S. security may now come from within Europe.

In an interview with BBC radio, Chertoff said that American authorities were becoming increasingly aware of a real risk of Europe becoming a “platform for terrorists”.

The Pentagon seems to have a plan for invading every other evil country harboring terrorists, so I look forward to seeing how they plan to take over Europe. That’s what we do when a country poses a threat of some sort, isn’t it?

Nixzmary Brown may have been only 7 years old when she died, battered and starved, in her family’s Brooklyn apartment two years ago. She may have weighed only 36 pounds — the same as a healthy child half her age.

But for all that, a lawyer for her stepfather told jurors on Wednesday at the opening of his murder trial, Nixzmary was a force of destruction who terrorized her five younger siblings. What’s more, he said, she refused to be disciplined, slipping the ropes that bound her to the chair in her room, just out of reach of the litter box she was forced to use as a toilet.

Yes, she must have been a real terror, being able to slip out of the ropes they tied her to the chair in a locked room and all. You really have to read the rest of the sick and sad story, and then you have to ask yourself what sort of defense lawyer would take the case and what sort of human would say the things this guy’s lawyer said. No really. It’s just vile the way it appears he is trying to blame the girl’s death on the girl herself, you know, because she was such an awful little half-starved and beaten-daily little brat who dared to “steal” some yogurt from the fridge. OK, I have to post that quote as well, because you might not click through and read the story and you have to read that much at least:

As for what Nixzmary did to provoke Mr. Rodriguez’s wrath on the last night of her life, Mr. Schwartz said, “It’s easy to say, ‘Aw, he killed the kid and beat her because of yogurt.’ Many of us don’t have yogurt problems” — here he gestured to his own well-fed midsection — “but when you’re poor and you can’t afford unlimited amounts of food and you have six children, you have to make sure that everyone gets what they’re entitled to get, so that you can ensure that everyone stays healthy.”

I have no doubt you are now as disgusted as I am with the human piece of trash that was her father (and mother) and the total waste of carbon that is his lawyer.

Steve Jobs says the most stupid thing about e-book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore… The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

The man needs to step out of his ivory tower and go into a book store. You can find several in just about every mid-sized town, and from my experience, they tend to be large and crowded with people buying books. Let’s not even get into the fact that many people, such as myself, read a LOT on the internet. Why, I even had to read to see his stupid remark!

A new study may shatter the notion that women who identify as bisexual are “sexually confused” or simply in a “transitional phase” between homosexuality and heterosexuality.

“It will hopefully deal a fatal blow to the persistent stereotype that bisexuality ‘doesn’t really exist,’ and that it is simply a phase that women pass through on their way to a lesbian identity,” she says.

Well, no shit Sherlock!

[National Intelligence Director] McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity.

“Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search,” author Lawrence Wright pens.

“Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation, he said,” Wright adds. “Giorgio warned me, ‘We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.’”

So I suppose they will be making encryption technology illegal as well. They’d have to, if they want to be reading everything coming and going on the internet. Personally, I see a day in the future, possibly not too far off, when I go completely off the grid again. Tell me again the USA isn’t jumping off the cliff of democracy to become a totalitarian police state. I’d love someone to be able to convince me we aren’t headed that way, if not already there.

Speaking Monday at a campaign rally in Warren, Mich., Huckabee said he wants to change the Constitution to be consistent with God’s word. “I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” he told cheering supporters. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do, to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.”

I may not be able to tell you yet who I would like to be the next President of the United States, but I can tell you who I don’t want it to be: Mike Huckabee. That man scares me, and he should scare any rational human being, Christian and non-Christian alike. He’d be about ten thousand time worse than Bush, and considering how awful I think Bush is, that’s really saying something.