Ocelopotamus

I can’t scrape together enough time at the moment to do OcPot’s usual painstakingly well-rounded roundup — I’m seeing The Waterboys at the Park West tonight, woo-hoo! — but I wanted to get some of these links up before they fossilized. So here’s a charmingly slapdash, quick-and-dirty roundup. In ripped fishnet and high heels.

• The always-eloquent Devilstower looks at how the Republicans have gradually turned Abe Lincoln into a despot — resulting in Pakistan’s Musharraf invoking Lincoln as an excuse to suspend elections, jail opponents, and have people beaten in the streets.
• Unclear on what the FISA wiretapping controversy is all about, and why it matters? Studs Terkel explains it all for you, in clear and compelling terms — as only Studs Terkel could.
• Here’s an excellent guide to the issues behind the writers’ strike.
• I’ve never even heard of Andrew Keen before, but he is so busted.
• Speaking of busted, Molly Ivors gives Maureen Dowd the bead-reading of her life.
• The 50-year strategy for a new progressive era.
• A poignant memory piece about a haunted house where the prior owners kept a monkey named Jesus in the bathroom. That’s really all you should need.
• Working Assets — my progressive activist long-distance company for the last 15-20 years — has rebranded itself as CREDO. (WorkingforChange is now CREDO Action, Working Assets Wireless is now CREDO mobile, etc.) The Credo Action site features regular doses of Tom Tomorrow, David Sirota, Joe Conason, Ellen Goodman, Robert Scheer, Will Durst, and more. On the downside? Jen Sorensen’s Slowpoke seems to have vanished from the new CREDO site. Fortunately, Slowpoke is still available on Go Comics.
• THE PINK SECTION: Pat Boone records a series of robo calls begging Kentucky voters to vote anti-gay in their election for governor.
• Bush may be planning a recess appointment for homophobic Holsinger.
• Mitt Romney really wants to make sure everyone knows he’s the biggest homophobe of the top four Republican candidates. (Carefully leaving out Huckabee, because then it would have to be a big old gay-hater-on-gay-hater slap fight. Or pretend-gay-hater-on-gay-hater slap fight.)
• If you’d like to see Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli) getting hosed down by a bunch of guys in hazmat suits — and really, who wouldn’t? — Towleroad has the shots from an upcoming [oops, hadn’t watched it yet] this week’s episode of Heroes. Probably safe for work, depending on where you work. [Also, link fixed — although sending people expecting to see pictures of shirtless Milo to a picture of Pat Boone instead is a pretty good joke.]
• THE GREEN SECTION: Bless the beasts — animal welfare issues gaining ground in the religous community. “On Wednesday, clergy from 20 faith traditions — including Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic — will sign a statement declaring a moral duty to treat animals with respect. At a ceremony in Washington, they will call on all people of faith to stop wearing fur, reduce meat consumption, and buy only from farms with humane practices.” (h/t Norm)
• From the same article, I really like this line of argument: “‘God designed other animals with needs, desires and the full range of emotions,’ said Bruce Friedrich, a Catholic whose faith brought him to a career in activism with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. A pig is designed to root in the soil, Friedrich said. A chicken is designed to build a nest. So keeping those animals — and others raised as commodities — in cramped cages, away from sunlight, dirt, grass and, often, companionship, is a ‘denial of God’s will,’ Friedrich argues.”
• Engineer with eighth-grade education puts the dunce cap on Big Auto by doing what they say can’t be done.
• OrangeClouds115’s guided tour of America’s food deserts.
• MUSIC: The right-wing Clear Channel radio network has ordered its stations not to play songs from Bruce Springsteen’s new album.
• Daily Mail 80s memoir: If reading about Paul Young stripping naked in a cab is your idea of a good time, check this out.
• TECH: New Trojan Horse targeting Macs poses as a video codec, and once you download it and click on the disk image (.dmg), it changes your computer’s DNS address.
• COMICS: Slowpoke on what’s ahead as the dollar continues to tank. Also, the White House enlists E.T. and Linda Blair to help with its war effort.
• Tom Toles: How many grams of fat in the farm bill? Also, George W. Bush has a brief moment of clarity.
• Mike Luckovich: What Obama looks like in attack mode.