Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.02

Pa. high court tosses 'tainted' juvenile cases
Thankfully for the basic tenets of justice, the courts tossed thousands of juvenile cases that were tainted by a kickback scheme that ultimately resulted in a crooked judge sending kids to a for profit detention center in return for bribes. Have to hand it to Judge Ciavarella, throwing people in jail for money is a step up. Usually people just get tossed in on the basis of race, religious, social, or economic status. You free marketed the shit out of legal malfeasance.

Car maker develops its own flower species
Now the Japanese are rubbing our noses in it. Not just content to beat our heads in over the regular car and hybrid markets, now they're making special flowers that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere. When fully grown one of these flowers can actually flip the bird in the correct geographical direction of Detroit while it wipes its own ass with GM stock. Progress, it's a beautiful thing

'Torture flight' plane spotted in Birmingham
The European Parliament is up in arms because of the reemergence of the infamous CIA torture/extraordinary rendition/"frat house hazing" plane that jetted terrorist suspects all over the world to CIA black sites during a refueling in Birmingham and a meeting with British SAS forces. Lest you think that this means Obama is somehow reneging on yet another one of his war on terror campaign promises and that this is not "change we can believe in", know this: that plane used to refuel in Leeds. Now who feels silly? You, that's who.

Ford Posts an Unexpected Profit of $997 Million
Look at that, another quarter, another massive loss by the car indust...wait, what the fuck? Almost a billion in profit? Did Ford find some Nazi gold Harry buried out behind the headquarters? rich uncle die or something? *gasp*...is an American car company being....run intelligently? Sources cite the cash for clunkers program as well as an extensive and intensive 17 hour surgery that removed many of the executives' heads from their collective asses. Ford hopes to make a full year profit by 2011, at which time the sheer unlikelihood of an American car company running itself well will cause the universe to collapse in on itself.

Obama Strategy on Health Legislation Appears to Pay Off
Yup, that's right. According to the NY Times, Obama's strategy is paying off. What strategy is that, you might ask? I have no clue. Because to me it looked like they dicked around for months, fobbed off decision making and power to the legislative bodies, made sure that the "moderates" had the power, needlessly courted Republicans they knew would not support the bill in any shape or form, hamstrung progressive, kneecapped the public option, publicly tried to oppose measures that were not only popular within the caucus and the American public but had been campaigned on by the President himself, then no legislative pressure or arm twisting was applied, Harry Reid was told to basically go it on his own, the White House still fought against even the milquetoast weak public option that remained in the Senate bill, and now Joe Lieberman is threatening to blow up the whole thing unless the weak bill is made even weaker and more ineffective after Obama saved his ass within the caucus and lobbied for him to keep his Senate committee chair. Yeah....looks like that "strategy" really paid off. Note to Rahm or Axelrod or whoever ghostwrote that article: I wouldn't be too eager to claim credit for what just happened and what's about to happen.