I Opine

The Emperor Wears No Clothes

2005-09-29T15:10:00.000-06:00

Off comes the toga and I spy the beginning of the end.

Brownie "heckuvajob" fumbles for an excuse in front of a rabid REPUBLICAN committee. Then word hits the street that he's still getting paid by FEMA to... consult. Who in their right mind would take advice from this man, more or less continue to pay him for it?

Then DeLay. Ah, the hammer. Bye bye hammer. This one's going to be fun, quite honestly. There's a lot he's got to answer for and a deep barrel full of fish to shoot into. It's a carnival, cotton candy on the right, roasted leg of elephant to your left.

Ashcroft is being forced to answer a few tough questions regarding the detention of several Muslims held post 9/11. And this case will get ugly too. Details found at the link but, the gist of it is, "The lawsuit charges that, solely because of their race, religion or national origin, the two men were physically abused and deprived of due process while being detained for more than eight months in the harsh maximum-security unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092905Y.shtml

And today... today US District Judge Hellerstein gave the go ahead for the release of the REST of the Abu Ghraib photos and videos. I don't want to gloat here because what's about to come out is atrocious, the worst of the worst... unspeakable. And all blame goes up hill now.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_re_us/detainee_records&printer=1;_ylt=ApE1YpTaHda5F4qCF3q1mR1H2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Keep your eyes peeled... it's about to get interesting.

UPDATE:

From Truthout: an interview with Cindy Sheehan (I couldn't have set it better had I spent an hour trying).

TD: And what do you actually expect? We have three and a half more years of this administration ...
CS: No we don't! [She chuckles.] I think Katrina's going to be his Monica. It's not a matter of "if" any more, it's a matter of "when," because clearly ... clearly, they're criminals. I mean, look at the people who got the first no-bid contracts to clean-up and rebuild New Orleans. It's Halliburton again. It's crazy. One negative effect of Camp Casey was it took a lot of heat off Karl Rove for his hand in the [Valerie] Plame case. But I hear indictments are coming down soon. So that's one way it's going to come about. George Bush is getting ready to implode. I mean have you seen him lately? He's a man who's out of control.

What I am.

2005-07-05T15:24:00.000-06:00

A friend forwarded me an email this morning. An old one, one that I've seen before... but this morning it just was not ok anymore. I'm posting that forwarded email, along with my response.

This full page ad was placed in the Washington Post by a businessmannamed George J. Esseff, Sr. He paid $104,655.60 to run the ad andonly did it because he is sick and tired of the way that "The Rich"Are portrayed by liberals these days. It is a great read!

In today's America, ask a growing number of high school and collegestudents; their teachers and professors; the self-anointed media eliteand/or hard working men and women of all ethnicities, the question"What is a Republican?", and you'll be told "... a rich, greedy,egotistical individual, motivated only by money and the desire toaccumulate more and more of it, at the expense of the environment, theworking poor, and all whom they exploit."I am a Republican. I am none of those things and I don't know anyRepublicans who are.

WHAT I, AM. first and foremost, is a loving husband of some 52 plusyears, the father of four and an American who's proud of his countryand his country's heritage.

WHAT I AM is the grandson of immigrants who risked everything,including their lives and those of their children, to escape tyrannyin search of freedom.

WHAT I AM is a man who grew up during the Depression and witnessed,first hand, the effects of the Stock Market crash and the soup linesthat followed. I watched as both my parents and grandparents, who hadvery little themselves, share what food they had with a half dozenother families who had even less.

WHAT I AM is someone who worked his way through college by holdingdown three and four jobs at a time and then used that education tobuild a better life.

WHAT I AM is a husband who, at age 24, started his own business forthe "privilege" of working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, risking everythingI had, including my health, in search of a better life for myself andmy loved ones.

WHAT I AM is a businessman whose blood, sweat and tears - and plentyof them - made it possible for me to provide a secure living not onlyfor my family and myself, but also for literally hundreds of myemployees throughout the years. Employees, who in turn, were able tobuy their own homes, raise their own families and give back to theircommunities and their country.

WHAT I AM is a man who believes in God, a God who has blessed thiscountry and all for which it stands.

WHAT I AM is someone who knows, if you doubt miracles exist in today'sworld, you need only to look into the face of those who received them,and the eyes of those who give them.

WHAT I AM is an American who's proud that his President embraces abelief in God; proud of a President who understands, as "politicallyincorrect" as it may be, there is evil in this world and for thesecurity and safety of all freedom loving people everywhere, it mustbe confronted and it must be defeated.

WHAT I AM is an American who takes comfort in the knowledge that ourPresident refuses to allow decisions concerning the very safety andsecurity of this nation, to be governed by the political whims offoreign governments.

WHAT I AM is tired of hearing from leading Democrats who see onlynegativity in America; racism in her people, class warfare in hersociety and "political incorrectness" in her character.

WHAT I AM is a former democrat who now understands that it is thesoldier and not the reporter that guarantees us our freedoms of press,speech and dissent.

WHAT I AM is a man who believes in the sanctity of life, a man who isrepulsed by the pandering of the political left for votes, at theexpense of the unborn.

WHAT I AM is a husband and father who believes in the sanctity ofmarriage and the preservation of the family unit.

WHAT I AM is a movie go-er who is repulsed by those insecure, sociallyinept, elementary thinking, ego-inflated "entertainers" who haveappointed themselves "experts" in the fields of national security andgeo-politics and then use their forum to attack this nation, itsleaders and its actions, much to the delight and encouragement of ourenemies.

WHAT I AM is an American who understands the difference between"censorship" and "choice." Evidently, these individuals do not,because when these same "celebrities" receive public ridicule for their offensive actions, the first thing they yell is "Censorship!". What they seem incapable of understanding is that the right of freespeech and dissent is shared equally by those offended as well asthose who offend. I support and will continue to support those filmsand performers whom I choose to and refuse to support those I don't. It is my right as an American a right I will continue toenthusiastically exercise.

WHAT I AM is a voter, tired of politicians, who, every time theirvoting records are subjected to public scrutiny, try to divertattention from their political and legislative failures by accusingtheir opponents of "attack ads" and "negative campaigning" and thenews media who allow them to get away with it.

WHAT I AM is a Catholic who loves his God and his Faith, and who'sbeen taught to respect all religions whose teachings are based inlove, peace and charity. As such, I am embarrassed and ashamed ofthose individuals, in both private and public life, whose decisionsand actions are devoid of any sense of character or morals;individuals who are only driven by what's best for them - rather thanwhat's right - often times at the expense of many including ournational security.

WHAT I AM is a realist who understands that the terrorist attack thatmurdered hundreds of innocent Russian children could have occurredhere, in our heartland. That's why I sincerely believe America needsnow more than ever a President who sees with a clear and focusedvision and who speaks with a voice when heard by both friend and foealike, is understood, respected and believed.

WHAT I AM is eternally grateful to Ronald Reagan for having thebravery to speak out against Communism and the courage of hisconvictions in leading the fight to defeat it; and George W. Bush forthe vision, courage, conviction and leadership he has shown inAmerica's war on terrorism amidst both the constant and vicious,personal and political attacks both he and his family are made toendure.

WHAT I AM is a human being, full of numerous faults and failures, buta man nonetheless, who, though not always successful, has continuallystrived to do "what's right" instead of "what's easy". A man who ischallenging the religious leaders of all faiths, to not only preach totheir congregations the fundamentals of "what's right" and "what'swrong", but to also then hold them accountable for their actions inboth the public and private sectors.

WHAT I AM is disgusted with the Courts who, on one hand, call themurder of a pregnant woman a "double homicide" but then refer to theabortion of her baby as, "pro-choice."

WHAT I AM is someone deeply troubled by a political party whichembraces a candidate whose primary "leadership" qualities centeraround his protesting of the Vietnam war and his labeling thehonorable men and women who fought in it, (50,000 of whom gave theirlives in that action), as rapists, and war criminals. That samepolitical party then stepped forward this year to block the appearanceof a true Vietnam war hero, retired Admiral and former United StatesSenator, Jeremiah Denton, (a man who spent seven years and seventorturous months in a North Vietnam prison), from speaking before anopen session of the California legislature as part of that state's4th of July celebration. The reason Democrats gave for refusing toallow this American hero to speak before their state legislature wasbecause of the "conservative" nature of his views. As an American,that troubles me deeply, as well it should you. (Are you listeningMr. B?)

WHAT I AM is a man who feels the need to spend, ONE HUNDRED & FOURTHOUSAND SIX HUNDRED & FIFTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS ($104,655.60, taxpaid) of his own money, to purchase this advertisement, in order toset the story straight. Some may say this money would have been betterspent feeding the world's poor. At the risk of sounding self-serving,as an American and as a Republican, for the last six decades of mylife, I have done exactly that and more. Following the examples of myparents and grand parents, I have used my earnings to feed the poor,shelter the homeless, provide housing for the elderly and medical carefor the sick, and continue to do so, and I'm not alone in that work.

WHAT I AM is someone who is paying for this announcement, at my soleexpense, in hopes of opening the eyes of those led blindly by ill-informed elements of our great nation, who, through either ignorance, or malicious intent, repeatedly attack and belittle thoseof us who belong to a political party that holds true to the belief," the rights of the governed, exceed the power of the government". Forthose interested, I am speaking only as a tax- paying individual whois in no way associated with The Republican National Committee, norwith any of its directors, or delegates.

WHAT I AM is a man who understands, "the American way of life" is amessage of self-empowerment for all.

WHAT I AM is an American who is grateful that our nation gives each ofus the opportunity of self-determination and the right to benefit fromthe fruits of self achievement.

WHAT I AM is an American who wants to preserve that way of life forall who seek it.

WHAT I AM is blessed to be an American and proud to be Republican.

Dear Mr. --------,
This is not a full page ad to run in any newspaper or periodical. This is simply a response to an email forwarded by you that is such an affront to my belief system that it warrants a reply. I don't have $104,655.60 to run an ad. Had I that kind of expendable cash, I doubt very much that my ego would allow me to run an ad based solely on the assumption that people would not only care to read my personal manifesto, or that it would have such an effect as to influence anyone else's beliefs simply because I paid a pretty penny to have them printed. Surely there are better uses for 104,655.60 dollars.

What I am is a woman, an American, a Southerner, a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a Democrat.

What I am is the great granddaughter of immigrants who came to this country from both Germany and Ireland searching for exactly what I've been blessed with... safety, education, family, security, prosperity, freedom from oppression, and community. I am the fruit of my ancestors toil, and I try to live everyday earning the blessing that is the life I lead.

What I am is a homeowner. I bought my home, alone, at the age of 20. What I am is tired of the youth of this great nation being treated as second class citizens, as unworthy of an opinion, and belittled simply because of age. We are voters, we have a voice and our voices deserve equal volume.

What I am is a woman who grew up in Memphis, confronted with the remnants of racism everyday. I have seen the face of someone belittled because of thier skin color and that shame, that sunken heart is unacceptable in a country that claims the equality of all. I see a country that came together in brotherhood and unity after 9/11 that is now turning against each other. I see a country that is harboring old racisms and making them new again. I see a country that is being coached by it's leaders in how to hate.

What I am is a woman trying to work her way past the glass ceiling. What I am is a woman who in 2005 shouldn't even have to CONSIDER that the glass ceiling exists. What I am is sick and tired of women like me working just as hard, just as long, and just as well and still not getting treated equal to their male counterparts. I am just trying to make my way in this world.

What I am is a woman who believes that religion is personal, private, and not political fodder. What I am is disgusted with politicians using thier religion as a tool to divide and conquor. What I am is turned off by anyone who uses religion as a litmus test.

What I am is a woman so utterly incensed by our President using religion as a jingle, a catch phrase, a sound bite so as to appear like the 'everyman.' What I am is tired of our President using every oppportunity possible to wear his religion like the medal that he never earned.

What I am is a woman terrified by the fact that this great nation has become a nation of sheep, willing to follow a President simply because he and his spinners are adept at conjuring fear in the hearts of Americans. What I am is saddened by the jargon that has become mainstream, that the ideology of Evil is being used as a political ploy to accomplish the goals of the few, to the detrement of the many.

What I am is a woman unsurprised, sadly, that the jargon of "security and safety, spreading freedom around the world," was in fact a pack of lies. This march of freedom has secured the position of the formerly great United States of America as the worlds leader in torture, lies, evading international law, and inhumane treatment. In this country we used to believe that one is innocent until proven guilty. No longer. You are now more likely to be detained, shipped far away secretly, held for years without notice to your family, without the international right of legal representation, without being charged with a crime, tortured, your FAITH desecrated and either left to die, rot away in prison, or released without reason, apology or restitution. What I am is utterly incensed that this is being done in MY name, as an American. What I am left with is the tattoo of human rights abuser on my forehead while travelling abroad because of one man's personal vandetta.

What I am is appalled that this country was told lie after lie after lie that lead to the deaths of thousands of the brave men and women willing to put their life on the line for America. What I am is disgusted with the hypocracy of politics, willing to tar and feather a man for an affair, and unwilling to challange a man who gambled lives on a lie that he knew to be a lie.

What I am is a woman embarrassed by a President that patently refuses to read, to be informed, or to hear opinions that differ from his own. Differing opinions require listening skills and facts, neither of which seems to be important to this particular leader of the free world.

What I am is a woman tired of the Texas cowboy go-it-alone attitute that is rapidly leaving this great nation exactly there.... alone. This President has squandered international sympathy and support and traded it for international hatred of our "my way or the highway" attitude with our equals, our friends, our partners in this world. What I am is a woman terrified by the knowledge that our President refuses to allow for a well thought out plan when making any decisions concerning the very safety and security of this nation.

What I am is a Democrat tired of being painted as the 'other' party. What I want is clean air to breathe, good schools for my future children to attend and a hightened importance on education, not to be treated as a pariah in this world because of my President's decisions, a good job, a secure future, heath care for all, to ease the suffering of the sick and the poor, and for my children's children to experience what the untouched wild looks and sounds like.

What I am is a Democrat wholly disgusted with the media as a whole. It is not soldiers who fight for freedom of the press, it's the people who no longer realize that THEY do. We the people have to fight for our rights and the longer we roll over and allow them to be compromised, the sooner we will forget that we ever had the freedom or the right of privacy, when a court couldn't look at our medical records or library cards using the excuse of fear to peddle invasion.
What I am is a woman sicked with the thought that any man in Washington DC, or any man anywhere for that matter, believes that he has the right to have any opinion on what I do with my body. What I am is a woman waiting for my pharmacist to refuse to fill my birth-control prescription because it goes against his beliefs... that, my friend, will be the day. I wonder What I am is a woman that wonders what makes you think you have any right to make a law that determines my rights to my own body. What I am is a woman saddened that this is once again an issue; whether or not we are equal to men, and capable of making our own decisions. My body, my choice. No one is gets an opinion.

What I am is a woman enraged by the idea that a court can force a rape victim to carry a pregnancy to term because 'abortion is murder.' Rape is a crime. Abortion is a very hard choice and not one that anyone else can make for you. I am disgusted with a man who is willing to send thousands to their deaths under the guise of spreading freedom while witholding those freedoms from the very people those deaths were to protect.

What I am is a woman who believes that love is a gift that we all hope to recieve and that that gift does no harm to the sanctity of anything. What I fail to understand is how love shared harms anyone or anything. What I do understand is discrimination based on ignorance and the inablity to live and let live. Who I know are loving, caring gay couples who do a better job than most in raising loving, respectful, thinking, and contributing children. How that reflects poorly on the 'family unit' is beyond me.

What I am is a voter that doesn't trust our voting procedures. Until every single vote counts, we are not a democracy. What I intend to do is continue to fight for voting rights and the transparency of voting processes.

What I am is an American who believes the war on terror is a farce, propagated as a free ticket for the President to do what he wants, when he wants, without fact, reason, or accountablity. What I am is an American fearful of the repercussions of such bravado. Terrorism is real. Any ties between Saddam Hussein, Iraq and 9/11 are not. Any claims that this war was justified because of phantom weapons and false fear only solidify our fate and doom us to further horror on our own soil.

What I am is a woman unwilling to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars to prop up my own ego. What I will do is spread this email far and wide in the hopes of garnering an equal amount of donations in the name of actually spreading freedom and truth. What I hope is that Mr. Esseff Jr. takes a long hard look at who he believes to be his oppressors, his enemies and sees an equal instead; an equal who also believes in rights and freedoms... but for all, rather than a select few.

I too am blessed to be an American. I hope my children can say the same.

Wrapped in a blanket of lies

2005-06-29T14:01:00.000-06:00

Remember the election cycle? All KINDS of rhetoric about "A vote for Kerry is a vote for terrorism; that's exactly what terrorists want"? And, and, and, remember all this, we're spreading democracy throughout the middle east, OUR actions will make the world a safer place.

Not so much.

First, two French reporters who were held hostage in Iraq were given the opportunity to interview thier captors prior to their escape. You know what they found out? Exactly the opposite was true. The terrorists WANTED George re-elected, knowing that he would never back down in Iraq, knowing that he would "radicalize" the Iraqi's.

The cell leader trained with terror leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and told them the insurgents supported a Bush presidency because they believed it meant that "there will be confrontation, occupation and radicalization of the Iraqi people," Malbrunot said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1119925651865

Second, the claim about how wonderful this war would be for the world... not quite.

From the Defence Science Board report to the Pentagon, November, 2004:
The Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the "self-serving hypocrisy" of George W Bush's administration over the Middle East.

That's from the PENTAGON.
What'd I say yesterday... a crack in the dam? My feet are getting wet.

http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2005/6/28/19848/8612

There's a crack in the dam

2005-06-28T14:47:00.000-06:00

Run, honey. It's about to burst.

The BBC reports today what it can only claim at this point as rumors of a detention BOAT hanging out in the Indian Ocean.

You see... They filled up Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib was a bit too close to the enemy, and those secret flights to, let's say, more torture-cooperative countries we no longer so secret so... where else could the US stash people, without international watch-dog knowledge and get away with it?

Floating prisons, with no jurisdiction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4632087.stm

Remember that scene in the first Indiana Jones movie when he's in the temple, running from the giant rolling ball behind him? I'm no cartoonist, but I see it.
Bush, decked out in the Indiana gear, hat and all, whip lashed to his belt, running for dear life in front of a ball of shit of his own making. Guantanamo and Bolton and Social Security, OH MY.

Run.

Terrorist Grannies

2005-06-28T09:37:00.000-06:00

This is no way to start a day. Found this on Kos this morning:

"That rainy Sunday, the protest organized by Gold Star Families for Peace, Raging Grannies and CodePink, drew about three-dozen supporters.
Guard spokesman Zezotarksi said that the monitoring did not involve anything more than keeping tabs on the protest through the media and that no one went to observe the demonstration.
But he said the military would be ''negligent'' in not tracking such anti-war rallies in the event that they disintegrate into a riot that could prompt the governor to call out troops.
''It's nothing subversive,'' said Zezotarksi. ''Because who knows who could infiltrate that type of group and try to stir something up? After all, we live in the age of terrorism, so who knows?''
Civil libertarians scoffed at such defenses."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/27/235434/951

Via the Mercury News.

This was a Mother's Day rally attended by the mothers, grannies and families of soldiers killed in Iraq. A rally. A protest. By the greaving families of killed soldiers.
Naturally, it's a security threat.
Good Lord, what are we coming to?
Well... as the man said, we live in an age of terrorism, so WHO KNOWS!?

Far too many

2005-06-27T15:55:00.000-06:00

I was going to write about the (not so new, but now confirmed) "massive secret bombing campaign" prior to the actual start of the war in Iraq...
http://www.rawstory.com/ (sources for this are everywhere, open a paper, go to CNN.com, it hit today and it's not subtle.)

So, I was going to write about this and the obvious outrage the wells up in my gut and the obvious and already-done comparison to this and the bucket-full of lies that we were told by our leaders to land us in the muck that we're in, to the lies that lead to.... a stained blue dress and the pure idiocy of it all....
and then I found this, via TruthOut (as usual, thanks)
Somehow it's just different when you SEE it... pay particular attention to the last 3-4 months. Is it me, or did the flashes and the clicks increase in intensity and frequency? Check it out, only takes a minute or two. Worth it. Trust me.

http://www.obleek.com/iraq/index.html

Remember Reality?

2005-06-23T11:12:00.000-06:00

Ya know, before the world turned upside down and truth was truth and lies were just that, outright lies? Pine away for those times friends, they no longer exsist.

I'm not sure when this happened, I'm guessing either yesterday or last night, based on the shit storm that's brewing today.

The master puppetier, Mr. Rove, made these remarks at a dinner in New York:

NEW YORK - Speaking in a Manhattan ballroom just a few miles north of ground zero, Karl Rove said on Wednesday night that the Democratic party did not understand the consequences of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."
Rove, President Bush's chief political advisor, spoke at the state Conservative Party's annual dinner. He praised the conservative movement's success, calling it "the guiding philosophy for the White House, the Senate, the House."
Rove said the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for "moderation and restraint" after the terrorist attacks.
"Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies."
Rove also denounced Sen. Dick Durbin's comments comparing interrogation at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to the methods of Nazis and other repressive regimes. He said the statements have been broadcast throughout the Middle East, putting American troops in greater danger. Durbin has since apologized for the remarks."

I'll leave Durbin out of this for now... he's an idiot for backing down.
Here's the problem(s).

First of all, what the hell is this therapy and understanding for our attackers, crap? As I recall, this country came together, as it hadn't in, well, my lifetime anyway. Flags (which you now can't burn, by the way) were EVERYWHERE. People were KIND to one another...even on the streets.... people would let you (gasp) change lanes without giving you the bird. Even I, not a fan of W even then, was mildly proud that he was our President at the time. Standing on that smoking mound of hell in New York, he pulled us together... I don't remember partisan behavior AT ALL post-9/11. So, what is this therapy for the attackers crap? We were all looking into THERAPY FOR THE WOUNDED, THE SURVIVORS, and most of all for NEW YORKERS who had bared the brunt of the shock that came with this attack.

Ok, so, Rove's on crack with that one. What's next? Conservatives... ah yes.... PREPARED FOR WAR. Good thing too... we wanted "Osama, dead or alive." The campaign in Afganistan started, and yea, as memory serves, we AMERICANS (not one party or the other, mind you) were behind it. THIS was the man who organized this attack, THIS was the group who wanted to do us further harm... after him we go... but then... but then there was Iraq. Ah, yes, back to the Conservatives... MORE WAR... one war, the one we're SUPPOSED TO BE FIGHTING, in retaliation for 9/11, wasn't enough. There were grudges to level, old wounds and a convenient opportunity for the American public to be fooled, frightened into further WAR. We were scared. This was unprecidented and we were all scared of what and when the next thing would be. So, W sent Powell, a man for whom I STILL have a great deal of respect, in to the UN to illicit gasps and fear and fists on the table over those WMD's (tired of hearing those letters yet?). I remember, I stayed home to watch it. Mobile weapons labs, YELLOW CAKE from Niger, aluminum tubes.... it was all too much, and it SEEMED plausible. But right there with it came the slimy beginnings of the slippery slope towards lumping Iraq and Al-Qaida together. It happened quietly, but it happened and it was NOT the liberals that did it. It was the Conservatives that convinced you, dear fellow American of mine that these two intities were one in the same. NOT SO.
They prepared for war alright. They built Guantanamo LONG before they started even mentioning Iraq in public. BUILT IT. Ready to go. Off our soil and immune to our own rules of interrogation. (NOT immune as I hope to see in the near future, to INTERNATIONAL laws.)

I'm going to skip ahead a bit now, but I'll return to what I think is the most interesting of this little statement.

Rove then says, Democrats wanted to understand out enemies. Guess why, Karl? BECAUSE IF WE HAD A DAMNED CLUE WHAT IRAQI'S WANTED, what they were about, what they believe, how their religion works, what RESPECT is, what their belief systems are then perhaps WE WOULDN'T BE FIGHTING AN INNER WAR WITH THE PEOPLE WHOM W WANTED SO DESPERATELY TO "FREE" FROM TYRRANY. If we had a PLAN about this war, how to fight it, how to WIN, not the war but the trust of the people, and a way to get out, we wouldn't be where we are right now. And I think more Americans are getting the idea... you've seen the polls.... we're not happy about what's going on in our name, and we're NOT ok with sending any more of our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles to fight for... what was that again? Revenge is all I can come up with anymore. So, yea, Karl, SOME of us thought perhaps we ought to sit down and consider where we were about to go and who was there before we unleashed holy hell upon a nation. I don't know, call me crazy, but it seems like a pretty decent idea, no?

Last but not least, Karl said he was proud of Conservatives... leading the way and, what was that, providing a guiding philosopy? Oh, Karl. You silly silly man.
What leading philosophy is that? The one where Big Bird is the enemy? Torture, rape, murder, all in the name of BAD intellegence is simply ok, or better yet JUSTIFIED? The Philosophy of No Privacy? Because if you've got nothing to hide then the government has every right to look through your medical records, find out what books you read, deny you access to public, TAX PAYER events because you MIGHT have a differing opinion, and to deny you your BIRTH CONTROL because pharmacists have the religious authority over YOUR body... right? That philosophy.?
No thanks Karl. Back to reality for me... you're world is a bit to scary... it wavers in the light of truth and vaporizes with scrutiny.

The Timeline

2005-06-13T14:41:00.000-06:00

How did we end up in Iraq?

It's all here.

Every. Last. Shred.

http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/muriel/path_of_war_timeline_613.htm

Many thanks to RawStory for this.

Hindsight and all that

2005-06-13T11:33:00.000-06:00

Wow.
I sure wish Howard Dean had been our candidate. Which brings up a few feelings in me about our primary process, and the media's roll in that process, particularly this last go 'round... but I'll save that for another day.

Today I want to point towards Mr. Dean's unrelenting pressure on the GOP, and how grateful Dems are, and should be, that someone other than Louise Slaughter and John Conyers are stepping up to do battle with the Dark Side.

Dean this weekend, when asked to respond to some particularly childish rhetoric spewing from Darth Cheney ("he's not the kind of guy I would want running MY party")
Dean responded:

"My view is that Fox News is a propaganda outlet of the Republican Party and that I don't comment on Fox News."

The response drew applause from the room.

Damn right it did.

All hail Howard Dean, the man who finally stepped up and not only bit a chunck out of Cheney's hide, but barked at the MSM as well.
Good lord, it's about time. We're frothing at the mouth, Howard, and we're right behind you. Keep it up.

If you want to support Mr. Dean and his efforts please sign this petition stating that indeed, Howard Dean speaks for ME.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Dean/petition.html

Things are starting to happen

2005-06-10T09:59:00.000-06:00

Back from Arizona. Two weddings down, one to go (my own) so, my attention will be mostly elsewhere for the next month. Thereafter I plan on spending renewed energy here. This is an important practice for me, and I enjoy it. Plus, ePluribusMedia has lit a fire under me and I can't wait to be more involved.

That said, good things are starting to happen.

Mr. Conyers is going to get his hearing, next Thursday the 16th re: the Downing Street Minutes.

Bolton is still on the fence and the Dems aren't budging.

Bush's approval ratings continue to sink.

The Social Security idea is all but in the gutter.

Dean grew a pair and called a spade a spade.

It's starting to happen... hurricane season is upon us and oh, the winds are starting to blow.

Gone

2005-06-01T16:43:00.000-06:00

Sorry to all who are lovely enough to check in here regularly. I'm off for Arizona tomorrow for my sister-in-law's wedding and won't be back until middle of next week.

In the meantime, make sure that you've signed John Conyer's petition (below) and sent it to EVERYONE you know.

Peace.

Sign this, sign it now, and send it to everyone you know (Please)

2005-05-27T15:08:00.000-06:00

The most honerable Representative John Conyers has once again gone to bat for what is right for this country. The TRUTH from this administration.

Please go to his website (link to follow) and sign his petition asking that Mr. Bush and his cabal answer a few simple questions about what we were told in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

We are his boss, not the other way around. That's how a democracy works. Perhaps it's time we remind him of that.

http://www.johnconyers.campaignoffice.com/index.asp?Type=SUPERFORMS&SEC={0F1B03E0-080B-4100-B143-36A5985EF1E3}

thanks one and all, don't forget to pass it around.

On a personal note, I'm out for the extended weekend... flash wedding in Chicago. See you all soon.

We make the rules, we don't follow them

2005-05-25T11:01:00.000-06:00

Amnesty International's 2005 Annual Report is out today.

The United States of America FAILED, miserably I might add, to follow any international rules of law.

Shocker, I know. But this is serious.

It's not ok that we still have hundreds of 'detainees' in a prison in Cuba that have been there for YEARS, without being charged with a crime, allowed to see a lawer, are being tortured and photographed.
Furthermore, it's not only not ok, it is ILLEGAL. What we've been doing, and continue to do is "in violation of international law." Why do you think Bush wants a thug, a bully, and a liar to be our representative to the UN? Bush and company have no respect for international law, international government, or international relations. They do not like following anyone else's rules, they'd much rather make them up for themselves.

"The U.S. government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Convention and to 're-define' torture," she said, citing the secret detention of suspects and the practice of handing some over to countries where torture was not outlawed.
U.S. President George W. Bush often said his country was founded on and dedicated to the cause of human dignity -- but there was a gulf between rhetoric and reality, Amnesty found.
"During his first term in office, the USA proved to be far from the global human rights champion it proclaimed itself to be," the report said, citing Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay."

You see... they spend all this time, air time to be exact, proclaiming us, the US, to be the world leader. Not "A" world leader. THE world leader... bringing freedom to oppressed people (with oil) everywhere. How much do you think Bush really knows about what's going on in Dafur right now? That's what I thought. Luckily, Amnesty doesn't just blame us for this; "the abject failure of the international community to take concerted action to end the slaughter in Sudan's vast Darfur region was a cause of shame."

But I digress... we were talking about breaking international law over our knee....

Yesterday I read a story on TruthOut. Not a new story, really, and certainly not the only of it's kind. Two AMERICAN citizens of Pakistani descent, were abducted (NOT arrested, abducted from their home) in August 2004, and released nearly a year later with no charges.

"They said they had come from the "agencies" and that this was a "raid." They tied my hands, entered the house and handcuffed my brother. They also broke things in the house. They asked for all our U.S identity papers--passports, social security number, driver's licenses and so on. For this purpose, they untied our hands so we could fetch them. They also took a licensed gun from our home. We kept asking what was going on but we got no answer. When my mother asked they said we would be back in a day or so."

A day or so. Can you imagine? Your sons, your brothers, your father goes missing, poof, without a trace, no one willing to give you answers, for nearly a year? And these are AMERICAN CITIZENS. These are not 'insurgents', not 'rebels', not Taliban... AMERICANS.

Just weeks before they were finally released, with no evidence of any involvement in any sort of crime, one brother recalls telling an FBI agent this:
"If you think we are guilty of a crime please charge us in court or release us. I pointed out that my brother was very ill. They said "we are the court."

This is what I believe to be the crux of the problem. Bush and friends don't follow law, international or otherwise. They believe themselves to BE the law. Why do you think they hold such contempt for the courts, for 'activist judges' (ie, judges that base their decision on LAW rather than political affiliation), for groups like the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and all the other whistle blowers who are red in the face from blowing the whistle on US? They don't answer to anyone, we all answer to them.

Cue show-down, Western movie whistle... The wild wild west has marched in to Washington and taken over. They don't need no stinking badges... they have 'mandate.' That trumps law.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052505Y.shtml

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052405Y.shtml

Self Explanitory

2005-05-24T14:56:00.000-06:00

Yep. He said it himself. Propaganda.

"See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/assets/pdf/A23962524.PDF

Directly quoted from Remarks made today at a "Social Security EVENT" in Rochester NY. Event.

Say again, sir....

PROPAGANDA.

thank you.

Frankenfood

2005-05-23T12:19:00.000-06:00

Happy Monday, indeed. England has long had better, and more strict disclosure laws about Genetically Modified (GM) foods. They require all GM foods to be labeled as such (far as I know, anyway)

America has put no such restrictions in place. Again, as far as I know, you are eating GM corn in your store-bought taco shells (I'm so glad I fry my own).
This study, released today gives GREAT PAUSE in the GM hype. These foods, as it turns out, really aren't OK to eat. More study is needed, indeed, but are you willing to take this risk?

Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.
The Independent on Sunday can today reveal details of secret research carried out by Monsanto, the GM food giant, which shows that rats fed the modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood.
According to the confidential 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from another batch of rodents fed non-GM food as part of the research project.

Fabulous, I'd love to know more... what kind of blood problems are we talking about here??

The disclosures come as European countries, including Britain, prepare to vote on whether the GM-modified corn should go on sale to the public. A vote last week by the European Union failed to secure agreement over whether the product should be sold here, after Britain and nine other countries voted in favour.

However, the disclosure of the health effects on the Monsanto rats has intensified the row over whether the corn is safe to eat without further research. Doctors said the changes in the blood of the rodents could indicate that the rat's immune system had been damaged or that a disorder such as a tumour had grown and the system was mobilising to fight it.
Dr Vyvyan Howard, a senior lecturer on human anatomy and cell biology at Liverpool University, called for the publication of the full study, saying the summary gave "prima facie cause for concern".

Dr Michael Antoniu, an expert in molecular genetics at Guy's Hospital Medical School, described the findings as "very worrying from a medical point of view", adding: "I have been amazed at the number of significant differences they found [in the rat experiment]."

Very worrying, indeed. FROM AN EXPERT IN MOLECULAR GENETICS. I'm going to go out on a limb here and take his word for it, rather than Monsanto's... how 'bout you?

Although Monsanto last night dismissed the abnormalities in rats as meaningless and due to chance, reflecting normal variations between rats, a senior British government source said ministers were so worried by the findings that they had called for further information.
Environmentalists will see the findings as vindication of British research seven years ago, which suggested that rats that ate GM potatoes suffered damage to their health. That research, which was roundly denounced by ministers and the British scientific establishment, was halted and Dr Arpad Pusztai, the scientist behind the controversial findings, was forced into retirement amid a huge row over the claim.

Dr Pusztai reported a "huge list of significant differences" between rats fed GM and conventional corn, saying the results strongly indicate that eating significant amounts of it can damage health. The new study is into a corn, codenamed MON 863, which has been modified by Monsanto to protect itself against corn rootworm, which the company describes as "one of the most pernicious pests affecting maize crops around the world".

oy.

Now, however, any decision to allow the corn to be marketed in the UK will cause widespread alarm. The full details of the rat research are included in the main report, which Monsanto refuses to release on the grounds that "it contains confidential business information which could be of commercial use to our competitors".

A Monsanto spokesman said yesterday: "If any such well-known anti-biotech critics had doubts about the credibility of these studies they should have raised them with the regulators. After all, MON 863 isn't new, having been approved to be as safe as conventional maize by nine other global authorities since 2003."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=640430

Good News Friday

2005-05-20T14:50:00.000-06:00

Portugal will get the world's first 'wave farm' in 2006.

What is a wave farm, you ask? A hell of a good idea. A wave farm uses natural wave undulation to generate electricity. 400 foot long cylinders that float off shore use the up, down and sideways sloshing of the ocean to pump high pressure fluids into hydraulic motors that, in turn, produce energy in generators.

The first phase, three generators, will produce enough electricity for 1,500 homes. More are planned WHEN (rather than if) this first phase proves successfull.

Way to go, Portugal. This is such a great idea, and exactly the kind of innovation we need to be putting our investments and energies into. Imagine... no power plants, no sexy clean coal (see below), no nuclear power plants... wave farms off shore, wind farms and solar farms rather than spewing toxic waste into our air, our water, our lungs and our bodies.

What a wonderful world it would be...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/05/20/norway.wave.power.ap/index.html

Lies, lies, and damned lies.

2005-05-19T10:54:00.000-06:00

It's time I put my foot in the filibuster water.

Thanks to Media Matters for making it abundantly clear how this game is being played.

The top ten filibuster lies... ahem... 'falsehoods' (PS, if the media had the cahones to call it what it is, ie, a LIE then we wouldn't be the idiot media consumers that we continue to be.. oh sure, Iraq had EVERYTHING to do with 9/11... but I digress- here come a few of the whoppers) :

Falsehood #1: Democrats' filibuster of Bush nominees is "unprecedented"

The most prevalent talking point put forth by advocates of the "nuclear option" is that Democratic filibusters of 10 of President Bush's judicial nominees are "unprecedented" in American history.
But Republicans initiated a filibuster against a judicial nominee in 1968, forcing Democratic president Lyndon Johnson to withdraw the nomination of Associate Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas to be chief justice. Then-Sen. Robert Griffin (R-MI) recognized at the time that denying nominees a vote was already an established practice.

Cloture votes were also necessary to obtain floor votes on Clinton judicial nominees Richard A. Paez and Marsha L. Berzon in 2000, and Republicans attempted to filibuster the nomination of U.S. District Judge H. Lee Sarokin to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1994. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), who is leading the Republican opposition to Democratic filibusters, voted against cloture for the Paez nomination.
And these are merely instances when Republicans filibustered Democratic presidents' judicial nominees. The Republican-controlled Senate blocked approximately 60 Clinton nominees through other means. This included strict enforcement under Clinton of the "blue slip" policy, which at the time allowed a senator from a nominee's home state to block a nominee simply by failing to turn in the blue-colored approval papers required for the nomination process. While Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) strictly adhered to the "blue slip" policy to allow Republicans to block Clinton nominees, he relaxed the policy nearly to the point of elimination in his efforts to push through Bush's nominees.

Falsehood #4: "Nuclear Option" is a Democratic term
Following the Republicans' lead, many major media outlets have attributed the term "nuclear option" as a creation of Senate Democrats. In fact, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), one of the proposed measures' leading advocates, actually coined the term.

This one really gets my goat. LOTT coined the term... and then Frist has the nerve to say Dems did. We are definately NOT in Kansas any more...

Falsehood #10: Democrats have opposed "all" or "most" of Bush's judicial nominees
"Nuclear option" proponents have drastically exaggerated Democratic efforts to block Bush's judicial nominees, suggesting that they have opposed all of his nominees or all of his conservative nominees.
In fact, the Senate has to date approved 208 judicial nominees, with Senate Democrats filibustering 10. The vast majority of Bush's nominees have received strong bipartisan support. For example, in April district court nominee Paul Crotty was confirmed by a vote of 95-0. Even among Bush's first-term appellate nominees, the Senate confirmed more than 70 percent.

10. Just ten that Dems don't like because those 10 judges cannot set aside their personal ideologies long enough to do their jobs without bias or influence.
10. Out of 218, only 10.
I keep thinking of children on a playground... Frist is playing like a 3 year old who just can't get his way... stomping his feet and whining and changing the rules of hide and seek so he always wins. "Well, sure, YOU got caught, but because I was hiding behind an OAK tree, my getting found doesn't count... do over."

Furthermore, and I've said this in a few different places, I wish that Boxer or Conyers, or even Salazar or Reid would get thier faces on every blathering talking head cable non-stop non-news show and hammer away at the fact that they have been trying to deal for WEEKS on these nominees.
THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TRIED TO COMPROMISE. REPEATEDLY.

Frist won't have it. He wants all or nothing and that's just NOT how things work in congress. Or better put, perhaps... If that's the way he wants to play, then I don't want to hear one more word out of Frist that sounds like "obstructionist." Who's obstructing progress now, huh, Billy?

Huh? Huh?

I call a do-over.

Sexy Coal

2005-05-16T10:30:00.000-06:00

There's plenty going on today... major protests in Afganistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere over Newsweek's allegation of flushing a Qu'ran down a toilet at Guantanamo... The 'nuclear option' still looms, and Bolton's up for a vote this week. So, this is a bit off topic but it immediately struck me as something worth discussing.

Last night I saw a commercial. One of those that takes 28 seconds for the reveal of what's being sold. It's a coal mine with Merle Travis' Sixteen Tons playing in the background. But... this is no ordinary coal mine... you don't see MINING so much as you see gleaming muscles... then women... LOTS of women and all of THEIR gleaming muscles (and perfect hair and perfectly smudged "I've been working in a coal mine" make-up). That's what caught me first.

Being a woman, I don't want to detract from all the women who I'm quite sure ARE coal miners, but what are the numbers, people? How many women are there REALLY? This mine must have been special because as the seconds ticked by, there were more and more sexy and scantily clad women. That's when my brain kicked in and asked, "what the hell are they selling?"

Clean Coal.

My jaw dropped. GE is selling clean coal with sex. Yes, that's a neatly packaged point of view, wrapped in a bow, but that's what this is. Sexy women, sweating and shoveling coal and giving that oh-so-demure, pouty look to the camera and the last two seconds or so is the punch. GE. Bringing you the energy of the future.

I'm sorry, but there are BETTER energy technologies out there but "clean coal" is Bush's pet (goat) so, GE steped up to bat with a sexy coal ad.

Ew. I feel dirty.

Then, I heard this morning, Mr. POTUS himself will be at a biofuel plant (in South Carolina?) to see how soybeans are being turned into viable fuel... so that he can pressure the passage of his 'energy' bill.

Am I nuts? Is it just me or does this all seem so backwards?

Thanks to Adrants for a little extra info and a still of one of those sexy miners.
http://www.adrants.com/2005/05/perfect-bodied-coal-miners-strike-a-pose.php

If you build it...

2005-05-12T16:25:00.000-06:00

I have to take this from Keith Olbermann of Countdown on MSNBC. I've already written him my thanks...

This is the most wonderfully poignant memorial of 9/11 that I've heard.

"I’d use the original blueprints and design the “new” Trade Center exactly as it had been. But I’d insist that one of the towers be exactly 229 feet, four inches shorter than the other. It’s an uncomplicated gimmick to guarantee remembrance. Because, as long as these new towers would stand, someone unaware would ask, “why is one of them shorter than the other?”
Whereupon an old-timer could explain, solemnly, that the difference between the heights of the towers is intentional - it’s exactly 2,752 inches.

One inch for each of the victims.

It’s all the memorial we really need."

I agree Keith. Thank you.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

A Double Failure

2005-05-11T16:23:00.000-06:00

Every time I think it just can't possibly get any worse, it does.

Yesterday I wrote about our double standard when it comes to nuclear weapons. Several weeks ago I posted about what a complete atrocity of a human being John Bolton is.

Today, how wonderful, the two become intertwined.

Mr. Bolton, set to be voted on tomorrow (and there's still no guarantee that he'll pass the test, especially after this bombshell- no pun intended), wants to be a bigger player in the diplomatic chess game that is the UN. What is his current job? Undersecretary of State for arms control. Which would mean that he should have quite a bit to do with that nonproliferation conference going on in New York right now, right? Well... it would if he had any interest in actually doing his job. Why would he want to do that....

This, from Newsweek, via TruthOut:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051105W.shtml

There is a loophole in the current non-proliferation treaty that allows countries (like Iran) to enrich uranium for energy purposes. That loophole needs to be closed, according to Bush in a Feb 2004 Speech, and backed up a month later by Bolton himself in a speech to congress.

"But if the NPT needed so much fixing under US leadership, why was the United States so shockingly unprepared when the treaty came up for its five-year review at a major conference in New York this month, in the view of many delegates? And why has the United States been losing control of the conference’s agenda this week to Iran and other countries—a potentially serious setback to US efforts to isolate Tehran?"

"Since last fall Bolton, Bush’s embattled nominee to be America’s ambassador to the United Nations, has aggressively lobbied for a senior job in the second Bush administration. During that time, Bolton did almost no diplomatic groundwork for the NPT conference, these officials say.
"John was absent without leave" when it came to implementing the agenda that the president laid out in his February 2004 speech, a former senior Bush official declares flatly. Another former government official with experience in nonproliferation agrees. "Everyone knew the conference was coming and that it would be contentious. But Bolton stopped all diplomacy on this six months ago," this official said. "The White House and the National Security Council started worrying, wondering what was going on. So a few months ago the NSC had to step in and get things going themselves."

Why does this man deserve a government job AT ALL, more or less the top diplomatic position in our government? He apparently has no interest in doing his current job, so does that really merrit what is basically a promotion? Let's see...

"Bolton, for instance, often takes and is given credit for the administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative—an agreement to interdict suspected WMD shipments on the high seas—and the deal to dismantle Libya’s nuclear program (a deal that Bolton had sought to block). But the former senior Bush official who criticized Bolton’s performance on the NPT conference says that in fact Bolton’s successor, Robert Joseph, deserves most of the credit for those achievements. This official adds that it was Joseph, who was in charge of counterproliferation at the NSC, who had to pitch in when Bolton fumbled preparations for the NPT conference, as well. Bush, in his February 2004 speech, also sought to give new powers to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which enforces the treaty. But Bolton, says the former Bush official, "focused much more time and attention trying to deny Mohammed elBaradei a third term" as head of the IAEA. The effort failed, and it was considered another international humiliation for the United States. (Ironically, elBaradei has been one of Washington’s chief allies at the NPT conference, pushing for parts of the Bush agenda.)"

If you have not already, it is calling and writing time. Bolton's vote is tomorrow. If we send in this man to be our representative to the WORLD GOVERNMENTS we will all suffer humiliation, failed diplomacy in a time when we are sorely in need of some international support, and most frighteningly, we run the risk of further nuclear proliferation. That's something Bush himself SAYS he won't tolerate. Let's make sure he doesn't have to, eh?

P.S.

2005-05-10T15:16:00.000-06:00

Two little whispers today.

You know, you can comment back on any and every story I write, right? I'd love the feedback, or better yet, a bit of a conversation.

Second, I do have a day job (shhhh, don't tell) so, some days I get more on here than others.

Thanks for reading, one and all.

Now, y'all come back now, ya hear?

The Real Nuclear Option

2005-05-10T09:46:00.000-06:00

Yes, the debate in the senate over pulling the filibuster is serious business (if you don't know that it's being called the 'nuclear option' go find another blog), but that's not what I'm talking about at the moment.

I got a few ruffled feathers over last Friday's Funny. I still think it's hilarious, but I understand why jokes, or cartoons, about global nuclear winter are not funny. My point was, if I can't manage to laugh at something that was obviously made tongue-in-cheek with an intended sense of humor, I would quickly descend into rage filled, screaming, ranting, apoplectic madness.

So, in the attempt to bring light to a VERY serious topic, one deserving of more attention, and certainly one deserving of our voices raised, our letters written, our prayers said... here are a few notes on the real nuclear options of today.

From Truthout, First:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050905L.shtml

"Representatives of nearly 190 countries are currently meeting in New York to discuss ways of strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It's a shame that neither President Bush nor Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice can find time to attend."

No shit. A damn shame. Bush is on a field trip... Condi couldn't go????

My first "political action" was writing a letter at the age of about 14, I believe to the first President Bush, urging him to attend the global environmental conference. What made me think of that was the importance of our leadership, as a nation, in matters such as this.
If Jr.'s going to stand up in Georgia, in Russia, around the world and here at home and blather about spreading freedom and democracy around the world under our great flag, then I believe that there are a few more issues that we should be leading the world on.

NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION IS ONE OF THEM.

Or as the NYT, via TruthOut puts it:

"Nuclear proliferation is the pre-eminent national security issue of our times."

Rather than being a leader, we are tearing up the treaty, thumbing our noses at the international community, and threatening Iran and North Korea if they try to follow our footsteps. We are the bad children in the sandbox who refuse to play by the rules, but demand that everyone else does.

"Washington needs to lead the way in shoring up the basic bargain that underlies the treaty. The major nuclear weapons states committed themselves to reduce their own stockpiles significantly in exchange for nonnuclear states' renouncing the ambition of joining their ranks.

Demonstrating good faith on that score will not be so easy for an administration that has torn up the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, frozen ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and talks darkly about designing new and improved nuclear bombs. But it is absolutely essential if nonnuclear countries are to stay committed to their side of the bargain. And whatever hope remains of walking back the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs is not helped by American talk of developing more usable nuclear weapons."

I urge you to write your representatives, your congress men and women, your senators, your newspapers, all newspapers, any and everyone you feel like writing today and beg for some attention for this matter. Ask why we are not leading the world in non-proliferation, but rather upping the ante and challenging the world to meet us on the other side of a nuclear stand off.

Friday Fun

2005-05-06T09:34:00.000-06:00

This is freaking hilarious.

http://www.big-boys.com/articles/eow.html

(click start when the screen comes up, on the bottom right)

Where'd 4% come from?

2005-05-04T16:15:00.000-06:00

I am:
4%
Republican.

"You're a complete liberal, utterly without a trace of Republicanism. Your strength is as the strength of ten because your heart is pure. (You hope.)"

Are You A Republican?

Plea's

2005-05-04T14:36:00.000-06:00

Or PLEASE

Private Lyndie England changed her plea to not guilty in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Kossaks are wondering what the next step is, and I can't help but wonder, does this open the door for higher-ups to be charged?

This is what caught my eye, from CNN (http://www.cnn.com/)

"The female soldier at the center of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, Pfc. Lynndie England, today changed her plea to not guilty after a judge ruled she could could not plead guilty and have witnesses tell the sentencing jury she was only following orders. The judge declared a mistrial and prosecutors will now decide whether to refile charges."

So... logic would have me believe that if she was only following orders, then someone else, higher up, was responsible for those orders, therefore, someone else is liable, and must stand trial.

Follow me here...
She was put on trial because what happened was WRONG. She pleaded guilty. Witnesses testified that she was only following orders and therefore, NOT guilty. The judge ordered that she could not plead guilty AND accept testimony that claimed she was innocent due to her following orders. If those orders were WRONG, and were the cause of what transpired then whoever issued those orders should have to stand trial for the illegality of those orders.

right?

Missing Nanny

2005-05-03T15:35:00.000-06:00

I read this article today on Salon http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/05/03/ollivier/index.html
(click on free day pass, watch 30 second commercial, click enter Salon, bingo, story)

about a woman and the nanny of her two children, the struggles she had with letting her nanny love and discipline them and the jealousy she was surprised to feel when they loved each other. I don't know if my mother had similar concerns or conflicts. But having been a child with a Nanny, and a lifetime of wonderful stories and memories of her, I felt compelled to write a letter to the editor of Salon about my experiences with Nanny. It is a brief note, intended for publication as a letter to the editor so keep that in mind as you read, because I truly could write a book about my life with Nanny...

I was a child raised by a nanny. My mother was quite young when she had me, and nary three years later had my twin brothers. Even though she was a stay at home mom, a mother of epic proportions at that, she needed help with three little ones running around.
Nanny was not hispanic, as so many are these days, but wonderfully African American. I didn't get fresh tortillas but fried chicken, collard greens, poke (picked fresh from the yard), and chitlins cooked especially for Sunday Church.

Nanny lived with us when we were babies. I barely remember those days. Like the story in Salon, once we became of school age, Nanny was our babysitter while my parents went on vacation, and those are the times I remember best. She had special rules when my parents were away... secrets that were just between the four of us and stayed that way until just a few years ago when we all, now in our twenty's, started telling Nanny stories. We would have ‘camp-outs’ in the living room and were allowed to fall asleep in front of the TV, piled up on every sleeping bag and blanket in the house. Nanny would give us each $10 to spend on whatever we wanted at the grocery store, so long as it was all eaten and gone, no trace left behind, by the time our parents got home.

Nanny was there for all the firsts a child has in life, first plays, first boyfriends, first heartbreak. Nanny was a parent, a confidant, a dear friend. She did not replace my mother, how could she? Nor could my mother replace Nanny; they were totally different entities in my life. I do not remember a moment of misplaced loyalty to either, nor do I know if my mother had the same moments that Debra Ollivier had of doubts about letting someone else into our lives and our hearts. Quite the contrary, I am so grateful for what I learned at Nanny’s bosom and I wouldn’t trade one of those memories, one of those lessons for all the money in the world.

Nanny passed away earlier this year, New Year’s Eve to be exact. I miss her so much that writing this has made me cry from the ache of missing her laugh, to the warmth of the memories she gave me. I’ll cry again when I miss her at my wedding later this summer.

To all the moms out there looking for answers to the “to Nanny or not to Nanny” question… yes, be cautious. Yes, have rules. Yes, open your hearts and your homes to someone who will show your child another perspective in this life, one different, but no better or worse that the perspective that you offer. What harm can an extra dose of love do to a child?

Now I have to stop crying... :)

Happy National Teacher Day

2005-05-03T10:49:00.000-06:00

Why don't we give our teachers more respect? Better Pay? More resources to do what they do best, mold young minds into productive, critically thinking adults? We should be ashamed of our national education system, we really should. But we should praise our teachers for the struggle that they face every day.

Cheers to neighbor Dean, History teacher of 11th grade.

Cheers to Tara, 3rd grade teacher.

Cheers to Mrs. Newberry, Mr. and Mrs. Frey (yes, I still have my lexicon for logophiles), Mrs. Rocket for putting up with all my crap, and so many others over 14 years at Hutchison. You made a lasting impact on my life and I thank you for it.

We're winning the war on Terror

2005-05-02T14:00:00.000-06:00

Really? This doesn't look so good, and is pretty self explainitory.

130 people have been killed in Iraq since last Thursday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7629770/

Good News Friday

2005-04-29T11:48:00.000-06:00

Per a lovely suggestion, I need to find some GOOD news. This is what I've got so far...

The EPA says our air is cleaner. http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/04/28/air.pollution.study.ap/index.html

"the group found that the number of counties in which unhealthy air was recorded fell significantly for the first time in six years"

"The trend has gotten a little bit better in the last few years ... but we're not out of the woods."

Which is true. There's much more to be done, but for now... this is pretty good news.

Now, take a deep breath.

Happy Friday

Freedom's on the march, alright. Right across your face.

2005-04-28T10:34:00.000-06:00

A whole slew of wonderful freedom loving news today. First this story, found on Suburban Guerrilla. Someone needs to right a book “What’s wrong with FLORIDA,”

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/04/27/fla_
agency_gets_teens_abortion_blocked/

A 13 year old girl, living in a state shelter, found out that she was pregnant two weeks ago. She planned to have an abortion.

“Her caseworker arranged for transportation and help. But the state Department of Children & Families asked a Palm Beach County juvenile judge Tuesday morning to block the procedure.”

Here’s the kicker…

“The state agency argued the 13 1/2-week pregnant girl -- described as L.G. in court documents -- is too young and immature to make an informed medical decision, according to the ACLU appeal.”

So, she’s too young to make a mature decision about having an abortion. But she’ll be plenty mature and capable (living in a shelter, at the tender age of 13) of having and caring for a BABY right?
I can’t even extrapolate on what this child is about to have to go through. And can I just say, score one for abstinence only sex education…

Next, from Truth Out, NO LITERATURE FOR YOU!

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/042705N.shtml

Alabama Rep. Geral Allen has drafted a bill that would prohibit public school libraries (and college, and public libraries) from buying new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or with gay characters. He says, “I don’t look at it as censorship. I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.”

Yes, Mr. Allen. Because the state of the public school system is such that we really need to prohibit further learning, especially all that evil, evil reading that goes on in schools.

What does he want to ban?
Tenneesse Williams.
Truman Capote.
Gore Vidal.
Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” because it has lesbian characters.

“The Color Purple?” Is going to turn kids GAY? Wait, it gets better. Allen originally wanted to ban “some Shakespeare,” but after criticism (ya think?), he narrowed the bill to exclude the classics (PS- he has no definition of what constitutes a ‘classic’)

“Librarian Donna Schremser fears the ‘thought police’ would be patrolling her shelves”

No shit, Donna.

“And so the idea that we would have a pristine collection that represents one political view, one religious view, that’s not a library,” says Schremser.

Way to go, Donna. That’s what I’m thinking.

What is Allen’s problem?

“It’s not healthy for America, it doesn’t fit what we stand for. And they will do whatever it takes to reach their goal.”

My rage-o-meter just pinned at apoplectic.
Not healthy? Not what we stand for as Americans? “They?” Who they? YOU, Mr. Allen, are the “they” who will stop at nothing to reach your goal.
I thought we stood for free speech? For freedom of expression, freedom of education, freedom of religion and sexuality? I though we were the country that was bringing freedom to the rest of this oppressed world of ours?

Apparently Freedom is on the march, just not here in America where 13 year old girls living in shelters are FORCED to keep their unplanned pregnancies and where in Alabama you can’t read anything that refers to, mentions, alludes to, or includes anything that might possibly be construed as perhaps considering alternative lifestyles as acceptable.

Last but not least, from Daily Kos, posted yesterday.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/27/14458/3396

Scientists are working on, and have had success in making an HPV vaccine. HPV infects at least “80% of women by the age of 50 (from the CDC),” and several strains are known to cause cervical cancer. Thus, a vaccine would be a good thing, right?

Not so fast, freedom loving American. In order for the vaccine to be effective it needs to be given to women, prior to becoming sexually active. Doctors suggest that girls around the age of 13 (as we now know, many are sexually active) be vaccinated.

Bridget Maher of the Family Research council says this can’t be allowed to happen. “Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.”

What? Protecting young women from a potentially fatal, cancer causing virus may lead to them having sex, therefore it cannot be allowed.

Am I the only one who things we’re living in a cartoon?? Seriously, what the hell is going on around here?

Who’s asleep at the wheel, and can we please plot a course BACK TO REALITY?

Now serving Mai Tai's on the patio...

2005-04-27T11:15:00.000-06:00

"One major area of disagreement is over the administration's plans to build a new embassy in Baghdad. The House deleted money for the construction project, largely due to concerns about record U.S. budget deficits.
The Senate has included $592 million for the project, which would be the largest U.S. embassy in the world. "

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=8300372&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

Why do we need an embassy in Baghdad? Why do we need our largest and most expensive embassy in Baghdad? I can think of 592 million better uses for $592 million dollars. How about we give some of that back to Amtrack, whose budget was cut OFF this year? Or… what if we used that money to actually keep our word and sent it to Africa for AIDS relief? OR, we could invest $592 million dollars in helping out our troops, now forced to use CARDBOARD DUMMIES to fool ‘insurgents’ into thinking we have more troops available than we really do.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/26/wirq26.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/04/26/ixworld.html

“US marines who suffered the highest casualty rate of any unit in Iraq have revealed that they were so short of soldiers that they used cardboard dummies to fool insurgents into believing that they faced more men.”
“The deception was revealed yesterday when the marines broke the corp's code of silence to detail the shortages of equipment and manpower that they blame for many of their comrades' deaths.
The marines highlighted in particular the lack of armoured Humvees, the four-wheeled-drive vehicles favoured by the US military, which the company says meant they had little protection against roadside bombs.
When the unit arrived, none was fully armoured and the unit's commanders had to find scrap metal to line the sides and bottom of their vehicles.”

Sounds like they could use $592 million dollars, don’t ya think?

Then again… an indoor swimming pool at the new embassy could be cool…

Why I do this

2005-04-26T12:41:00.000-06:00

I couldn't have said this better if I spent a week trying, so I'm going to borrow Juan Cole's voice for now, via TruthOut. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/042605H.shtml (Juan's blog is worth checking in on, also. Informed Comment)

Matthew Haughey says he won't read our blogs if we use the term "mainstream media" (a.k.a. MSM).

A news flash for Matt: We don't care.

We don't care if you read our web logs.

The difference, Matt, is that we are independent actors, not part of a small set of multi-billion dollar corporations. The difference is that we are not under the constraints of making a 15% profit. The difference is that we are a distributed information system, whereas MSM is like a set of stand-alone mainframes. The difference is that we can say what we damn well please.

If we were the mainstream media (perhaps better thought of as corporate media), we would care if you threatened to stop reading us. Because although we might be professional news people, we would have the misfortune to be working for corporations that are mainly be about making money.

We would be ordered to try to avoid saying anything too controversial (and I don't mean "Crossfire" controversial), because we would be calculating what would bring in 15% profits per annum on our operating capital. Would hours and hours of television "reportage" and discussion of Michael Jackson or of Terri Schiavo or Scott Peterson (remember?) bring in viewers and advertising dollars? Then that is what we would be giving the public. Bread and circuses.

Would giving airtime to Iraq, where we Americans have 138,000 troops and are spending $300 billion that we don't have, be too depressing to bring in the audience and advertising and the 15% profit? Then we would dump it in favor of bread and circuses. We'd dump Afghanistan as a story even faster, since there are "only" 17,000 US troops in that country, and it is only a place where Ben Laden may be hiding out and from which the US was struck on 9/11, leaving 3,000 dead and the Pentagon and World Trade Center smouldering.

If we were the mainstream media as Ashley Banfield was, our careers would be over if we mentioned a little thing like the replacement of journalism with patriotism in the coverage of the Iraq War. Or if we said things like Ashley did of March-April 2003,

"You didn't see where those bullets landed. You didn't see what happened when the mortar landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me. There are horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism or was this coverage-? There is a grand difference between journalism and coverage, and getting access does not mean you're getting the story, it just means you're getting one more arm or leg of the story . . . I can't tell you how bad the civilian casualties were. I saw a couple of pictures. I saw French television pictures, I saw a few things here and there, but to truly understand what war is all about you've got to be on both sides. You've got to be a unilateral, someone who's able to cover from outside of both front lines, which, by the way, is the most dangerous way to cover a war, which is the way most of us covered Afghanistan. There were no front lines, they were all over the place. They were caves, they were mountains, they were cobbled, they were everything. But we really don't know from this latest adventure from the American military what this thing looked like and why perhaps we should never do it again. The other thing is that so many voices were silent in this war. We all know what happened to Susan Sarandon for speaking out, and her husband, and we all know that this is not the way Americans truly want to be. Free speech is a wonderful thing, it's what we fight for, but the minute it's unpalatable we fight against it for some reason."

If we were mainstream media we would be wholly owned subsidiaries of General Electric, the Disney Corporation, Time Warner, Rupert Murdoch, Viacom and so on and so forth. Ninety percent of cable channels are owned by the same companies that own the big television networks.
It isn't a matter of journalism being a business. How good journalism is when practiced in the service of a business depends on the owner's philosophy and economic goals. Ted Turner writes,

"When CNN reported to me, if we needed more money for Kosovo or Baghdad, we'd find it. If we had to bust the budget, we busted the budget. We put journalism first, and that's how we built CNN into something the world wanted to watch. I had the power to make these budget decisions because they were my companies. I was an independent entrepreneur who controlled the majority of the votes and could run my company for the long term. Top managers in these huge media conglomerates run their companies for the short term. After we sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner, we came under such earnings pressure that we had to cut our promotion budget every year at CNN to make our numbers. Media mega-mergers inevitably lead to an overemphasis on short-term earnings."

If we were the mainstream media, we would be accountable to CEOs and editors and advertisers, all of whom have motives for suppressing some pieces of news and highlighting others. You might think to yourself that this is a diverse enough group that the story would still get through. But with media consolidation, fewer and fewer persons make the decisions.

Matt thinks it matters that he and other bloggers have been on television, or that mainstream media now maintains blogs. Neither thing matters. Blogs operate in a different political economy than does mainstream media. Bloggers' "editors" are the readers and the Daily Kos and Eschaton commentators who use collective intelligence to improve them. Their motive is not the profit motive for the most part. Most bloggers are hobbyists.

So, yes, Matt. There is a difference between these little dog and pony shows we post from our homes, with no editor, no CEO, no boss, and no resources beyond our personal experiences, talent and acumen. If Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo was published by mainstream media, would he still be allowed to say everything he now says? Would Tom Engelhardt be allowed to discuss the ways in which the Iraq quagmire suggests the limits of superpowerdom if he were working for the Big Six? If Bill Montgomery worked for The Weather Channel, would he be allowed to criticize Senator Rick Sanatarium for trying to keep Federal forecasters from "competing" with private weather forecasting companies? Would Riverbend be allowed to be so incisive if she worked for a big Iraqi computer firm? Remember the famous question, "Can blogging get you fired?"

And this difference, my friends, accounts for why bloggers get vilified. Journalists can be switched to another story, or fired,
ia organization is itself the subject of a news story. Disney's boss, after buying ABC in 1995, was quoted in LA Weekly as saying, "I would prefer ABC not cover Disney." A few days later, ABC killed a "20/20" story or their stories can be buried on page 36. We can't be fired. So if Martin Peretz doesn't like what we have to say, he will publish a hatchet job on us in The New Republic, seeking to make us taboo. If you can't shut people up, and you really don't want their voices heard, then all you can do is try to persuade others not to listen to them or give them a platform. The easiest way to do this is to falsely accuse them of racism or Communism some other character flaw unacceptable to polite society. Because of the distributed character of blogging "computing," however, such tactics are probably doomed to fail.

We are not the mainstream media, and we are here. Get used to it.

Amen. Thank you, Juan.

(all emphasis mine)

Frog legs, tonight's special

2005-04-25T13:57:00.000-06:00

I just had to post this for the 3 of you who read this regularly. This is too crazy. (Via Suburban Guerrilla)

Hundreds of toads have met an unexplained, explosive demise in Germany in recent days, it was reported on Saturday.

According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre.

It is like "a science fiction film", according to Werner Smolnik of a nature protection society in the northern city of Hamburg, where the phenomenon of the exploding toad has been observed.
"You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding," he said.

He said the bodies of the toads expanded to three-and-a-half times their normal size.
"I have never seen such a thing," said veterinarian Otto Horst.

So bad has the death toll been that the lake in the Altona district of Hamburg has been dubbed "the pond of death".

Access to it has been sealed off and every night a biologist visits it between 2:00am and 3:00am, which appears to be peak time for batrachians to go bang.

Explanations include an unknown virus, a fungus that has infected the water, or crows, which in an echo of the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds, attack the toads, literally scaring them to death.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1352292.htm

So much for technology

2005-04-25T12:33:00.000-06:00

Thanks to FBC for this one:

LONDON, England -- Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and textmessages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, aBritish study shows.

The constant interruptions reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic, according to a survey carried out by TNS Research andcommissioned by Hewlett Packard.

The survey of 1,100 Britons showed:#

Almost two out three people check their electronic messages out ofoffice hours and when on holiday#

Half of all workers respond to an e-mail within 60 minutes of receivingone#

One in five will break off from a business or social engagement torespond to a message.#

Nine out of 10 people thought colleagues who answered messages duringface-to-face meetings were rude, while three out of 10 believed it was not only acceptable, but a sign of diligence and efficiency.

But the mental impact of trying to balance a steady inflow of messageswith getting on with normal work took its toll, the UK's Press Association reported.
In 80 clinical trials, Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King's CollegeLondon University, monitored the IQ of workers throughout the day.

He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10points -- the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more thandouble the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana."This is a very real and widespread phenomenon," Wilson said.

"We havefound that this obsession with looking at messages, if unchecked, willdamage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness.

"Companies should encourage a more balanced and appropriate way ofworking."Wilson said the IQ drop was even more significant in the men who took part in the tests.

"The research suggests that we are in danger of being caught up in a24-hour 'always on' society," said David Smith of Hewlett Packard.

"This is more worrying when you consider the potential impairment onperformance and concentration for workers, and the consequent impact on businesses."

Game Time

2005-04-21T09:44:00.000-06:00

$10 to the first person who can tell me who said this (without looking it up!)

"The time has come that the American people know exactly what their representatives are doing here in Washington. Are they feeding at the public trough, taking lobbyist-paid vacations, getting wined and dined by special-interest groups? Or are they working hard to represent their constituents? The people, the American people, have a right to know. I say the best disinfectant is full disclosure."

anyone

anyone?

Buller?

Separation of Church and State

2005-04-20T14:40:00.000-06:00

If this seems a little off it's because it was originally posted over at Daily Kos in response to a rash of recent "my religion vs. your religion" diaries. Keep that in mind as you read along:

Yes, I'm going to discuss religion, but not like it's being discussed around here currently.
Bare with me, I beg of you
I was fortunate enough not to be around for what continues, post-weekend, with the religious debates.
It got heated, as I understand. Wonder why?
Because religion is personal and private. Because people of faith, of ANY faith, feel strongly about their beliefs.

Personally I think this stems from the idea embedded in nearly every religion I have done research on, that this particular way is THE way, and that to take this way means eternal salvation, an afterlife, peace after death... they're all one in the same. That makes the religious debate personal, meaningful, and either right or wrong (meaning 'my way right, your way wrong')

follow me here...
We, as democrats have a variety of beliefs, religious and otherwise. But what holds us together as a party may just be our respect for one another. Religion has the power to destroy that tie, and it is currently doing so.

So I propose that we, as a PARTY, as Progressives striving for a better world, usher religious debate right out of the political door.

Religion and politics do not, and should not mix. It shouldn't matter what our politicians believe, it should matter what they intend to do with the job they're applying for. When religion mixes with politics there is the tendency for someone's religious beliefs to be legislated or pushed onto others. This is unacceptable, and improbable, as I've said, religion is personal and private, and not something that anyone else can decide for you.

As I stated in a comment on another diary, Kerry has been labeled a bad catholic because he is pro-choice. The two should NEVER be intertwined. (If we're working on framing then this needs to be addressed) Kerry is pro-choice PERIOD. Not "Kerry is a pro-choice Catholic"
See the difference? OMIT CATHOLIC. It is not applicable to politics.

Again, as stated elsewhereI want a politician who will stand up and say "My PERSONAL, PRIVATE faith is none of your business. Vote for or against me based on my platform and policies, not my religion. It is none of your business, just as your faith is none of mine."

If we could all just stand up TOGETHER and say that we aren't going to religiosize (that's a stretch for a word) politics then perhaps we can get back to running this country. Perhaps we can stop debating with one another things that are personal, private, no one else's business, but more importantly these debates, while fun for some, do NOTHING to help end hunger, get out of Iraq, stop Bolton, win 2006 elections, clean up our air, fix education and so on and so on.

Are you with me?

Slow news day

2005-04-19T16:24:00.000-06:00

Unless you're a Catholic. Which I'm not. And Religion is one of those conversations I just see myself right out of. Everyone is intitled to their beliefs, as long as they don't force those beliefs on everyone else. Highly contentious subject and it is one of the VERY few I don't engage in.

Besides... I'm all wrapped up in wedding planning details and the prospect of a MAJOR surprise. The verdict is in tomorrow.

"So goodnight unto you all
Give me your hands if we be friends
And Robin shall restore amends"

~ Puck, final speech
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare

No news isn't good news

2005-04-18T10:45:00.000-06:00

19 years after the first annual report on terrorism was published, the Bush Administration/State Department has put a stop to them. Why? Because the news isn't good. The report stated that last year, 2004, had more terrorist attacks than any year since the reports inception, 1985.

The official reason is that the methodology used to produce the report are faulty.

Uh huh.

How are the natives reacting?

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the decision.
"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report."

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

Glowing approval, wouldn't you say?

And the numbers? Well, the 2004 incidents totaled to 625 "significant terrorist attacks." Compare that to 2003 when there were 175.
Keep in mind as well that this does NOT include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which "President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."

The rug that everything's being swept under must have an elephant sized bulge by now. Dang.

Find the rest here
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm

Good Morning, Mr. President. Today, we're running a Nation.

2005-04-15T11:24:00.000-06:00

I can't decide whether I'm just glad the man finally picked up a paper after 5 years, or whether I'm all out of shock because he doesn't even know what HIS OWN ADMINISTRATION is doing.

Today in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/politics/15bush.html?th&emc=th

A Surprised Bush Says He Wants New Travel Rules Reconsidered

President Bush said Thursday that he had been surprised to learn in the newspaper of his administration's decision last week to require Americans to have passports to enter the country from Mexico or Canada by 2008. He said he had asked the State and Homeland Security Departments to look into other means of tightening border security.

Citing concerns about the long lines that the new rules might create at crossings, Mr. Bush said that after reading of the change, he asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to determine whether the law that mandated the tighter controls would allow fingerprint imaging or some other technique instead.

Mr. Bush said his reaction on hearing about the change was, "What's going on here?"

What's going on here, indeed.

John Bolton, Hell of a Guy

2005-04-15T10:53:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Suburban Guerrilla for this one: http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/

Here's how John Bolton treated a government whistleblower:

Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began.Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman.

For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats.

When US AID asked me to return to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in advance of assuming leadership of a project in Kazakstan, I returned to my project to find that John Bolton had proceeded me by two days. Why? To meet with every other AID team leader as well as US foreign-service officials in Bishkek, claiming that I was under investigation for misuse of funds and likely was facing jail time. As US AID can confirm, nothing was further from the truth.

He indicated to key employees of or contractors to State that, based on his discussions with investigatory officials, I was headed for federal prison and, if they refused to cooperate with either him or the prime contractor's replacement team leader, they, too, would find themselves the subjects of federal investigation. As a further aside, he made unconscionable comments about my weight, my wardrobe and, with a couple of team leaders, my sexuality, hinting that I was a lesbian (for the record, I'm not).

When I resurfaced in Kyrgyzstan, I learned that he had done such a convincing job of smearing me that it took me weeks -- with the direct intervention of US AID officials -- to limit the damage. In fact, it was only US AID's appoinment of me as a project leader in Almaty, Kazakstan that largely put paid to the rumors Mr. Bolton maliciously circulated.As a maligned whistleblower, I've learned firsthand the lengths Mr. Bolton will go to accomplish any goal he sets for himself. Truth flew out the window. Decency flew out the window. In his bid to smear me and promote the interests of his client, he went straight for the low road and stayed there.

Hi, I'm uhh.... uh... the PRESIDENT?

2005-04-14T14:26:00.000-06:00

This is hilarious. I've never heard of this site before but if you want to either laugh out loud or bang your head against a wall (yes, folks....3 1/2 more years of this), then you simply must click here http://www.dnext.com/

and watch the first clip (on the left). The second one (on the right) isn't nearly as entertaining.

Jeez....
What were they trying to shoot, anyway?

Happy Cows?

2005-04-13T13:18:00.000-06:00

Well... this is news to me. Figures too. I bought the advertising.

By way of Salon.com today : http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/13/milk/index.html
(PS- a note about Salon- you can access all articles by getting a free day pass... you do NOT have to sign up for anything- just click on "Free Day Pass," watch a 30 second add and then click on "Enter Salon.com." It's easy.)

It turns out that Horizon's happy cows, aren't as happy as they should be. Organic standards aren't quite specific enough to ensure that the dairy products being produced are truly sustainable.

Don't misunderstand, Horizon products are better than the (big, bad) "corporate" dairies that feed their cows antibiotics and rBGH; better for the cows and better for you. But Horizon is cheating. They claim to have all these happy cows, grazing away and glad to provide milk for us. Well... sort of. Again, they are free of antibiotics and the like, but they are NOT free range, happily grazing cattle. They are being fed an almost completely carb diet to induce more milk production (3 milkings a day), and they are not grazing, or even out in the open, but kept in 'open' barns. That's barns without walls. So... they can SEE the pasture, just not get to it for more than 30% of their life.
Which leads to another interesting tid-bit. The average bovine life span is roughly 13 years. Horizon sells their cows to butchers after 6 years. Why? That all carb diet isn't good for the cow, and significantly shortens life spans. Horizon claims to have no such problems, (ie, unhealthy cows), yet they're selling their milk cows for meat at about half the average life span. hmmmmm.

So, the long of the short is (too late, I know) that free grazing cows, eating happy heathy GRASS, produce milk (and other dairy products) much higher in all the happy vitamins and minerals (and health benefits) than 'open barn' cattle being fed a high carb diet, and even better still than the (big, bad) corporate cows who are being hopped up on drugs and CHICKEN POOP to produce copious amounts of bad milk.

AND, it would seem, the main point is that the USDA has failed to put stringent and necessary standards on their organic label. The consumer ought to be able to trust an organic product to be just that. Shades of grey? Perhaps. But can't I just buy milk and rest assured that it's milk, nothing but milk, the whole milk?

What is WRONG with people

2005-04-13T11:19:00.000-06:00

This makes me so ill I cannot even write about it.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/13/daughters.sold.ap/index.html

At what point did we start the downward slide as a society? What is it that makes people think that this is acceptable behavior? These are CHILDREN who will never again regain the childhood that their own mother STOLE from them.

Lock the mother away for life. FOR LIFE. Throw away the key. Throw her a bone to knaw on once a year. Make sure those children are adopted by THE most loving, giving, wonderful people.

My god, when did I become so lucky just to have loving, caring parents who paid attention and, oh, I don't know, DIDN'T sell me for a CAR??

Keep watching the watchers

2005-04-12T15:19:00.000-06:00

There is something fundamentally wrong with keeping opposition out of Federally funded fake "town hall meetings" held to promote the President's Social Security "plan". (see: the Denver 3, removed from one such an event for having a bumper sticker on the car they arrived in that read "no more blood for oil." No other infraction but this sticker being on a car resulted in their removal.)

There is, equally, something wrong with arresting protesters outside of the RNC last year, falsifying the reports for their arrest (the officer making the arrests WASN'T even there), then editing the evidence in favor of the prosecution. Not surprising then that 91% of 1,670 cases of those who were arrested for protesting, have been dropped or proven innocent.

Furthermore... Explain to me exactly how it is that the video tape, being used by the prosecution to prove guilt by said protester, was edited to remove the proof that the case in question was indeed a sham. When that fact came to light, low and behold, the whole tape was shown to the court and because what had been edited proved innocence on the part of the accused, the case was thrown out.

Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/nyregion/12video.html?ex=1270958400&en=c6f360550beb392f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

What exactly are we coming to that we are no longer allowed a dissenting voice? How have we allowed differing opinions to become fire-breathing evil that must be removed from ear-shot? We are supposed to disagree, discuss, learn from one another, not shut someone down for having an alternate view!

One of my favorite quotes:
In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith. - J. William Fulbright

amen.

Don't forget Poland

2005-04-12T14:24:00.000-06:00

Uh huh

The coalition of the Coerced gets smaller and smaller.

Say goodbye to Poland

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/04/12/iraq.polandtroops.reut/index.html

I tried

2005-04-12T13:48:00.000-06:00

I caught wind of this over the weekend and looked into it today. Sounds riteous to me... will be getting one of those OH SO COOL rubber bracelets... but mine will be white.

Join me, will you?
http://www.one.org/index.aspx

They've got your number

2005-04-12T10:56:00.000-06:00

NEW YORK/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Data broker LexisNexis said Tuesday that personal information may have been stolen on 310,000 U.S. citizens, or nearly 10 times the number found in a data breach announced last month.

Fabulous.

I really have no ideas here, but the fact that we are all identified by one set of numbers, that everyone from Credit Cards to your Dentist asks for these days, is quite obviously a problem.
I have thus far been lucky. 310,000 people have not. (and that's the low number, from ONE company... how many more are out there?)

What do we do?

stuck

2005-04-10T18:17:00.000-06:00

We're stuck in Summit County with the Blizzard (of '05- don't you love it that 1 hr into any major weather 'event' it automatically becomes the blizzard of... the tornado of... the ice storm of...

Having a blast in an empty house. Hope you're all safe and warm.

No opinions today... haven't even been able to get a paper, and news is wall to wall...

BLIZZARD OF '05!!

Once again, Thank you Senator Boxer

2005-04-08T15:54:00.000-06:00

From the New York Times, late today

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday canceled a controversial program to test the effects of bug spray and other pesticides on infants after two Senate Democrats threatened to block his confirmation.
Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Bill Nelson of Florida said they would place a ``hold'' on the White House's nomination of acting EPA administrator Stephen Johnson unless he canceled the $9 million program.
The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study would have paid families $970 to videotape how spraying insecticides in their homes affected infants.

You can read the rest here http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-environment-epa.html?oref=login

And another sincere thank you to Senator Boxer.

Take a pill

2005-04-08T14:52:00.000-06:00

The main idea here (WHAT is with the pharmecutical industry) will have to be revisted another day... but one quick note on an ad I've seen twice now that just makes me crazy.

You know all those gawd awful ads for a new drug everyday that will take away your joint pain but may cause blindness, internal bleeding, headaches, and your fingernails could fall out?

There's a new one for 'over active bladders'. But this obese society is being told, rightly, to drink more water because we are all not drinking enough. So... I need to drink more water, which causes me to have to go to the bathroom more often (read, ALL the time), and if I have to go to the bathroom ALL the time, then I must need a PILL for my over active bladder.

Please.

Toxic Bodies

2005-04-08T14:36:00.000-06:00

I read an article today on TruthOut that wasn't a total surprise, which is in and of itself a sad thing. It was about the side effects of those 'every day products' we all use at one point or another from toothpaste to shampoo to face cream to lotion... you name it. And well, yea, no big surprise that all this stuff is made of nasty chemicals that can, CAN cause problems from birth defects to cancer.
So... go read the article here: http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/040705EC.shtml

And then go check out the link they provide to the site that the study originated from, where you can check your specific brand and product to see what's in it, and what problems it could potentially cause. http://www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep/

And then go home and throw those away. There's always a better option... right Nicole?

Jumping right in

2005-04-08T10:52:00.000-06:00

I have to say something about this proposal to lengthen daylight savings by two months. Sure, it could be a good idea. But I don't think it is in the way that congress does. I mean a good idea in the sense that it could keep we fat Americans outside a little longer each day, keep us more active, but the idea that this is a good energy idea is a bit daft.
Can't we please just get serious about alternative energy already? Gas prices aren't going down soon, nor is global oil usage... the only end in sight is the amount of oil on this planet. Now, THAT is a finite amount.
How 'bout we save the daylight? As in, SOLAR power...

A Blog is Born

2005-04-08T10:14:00.000-06:00

On a lovely Friday... She came out wailing, but born she was.

So, it's time I did this. Who knows what will happen or if anyone but me will spend time here.. but I thought, what the hell. I spend plenty of time reading and writting on other people's blogs, why not my own? More than a few have suggested I step off the plank and give it a go, so here it is. Screaming Me.

Be forewarned, I don't know what I'm doing. I have no idea how most of this stuff works so it may take me a minute to get this thing to really look like something, but I'll do my damndest.

Ready for a ride? Here we go.