Sooner Be Blue

Mostly politics, a few current events, a squirt of seltzer down yer pants .. a little blog for my rambles and rants.

2007/11/30

Ain't Democracy a bitch?

@ 07:08 AM (23 months, 18 days ago)

It better be.
 
This just tickles me. Righties are at full howl over the political affiliations of some of the questioners on the Republican YouTube debate. Oh my god, are their candidates so clogged up with their talking points that they can't be asked an honest question?
 
After all, if elected, won't they also be Commander-in-Chief to non-Republicans too? These guys are running for president...of the United States...that’s ALL of the people in ALL of those states.
 
From politico.com: "The retired general who quizzed Republican presidential candidates about gays and lesbians in the military was not the only person linked to a Democratic presidential candidate who got to ask a question at Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate.
 
....“We’re focused on the questions, not the questioners,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s political director.
 
“There were 5,000 questions sent in and we wanted to have the best questions. I think we found them,” he said, pointing out that the estimated 4.9 million viewers made it the most-watched presidential primary debate in cable history. [..]"
 
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7099.html
 
Can Righties manufacture a paranoid controversy out of ANYthing or what?
 
The "Don't Ask Don't Tell" question, asked by a gay retired Brigadier General, is something maybe an Independent voter may want to know.
 
Turns out he is a registered Independent and has never given money to the Clinton campaign, but his name is listed as a member of a Clinton gay and lesbian committee.
 
So what? Big deal! Righties are just mad because all the questions weren't pulled from Rush Limbaugh’s butt. They're whining that CNN used questions from "liberals" and didn't screen the questions to their satisfaction in order to weed out anything resembling a diversity of opinions.
 
Are all the Republican candidates just too delicate to answer some questions out the mainstream? Would their heads explode?
 
Look, I don't care which party is up there on the stage, a legitimate question is a legitimate question. Why are Righties so scared that their Republican candidates might be quizzed by liberals? Are they afraid they’ll be at a disadvantage?
 
These are YouTube debates for crying out loud--where anyone, including a Democrat, can submit questions which are then selected by some agreed-upon process. The rules do not state that only Republicans can ask questions.
 
That retired Army guy was not posing as a reporter...his question was straight forward and they thought it valid enough to be included. Who he is shouldn't change that.
 
Righties are acting like it was an incredibly nasty segment of Candid Camera...with poor deer-in-the-headlights Republicans being hit with questions about gays in the military...waterboarding...or do they believe the Christian Bible word for word....or what would Jesus do about the death penalty.
 
At least one of them can think fast on his feet -- Huckabee said that Jesus was too smart to run for public office. Best line of the night.
 
Anyway, the Righties are mad as hell and they...want a do over?
 
Heh, are they kidding? The Republican candidates didn't even want to do a YouTube debate in the first place.
 
So now they're calling for CNN to fire a bunch of people and I don't know what all.
 
You know, Democrats could say the same thing about some of the questions selected for a Democratic YouTube debate--here's one suggesting that taxes are always raised when a Democrat wins, asking how many of the candidates would raise taxes.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-mnPz4lCwI
 
As you can see, Democrats handle that sort of thing with ease... Republicans must be made of spun glass and have to be wrapped in bubble wrap to be coddled and protected at all times.
 
Who cares WHO raises an issue? If it's an issue to all Americans, they need to answer it. And if their position on an issue, say gays in the military, is one that voters care about, why should they care WHO asked the dang question? They should just make their points, and move on.
 
If they want to talk 'plants', at least in a debate a plant can ask an oppositional question.
 
Can our Republican friends now explain the recent fake FEMA news conference where fake reporters asked fake questions? Or why a gay male escort (Jeff Gannon) attended news briefings and was planted in the Bush White House Press Room to ask fake 'friendly' questions?
 
Yeah, I know that Gannon thing happened in '03, but I ain't gonna forget about it any time soon.
 

2007/11/29

Did God call collect, and did the university pay the phone bill?

@ 08:04 AM (23 months, 19 days ago)

Why does God pal around with such a-holes?
 
Name me one honest televangelist who doesn't live in a huge mansion and drive fancy cars bought from the donations of their (mostly) poor audience.
 
Okay...Billy Graham. I don't think he ever had a taint of scandal... except for being called anti-semitic, anti-Catholic and racist.
 
From Yahoo news: "TULSA, Okla. - Richard Roberts told students at Oral Roberts University Wednesday that he did not want to resign as president of the scandal-plagued evangelical school, but he did so because God insisted.
God told him on Thanksgiving that he should resign the next day, Roberts told students in the university's chapel.
 
....A lawsuit accuses Roberts of lavish spending at a time when the university faced more than $50 million in debt, including taking shopping sprees, buying a stable of horses and paying for a daughter to travel to the Bahamas aboard the university jet. [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2vj386
 
Wonder if God told Roberts to buy that red Mercedes convertible... and a Lexus SUV for his wife?
 
I just love watching “fundies” squirm. Bastards! Preying on poor gullible people who double-tithe money they probably need for other things...like medicine.
 
Apparently God wasn’t speaking loud enough before... because Roberts kept milking the University so he and his family could live a lavish life of excess... or perhaps God was simply too busy to tell him to stop. Maybe heaven has just been too swamped lately ...what with all the gay politicians popping up right and left.
 
The lawsuit against Roberts was not just about his lavish spending when ORU was $50 million in debt... he's also being charged with illegally using students to campaign for a Republican mayoral candidate.
 
Notice how it's always the Republicans.......
 
The lawsuit asks why his on-campus house had been remodeled fourteen times in eleven years...
 
One that did not make the lawsuit was that Roberts used university-purchased cell phones to contact under-age boys in the middle of the night.
 
Gah.. both of them? Because his wife, Lindsay, has also been accused of sending text messages to underage university boys in the wee hours of the morning.
 
Appropriate that he prayed over the decision with his daddy, Oral Roberts... who once locked himself in a “prayer tower” until he could raise 8 million dollars because God appeared to him and told him he would be "called home" if he didn't.
 
And all those poor little low income pensioners and shut-ins started writing checks...
 
Also one time Oral saw a 900 Foot tall Jesus... who told him if he built a hospital that he would find a cure for cancer.
 
And all those poor little low income pensioners and shut-ins started writing checks...
 
The hospital was built decades ago... so far no news about a cure for cancer.
 
I feel sorry for those poor people who place far too much faith in mere mortals ...manipulative mortals who have learned that one can do anything one wants as long as one attributes it to God’s will.
 
While most televangelists are out driving Mercedes Benzes, living it up at exclusive vacation resorts, and attending Republican Party fundraisers -- they can also be found in gay bathhouses, massage parlors, and cruising through the red-light district.
 
Remember Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, et al?
 
God sure does likes 'em colorful.
 

2007/11/28

23 Republicans skedaddle

@ 06:33 AM (23 months, 20 days ago)
 
Trying to outrun bailiffs brandishing subpoenas?
 
From Washington Post: "....Party officials insist that the retirements -- 17 members of the House and six senators -- are simply the result of individual decisions and not indicative of a broader negative sentiment within the party. "I don't hear a drumbeat that 'We're not effective and I don't like it here anymore,' " said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.).
 
But with so many lawmakers -- including a large number from competitive states and districts -- heading for the exits, it's hard not to point to the GOP's newfound minority status in Washington, the turnover in party leadership and the perilous political environment heading into 2008 to explain the exodus.
 
....Republicans also face a daunting financial gap at the congressional level, the likes of which they have not seen in decades. At the end of October, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had $29 million in the bank to spend on House races -- roughly 14 times the $2.56 million its Republican counterpart had at that time.
 
The disparity on the Senate side is smaller but no less significant. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee showed $23.4 million on hand at the end of October, compared with $9.5 million for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/3a9mbe
 
Maybe it's the Wide Stance Sprint? Because it looks like Larry Flynt's getting ready to drop the bomb.
 
Flynt told FOX's Neil Cavuto that he's "hoping to expose a bombshell" that will stand "Washington and the country on its head." Within the next week or two, his magazine will expose "a sex scandal of huge proportions involving a prominent United States Senator."
 
Naaah...as much as we love juicy political scandals, Republican politicians are leaving because they are losing their voters, only religious crazies remain. The drop in fundraising is really all anyone needs to know. For the Republican coffers to be so empty, when they have most of the wealthy voters and most of the business owners, especially Big Business, says it all.
 
If the people who give money are opting out, then you know they're probably not going to be all that excited about voting. Of course, they wouldn't be caught dead voting for a Democrat, so they'll just stay home come election day.
 
A recent Pew poll: "Compared with the 2004 campaign, fewer voters now place great importance on the issues that have animated Republican political unity in recent years – including gay marriage, abortion and terrorism.
 
....Republicans not only are less engaged in the campaign, but they also rate their party's presidential candidates more negatively than do Democrats. Nearly half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (46%) rate the Republican presidential candidates as only fair or poor; by comparison, just 28% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents give the Democratic presidential field comparably low ratings.[..]"
 
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=366
 
George W. Bush deserves all the credit...worst president in history. He has destroyed the Republican party. Well, maybe he had a little help from crooks like Tom De Lay... and all those closeted gay hypocrites....
 
Republicans became so interested in trashing Democrats (Bill's BJ) that they forgot to do those Republican things they were elected to do -- smaller government, fiscal responsibility, etc. And now the country is falling down around their ears... but, by god, they made the Democrats look bad.
 
But not bad enough apparently.
 
I just hope the Democrats remember that "Pride goeth before the fall" when it's their turn to have real power. I hope they remember to shed their partisan mantle and work with the reasonable Republicans, listen to them if they have good ideas, and quit supporting bad ideas coming from their own party. It's time to think about America first........
 
Wha..? Don't wake me up...it's nice in la-la-land...
 
I know, I know... we elected Democrats in 2006 so we could throw out those who were responsible for the deterioration of our nation, internally and throughout the world. We wanted Democrats to get our kids out of Iraq, clean up the crooks in Congress, protect our health, our air and our homes. And what did we get?
 
Pelosi and Reid on the throne of Republican Lite.
 
But hey, I still say Democrats can't do ANY WORSE than the Republicans have done.
 

2007/11/27

Okay, okay the surge worked...what now?

@ 07:29 AM (23 months, 21 days ago)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The general who led U.S. forces in Iraq after the invasion launched by Republican President George W. Bush spoke out for Democrats on Saturday, backing legislation aimed at withdrawing American troops.
 
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, in the Democratic weekly radio address, acknowledged that Bush's escalation strategy this year had improved security in Iraq. But he said Iraqi political leaders had failed to make "hard choices necessary to bring peace to their country."
 
"There is no evidence that the Iraqis will choose to do so in the near future or that we have an ability to force that result," said Sanchez, an increasingly vocal critic of what he called Bush administration policy failures in Iraq.[..]"
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN2330754020071124
 
No matter that he was once accused by the Democrats as not having enough control of his troops, which resulted in the Abu Ghraib media scandal. The enemy of my enemy makes for strange bedfellows and all that....
 
Anyway, the Iraqis aren't going to make these "hard choices necessary to bring peace to their country" as long as we're babysitting them and paying the bills. The whole point of the surge was to give the Iraqi government time for reconciliation and an oil revenue sharing deal.
 
Okay, we're waiting....the surge has controlled the violence enough so they can concentrate on doing their part.
 
But they're not doing their part...nothing is being accomplished. Ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods that used to be homogenous (with Sunni, Kurd, Shia) are now separate enclaves of one group or the other... with only our stone barricades, razor wire and Army guards standing in the way of bloodshed.
 
Yes, the Mahdi Army is still standing down, for now, but they are still very much present ...waiting for whatever Crazy al-Sadr will tell them to do.
 
We can't all wait around forever. The ONLY way to make Iraq do the hard work of reconciliation and oil sharing is for them to know we're leaving. Period.
 
So far, they've avoided ALL the important and necessary work and compromise ...while we do all the heavy lifting and pay all the bills with blood and borrowing.
 
Please don't let all those precious lives lost in the last year have been for nothing while the Iraqis twiddle their thumbs and fail to accomplish what we spent so much blood and money trying to help them achieve.
 
Removing US Forces is the ONLY thing left to try to get them off of their asses.
 
And without the aforementioned reconciliation and revenue sharing deals in place, if  the Iraqis refuse to 'stand up' so we can stand down, 'they' say the country will dissolve into a massive civil war as soon as we're gone.
 
So, that means what?....we can't leave...ever?
 
Will we really be there for decades? With our military stretched, and billions of dollars of gear deteriorating in the Iraq desert climate, we'd better be ready to fork over a LOT more in taxes. That is, unless we're willing to put even more of America's financial future in the hands of Communist China.
 
So, I'm glad that Sanchez is throwing in with the Democrats and backing legislation that will start withdrawing American troops. NOW.
 
If only Bush had listened to a general or two when he first got us into this mess, instead of firing them when he didn't like what they said. Everything Bush has done has been contrary to his previous statements on use of the US Military--yada yada "harms way, clear exit strategy, no nation building"...yada yada ...
 
Sanchez also said in the radio address that it would take at least a decade for the US Army to recover from the war's degradation and get back to military readiness.
 
How secure does that make you feel? Sure hope China stays content with selling us poisoned crap...
 

2007/11/26

Underreported causalities

@ 08:13 AM (23 months, 22 days ago)

Isn't it interesting how quickly West Point graduates seem to forget "Duty, Honor, Country" and the rule "A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do." They apparently blow all that off upon graduation.
 
And interesting how all this sounds like our soldiers are working for a really bad greedy corporation...and they're getting jerked around by really bad greedy private health insurance companies...
 
From USA Today: At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY.
 
The data, provided by the Army, Navy and Department of Veterans Affairs, show that about five times as many troops sustained brain trauma as the 4,471 officially listed by the Pentagon through Sept. 30. These cases also are not reflected in the Pentagon's official tally of wounded, which stands at 30,327.[..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/37reqo
 
You know, the people in the Pentagon who are in charge of reporting these statistics also suffer from certain type of brain trauma injury called "Bush Supporter"....
 
Seriously, to be fair, it's hard to get a handle on this. Studies show that even when there are no outward signs of injury from the blast, cells deep within the brain can be altered, their metabolism changed, causing these cells to die.
 
This cellular death leads to symptoms that may not show up for months or years-- memory deficit, headaches, vertigo, anxiety and apathy or lethargy. To make matters worse, the damage is so microscopic that it can't be found with imaging tests.
 
The Republicans have no problem accusing Democrats of treason even when Democrats are trying to help soldiers by fighting to extend their leave time, or provide more funds for VA hospitals...and yet they can't seem to get political traction to actually stick the blame on the GOP for the endless lists of administration/GOP scandals involving the troops:
 
The backdoor draft.
 
The lack of body and vehicle armor.
 
Discharging guardsmen a day short of when they would get their pensions.
 
Demanding repayment of signing bonuses for soldiers who are incapacitated by their wounds.
 
And now, hiding casualty figures.
 
These returning troops, and their families, will be struggling with these hidden injuries for decades to come ...I shudder to think just how inadequate our VA system might prove to be.
 
And while the Democrats fight to take the troops out of harm's way and bring them home, the Republicans are all over the news accusing Democrats of hating the troops.
 
You'd think the Democrats would be able to get SOME kind of traction from all the scandals involving treatment of our wounded troops.
 
You'd think. But it doesn't even look like they're really trying.
 
Sometimes Pelosi and Reid are as much a part of the problem as Bush and the GOP. You know the country is screwed when even the people who are supposed to be on your side aren't.
 
I guess the Democrats are suffering from their own brain trauma... Stockholm Syndrome.
 

2007/11/25

What next? Tampax Funerals?

@ 07:57 AM (23 months, 23 days ago)

There is an attempt underway in several states to undermine Roe vs. Wade by amending constitutions to grant human status--"personhood"-- to embryos.
 
Before I start my rant, I acknowledge that many nice and honorable people think abortion should be illegal in America. I disagree with these people and, from recent polls, a clear majority of Americans do too. So, the following is not meant as a personal attack on any folks holding the minority view...just certain religious crazies.
 
From the Los Angeles Times: DENVER -- Antiabortion activists in several states are promoting constitutional amendments that would define life as beginning at conception, which could effectively outlaw all abortions and some birth control methods.
 
The campaigns to grant "personhood" to fertilized eggs, giving them the same legal protections as human beings, come as the nation in January marks the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2vz5ol
 
Before or after it attaches to the uterus? And how will we know when?
 
How will we know the true birthday? Will all our birthdays be updated?
 
When will we give these little jelly blobs social security numbers? Make them tax deductions?
 
Gosh, pity the poor census takers.....
 
We'll need additional law enforcement to investigate every miscarriage. I read that half of all pregnancies end of their own accord ...we'll need extra cops to sort that out.
 
BTW--how do these crazies explain "god" making it possible for a woman's body to abort naturally... out of innate knowledge of physical abnormalities, etc.?
 
Will the state want to send used tampons and feminine pads off to labs for inspections just to make sure no little person was imbedded? If they find one, will they want to give it a name, conception date and death certificate...and a decent burial?
 
Seriously. if these "forced pregnancy" crazies really feel that life begins at conception, then why is the early miscarried "child" not treated as a human? There is no burial, no funeral, and since there is no baptism, no admittance into heaven. A medical worker told me the remains are burned in the hospital furnace.
 
If a fertilized egg is a person with all Constitutional rights, wouldn't that mean a pregnant woman would have her diet and drinking habits monitored by the state, in order to protect the little clump of cells... I mean, PERSON, within her?
 
Every woman is born with millions of follicles that can turn into eggs. Wouldn't 'pre-eggs' be considered 'life' too if they all have an equal capacity to turn into eggs and then embryos?
 
Why stop at eggs? Aren't sperm people too? Every love making session would bring a holocaust....
 
How long before these crazies try to outlaw contraception ...because, after all, doesn't contraception prevent a "potential" human from realization? It would mean no more IUDs, because IUDs make the uterus inhospitable to fertilized eggs.
 
And if this becomes law, does it mean that if a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, she must die because her fertilized egg, which implanted in her fallopian tube, has a "right to life"... even if it kills both of them in the process?
 
Well...I guess the poor crazies have to come up with some cause to froth over... they don't have Terry Shiavo to protect from gay flag burners anymore.
 

2007/11/24

Iraq war bombs at the box office

@ 07:21 AM (23 months, 24 days ago)

A movie with Streep and Cruise and directed by Redford...how could that miss?
 
It's one thing to make war movies, it's another to make them while our troops are still on the battlefield. Most of the popular Vietnam war movies didn't come out until after it was over.
 
Another indication that the Iraq War has gone on too long..........
 
From San Francisco Chronicle: "Jabbar Magruder is an active duty Army National Guard sergeant who served 11 months in Iraq. He was hoping that stateside Americans would get a glimpse of what the war was like when several dramas featuring the Iraq conflict either in the foreground or the background hit theaters this fall.
 
Few have. Despite A-list casts -- including Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones -- and generally good reviews, Iraq war-related dramas tanked this fall at the box office....."America doesn't want to deal with Iraq, period," Army National Guard sergeant Jabbar Magruder said. "And that's what a lot of veterans, no matter what their position on the war, are finding when they come back home." [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2euywm
 
I haven't seen the movies mentioned, nor do I know their 'politics'...but their poor performance indicates the public's mood: We're fed up with the Iraq war and we won't shell out any money to go see more about it.
 
Pew polls two thirds of us wanting out of that war NOW.
 
People go to movies to escape reality for an instant and be entertained. They want a break from war, they'll spend money on 'escape' movies...like "Beowulf" or "Enchanted" ...or one of those silly Christmas movies that Tim Allen always does.
 
Besides, America likes movies about "feel good" wars, like WWII, we like to see movies where the bad guys lose and the good guys win. Maybe people think that hasn't happened yet in Iraq....and 90 minutes of war angst is only entertaining to a small minority.
 
Please don't confuse these comments with not supporting our military. The troops are dedicated to doing their jobs, they've done everything they've been asked to do and more.
 
But these movie people should realize that you don't make a movie about contemporary events that are scaring people.
 
You have to wait, until you can show the morality or the immorality of the story.
 
We don't want movies about the Iraq war...we want to end the dang thing.
 
I'm reminded of a quote years ago by some director, or actor... who said something to the effect that people go to the movies for three reasons...to laugh, cry or get [an erection].
 

2007/11/23

Happy Turkey Hangover day!

@ 11:43 AM (23 months, 24 days ago)
 
Gentle readers, I know you've come to expect enlightening, interesting, inspiring, amusing, alarming, stimulating and absorbing reads here every day...of course, not necessarily all of the above *every* day, but at least one or two once in a while....
 
What I'm trying to say is-- you ain't gonna get one today. I'm still in some kind of turkey induced coma ...can't even pull myself off the couch to strap on battle gear to venture out to fight the Black Friday wars. Tryptophan has weakened my reflexes and I just know I'd be trampled by a horde of over-stuffed frothing at the mouth shoppers.
 
Ain't Thanksgiving grand?... in this land of Obesity we have a holiday to celebrate and promote gluttony.
 
Nope, no blog is forth-coming today....I sat here staring at the screen for a long time, but all I could think of was pecan pie for breakfast. So if no one hears from me again it means I'm lost in the couch cushions in front of the TV, mufflmuflmmffffmm (mouthful of left-over cornbread dressing).....
 

2007/11/22

Pilgrims made mincemeat of people

@ 05:02 AM (23 months, 26 days ago)

A little goodie I'd like to share from freepress.com
 
"The story of Thanksgiving always warms the heart of Great Patriots such as myself, J. Edgar Hoover and Tom Brady. Surely you have heard it by now.
 
Hundreds of years ago, when a band of tough, industrious White People arrived in America, they came upon a group of people who, technically speaking, lived here already.
 
The White People were not happy and argued their case -- they had made reservations weeks in advance, the lady on the phone promised them a suite, etc.
 
In their frustration, the White People called the people who lived here already "Indians," which is approximately as accurate as referring to people from Grand Island, Neb., as "Ethiopians."
 
After a few days of bickering, all parties came to a reasonable and fair solution: The White People would get 99.9999993% of the land, and the Indians would each get a piece of paper that read, "THIS CERTIFICATE ENTITLES THE BEARER TO OPEN A CASINO IN 500 YEARS."
 
The Indians also asked the White People to stop calling them "Indians," since they had never been to India and didn't even like curry.
 
The White People agreed that was a reasonable request and said they would pass it along to their great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great-grandchildren, who would refer to the Indians as "Native Americans."
 
The lawyers then hammered out the details.
 
NATIVE AMERICANS' LAWYER: "Can't the term 'Native Americans' refer to anybody who was born in this country?"
 
WHITE PEOPLE'S LAWYER: "Heh, heh."
 
So you can see why everybody was thankful.
 
Who wants pie?
 
The White People and the Native Americans then banded together to ensure that of all the countries in the world, America would be the fattest.
 
They ate turkey, stuffing, cranberry "sauce" straight out of the can, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes and any other potato-like item they could find until their guts were hanging over their pants, in a way they frankly found disgusting, but they couldn't help themselves and kept looking at each other's guts, anyway.
 
The White People also recognized that the Native Americans loved playing lacrosse, so they promised to play it every Thanksgiving, but first they changed all the rules and decided to call it football. At that point, everybody shook hands and enjoyed a hearty belch.
 
That, dear, children, is the heartwarming true story of why you will spend this Thursday watching grown men ram into each other and wondering why Uncle Sal has no idea where his waistline is supposed to be.
 
Thanksgiving is probably our most universally celebrated holiday, probably because of its promise to America: "all of the food, none of the religion."
 
If you have a free moment Thursday afternoon -- we recommend one of those annoying timeouts when a football player is lying on the turf, wondering whether his leg can be reattached -- please remember how this wonderful holiday started.
 
November 19, 2007
BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
 
Contact MICHAEL ROSENBERG at 313-222-6052 or mrosenberg@freepress.com.
 
Find this article at:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/FEATURES01/711190323/1081/COL
 

2007/11/21

"Support the troops" til they're maimed and can't fight

@ 07:24 AM (23 months, 27 days ago)

Just in time to make us feel all warm and fuzzy for the holidays.....
 
"Wounded Soldier: Military Wants Part Of Bonus Back"
 
Yes it's true, Fox News even covered it...and it's the most PATHETIC thing I have seen from this administration yet! It ranks right up there with when they intentionally wrote orders ONE day short so education benefits wouldn't kick in... and with Walter Reed, traumatic brain injury care, and so many other administration outrages.
 
From kdka.com: "The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.
 
To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.
 
Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.[..]"
 
http://kdka.com/local/military.signing.bonuses.2.571660.html
 
Ah, these must be the "phony soldiers" Rush Limbaugh was complaining about. They just sign up to get the bonus and then they deliberately get maimed so they can go home.
 
But, hey, our government sure can find the money to pay Halliburton and subsidiaries billions of dollars in no-bid contracts. Meanwhile...private security contractors are making 4 times more than our troops in Iraq.
 
It's very disturbing that ANY government would do this to the people that fight and risk their lives for their country and become disabled in war.
 
And not only are military veterans being asked to pay back their signing bonus if they are injured and can't fight, but they would be charged 4 percent interest on any overdue payments.
 
This is a disgusting betrayal of those who served and suffered. But it's just another example of the Bush administration's abuse of the VA and all vets by large budget cuts. Right when the VA needs more funds to take care of the added numbers of newly wounded vets from Bush's war. More vets to take care of on less money.
 
Democrat Congressman Jason Altmire introduced a bill last October to stop this signing bonus travesty from ever happening again. HR 3793 - "Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act - 2007"... read about it here:
 
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-3793
 
Don't get too comfy...just because a bill is drawn up does not mean it ever reaches the floor or gets voted on. I will certainly be leaning on my congresscritters to support it.
 
Bush and Congress better fast track this bill NOW if they expect to ever get anyone to re-up again.
 
Support the troops Bush says, fund the war. Here's a partial list of how he does that....
 
No pay increases and rollbacks of benefits.
 
Lying about terms of enlistment.
 
Extend tours of duty and reduce time between tours.
 
Make injured troops pay for equipment lost or destroyed when they are wounded.
 
Send troops into combat with insufficient and inadequate equipment.
 
Stigmatize PTSD troops trying to get treatment, then send them back into war.
 
Downgrade disability claims related to injury and combat service.
 
Yep, there's a reason why so many Iraq War veterans ran for national office as Democrats in the last election... and very few, if any, ran as Republicans.
 

2007/11/20

Cannabis fights breast cancer

@ 08:21 AM (23 months, 28 days ago)

How about that? We make illegal what actually does us some good in certain situations... but, by all means, we legally keep inhaling poisonous nicotine until our lungs turn black... and drinking toxic alcohol until our livers explode.
 
Hold on now... shouldn't we wait for scientists to synthesize this cancer fighting compound and patent it so that Big Pharma and its Big Stockholders can get their hit?
 
From washingtonpost.com, Nov. 19 -- "A non-toxic, non-psychoactive compound in marijuana may block the progress of metastatic breast cancer, according to a new study by researchers in California.
 
"This is a new way to treat a patient that is not toxic like chemotherapy or radiotherapy. It is a new approach for metastatic cancer," said lead researcher Sean D. McAllister, an associate scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco.
 
The compound found in cannabis, called cannabidiol (CBD), inhibits a gene, Id-1, that researchers believe is responsible for the metastatic process that spreads cells from the original tumor throughout the body.
 
....in metastatic cancer "when [the genes] wake up, they are very bad," he said. "They push the cells to behave like embryonic cells and grow. They go crazy, they proliferate, they migrate." Desprez said, "We need to be able to turn them off."
 
According to the study, CBD does exactly that.
 
....McAllister also suggested that Id-1 is "so important in providing the [metastatic] mechanism in these cells in so many types of cancers" that they "provide us an opportunity potentially to target other types of cancers." [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/3ap9mx
 
This is the kind of great news for cancer victims that should break down the walls of a silly prejudice.
 
To criminalize the growing of hemp is just stupid. Hemp cloth is high quality and longer lasting than cotton, and the list of non-drug uses of this plant is as long as your arm.
 
If only we could run our cars on hemp oil.....
 
I do believe the issue of legalizing hemp is an economic one. Whose ox would be gored if hemp were to become legal? Look for the fiber industry, paper industry, and various agricultural interests to be lobbying big time.
 
I feel strongly that the use of cannabis leaves should be allowed for medicinal purposes out of simple humanity.
 
My little granny always said look to nature to find cures for what ails you... for every disease there is a plant, root, tree or bark which can cure or alleviate it. We just have to find it.
 
I thought of her when scientists discovered that the bark of a rare Yew tree in CA could shrink ovarian cancer tumors, among other miracles. Read about it here at nytimes.com:
 
http://tinyurl.com/yv4ws5
 
I also read about a study that intended to prove that pot smokers had increased rates of lung cancer, but lo and behold, researchers were shocked to find it wasn't true. They found a reduced rate of lung cancer compared to cancer in non-smoking control groups.
 
I just found this at washingtonpost.com, 2006:
 
"The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer."
 
http://tinyurl.com/fr2bv
 
I'm certainly not recommending that we all go out and buy bongs and light up, just that many sick people could have better lives if they could use something that's only kept from them because of prejudice... not scientific knowledge.
 
I continue to be amazed that study after study, starting back in Nixon’s time, has demonstrated the safety of pot and its different chemicals, and found even more new therapeutic values from a so-called noxious weed.
 
This possible miracle plant is still suppressed because -- heaven forbid -- it also makes one feel good. We can’t have people feeling good... better to keep them in pain than risking that.
 
All of us probably know people who have suffered the effects of cancer, some surviving and some not. I've lost several loved ones to cancer. Some of them said that chemo was so bad that they'd rather just go ahead and die than go through more of it.
 
Any treatment that includes gentle side-effects would greatly improve the lives of cancer victims and their family and friends.

2007/11/19

Monday morning war rant

@ 07:07 AM (23 months, 29 days ago)
 
In his weekly radio address, Bush knocked the Democrats for not giving him the full $196 billion dollars he is asking for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as usual, he accused them of 'failing to meet their responsibilities to the troops.'
 
Oh how he loves that mantra -- the troops, the troops, the troops. Like the only way to support them is to give Bush enough money to continue getting them killed. All for his mad dreams of a New World Order and the US controlling all that lovely OIL.
 
Yeah, he says the invasion was for Iraqi Freedom -- after the WMD lie fell through --  but just follow the money.
 
I remember in the beginning when our military operations were conducted under the code-name "Operation Iraqi Liberation"... until they realized the acronym was O.I.L. See how dumb they are.
 
Anyway, Bush's hypocrisy maddens me... the total BS he still tries to feed us in his radio address. Here is a man who lied to the American people, the UN, and the entire world community just so he could sell us his war in Iraq. And when the rest of the world didn't want to go along with his phony case for war, he boldly handed them an ultimatum, 'You're either with us or against us'....
 
Well, I was with him in Afghanistan, which held the real culprits who planned the flying of planes into our buildings.
 
But then Bush's gang of chicken hawks worked hard to cook Intelligence so he could order our military into Iraq to fight innocent people who did NOT want war with us.
 
His gang of neo-cons were blinded by their idea of a New World Order and, don't forget -- all that lovely OIL. They had no clue, or even concern, about the terrible devastation this unnecessary war would bring to millions of people.
 
Bush ignored the warnings of smart military men like General Eric Shinseki, went ahead and sent our troops in alone, without enough manpower or proper equipment (parents were buying body armor for their kids)... and no plan to win the peace, no exit strategy.
 
And now, as a result, we have lost almost 4,000 American lives, and around 30,000 severely wounded. We'll be seeing these maimed ones hobble around America's streets for decades.
 
The death count of innocent Iraqis is so high that the actual number is obscene and unable to be determined.
 
And now, our 'glorious leader' wants to bash the Democrats for not giving him more money to continue his miserable failed Iraqi experiment.
 
My patience with the Democrats is wearing mighty thin. Looks like they will never find the spine to REALLY exercise the power of the purse -- like they promised they would -- in the face of a defiant Bush who continues to ignore the wishes of two-thirds of the American people who want an END to this war.
 
Our soldiers in Iraq deal with strange hatreds they did not create, and sectarian fighting they can never resolve. They are doing a remarkable job, a brave heroic job, considering how harshly we've worked them. It's a travesty how little press the soldier suicide and desertion rates are getting.
 
And the Iraqis are not holding up their end of the bargain. Remember that Bush assured Iraqi leaders that we will not leave Iraq. Hell, we're still building the biggest US embassy in the world in Baghdad... it was originally going to cost $592 million, but this has been upped to another $144 million. It's a disaster, read about it here:
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2212478,00.html
 
So there's no real motivation for Iraqi leaders to step up to the job and take control of their country.
 
The Bushies do not understand the Iraqi people and Muslim culture in general. The Iraqis will never adjust or conform to the American style of democracy that we keep trying force down their throats with military might.
 
When will our pro-war politicians realize that the military phase of the Iraqi war has already been achieved. We took Saddam down and made it possible for them to hold elections. We should just restore their water and electricity and wave bye-bye. Our troops have done everything they can do to change Iraq into Bush's and Cheney's fantasy.
 
... turns out, it was just Mission Impossible.
 

2007/11/18

An inconvenient honor

@ 07:58 AM (24 months, 3 hours ago)
 
AL, don't go! It's a trap! Take your Nobel Prize and run!
 
Former vice-president Al Gore is invited to return to the White House next week, for the first time since leaving office, to be honored by the man who took the Presidency from him seven years ago.
 
The Bushism I'd like to see Bush commit when he walks up to that podium -- "I'd like to congratulate Vice President Gore for winning the noble prize."
 
From washingtonpost.com: "Former vice president Al Gore plans to return to the White House after Thanksgiving, apparently for the first time since leaving office, to be honored by the man who beat him seven years ago.
 
President Bush will host five American winners of this year's Nobel Prizes in the Oval Office on Nov. 26, including the winner of the Peace Prize, who fell 538 votes short of hosting the event himself. No word on whether the Supreme Court will be on hand to mediate in case of trouble. [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2cd46x
 
Stephen Colbert should write the Mother of all "acceptance" speeches for Gore. Colbert speaks truth to power so adroitly that they actually think he's complimenting them.
 
<sigh> IF we only knew back in 2000 what we know now... Gore would be President.
 
Bush seemed like a likeable enough guy... but he has turned out to be a disaster for our country and the world with his inept actions and failed policies. Iraq, Katrina, spending like no other President has before, selling us out to China, trying to sell our ports to the enemy, open borders, outing CIA operatives... everything he's touched has turned to shit or caught fire.
 
Gore on the other hand wasn't as personable... was sometimes stiff in front of a crowd, but damn he is smart. The whole world respects and admires him. He has been cheated and maligned without cause and yet is still willing to spend his personal time and money to try to help the world. His fight to raise awareness about global warming is a noble cause by a noble man. His detractors say he's getting rich from this fight, but Al Gore donates the money back into causes which are dedicated to saving the planet.
 
It ain't easy being Green, but there is no way he would have been as big a disaster as Bush.
 
Yep, if only we knew back in 2000 what we know now  ...
 
And just think AL, you could be living in the White House if only you would run.....
 

2007/11/17

Another reason the violence is down in Iraq?

@ 07:30 AM (24 months, 1 day ago)

First of all, Middle East experts pretty much agree that whether we leave in five months or five years, the same thing is going to happen. The different Iraqi tribes/sects will mix it up and fight until they sort it all out. Nothing will stop this.
 
So--The reason the violence is down could be because they're thinking about how to best position themselves for when the Americans leave. They could be doing their own planning, and why should they waste their resources fighting Americans when their REAL battle comes AFTER we leave?
 
They'd want to keep up some level of aggression against us... but they wouldn't want to make it too great. Because they'd want us to leave with some hope that things will turn out OK when we do. You know, so things won't look too bad, so we won't feel obliged to stick around to prevent any ensuing chaos.
 
So if they want Americans to leave, and they do in pretty much all cases, they dial down the violence.
 
And they bide their time. They wait until the Americans leave, and then they go hell-bent-for-leather fighting for power in the new world of post-American Iraq.
 
This could explain why they're not taking advantage of the lull........
 
"Iraqis Wasting An Opportunity, U.S. Officers Say"
 
From washingtonpost.com: "Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.
 
In more than a dozen interviews, U.S. military officials expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government's failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, but "it's unclear how long that window is going to be open."
 
....All the U.S. military officials interviewed said their most pressing concern is that Sunnis will sour if the Iraqi government doesn't begin to reciprocate their peace overtures. "The Sunnis have shown great patience," said Campbell. "You don't want the Sunnis that are working with you . . . to go back to the dark side." The Army officer who requested anonymity said that if the Iraqi government doesn't reach out, then for former Sunni insurgents "it's game on — they're back to attacking again."[..]
 
http://tinyurl.com/26z7cc
 
The 'heroic efforts' of our 'fearless leader' are NOT going to resolve the 1300 years of disputes between the Shias and Sunnis et al.
 
Imagine back in the 1800's in our country... imagine the US Calvary trying to get the warring Apaches, Sioux and Comanches to settle down to co-rule and share the same territory. Sure, the Indians came around after about a hundred years and we'd killed almost two-thirds of them. Is that what we're going to do in Iraq? Is that how long we're going to be there?
 
The lesson of Iraq should be: You CANNOT win out over a committed popular home grown insurgency even with massive military strength and superiority.
 
Remember how the Russians and their tanks left Afghanistan with their tails between their legs, after years of fighting fierce mountain tribesmen, ruining the Russian economy in the process?
 
Remember our Revolutionary War and how the Brits could not win against the rebellious rag-tag American insurgency who fought with pitchforks?
 
This is also the lesson that Israel should've learned by now about Palestine.
 

2007/11/16

Come on George, Pakistan, for God's sake?

@ 05:10 AM (24 months, 2 days ago)
Gonna have a busy morning dear readers, so I'll share a Rosa Brooks column. She writes what I feel sooo much better than I can anyway.
 
LATimes, November 15, 2007 -- The U.S. alliance with Pakistan has only strengthened dangerous extremists.
 
Oh, George. Why do you hate America?
 
For years, I thought we were just having a misunderstanding. You know: You say tomato, I say tomahto; you say checks, I say balances; you say enhanced interrogation techniques, I say torture.
 
But with recent events in Pakistan, I'm beginning to wonder if our problem isn't more than just a misunderstanding. Because if you're supposed to be protecting our nation against Islamic extremism, why are your foreign policies actually strengthening dangerous extremists everywhere?
 
Look, I'm not going to bring up all that business about the Iraq war and the way it's created a cause celebre for extremists. Anyone can make an honest mistake and wreck a country. And we don't need to rehash that old quarrel about Guantanamo and how it's helped Al Qaeda's recruiting efforts, or argue about the way your saber-rattling on Iran has strengthened Iran's hard-liners.
 
But come on. Pakistan, for God's sake?
 
What were you thinking, George? Back on the presidential campaign trail in 2000, you couldn't even come up with Pervez Musharraf's name when some smarty-pants reporter gave you a pop news quiz. Those were the days! Now, the two of you are joined at the hip.
 
I don't like to bring up ancient history, but in the 1990s, when Musharraf was a rising star in the Pakistani military, Pakistan was one of only three states in the world to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government. Yeah, that Taliban -- the same radical Islamist group that was harboring Al Qaeda. Pakistan was also busily developing nuclear weapons, test-firing a nuclear-capable missile in 1998.
 
In 1999, when Musharraf, then Pakistan's army chief of staff, seized control of the government in a military coup, it was a domestic power grab, not a change of heart about Islamic extremism or nuclear weapons. (Throughout 1999 and 2000, for instance, Pakistan's top scientists enthusiastically sold nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea with, many analysts suspect, Musharraf's approval.)
 
The Clinton administration -- and most of the rest of the world -- responded with comprehensive sanctions designed to isolate Musharraf's autocratic, extremist regime and support Pakistan's moderate democratic opposition.
 
But not you! You had to go and make Musharraf your new best friend. Sure, after 9/11, Musharraf saw which way the wind was blowing, and he smiled a crocodile smile, denounced extremism and promised to root out Al Qaeda. So you handed him more than $4.7 billion of military funding in the three years after 9/11. Compared with the three years before 9/11, that was a 50,000% increase in U.S. military aid to Pakistan. By 2007, our handouts exceeded $10 billion. Musharraf must have thought he'd hit the jackpot.
 
But he'd had his fingers crossed the whole time. Musharraf -- a military dictator -- had zero interest in turning Pakistan into a secular democracy. For six years now, he's been pocketing our checks with one hand while actively suppressing the moderate political parties that offer Pakistan's best hope against Islamic radicalism with the other. Elements within his own government and security services continue to support the Taliban and other extremist Islamist groups, but Musharraf has rarely sought to upset that apple cart. He relies on the religious parties to keep him in power.
 
From time to time, it's true, Musharraf obligingly offers up a few nuggets of helpful information or cracks down on a radical group or two. But his crackdowns have been so repressive that they've spawned as much new extremism as they've squelched.
 
Today, Pakistan is in crisis once more. Musharraf has managed to alienate secular democrats and radical Islamists alike. Thousands of opposition activists are now in prison, two-thirds of Pakistan's senior judges are under house arrest, and Musharraf has suspended the constitution.
 
As Musharraf clings to power, we continue to lose traction in the battle against extremism in Pakistan. A recent opinion poll found that most Pakistanis are so alienated that they give Osama bin Laden higher approval ratings than they give to Musharraf -- or to you, George.
 
Osama thanks you.
 
And what are you doing about all this?
 
Nothing! You're not calling on Musharraf to step down and hold elections, you're not threatening to pull the plug on any U.S. military aid, you're not opening up links to the grass-roots democratic opposition. Which means there's little chance that we'll get what we say we want -- and what most Pakistanis want: a moderate, democratic Pakistani government.
 
Instead, our policies will continue to inspire and strengthen Islamic extremism.
 
Look, George, I'm not saying you consciously meant for things to turn out this way. But as Freud said, there's no such thing as an accident.
 
Have you discussed this with your therapist?
 
rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com
 

2007/11/15

Blackwater is thicker than blood

@ 10:18 AM (24 months, 3 days ago)
 
So, let me get this straight... according to the FBI, 14 innocent civilians were killed by armed mercenaries who work for the US government... and the US government said they fall outside US military jurisdiction, that they are granted immunity and can not be punished. Is this what the US stands for these days?
 
FBI: Blackwater Shootings Unjustified
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - FBI agents investigating the September 16 episode in which Blackwater security guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.[..]"
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1363728320071114
 
Well what do they expect? Blackwater systematically recruits the baddest of the `bad guys' ...whose only rules are 'don't get caught on camera'.
 
They say security employees of Blackwater have to be US citizens to work on US government contracts. Maybe, maybe not. Some of the other 25 different security firms we have in Iraq DO hire mercenaries (like former Pinochet thugs and Milosovec thugs) from Bosnia, Chile, Colombia, South Africa and the Philippines. Anyway, Blackwater has a recruitment center in the Philippines.
 
I wish we had our old Army back. Don't we have Marines to perform security duty? They guard and protect US Embassies. Didn't we once use our military to protect diplomats in a war zone?
 
If our military wasn't stretched so thin because of Iraq, we wouldn't have needed 'private contractors' in the first place. The average cost billed to the US Treasury is 4 times what we pay our regular forces ...or more.
 
This privatizing of the US military started back in the 70's by replacing mostly cooks, I remember being surprised that privates didn't peel potatoes anymore. Then they graduated to outsourcing plumbers, electricians, truck drivers, etc.
 
Now, the Bush White House has graduated to using more private contractors than troops in jobs involving actual combat. That means we get less bang for four times the buck.
 
The Bushies got into power and decided to tinker with the US military--pre-9/11--because they knew they were going to invade Iraq, and their war profiteering pals would benefit from a heavily contractor-dependent military.
 
How could corporate owned armies possibly be a good thing?
 
We had plenty of troops to fight the real war on Al Quaeda in Afghanistan without the help of mercenaries. The profit motive was the only reason that we invaded Iraq, so it's no surprise that we did it the most expensive way possible so Bushies could funnel all that lovely money to their cronies.
 
War should be a last resort, not a method of making profits for corporations. Crony capitalism is ugly enough without making war just another industry to earn big profits.
 
Look at the profit history of Blackwater... before Iraq they were a small struggling security company; now, after a few years in Iraq, they report earnings of over one billion dollars.
 
Look at how their stock shot up over the last 4-5 years. Sure seems that such a big profit would motivate them try to prolong this war, or get us into more wars, so they can drum up more business for the contractors.
 
Let's see now...rich businessmen who own corporations like Blackwater make one billion dollars from a war... then, say things change and the war seems to be winding down. Profit being the only motive, why wouldn't they do things to make that war continue? They would surely contribute to the campaign of anyone who says we need another war (Giuliani)... and surely contribute to campaigns of Congressmen and Senators who want to further privatize the military.
 
Could corporate mercenaries be more dangerous to this planet than terrorists?
 

2007/11/14

A Staged Question vs A Staged Presidency

@ 09:45 AM (24 months, 4 days ago)

Hillary Clinton is NOT my candidate (too Republican lite), but it just tickles me how the GOP and Fox News are having such an ORGASM because someone on her staff planted a question in a Q&A session in Iowa.

Read the rest of this entry ... (620 words left)

2007/11/13

'I'll Sell My Soul to the Devil'

@ 05:44 AM (24 months, 5 days ago)

...said the guy wearing the Corrupt Bastards baseball cap.
 
Boy howdy, the FBI corruption investigation that blew the lid off crooked politics in Alaska a year ago is spreading like an oil slick.
 
May I point out that they found $32,200 in cash stacked in a closet belonging to Republican Pete Kott, former speaker of the Alaskan House of Representatives.
 
Unlike Louisiana, Alaska is cold and crooked politicians don't need a freezer.
 
Kott, Ted Stevens et al make Louisiana's crooked Democrat - Rep. William Jefferson - and his freezer full of $9,000 cash look like the minor leagues.
 
"Corruption Scandals Involve Alaska's Biggest Political Names
From Washington Post, November 12, 2007:
ANCHORAGE -- When the FBI came looking for corruption in Alaska politics, it found an excellent perch in Suite 604 of the Baranof Hotel in Juneau, the state capital. There, a profane septuagenarian named Bill Allen did business throughout a 2006 special session called to set taxes on the oil industry. With hundred-dollar bills in his front pocket for ease of access when lawmakers turned up with their hands out, the oil-services company executive turned in a bravura performance before the pinhole camera that federal agents installed opposite his favorite chair.
 
On another tape, Pete Kott, the former Republican speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, crowed as he described beating back a tax bill opposed by oil companies. "I had to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie," Kott said. "Exxon's happy. BP's happy. I'll sell my soul to the devil."
 
.....a year ago when federal agents raided lawmakers' offices and homes -- finding $32,200 neatly stacked in a closet of Kott's condo -- the federal probe has produced four indictments, three convictions, three guilty pleas and a rapt audience keen to see how high into Alaska's political hierarchy the rot reaches.
 
....Officially, the scandal has remained confined to Juneau, where Alaska lawmakers had grown so accustomed to operating under the presumption of impropriety that several of them embroidered ball caps with the letters CBC, for "Corrupt Bastards Club." An Anchorage coffeehouse now offers Corrupt Bastards Brew.) [...]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2alcue
 
These crooked Alaskans were proud! Had their own baseball hats and coffee named after them and everything. Like Texas, Alaska must like to go all out and do things in a big way.
 
Corruption is such a strange game. Beware of people who pay millions for jobs that pay thousands.
 
Good thing the FBI caught this Kott guy... or the Republicans would be running him for President. He's right up their greedy gut oil business alley.
 
Yes, yes, I know. Political power corrupts. Period. When the Democrats get in and wield power, some of them will be taking bribes too... only difference is they won't go around preaching moral values. That's a specialty of the Republicans. And boy has it come back to haunt them in the past few months.
 
I detest crooked politicians, no matter the party... as the Queen said to Alice: "Off with their heads!"
 
But wait, they might self-destruct anyway... by mixing erectile dysfunction drugs with sleeping pills. This just kills me:
 
"The probe has delivered low humor as well as bad behavior. In one exchange the FBI captured by wiretap, Allen handed a sexual potency pill and a sleeping pill to Kott -- who later phoned, confused and upset, after mixing them up."
 
They're sure going to be laughing at that at many a Washington, DC cocktail party.
 
 

2007/11/12

Cry me a river Poppy

@ 05:10 AM (24 months, 6 days ago)

I saw on the news that Poppy Bush was complaining about folks being "grossly unfair" to his kid because of the Iraq War.
 
Sorry Poppy, you don't get to whine about people unfairly criticizing your son after he and Rumsfeld wasted so many American lives through poor planning, ignorance, stubbornness and laziness.
 
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Critics of President George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq war are "grossly unfair" and have forgotten the brutality of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Bush's father said in an interview published on Friday.
 
....Public opinion polls show most Americans oppose Bush's Iraq war strategy and his overall job performance rating has dropped to record lows.[..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/3alc38
 
Poppy asks--"Do they think life would be better in the Middle East if Saddam were still there?"
 
Let's see...4 or 5 million Iraqis lost their homes ...hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis lost their lives ...the education of millions of children stunted ...Iraq's infrastructure almost totally destroyed ...tens of thousands of jihadists created........
 
The answer is YES.
 
I'd say it's a toss up comparing the number of people who died in Iraq as a result of our invasion, against those who died during Saddam's reign as cruel dictator.
 
The real question should be whether or not the actions of Bush Jr. have harmed or killed more people than they've helped.
 
Life in the United States would definitely be better for almost 4,000 dead Americans and their families and friends, and for almost 30,000 wounded and maimed Americans and their families and friends.
 
Life would sure be better here in the US if we were not stuck in this money draining, terrorist creating WAR. Our country is bleeding badly.
 
I've read that the Israelis think the Middle East would be better off with Saddam back in Iraq ...also the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, UAE, and just about everybody in the neighborhood except Iran.
 
Not to mention the majority of the Iraqi population ...well, those who haven't died yet.
 
Maybe Poppy should read what Dick Cheney said about Desert Storm--"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.... Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq."
 
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/192908_cheney29.html
 
Maybe Poppy should read what Poppy wrote:
 
From the 1998 book, "A World Transformed", which Poppy co-wrote--"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs....[..]"
 
Poppy's conscience is finally catching up with him is all ...but there are thousands of fathers and mothers crying harder over their dead and wounded sons and daughters.
 
I don't want Saddam back. I just want George W. Bush to go away ...everything he touches turns to shit or catches fire.
 
I want a decent president back, a president who would take us to war only as a last resort, who would ask Congress before he did, who can execute a war successfully if he has to, and not let private business corporations run a war for its own personal gain.
 
Yeah...that would be nice.
 

2007/11/11

Thank You, Veterans!

@ 05:25 AM (24 months, 7 days ago)

On this Veterans Day there should be no Democrats or Republicans, there should be only Americans. Today we honor all veterans who fought to protect the freedoms we often take for granted.
 
It's sad that Veterans Day doesn’t seem to rank very high on America's list of favorite holidays. People seem to pay more attention to other patriotic holidays like the 4th of July, our nation’s birthday party...well, it does have fireworks.
 
But we have to remember that without the brave fighting men and women of our armed forces there might not be a home of the brave.
 
Remember what the day is all about, a day to honor all American veterans of all wars, from the Revolutionary War to the present day Iraq war. So many have given the ultimate in sacrifice.
 
While some of our wars (Vietnam, Iraq) may not have been as popular with the citizenry as others (World War II), the American soldier’s willingness to sacrifice their lives to protect the US way of life should never be questioned. Any man or woman who honorably wore a soldier’s uniform is a hero in my book.
 
We should also recognize and honor military families for the great sacrifices they have always made throughout the course of our history.

Today is also the time to be aware of certain issues that our military and their families have to deal with. A good way to get involved is to check out the Wounded Warrior Project. It’s a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness for US veterans severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s a link:
 
http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/aarwebshow
 
I am grateful to all the World War II veterans, the Vietnam veterans, the Korean War veterans, the Desert Storm veterans, and those today fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan...they have all served our country with such valor. I salute them every one.
 
Thank You for your service to our country! Semper Fi!
 
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
~Douglas MacArthur
 

2007/11/9

Deck the Malls with bombs in backpacks...

@ 08:31 AM (24 months, 9 days ago)
 
'Tis the season to be frightened? And aren't we fighting them over there so this won't happen over here?
 
From wcpo.com: "The FBI has issued an "intelligence information report" warning of possible Al Qaeda attacks on Los Angeles and Chicago shopping malls over the holiday season.
 
Al Qaeda has been planning the attack for the past two years with the intension to disrupt the economy, but the warning also states the latest threats fit a pattern that has emerged every holiday season since 9/11.
 
FBI sources say they are not "that worried" right now, but are operating under an "abundance of caution." [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2joq8a
 
So, they cry "Wolf!" again...seems like the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have issued the same terror alerts for the past five years in a row at holiday times.
 
Some people think they do it just to scare us and make us more supportive of the war...others think they do it to cover their backs, so they can say 'We told you so' in case it really does happen.
 
But the FBI said they received this new information in late September and have just now declassified it.
 
Covering their butts with both hands, they say intelligence officers are uncertain if the information is real, and say there is a concern that it could be "disinformation."
 
"Officials at the FBI say much of the information is second-and third hand, but from a reliable source."
 
Uh...how long did they waterboard him?
 
I've read that the FBI constantly scan the jihadist chat rooms ...and you know that the anonymous jihadists and wannabe jihadists know they're scanning, so they have fun and boast about planning all sorts of dastardly deeds.
 
But, I don't want to rag on the FBI too much, good people work there and take their jobs to protect us seriously. I guess it runs as smoothly as a bloated dysfunctional bureaucracy can. (Remember all those lost weapons and laptop computers? And, last I read, they still haven't been able to complete a $170 million computer system to manage cases.)
 
What happens if terrorists attack and nobody's home? With the economy tanking there's not going to be THAT many holiday shoppers crowding the malls to become targets.
 
Terrorists would be better off to just sit back and let China keep doing it.
 
Speaking of which...it might keep some of us from buying all those poisoned Chinese toys.
 
BTW--the Republicans say that if the jihadists stage an attack now it would be too far away from the election, and respectfully request that they wait until this time next year.
 

2007/11/8

"Made in China" just got a lot worse

@ 07:17 AM (24 months, 10 days ago)

Toys from China contain a chemical that converts into a powerful "date rape" drug when ingested. Two US children went into comas after who swallowing Chinese-made Aqua Dots.
 
If someone let a biological weapon loose that contaminated 4.2 million items, all HELL would break loose! No one would be asking for voluntary recall. What the hell is "voluntary recall"? If the Consumer Product Safety Commission is calling for the recall, and calling for it on a voluntary level, then Congress better get their asses in gear and either un-fund the CPSC, or subpoena, question and indict the idiot that heads this phony commission!
 
From CNN:-- Millions of Chinese-made toys have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape drug when ingested. Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads.[..]"
 
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/07/news/international/toys_drug.ap/index.htm
 
China is once again poisoning our children and all the Republicans can do is bloviate about letting industry self-regulate. They say the market will work out these problems ... that markets will ultimately punish the manufacturers who produce these dangerous products. And in many cases they do. But do we really want to wait around for that?
 
Remember the hundreds of people who died in Panama from taking poisonous cough medicine made in China ...and remember all those pet deaths here in the US?
 
But no...Republicans want to dismantle all that cumbersome bureaucratic machinery that we use to check products for safety.
 
Another sad thing is that the Democrats will probably just sit back and shut up, not call out the GOP on their stupid failed policies.
 
Yep, the Democrats are spending their time filing resolutions to impeach Dick Cheney ...they're too busy to fight for stricter inspections and mandatory safety and health regulations to guarantee the safety of our tiniest citizens.
 
Whatever...China is now the country which makes most of our junk, and they are going to make it as cheaply as possible, to our detriment. Chinese manufacturers compete in price only, and if tainting a little here, cutting corners a little there allows a fraction of a cent savings per million items produced, it is worth it to them.
 
Something to think about when debating global free trade and its benefits.
 
Oh for the good old days of 'Made in America'...and if anyone is interested, you can still buy American:
 
http://www.stillmadeinusa.com/shoppingindex.html
 

2007/11/7

Late-night jokes 11/7

@ 05:57 AM (24 months, 11 days ago)
 
(Last ones until the writer's strike is over)
 
"The writers are going on strike on Monday. ... They are calling this the toughest time for comedy writing since those three weeks back in the '90s when Bill Clinton stopped dating." --Jay Leno
 
"A sixth grade woman teacher from Nebraska ... went on the run with her 13-year-old boyfriend. I know that sounds bad, but consider this, he is a child and she didn't leave him behind." --Bill Maher
 
"Did you hear about this? There was a guy arrested in a hotel. ... He's in a hotel and he's trying to have sex with a ... bicycle. Please get some help, Senator Craig. I am begging you!" --David Letterman
 
"Anybody notice that for daylight saving, the change is later this year? It was supposed to be last week. According to the New York Times, Congress made this decision in part from pressure from the candy lobby, who wanted an extra hour for trick or treating. Isn't that unbelievable? I mean, the research lobby can't get stem cell research through. The consumer lobby, we can't get lead out of toys. But by God, when it comes to an extra hour of eating sugar, the candy lobby has the power." --Jay Leno
 
"Another prominent Republican has been caught in a gay sex scandal. This time it's a state representative from the state of Washington, a man named Richard Curtis. He admitted to dressing up in women's clothing, having sex with a guy twice in one night, but he says he's not gay. ... Fortunately, the other guy was. ... Anyway, Representative Curtis resigned from office yesterday. Out of force of habit, Larry Craig's wife is standing by him." --Jay Leno
 
"Karen Hughes, a former adviser to President Bush, is leaving the State Department after working the last two years trying to improve the rest of the world's opinion of America. Congratulations on a job well done. Time to bring out that 'Mission Accomplished' sign again." --Jay Leno
 
"Today, President Bush said, 'The Iraqis are taking back Iraq.' Then Dick Cheney said, 'But not the oil, right?'" --Jay Leno
 
"People who are absolutely upset are the folks in the State Department. They want to send them to Iraq. There's a lot of empty positions that need to be filled over there. But the people at the State Department are revolting about this because they say it's dangerous over there. I haven't heard that. ... President Bush is furious. He said, 'If you didn't want to go to a war zone, you shouldn't have joined the State Department. You should have joined the Texas Air National Guard.'" --Bill Maher
 
"Did you see this Democratic debate? Wow! The six men all piled onto Hillary Clinton. It was like a porn movie. They were claiming she's not a real Democrat because she might actually win something." --Bill Maher
 
"There was yet another closeted gay Republican in the news. A state representative from the state of Washington got caught paying for sex at an adult book store while he was on a legislative retreat. Is that what they're calling it now? ... He was dressed as a woman in red stockings and a black sequin lingerie top. Or, as Rudy Giuliani calls it, Casual Friday." --Bill Maher
 
"Pat Philbin, the man who staged a fake FEMA news conference on the California wildfires last week, has lost his promotion because of the event. Which begs the question, 'What does it take to actually get fired from FEMA?'" --Amy Poehler
 
"Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has a new platform -- live long and prosper. Did you here about this? Dennis Kucinich admitted during the debates the other night that he had seen a UFO up close. See, Dennis Kucinich doesn't seem like the type of guy who would see a UFO, he seems like the kind of guy you'd see coming out of a UFO." --Jay Leno
 
"But Dennis Kucinich says he once saw a UFO. I'm thinking to myself, 'Saw one? My God, it looks like he's been riding one'" --David Letterman
 
"Yet another prominent Republican has been caught in a gay sex scandal. I'm starting to think GOP stands for 'Grab Our Penises.' ... It's another anti-gay, anti-gay marriage Republican. Washington state Representative Richard Curtis admitted to police he left his wife at home and dressed up in women's clothing, which were red stockings and a black sequin lingerie top. He had sex with a man in an adult boutique, then went to a hotel with the guy and had sex with him again still dressed in the women's clothes. So not only is the guy a hypocrite, he's also a little tramp too. ... After all this, the guy says he is not gay. Even Larry Craig is saying, 'Shut up.'" --Jay Leno
 
"All these Republicans having gay sex. See, that's why so many women are Democrats, 'cause Democrats will at least have sex with them." --Jay Leno
 
"The Atlanta International Airport is considering shorter flushes in its bathrooms. To help cope with the huge drought in Georgia, they want shorter flushes on the toilets. Or, as Senator Larry Craig calls that, speed dating" --Jay Leno
 
"Tensions are very high between Iraq and Turkey. See, this is where President Bush, I don't think he understands these issues...like today, he warned the American people we could be in for a rough Thanksgiving." --Jay Leno
 
"Anybody see the Democratic debate? ... Tough night for candidate Bill Richardson. During the entire debate, the only question Tim Russert asked him was, 'And you are?'" --David Letterman
 
"Like any civilized country and organization, from time to time, we in America have to have a national conversation with ourselves. Ask tough questions about who we are; what we believe in; is our children learning; would we, in fact, would like fries with that; do we torture, which like any weighty question of ethics, is actually a question of semantics ...
[on screen: Rudy Giuliani saying the way torture has been defined in the liberal media shouldn't be done]. What is the liberal definition? I have the Liberal Dictionary right here. Let's see how they define waterboarding: 'something done by the evil troops, who we don't support, to innocent terrorists violating their rights to bomb our cities and make us get gay married.' I can see why he'd have a problem with that" --Jon Stewart
 

2007/11/6

Ron Paul's 4 million dollar day

@ 08:06 AM (24 months, 12 days ago)

Long shot no more?
 
He's not exactly in the driver’s seat yet, but ears are starting to perk up.
 
"Ron Paul Raises More Than $4 Million in One Day"
 
From The New York Times, November 6, 2007: ".....On Monday, a group of Paul supporters helped raised more than $4.07 million in one day — approaching what the campaign raised in the entire last quarter —
 
....Mr. Paul has stood out from the Republican field for his opposition to the war in Iraq. In the speech he argues that the fight against terrorism is threatening American democracy.[..]"
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/us/politics/06paul.html?ref=us
 
He's going to have to use that money to run on a third party ticket because he isn't going to get the Republican nomination.
 
Some people think a big chunk of the people backing Ron Paul aren’t doing so because they want him to win, but because of the potential mischief he could cause the Republicans running for president.
 
Third parties wreak havoc and change history. Think Ross Perot. Think Ralph Nader.
 
Other people think Ron Paul's "isolationist" views and his "cut-n-run" policies will not hurt Republicans at all...that he'll be another Nader and receive a larger portion of the Democratic vote.
 
Paul voted against the Iraq war and favors a non interventionist foreign policy. He promises to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately and wants to prevent a war with Iran and a new Cold War with Russia. Paul also voted against the Patriot Act and promises to restore the Bill of Rights.
 
But the Democrats already have their anti-war candidates. It's more likely that Paul will attract those libertarian, Goldwater conservatives that have been waiting for a guy like him for a long time. Pat Buchanan says he will back him, and so might a lot of religious figureheads. So he might not have such a significant effect on the Democratic ticket.
 
AND--Democrats won't go along with Paul's stance on a woman's right to control her own body. He believes in keeping government out of everything else, but would allow states to declare eminent domain rights over a woman's womb. Doesn't his strong language about abolishing a woman's right to choose put him at odds with the Libertarian party?
 
The Republicans I know who would vote for Ron Paul are angry and sad over the party being destroyed by the neo-con Republicans. They feel that these Republicans do not represent them and have caused great harm to the party.
 
Other than being worried about a bloated government, huge debt, and a devalued dollar, a lot of people from both parties do not want to have a future draft as we enter a period of “long wars” and become the world police for other countries.
 
But, not to worry, these billion dollar campaigns for Leader of the Free World are dead-serious business. Paul's fund raising probably means only one thing -- that he and his Ronbots will be around for a while longer.
 
We might need the comic relief...though he could never be as entertaining as Ross Perot.
 
The most important campaign issue to me is putting an end to the Iraq war. I have a loved one over there.
 
I want a president who will repair our broken military. We have 160,000 troops in Iraq...over 20,000 in Afghanistan, 65,000 in Germany, 50,000 in Japan, and 30,000 in South Korea.
 
For what?
 
Bring 'em home...let 'em guard our borders, our airports, our seaports, help us weather disasters, police our streets and spend their evenings with their families and spend their paychecks at home.
 

2007/11/5

Well, as long as he makes the trains run on time

@ 08:00 AM (24 months, 13 days ago)

Musharraf' declares martial law in Pakistan, suspends the country’s Constitution, fires the chief justice of the Supreme Court, shuts down TV stations, jails opposition.....
 
Boy, the Bush administration did a bang-up job of bringing democracy to Pakistan with ten billion of our tax dollars, didn't they?
 
When do we start bombing the nuke holding, democracy hating, terrorist bastard?
 
Never...he's OUR nuke holding, democracy hating, terrorist bastard.
 
Seriously, if the Bushies had done their homework about this part of the world we might not have another fiasco flying out of Bush's Pandora's Box, another Bush Middle East Mis-estimation.
 
Because if Musharraf holds on to a pure military dictatorship, Pakistan will probably spin right out of control.
 
From the Washington Post:
"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 5 -- Pakistan's government on Sunday executed a nationwide crackdown on the political opposition, the news media and the courts, one day after President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule and suspended the constitution.
 
Police throughout the country raided the homes of opposition party leaders and activists, arresting at least 500. Top lawyers were also taken into custody, and 70 activists were detained at the offices of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in the eastern city of Lahore.
 
Police confiscated the equipment of journalists covering the raid and ordered them to leave the premises. All independent television news stations remained off the air for a second straight day. The prime minister, meanwhile, said that elections could be delayed for up to a year. [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2edzo2
 
Lest you think only terrorists are being rounded up, Asma Jahangir, an outstanding woman human rights activist has been jailed. But she smuggled a message out to The Independent of London just before she was taken to prison.
 
Jahangir wrote: “....Ironically President Musharraf ...said that he had to clamp down on the press and the judiciary to curb terrorism. Those he has arrested are progressive, secular-minded people while the terrorists are offered negotiations and ceasefires.”
 
Here we have the US promoting democracy in Iraq, a country with no nuclear weapons, and promoting a dictatorship in Pakistan...which has the bomb.
 
But... any moment now...our democracy loving President will make a bold and forthright statement in response to all this freedom squelching. Yesiree, Musharraf will know in no uncertain terms that the President will brook no opposition to the spreading of freedom throughout the world.
 
Any moment now...eventually...pretty soon now......
 
<crickets chirping>
 
Ah well, at least Bush can give Musharraf some tips on a "Mission Accomplished" speech ... maybe even lend him his pilot costume ... pointing out how manly and heroic it'll make his 'stuff' look.
 
 

2007/11/4

No crony left behind

@ 06:50 AM (24 months, 14 days ago)
 
Time for a little Bill Maher:
 
"New Rule: In the next fifteen months, President Bush has to perform at least one act that doesn't make money for someone he knows.
 
Take "No Child Left Behind." At first it just looked like gentle empty bullshit, a way to neutralize the Democrats edge with voters on education issues. What did it even mean? And how could you be against it? Education. It was a perfect cause that would honor the legacy of any president...'s wife. Which made it even more perfect for pre-9/11 Bush. And who could it hurt? No one. It made Lady Bird Johnson's wild-flowers-by-the-highways project look like the f*cking Marshall Plan.
 
Except, like all Bush ideas, there was more to it. To meet the requirements of "No Child Left Behind" America's public schools have ordered more than eleven million standardized tests in the last two years. (New York State alone ordered 1.7 million.) The cost of the tests -- and the testing industry, including test prep -- now exceeds two billion dollars a year. And 90% of the industry is controlled by five corporations. And the largest of them is McGraw-Hill. And the McGraw family just happens to go back 80 years with the Bushes.
 
Another beneficiary of No Child Left Behind? Neil Bush's educational software company. The one funded by the United Arab Emirates. The one Barbara Bush said the Katrina victims had to spend her donation on.
 
Which is, of course, all blood under the bridge. But when Bush does anything, there's always some profit motive behind it. Nothing is free but the hookers. So it wasn't surprising that he announced his post war plans were to replenish the coffers with speeches. But before that, he has to do one purely altruistic thing. Just one."
 
Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.
 
Like....step out of office?
 

2007/11/3

CBS outs Curve Ball

@ 09:11 AM (24 months, 15 days ago)

"60 Minutes" now claims to know who he is and reveals that he is an accused thief and not any sort of expert at all. Turns out he was just a failed student who was seeking help to leave Iraq and found an Administration eager for any story to justify military action.
 
So Curve Ball lied, and people died...
 
"(CBS) 60 Minutes has identified the man whose fabricated story of Iraqi biological weapons drove the U.S. argument for invading Iraq. It has also obtained video of "Curve Ball," as he was known in intelligence circles, and discovered he was not only a liar, but also a thief and a poor student instead of the chemical engineering whiz he claimed to be.
 
60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon's two-year investigation will be broadcast this Sunday, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m. ET/PT."
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/01/60minutes/main3440577.shtml
 
I repeat--the US did NOT make the decision to invade Iraq because of bad intel. Period. The decision to invade Iraq was set as soon as Bush took office. Bush, Cheney, and the neo-cons immediately started looking for a way to make it happen ... and to justify it to the public.
 
So they went with the WMD scare.
 
I repeat--Iraq didn't have a chemical weapons program. Period. They had the old out-dated crap we sold them...way past it's expiration date.
 
The invasion of Iraq was based on total BS and lies. The New World Order Bush gang were desperate to find something, anything, to justify an invasion of Iraq.
 
They captured low-level al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in early 2002, the first detainee to be shipped to a secret prison abroad. He turned out to be mentally ill, CIA and FBI analysts could tell by reading his diary. The FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, told the White House that this guy was insane, certifiable, split personality.
 
Abu Zubaydah also appeared to know nothing about terrorist operations...he just handled minor things, like travel for wives and children and the like. The White House was told that too.
 
The Bushies didn't care ...they had him tortured in that secret prison, waterboarding, and every bit of information extracted from him was false...but he told them what they wanted to hear to make the pain stop.
 
It's all in Ron Suskind's book, "The One Percent Doctrine."
 
Then we have Ahmed Chalabi, international banking criminal, Bush's buddy and his only source of information about conditions on the ground in Iraq before the war. The Bushies believed everything Chalabi said because he was telling them what they wanted to hear.
 
See, Bush had promised the hard drinking and jovial Chalabi that he could be the new leader of Iraq. He was, and probably still is, on the US payroll to the tune of $300,000 a month. He still plays a role in today's Iraq!
 
When you are looking for something and are willing to pay for it, you will find it.
 
"Tenet gave the information to Powell despite a letter - a copy of which 60 Minutes obtained - addressed to him by the head of German intelligence stating that Alwan appeared to be believable, but there was no evidence to verify his story."
 
Slam dunk ....
 
Pitchforks and torches?
 
Nah, even though it's a travesty that Curve Ball was used to create the excuse, don't hold your breath waiting for Americans to pay more attention and rise up in protest. There would only be pitchforks and torches if taxes were raised ...or rich kids were being drafted to go to war.
 
Ah well, I guess holding people accountable is so yesterday........
 
I repeat--The ONLY reason Iraq was declared a threat is because we wanted their Oil. Period. And that is precisely what is happening now with the ratcheting up the fear of Iran. This has absolutely nothing to do with Iraq's WMD or Iran's possible Nuclear Weapons... it has everything to do with the fact that they sit atop some of the world's largest Oil Reserves.
 
Would Bush and Cheney give a fig if Iran and Iraq had NO Oil?
 

2007/11/2

Late-night jokes 11/2

@ 07:30 AM (24 months, 16 days ago)


"Dick Cheney had an awkward moment tonight at the White House Halloween party. He went dressed as Darth Vader and at the party, he ran into the real Darth Vader who was dressed as Dick Cheney." --Jay Leno

Read the rest of this entry ... (962 words left)

2007/11/1

Sort of like a reverse payola.

@ 09:51 AM (24 months, 17 days ago)
 
Talk about yer Liberal media ...this is really "Radio Nowhere"....
 
If you look for Bruce Springsteen in Google News, you'll get one rave review after another...about his live sold out tour, about his new album, "Magic" being #1 on the Billboard album chart, already gold and headed straight to platinum. He's got a great shot to win a Grammy for Best Album of the Year.
 
The Rolling Stone says the album's subject matter is "weighty stuff like the direction of our democracy and party ...stuff that recalls the days when sparks first flew on E Street more than three decades ago."
 
Bruce always did speak truth to power ...
 
Which may be why the Republican radio network Clear Channel, a monopoly in many cities and a dominant player in most of the rest, ain't having any. Maybe because Springsteen has been an outspoken campaigner for Democrats?
 
"....Radio will not play "Magic." In fact, sources tell me that Clear Channel has sent an edict to its classic rock stations not to play tracks from "Magic." But it’s OK to play old Springsteen tracks such as "Dancing in the Dark," "Born to Run" ....[..]"
 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306164,00.html
 
This isn't the first time Clear Channel has played politics with the airwaves -- airwaves that belong to we the people by the way, broadcasters just pay us for a license to use them.
 
Please remember Clear Channel's boycott of the Dixie Chicks...whose only crime was saying they were ashamed George Bush was a Texan. What Clear Channel did to the Dixie Chicks is a watertight case for the need to break up all the media conglomerates into tiny little pieces.
 
Because when artists like the Dixie Chicks and Bruce Springsteen -- hot artists who are selling albums like crazy, BUT who have spoken out in some way against this Administration -- are pulled off the air in spite of the public wanting to hear their music....well, it's obvious....
 
It's also obvious that, if sales are how you measure the marketplace, Clear Channel is not looking to succeed as radio stations as much as wanting to push forward their political agenda.
 
So, it's very much in Clear Channel's financial interest to keep electing Republicans who will fight off any efforts to weaken its monopoly.
 
Sort of like a reverse payola.
 
BTW--I do know that some of the stations that carry progressive AirAmerica are Clear Channel affiliates...and please note that lefty Randi Rhodes beats righty Rush Limbaugh in ratings wherever they go head to head, including in Rush's hometown! But do they get behind her and put her on as many stations as Mr. Hillbilly Heroin? Not even close! Again, the reason is obvious.
 
Lastly, I have to smile about how out of touch the Republicans are about pop music... remembering how Ronald Reagan used "Born in the USA" in his campaign because his staffers thought it was a patriotic song.
 
"Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
 
Born in the USA, I was born in the USA
I was born in the USA, born in the USA
 
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man
 
Born in the USA....
 
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man said son if it was up to me
Went down to see my VA man
He said son, you don't understand
 
I had a brother at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
 
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
 
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
 
Born in the USA, I was born in the USA......."
-Bruce Springsteen