First Bill O’Reilly came out in support of the public option, and now Rush Limbaugh says there will be a public option. GOP, are you listening? Your dogs are barking! Congress, are you listening? Even the conservative blowhard media is for the public option, just like President Obama.

Rush says:

Believe me, don’t doubt me when I tell you when there will be a public option in the final product. It may take a two or three years growth period to get in the there, but there is no other reason to do national health care unless there’s a public option.

Being Rush he has to add that there will be no way to opt out of the public option and that most people will

be forced into it,

but his message is clear:

There will be a public option

Let’s hope he’s right about that, since his track record for the rest of today’s broadcast wasn’t so good; El Rushbo fell for the satirical fake thesis story, then tried to cover his ass by saying he didn’t care if the thesis quotes were fake and

I know Obama thinks it.

Ronan Farrow, the 21-year old son of Mia Farow and Woody Allen has been appointed Special Advisor on Humanitarian and NGO Affairs by Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, according to a State Department source, reports Politico.  Born in 1987, Farrow worked for former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Holbrooke after graduating from Bard College at 15, deferring his admission to law school (at 16!) to work for Holbrooke. Farrow also worked as a UNICEF Spokesperson for Youth in Nigeria, Angola, and Sudan, and recently graduated from Yale Law School, whch he began attending in 2006.

Confirming the appointment, a State Department official told Politico:

He’s very qualified for the job, and has already helped explain the current situation re: Pakistani procurements to key NGOs, including a meeting he organized today with InterAction and its affiliated NGOs.

Ronan Farrowwho has written on human rights issues for the Wall Street Journal, LA Times and International Herald Tribune for years, has been called a “prodigy”  and “a friggn’ genius” by those who know him. One associate writing to Politico on the condition of anonymity says

Working for UNICEF – not just with his mother in Sudan, but in Eritrea, Angola, and Nigeria – is just a fraction of what got him hired. He was a human rights law guy at the House Foreign Affairs Committee, ran a research team for the CDC in Nairobi, and has testified as an expert witness before Congress repeatedly. … He’s young but he has a depth of experience that many people twice his age lack. ….

[H/T Perez Hilton]

Ann Coulter appeared on Joy Behar’s show Thursday night. The psycho righty blonde said that if Obama is assassinated it will be by a MoveOn member, since all assassins-including homegrowngrown terrorists-are liberal; calls liberals racist, and blamed Medicare and “socialism for mucking things up.”

Coulter started the crazy train in motion when asked by Behar what the host should say to people who call Coulter a fascist: Blank stare and and slience from the Coulter…more dead air…cricket…then Behar says

This is taking too long, let’s talk about Fox news

At the mention of Fox, Coulter suddenly came a live admitting

I knda like having them call me fascist

And as bonus, Coulter comments on Bush’s weakness as a speaker

Musicians, including R.E.M and Pearl Jam, launched a formal protest of the use of music used in conjunction with torture that took place at Guantanamo Bay and other facilities. And they’ve announced they are supporting an effort seeking the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to how music was utilized as an interrogation device.

Both Tom Morello and Trent Reznor–the music of Rage Against the Machine and Nine Inch Nails were used as part the torture of inmates–are involved in the campaign.  Says Morello in a statement:

Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured – from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts – playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the ear drums.

Morello, Rage Against the Machine’s guitarist, adds:

Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine.  The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me – we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.

Also on board united in finding out about the abuse: Jackson Browne, Billy Bragg, Michelle Branch, T-Bone Burnett, David Byrne, Rosanne Cash, Marc Cohn, Steve Earle, the Entrance Band, Joe Henry, Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt, R.E.M., Rise Against, and The Roots. The campaign was organized by long time music fan and political organizer Trevor FitzGibbon.

These musicians  support the call under FOIA to release still-secret documentation from CIA, U.S. Special Operations Command, and FBI, among other agencies, pertaining to how the music was chosen and the specific role it played in interrogations of detainees at the base and other detention facilities. On Thursday morning the FOIA requests and documentation will be available at www.nsarchive.org

The coalition of  rock musicians have  joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo which includes retired generals retired Generals Robert Gard, John Johns and former member of Congress Tom Andrews.

When music was deployed, it was constant, 24 hrs a day, thumping, excruciating  mostly Western rap or heavy metal played all over the prison—from cells to the shower room and ear splitting volume. This was done, to humiliate, terrify, punish, disorient, and deprive detainees of sleep, in violation of international law.

A 2004 Defense Department report on abuses at the military base in Cuba stated that the futility technique included the playing of Metallica, Britney Spears and rap music.

An investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee cited one detainee who was subjected to hours of the Drowning Pool’s “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.”

Other detainees have been quoted as saying they were blasted with hours of the music of Eminem, Bruce Springsteen and the Bee Gees played a loud volumes, as a sleep deprivation technique.

R.E.M. said in a statement:

We signed onto the campaign in complete support of President Obama and the military leaders who have called for an end to torture and to close Guantanamo. As long as Guantanamo stays open, America’s legacy around the world will continue to be the torture that went on there.  We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice – to now learn that some of our friends’ music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge, is horrific.  It’s anti-American, period.

The Roots said:

When we found out that music was being used as part of the torture going on at Guantanamo, shackling and beating people - we were angry.  Just as we wouldn’t be caught dead allowing Dick Cheney to use our music for his campaigns, you can be damn sure, we wouldn’t allow him to use it to torture other human beings.  Congress needs to shut Guantanamo down.

Tim McIlrath, lead singer of Rise Against said

Guantanamo Bay has been synonymous with torture and inhumanity since its inception.  Coupled with its complete ineffectiveness, the shameful legacy it will leave behind in American history is something Americans will have to deal with forever. Let us be the generation that erases this symbol of injustice and fear-mongering from the map so that we can begin to learn from our mistakes.

CloseGitmoNow.org has letter which can be sent to members of Congress.

This sweet dad gives a heartfelt reason for Mainers vote No on 1. And for Obama to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Levi Johnston isn’t the only former Palin insider to expose some stuff, but instead of baring his butt, former Palin hachet man Frank Bailey is writing a tell-all called, appropriately enough “Renegade: Sarah Palin’s Hatchet Man.”

Bailey played a big part in Troopergate, calling a state trooper lieutenant and complaining about Palin’s ex-brother-in-law Alaska state trooper Mike Wooten,  saying Palin and her husband couldn’t understand why Wooten still had a job.

Along with Troopergate, Bailey was the subject ot his very own ethics investigation into whether

improper influence was used to win a state job for a Palin campaign supporter. Bailey had an “improper motivation” to get the supporter a job, concluded investigator Tim Petumenos, who recommended Bailey get ethics training.

Bailey’s working with two co-authors, Joy Morgan and her daughter, Christiana Grace, public relations pros who live in Southern California; they expect the book will be ready in three months, but the told the Anchorage Daily News that as of now there’s no publisher. And they said that Bailey won;t be doing any interviews until the book is out. However, there is a website www.palinshatchetman.com .

It was inevitable: The Miss California Pageant is suing the fired Miss California/homophobic h8r Carrie Prejean to recover the $5,200 they lent her for her boob job.

Apparently, the silicon blouse clown was unable to fulfill her contractual agreement, and the pageant wants their money back, along with any profits from Prejean’s yet-to-be-published tell-all book.

Prejean’s attorney Charles LiMandri said

They have proven, once again, that they will use whatever scurrilous accusations they can dredge up — or invent — to try and tarnish Carrie’s reputation and her good name,

CNN reports:

State pageant officials say they loaned the money for the surgery under an oral agreement with Prejean — whom they dethroned as Miss California USA in June — and she never repaid them.

An oral contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, according to the late great film producer Samuel Goldwyn, so good luck getting any cash for the used fun bags. As far as profits from the book go, pageant official say they’ll donate that to charity.

Oh lordy, this is gonna be good! Sarah Palin’s allegedly gonna be on Oprah, November 16.

And we have almost a month to wonder if she’ll actually show up to promote her book, Going Rogue, or as I like to call it, Goin’ Rouged.

What cancellation drama might occur just days, hours before her appearance? Will Piper have a runny nose? Todd, a hangnail? Will there be an OSHA emergency during the building of Chateau Palin, aka Le Petit Wasillieries?  Will Palin claim she “never agreed” to chat with Oprah, that some now-fired underling said yes and never consulted Her Ex-GILFness? And if she makes it, what will she wear?!

Oh this will be a month of joyous anticipation and glee….

There are just too many people on earth, and sadly contraception is out of reach of the millions of women who want it. Our food and water supplies are dwindling, and carbon emissions increasing. Regarding the latter, Andrew Revkin in the New York Times writes:

one of the cheapest ways to curb emissions in coming decades would be to provide access to birth control for tens of millions of women around the world who say they desire it.

Revkin cites UN data suggesting

that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 billion. Between 2010 and 2050 12 billion fewer “people-years” would be lived – 326 billion against 338 billion under current projections. The 34 gigatons of CO2 saved in this way would cost $220 billion – roughly $7 a ton [metric tons]. However, the same CO2 saving would cost over $1trillion if low-carbon technologies were used.

Rush Limbaugh’s response:

Mr. Revkin, why don’t you just go kill yourself and help the planet by dying?

Photographer Chris Jordan documents scenes where

the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed to view like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon…evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress.

His current work consists of photographs taken on Midway Atoll in the North Pacific, 2000 miles form civilization, but sadly far too close to “garbage island” the swirling sea of plastic trash the size of Texas. There he found a horrifying sight:

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.

Reduce and recycle? Will that be enough? A small step we can take, at least to try a little….