An open letter to Senator Mitchell, Chairman of Disney

Dear Senator Mitchell:

It is highly unlikely that there has been a more poignant event in recent American memory than the events which took place on September 11, 2001. Undoubtedly, it is safe to say that for those who were alive and aware of the events on that day, everyone will be able to remember where they were when it happened and the numbing feeling that surrounded the whole event. The outpouring of emotion and sympathy on the global stage was unprecedented

While things that happen day-to-day may be caught up in winds of partisanship, what must be kept cold and objective is history and the lens through which we view it. To distort history is to do a disservice to those who remember the past and those who teach it in the present. How can we expect to teach future generations about the past if the lessons they are presented are distorted and inaccurate? Worse, after sufficient time passes and such fallacies are propagated, who will remain to refute them? Furthermore, who will even care for their refutation as we move further away?

The Walt Disney Company, through its ABC subsidiary, is scheduled to air the two-part series “The Path to 9/11” this weekend as we approach the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001. Anniversaries are certainly causes for remembrances, but those of milestone nature (first, and, I would give you, subsequent ones which occur in the future on multiples of the fifth or tenth occasion) have a greater buzz and interest.

It has been made clear through the media that this project is fraught with historical inaccuracies and appears to have been challenged as such from the start.

• While allegedly having been based on the 9/11 Commission’s report, it appears that the writer, who has a long and distinguished history in conservative circles, manipulated elements to paint the previous administration in a poor and false light and promote a view of the current events in Iraq that is not in step with the truth.
• It has been reported that an FBI consultant quit midway through the filming because of the deviation that the project was taking from the true historical account.
• The project has gone from being a “documentary” to a “docudrama” to one in which ABC management has acknowledged that production liberties were taken.
• The selective releasing of advanced copies for screening and review to only those outlets who eschew a negative view of President Clinton’s administration and, quite frankly, the more liberal elements of the population, have added fuel to the fire.
• Disclaimers aside, it is very difficult to produce a ‘historical account’ when fiction is applied.

Senator Mitchell, mine is likely not the only voice which has been raised in protest. With a little over forty-eight hours until the program is to begin, it is unlikely that the necessary wholesale changes which must be made to this production to bring it in line with the 9/11 Commission’s Report can be made. Yes, it causes a tremendous gap in your programming in two, key primetime slots during day being billed as momentous in its remembrance by anyone with a microphone or camera.

But isn’t insuring that it is done right more important than putting forth something that could damage the reputations of a host of household brands? ABC News lost one the greatest and most respected broadcasters of our time, Peter Jennings, not very long along. Bob Woodruff was critically injured visiting a war in a country that never should have taken place. What kind of news event would it be when someone reported about the deliberate misrepresentation of such a key part of our nation’s history?

Please do the right thing. Please make this go away.

Sincerely,

And for no additional fee, they'll poke a sharp stick in your eye

While everyone's focused on the debacle that is ABC, CNN.com has come up with it's own wonderful way to commemorate 9/11 on Monday. Starting at 7:30 am central time, they're going to stream their coverage from the day of the attacks. Relive every wonderful minute! It'll be just like it was on that happy, glorious day!

Rumors are that they're also starting up services where your former romantic partners will call you and remind you why they dumped you, former employers will show up at your house and fire you again, and funeral directors will disinter the remains of loved ones and plop them on your couch.

An Inconvenient Untruth

I'm sure most of you have heard about ABC's 9/11 "mock-udrama" that paints Bill Clinton as a close seond in villainy to Osama bin Laden in bringing about the attacks. I wrote to the local ABC affiliate, and got this form crap back:

"The Path to 9/11 is a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews. The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate, so it's not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate. The attacks were a pivotal moment in our history that should never be forgotten and it's fitting that the discussion continues."

Bullshit. Dramatization? Fine. Nobody cared if Titanic got the history wrong in its breathless "dramatization" ("Jack..Rose..Jack..Rose...Jack...Rose"). Nobody really cares if you make crap up for the People Magazine crowd (cut to a blushing Lady Diana Spencer, "whatever will the queen think?")

But damn it, we DO care when your "mock-umentary" fictionalizes real, painful and important events in very recent history for partisan advantage, and attempts to fraudulently re-write history. Or at least I care, and I hope you do too. But then again, America will probably watch--and believe (see below)

Birds of a feather....

Pollster Pleads Guilty to Fraud (link)

The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results.

Tracy Costin pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Costin, 46, faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when she is sentenced Nov. 30.

As part of her plea agreement, Costin agreed to repay $82,732 to the unidentified clients for 11 jobs between June 2002 and May 2004. DataUSA is now known as Viewpoint USA.

According to a federal indictment, Costin told employees to alter poll data, and managers at the company told employees to "talk to cats and dogs" when instructing them to fabricate the surveys......

A Tale of Two Georges

Yesterday, a federal judge sentenced former Illinois governor George Ryan to a 6 1/2 year prison term for various aspects of fraud and graft (for reasons unknown to this humble correspondent, federal prison terms are phrased in months--"I was expecting 10 years, but I got off easy, only 120 months!). Also yesterday, President Bush admitted to illegal and morally shocking conduct--torture and secret prisons.

In this morning's Chicago Tribune, the editorial page pilloried Ryan. The editorial called him a "blustery denier" and pointed out that "[b]ad things happened on his watch. The piece asked "without genuine contrition, is compassion what a criminal deserves?"

Yet, in the same section, in a piece labeled as "analysis," the Tribune's Michael Tackett applauds the president's "air of defiance" and says how his justifications "had an air of authority." He concludes that Bush "showed he still has a sense of the bold."

I am not apologizing for George Ryan--he engaged in graft all too typical of Illinois politics, and the conduct of the Secretary of State's office endangered Illinois drivers. The editorial, however, attributes 9 deaths to George Ryan. The other George can claim tens or hundreds of thousands of dead, while promising, or threatening, to "stay the course."

Who really is the "blustery denier?"

It's not all beer and skittles....

No, no, not THOSE skittles--I mean the old phrase deriving from an English bowling game popular in the pubs. It means that life isn't all laughter and good cheer, such as...below (one day's reporting from Reuters):

BAGHDAD - Two people were killed and eight wounded when a bomb exploded near a funeral tent in Amel area in southwestern Baghdad. People had gathered there to mark the death of a supporter of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Interior Ministry said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed eight people and wounded 38 in northern Baghdad's Qahira district, police said. An Interior Ministry source who quoted hospital tallies said six people were killed in the bomb blast and 46 wounded.

BAGHDAD - Police found the bodies of 19 people across Baghdad on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry source said. Some of them had been bound and blindfolded.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi police found a further 15 bodies throughout Baghdad on Wednesday, most were bound, blindfold with some showing signs of torture, police said.

SINJAR - A car bomb killed six members of Iraq's border police and wounded six others in the northern town of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border, police said.

MOSUL - Gunmen killed two people from the Yezidi religious minority in the northern city of Mosul, police said. It was not clear whether they were targeted because of their beliefs.

MAHMUDIYA - Mortars killed two people and wounded six when they landed on a main road in the violent town of Mahmudiya, just south of Baghdad, police said.

Woo-hoo!

We handed over control of the Iraqi military to the puppet show Iraqi government! Woo-hoo! We're makin' progress! Hard work, stay the course, makin' progress!

Oh wait--it appears that we can't turn over control of the death squads Iraqi Army quite yet, but never fear! The puppet show Iraqi government is now in complete control of the Iraqi navy:


and the air force:


Progress...hard work...stay the course...

Another one for the woodchipper

I am a creature of habit. Every day I take the same route to work and several times a year I take the family up to northern Michigan, using the same route over and over again. So nearly every day of the year I see the same memorials. Crosses that have been erected, I suppose, to mark the death site. Aside from musing as to why I never see stars of David or crescents at these memorial sites (neither Jews nor Muslims ever die along these routes??) I have wondered at the motivation behind constructing and maintaining these memorials (some have been in place for at least 15 years). Often, there were flowers at these sites, and by and by they died, and I found the image of dead flowers both sad and apropos. One memorial had prayer votives burning for weeks, while another featured a color picture of a young man, posing in his 8th grade graduation gown. But our weather beat it up and someone (or some force) removed it. Now there's just a weatherbeaten cross to mark the spot.

The wife and I have speculated as to the original intent of these memorials, and we have agreed that it was clearly part of a grieving process. We also agree that this original purpose over time has been superseded by the cautionary impact of these memorials. Someone (or in a few cases, two or three people) died here, perhaps because of a drunk driver, perhaps because conditions were bad, perhaps, because of careless or reckless behavior. So, while I doubt I'd ever construct such a memorial myself, I can rationalize a positive effect.

Last week a house fire snuffed out the lives of six children on the far north side of Chicago. Those of us who live here in the area have endured saturation coverage of this horrific event, and as the father of smallish children, I have refocused my attention to details like smoke detector batteries, home escape routes, keeping open flames to a minimum and flammable materials out of their reach. And of course, there is the inevitable memorial at the site of the fire. Tuesday's (9/5) Chicago Tribune featured a large full color photograph (registration required) of the memorial and I was struck immediately by the utter stupidity of at least one human being. There suspended on a wrought iron fence, hovering above the flowers and the potted plants was the single most disgusting and senseless contribution I've seen since Willie "Flukey" Stokes was buried in a Cadillac coffin -- a helium filled Tweety Bird.

Yes, that's right - Tweety Bird.

Now, I've seen teddy bears and other stuffed animals at these sites, and while I find them tacky, I can see them having a future existence in a pediatric hospital unit or perhaps kept by other family members as a reminder of a loved one.

But Tweety Bird?

I showed the photo to the wife and she immediately asked whose birthday was being celebrated. When I showed her the caption, she cringed.

"That's just awful."

We speculated that perhaps it was purchased by a child, and this could be forgiven, as children don't process death as adults do. But then I realized that an adult had to be involved in the process - had to accompany the child to the store to buy Tweety, bring the child to the site, tie Tweety to the fence. It affected me even more viscerally than reading the words of the woman who thought to senselessly rationalize the deaths of a Naperville, IL woman, her two infant sons and her mother because "God had a higher purpose for them in Heaven."

Six young lives lost in an inferno, a family shattered, a mother and father grieving, and the best this supposed adult can do is tie a celebratory cartoon character to wrought iron fence? Please, please, please - whoever you are - go straight to the woodchipper.

Thomas Jefferson, Colonio-fascist

Jefferson: "...for the preservation of our liberties being with one mind we are resolved to die free rather than live slaves."

Osama bin Laden (via Preznit Chimpy) "death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us."


[note to Preznit Chimpy--bin Laden was referring to FOREIGN TROOPS on ISLAMIC lands, not you in Crawford doing...whatever.]

We've finally figured out W's thought process

If we don't let the terrorists win, then the terrorists win.

Keeping an eye on the important things

Hat-tip to the Daily Kos:

The Transportation Security Administration has a webpage where they list what sorts of things you can bring on an airplane, what needs to be checked, what can go in a carry-on, etc.

They have a section for Makeup & Personal Items.

Everything in the list is permissible in checked luggage, but there are distinctions for carry-ons. For example, you cannot put mouthwash, toothpaste, Blistex, Neosporin, shampoo, or bottles of saline solution larger than 4 oz in your carry-on bags. You can bring nail clippers, though, which is a relief. Oh, and one more thing.

Personal lubricants (up to 4 oz) can be put in a carry on bag.

So, remember, if you're flying somewhere for that long-distance booty call, you have to check the toothbrush and Blistex, but the KY Jelly can go right in your pocket for easy access.

I feel safer already.

The great ideological struggle of the 21st century

The epic struggle is a few loose-screw religious leaders playing off disaffected, alienated 20-somethings who would be playing video games--if they had electricity??
I am so tired of this nonsense. It is historically inaccurate, sociologically offensive and it is INSULTING. Yes, it is insulting to suggest that the nation which stared down the Soviet Union should feel a pervasive fear of kids who here would be hanging around the 7-11 parking lot. It is cowardly and despicable.

I don't want to minimize the real threat of acts of terror--crime is everywhere. But as Doc Magoo said below, I'm not afraid. There are many clashes of ideology to come--free versus fair trade, environmentalism and consumerism, wealth and poverty--but some guys in a basement with some wire and cleaning supplies aren't it.

For two excellent pieces, read this one from Joshua Holland and this one from tompaine.com.

How football leads to global warming

Well, not directly. I was reading Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com, written by Gregg Easterbrook, and he posted a link to an article he wrote for the Brookings Institution:

"Here's the short version of everything you need to know about global warming. First, the consensus of the scientific community has shifted from skepticism to near-unanimous acceptance of the evidence of an artificial greenhouse effect. Second, while artificial climate change may have some beneficial effects, the odds are we're not going to like it. Third, reducing emissions of greenhouse gases may turn out to be much more practical and affordable than currently assumed.

This brief will address the three points above and, in an appendix, offer non-jargon explanations of the most important recent findings of greenhouse science. But the pressing point of this briefing is not so much scientific as it is practical—that action against artificial global warming may not prove nearly as expensive or daunting as commonly believed. Greenhouse gases are an air pollution problem, and all air pollution problems of the past have cost significantly less to fix than projected, while declining faster than expected. This gives cause to hope that artificial greenhouse gases can be controlled reasonably cheaply and without wrenching sacrifices to the global economy. And if there is a chance of an economical approach to greenhouse-gas reduction, then what are we waiting for? Let's start now."

An Inadvertant Truth

On the transition page from the U.S. House website to the National Archives' record of the Constitution:

"Neither the House office whose site contains the above link, nor the U.S. House of Representatives is responsible for the content of the non-House site you are about to access."

Neoconservatism and Fear

Pete points out in one of his recent posts that Sean Hannity is afraid of what will happen if Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker of the House. Not worried, not concerned, not uneasy, but afraid. When I heard that the other day, it got me thinking about the number of things that neocons are afraid of - Nancy Pelosi, gay marriage, brown people, terrorism, losing, fair elections - and I began feeling sorry for them, that they go through their lives with this much fear. As a liberal, I know that the only thing I have to fear is fear itself, and so while there are legitimate dangers in the world - terrorism, a repeal of the 22nd amendment, global warming - I know that it's better to focus on solutions to these problems than to run around being afraid all the time. How horrible that must be, to be scared of everything, to live in a world where you don't feel protected unless everything that scares you is secreted away, hidden behind a wall, or just put out of existence. Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, and all the rest, bluster because they, for whatever reason, are scared all the time - they can't bear to think about what happens if people with different values are accepted in society. They're too scared about losing their comforts to try to limit the damage that humanity is doing to the planet. They're terrified of everyone else, and the only sure way to be safe is to get rid of everyone else.

Not sharing their fear makes my life better each and every day.

From the "mind" of Sean Hannity

This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of them is.............. (drum roll)

"MAKING SURE NANCY PELOSI DOESN'T BECOME THE SPEAKER."

The results of the mid-term elections are worth KILLING and DYING for? Nancy Pelosi inspires sufficient fear for Sean to urge taking up arms? (for others, I'm sure, not him)

Wow. Cue "Battle Hym of the Morons."

Alex, may I have "Bad Analogies" for $100?

Enough with the historical analogies, please. We have fascism and totalitarianism tossed around by people who either don't know or don't care what those terms mean, and now Condi compares leaving Iraq with leaving slavery intact in the South. What's next, is GWB a 21st-century Alexander Nevsky fighting off the Teutonic Knights at the Battle on the Ice to save Novgorod? Maybe somewhere in this mess is an apt reference to the War of Jenkins' Ear, who knows?

Condi said that "I'm sure there are people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold." Rice added that "I know there were people who said, 'Why don't we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves?'"

Yes, there were many pacifists who wanted to let the "erring sisters" depart in peace. The vast majority of the inhabitants of the Union states, including one Abraham Lincoln, would have been quite satisfied to " take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves" through mid-1862, if that "peace" included restoration of the union. Emancipation was not a war objective at the outset, Lincoln very clearly stated that his only goal was to preserve and maintain the union. Lincoln, who had strong personal feelings on the matter, seized on emancipation as federal policy as a war measure intended to weaken the southern states in a variety of ways.

This experience is hardly comparable to occupying a sovereign country invaded on pretense while propping up a puppet "government" with no claim to legitimacy or sovereignty. But look on the bright side, at least she mentioned "civil war!"

Exactly what is a ...

"Tola-tera-tera-to-totalitarian?"

I don't know either, but the president says they're BAD!

I'm not making the above up, that is from his recent wordsmithing on "turr."

A Visit with Mr. Dictionary Man

Good evening, boys and girls. Here are two new words from the dictionary. The first is:

VICTORY (vic-to-ry)
–noun, plural -ries.

1. a success or triumph over an enemy in battle or war; 2. an engagement ending in such triumph; 3) the ultimate and decisive superiority in any battle or contest:

Isn't that a happy word? Success and triumph, how fun! And it works well in rhymes and cheers! Peppy cheerleaders can yell "V-I-C-T-O-R-Y, that's the [insert anthropomorhic team nickname here] battle cry!"

Our second word for tonight is:

OCCUPATION (oc-cu-pa-tion)
-noun

1) the act of occupying; 2) the state of being occupied; 3) the seizure and control of an area by military forces, esp. foreign territory; 4) the term of control of a territory by foreign military forces; 5) invasion, conquest and control of a nation or territory by foreign armed forces: 6) the military government exercising control over an occupied nation or territory.

Oooh. boys and girls, that is not a nice word. There is no success, no triumph, and you can't use it in a cheer. So from now on, boys and girls, we'll just forget about that nasty old "occupation" and always use our friend "VICTORY!"

That's our lesson for tonight. Mr. Dictionary Man will be back tomorrow and we will learn all about "fascists," "appeasement" and "freedom." Sleep tight!

One talking point to go, please

One thing we've known for a while is that the Republicans are much better at framing the debate than those of us on the left side of the aisle. For example, one thing you hear all the time on right-wing talk is that "Democrats have no ideas." Take a look this morning at a piece by a Tribune reporter (NOT an editorial) where she writes " Democrats have managed to gain on Republicans even without an overarching message." Ideological talking point one day, mainstream news the next--how convenient.

Ahhh, but Zin...

Drug-addled gasbag Rush Limbaugh has gotten to the root of the obesity crisis:

I think you might then say that the obesity crisis could be the fault of government, liberal government. Food stamps, all those -- you know, I'm gonna tell you people a story. I -- just, well, the government, you could say, is killing these people because we know obesity kills, and the government's killing the poor. The Bush administration is killing the poor with too much food.

And so, now, we find out that there is obesity and all this amongst the poor more than amongst those who are not poor. It's sort of a textbook case of what happens when we let liberals have their way. I mean, for decades, all over the world, we've been beat about the head that there are hungry people out there, that they are starving. UNICEF--how many of you trick-or-treated for UNICEF? Did you "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF," We all did--did you? We all trick-or-treated. One of the biggest scams on the face of the earth. It was--the scam was to get everybody loving the United Nations. The scam was to get everybody thinking the United Nations is feeding poor people. Remember all these stories: "A dime a day will feed 20 kids in some outward place around the world"?

This is what happens when you let the left run things. We've been beat about the head. There are hungry people everywhere. UNICEF got it all started. We've seen the babies with the extended tummies, the walking skeletons, told that kids can't learn unless they're fed. We've been guilted into pouring resources on the problem. And now, now, the latest crisis is that there is obesity among those who are impoverished. Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter. [editor's note--WHAT????] The real bloat here, as we know, is in--is in government.

Zin--it's your fault we're fat.

Obesity? Heart disease? Pish tosh

While doing my "catch-up" reading (no pun intended), I found an article in Crain's Chicago Business about McDonald's stagnant growth because they apparently haven't developed a new hamburger in five years.

I stopped reading the article when I got to this graf:

Burger King last month introduced BK Stackers, burgers that come with two, three or four hamburger patties and up to eight slices of bacon. Wendy's this fall will introduce Double Melt cheeseburgers with condiments between the two patties. Jack in the Box just introduced a new Outlaw burger with a jumbo beef patty. And Hardee's and Carl's Jr. have been rolling out big burgers consistently for the last two years.

Yep, that sound you hear is of buttons popping and sewing machines in China making even larger pants for even fatter Americans. Stick around, kids, someday zubaz may be back as an element of the everyday wardrobe.

Some sports rants

I'm in a foul sports mood.

I grew up loving the University of Illinois Fighting Illini, and just bought tickets to see their game against Iowa. It's a reasonable day trip from here, I love college football and my dad wants to go--his first Illini game in years and one of his first big outings since my mom passed away.

So my beefs?

The tickets weren't cheap (Iowa fans travel so Illinois made it a "premium" game--$32 to sit in the end zone "horseshoe") but so be it. What angered me were the "service charges." This was not a third-party site, the purchase was from the university, but for 6 tickets, I was charged a "fee" of $28. Three bucks a ticket plus $10 per "order." For what? It costs you less than having an hourly employee at the window, and you have my marketing information for a lifetime. I know no one held a gun to my head, but it just left a sour taste in my mouth.

Next beef--it will be my last time to see Chief Illiniwek.



The chief goes away after 80 years, thanks to the NCAA.

I admit to being emotional and perhaps irrational on this one but:

1) Doesn't the NCAA have more important things to do? From illegal recruiting to gambling to shoe company payola to the joke of "student athletes," should the chief be that high on your list?

2) He is not a sideline mascot. No cheerleading, no ramming Bucky Badger into the goalposts. Halftime, that's it.

3) I was at the game when by Frank Fools Crow of the Oglala Sioux presented the costume (Pitt destroyed the Illini that day, they couldn't stop this Dan Marino kid, don't know if he amounted to much)in a respectful ceremony. This was NOT a caricature like Chief Wahoo or Chief Nok-a-Homa.

OK, no one's buying it, but again--another round of sour taste.

AND THEN THIS. (Call the bullpen and have Dumbass start to get loose)

From the Letters to the Editor of the paper that owns this sorrowful excuse for a baseball team we get this bit of idiocy from one Mark Gaddo in Indianapolis:

I have seen a disturbing trend at Wrigley Field as fans have been booing our players!...I also want the Cubs to enforce a code of behavior on the fans. It saddens me when Jacque Jones was being targeted by catcalls, derisive cheers and use of racial slurs.

OK, racial slurs--we can all agree, out. But--booing? "Derisive cheers?" Mark, did you watch Jacque Jones the first half of the season? For how much money?

Mark--

The Madness of King George

"Those who cannot remember the past will really **** things up."
Peter

The Simian Boy King tells us that:

If America were to pull out before Iraq can defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable--and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies--Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran, and al Qaeda terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban.

The reality check imust be lost in the mail. Does George know that the first two are fighting each other and the third is just sitting back and absolutely enjoying the show? Does he understand that another name for one of the "armed groups with ties to Iran" is the IRAQI GOVERNMENT?

Don't know much about history.....

Logical fallacies

"The logical fallacy of false choice is a correlative-based fallacy in which options are presented as being exclusive when they may not be. It is often used to obscure the likelihood of one option or to reframe an argument on the user's terms."  Wikipedia

For example, take Darth Cheney's most recent bit of jingoistic saber-rattling:

"We have only two options in Iraq--victory or defeat."

Gosh we must avoid..defeat! That would be horrible! How could we live with..defeat? Our ONLY option is VICTORY!

Ladies and gentlemen, the false choice. 

Great Presidential Quotes

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Abraham Lincoln

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Thomas Jefferson

"We face an enemy that has an ideology. They believe things. The best way to describe their ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite of the way we think."

America's National Disgrace

Do you have a Preferred Jihadist card?

From moonbat Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon:

"We have to fight this battle. We either fight it over there or we're going to fight it in the supermarkets and the streets of America."

Riiiiight, I see. I can hear it now:

"Attention, all stockers to the front, and we need a jihad cleanup in frozen please."

And remember,

VOTE REPUBLICAN OR DIE!

Great Headlines to be Tooken Out of Context

Thanks, CNN:

Pumping neck gave polygamist away

Ummm...based on the number of wives that he had, I'm guessing his neck wasn't the only thing on him pumping.

Freudian slip???

Odd, huh? I agree with Cheney and Rumsfeld in the same day!

Dick talked about people who "pervert a religious faith to serve a dark political objective -- to establish, by violence and intimidation, a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom." He claimed that these insidious people "seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to a narrow and hateful ideology. This ideology rejects tolerance, denies freedom of conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of our society."

Our society, Dick? Don't you mean "their" society?? Oh wait, never mind.

Gee willikers, I agree with Rummy!

Yesterday, Rummy told us that "some seem not to have learned history's lessons." Gosh, Don, when did that light bulb go on? Lessons? History? Viet Nam? Napoleon and Russia? Pyrrhus?

He added that "any kind of moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere." Thank you, Captain Obvious. Lying us into an unprovoked war was certainly "wrong" and weakened the ability of this society to persevere."

Good night, Don.

Bet this will be a fun Thanksgiving..

ANYTHING is better than listening to the Idiot-in-Chief speak, but this was rich. Right-wing CNN newsbot Kyra Phillips

left her microphone on over the human dial tone:

“I’m very lucky at the network [not audible], he is genuinely a loving, no-ego [not audible] just a really passionate, compassionate, great, great human being. And they exist, they do exist. They’re hard to find, yep, but they are out there.....”

and then she turns ugly, slamming her sister-in-law:

“Mom’s got a good vibe. Brothers have to be, you know, protective. Except for mine, I’ve got to be protective of him. Ah yeah, I have to be protective of him. He’s married, three kids, but his wife is just a control freak.”

Happy Holidays...Happy Holidays...

I'm tired of bad news--I need a dumbass break

From the online Letters to the Editor in the Chicago Tribune, some buffoon named Barry, in discussing judicial activism, judge-made law and the common-law tradition, gave us this gem:

Judge made law went out with the ratification of the Constitution in 1787. Reviewing law for constitutionality first appeared in 1803. Now we have judge made law again in violation of the Constitution,but nobody seems to care about the judicial branch's usurping legislative function; only perceived violation by the executive branch is spotlighted.

There is only ONE thing to say:

Disaster

On the Bob Edwards show this morning on XMPR, he interviewed Christopher Cooper and Robert Block, authors of the new book Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security. It was a fascinating interview.

In the book, Cooper and Block detailed the myriad failures, myths, and outright incompetence of the federal government's management of the preparation for and response to Katrina. The Department of Homeland Security takes the brunt of the blow, with Michael Chertoff getting eviscerated for his complete inability to understand what was going on or manage the disaster. The myth that the Bush Administration has tried to perpetrate that somehow this was a failure of local government is completely debunked - in fact, New Orleans managed a larger evacuation than any ever. Not only did more people get out, but a higher percentage were evacuated before Katrina hit than was expected. When Ernesto hits the Keys this week, they said, roughly 40% of people will evacuate. Over 80% of NO residents left before the hurricane hit.

In the months before Katrina, the people involved ran a simulation involving "Hurricane Pam", which was supposed to flood New Orleans. During that simulation, the local and state governments described what they could do, and the federal government essentially said that they could take care of everything else. When Katrina actually hit, the state and local governments did what they had planned on, for the most part. It was the federal government that failed.

Why did it fail? In short, because when DHS was established, the goal was not to deal with the recovery from a disaster, presumably from a terrorist attack, but to prevent or disrupt the attack. The assumption was made that natural disasters were something we knew how to handle, so there was no reason to worry about them. FEMA was demoted, and Michael Brown, while not an Emergency Management specialist, was thoroughly marginalized, so that when he did ask for things, he was told that unless Chertoff backed him up, nothing would happen.

What was Chertoff doing? He was assuming that it was a local problem. They had set up an internal condition that DHS wouldn't need to step in until the levees breached, so when the reports started coming in that the city was flooding, they asked "Did the levees breach?" When the responses came in that they thought so, but there was confusion, it didn't trigger a response from the feds. They got caught up in terminology - if a report came in that a levee had breached, and there really was a floodwall in that location, it was ignored. They had a definition that if a levee fell over, but half of it still stood, it wasn't breached. Chertoff was also treating the situation like an intelligence-gathering mission during a war - unless he could get multiple, independent confirmations of something, it didn't happen. As the reporters said "In a military situation, that makes sense - people could die if you make the wrong decisions. No one will die if too many supply helicopters bring water to New Orleans."

President Bush, at least in this book, got a bit of a break. He was letting his people handle it, letting them feed him information, and unless he heard something from Chertoff, there wasn't a need to do anything. Of course, that is one of his failings - he doesn't get involved, he waits for information instead of seeking it out, and he's overly loyal to incompetent cronies who know not too feed him any information that he doesn't want.

Bob Edwards asked the question that many of us asked during those horrific days - "Couldn't they just turn on the TV and see what was going on?" Apparently, no. When news coverage started coming in that there was a disaster starting to happen in the Convention Center, one of Chertoff's assistants is described (in his own words) as spending the evening making fun of the reporters for not knowing that the Convention Center was really the Superdome, and it wasn't until much, much later that he realized that the two were actually different places.

This was an abject failure of leadership. Never forget.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

From the Orlando Sentinel:

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris said this week that the separation of church state is "a lie," that God did not intend for the United States to be a "nation of secular laws" and that a failure to elect Christians to political office will allow lawmaking bodies to "legislate sin."

In an interview with the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, Harris described her faith, saying it animates "everything I do," including her votes in Congress.

She warned that if voters do not send Christians to office, they risk creating a government that is doomed to fail.

"If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," she told interviewers, citing abortion and gay marriage as two examples of that sin.

Doing so, she said, "will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong..."

Harris said that Americans "have internalized" the "lie" that church and state must not be mixed. In reality, she said, "we have to have the faithful in government" because that is God's will.

Separating religion and politics is "so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers," Harris said. "And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women," then "we're going to have a nation of secular laws. That's not what our founding fathers intended and that's (sic) certainly isn't what God intended."

Sad and pathetic, but proof that there is such a thing as karma. However, the paper seems to have left out her last comment--

BRING ME THOSE PUPPIES!

Happy Anniversary

I wish I had something profound to say, but the words just get strangled by the hatred, disgust and contempt I feel when I see this.

An oldie but a goodie

Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore
© John Prine

While digesting Reader's Digest
In the back of a dirty book store,
A plastic flag, with gum on the back,
Fell out on the floor.
Well, I picked it up and I ran outside
Slapped it on my window shield,
And if I could see old Betsy Ross
I'd tell her how good I feel.

But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.

Well, I went to the bank this morning
And the cashier he said to me,
"If you join the Christmas club
We'll give you ten of them flags for free."
Well, I didn't mess around a bit
I took him up on what he said.
And I stuck them stickers all over my car
And one on my wife's forehead.

But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.

Well, I got my window shield so filled
With flags I couldn't see.
So, I ran the car upside a curb
And right into a tree.
By the time they got a doctor down
I was already dead.
And I'll never understand why the man
Standing in the Pearly Gates said...

"But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
We're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more."

Farewell, Pluto

What does an ex-planet do, anyway?

The Swiftboaters Sail Again

The right-wing attack machine is out after Judge Anna Diggs Taylor with a ridiculous claim based on her service as a trustee of a community action organization. That group happened to give grants to the ACLU. As University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone stated, "judges live in the real world" and "these are not the sorts of conflicts that undermine their integrity."

But, if anyone from the right has any concerns about judicial impartiality, conflicts and recusal, I have the man for them to call:

comments

Well, after a racist rant, my first death threat and someone posting personal info, I've switched on the comment moderation function--a minor inconvenience. My apologies to the regulars, but trolls happen.

The president is smart! Honest!

This gem comes from Kathleen Parker, a Bushbot syndicated in the Chicago Tribune:

I was the guest of a guest and welcomed the opportunity to observe the president in his natural habitat. What I witnessed was revealing. Not only was the man fluent in the English language and intellectually agile, he was knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects raised during a 90-minute Q&A.

She suggests that dadgummit, the only reason he sounds like a total moron is because he is trying to "speak Washington English, which is the way Bush thinks presidents are supposed to speak." If only he could "talk Texan," why, he'd be just fine!

Good God. The "intellectually agile" man didn't know that there were different sects of Islam? A fellow "knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects" had no clue about "tribal sovereignty?" It is amazing how far some apologists will stretch. This is a man who has demonstrated his lack of knowledge, analytical ability and intellectual curiosity in so many arenas that attributing his embarrassing performances to some bizarre form of stage fright is laughable.

And a quick side note to Chatty Kathy--any perceived differences you see in him now and in his Texas years may well be attributable to the degenerative effects of prolonged drug abuse.

Don't blame me, I've done my part!

From the WSJ:

Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.

Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today's problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold.

From George Orwell

Orwell wrote that:

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.


It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

But, no, you're right, this is a -- they're a central part of creating instability, trying to stop reformers from realizing dreams. And the question facing this country is, will -- do we, one, understand the threat to America? In other words, do we understand that a failed -- failed states in the Middle East are a direct threat to our country's security? And secondly, will we continue to stay engaged in helping reformers, in working to advance liberty, to defeat an ideology that doesn't believe in freedom?

Well said, Mr. Orwell.

Recommended reading

David Corn, in The Nation, on fearless leader's bizarre performance yesterday.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=114384

But it's a dry heat

Local Forecast for Baghdad, Iraq

Aug 22 Tonight Mainly clear skies. Low 88F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Aug 23 Tomorrow Mainly sunny. High 116F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.
Aug 23 Tomorrow night Clear. Low 88F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
Aug 24 Thursday Sunshine. Highs 115 to 119F and lows in the upper 80s.
Aug 25 Friday Mainly sunny. Highs 116 to 120F and lows in the upper 80s.

from weather.com

Oh Suzanna...

Suzanne--you're my hero.

I'm guessing that this would be Suzanne Malveaux of CNN, but I can't really tell (Me likey anyway!)

But in any case, The Emperor Has No Clothes is rambling on and not saying anything, and calls on my new hero. He says

THE PRESIDENT: Suzanne.

Q Sir, that's not really the question. The strategy --

THE PRESIDENT: Sounded like the question to me.

There it is in a nutshell. He can't answer the question asked, so he tries to answer something they didn't ask, with his talking points. Nice job, Suzanne--but unfortunately, it was all for naught.

EMPEROR WITH NO CLOTHES: If I didn't think it would work, I would change -- our commanders would recommend changing the strategy. They believe it will work. It takes time to defeat these people.

Well, at least they aren't "folks." Should we mention, though, that "these people" are Iraqis opposing a Shi'a government installed and propped up by US??

The Maliki government has been in power for less than six months. And, yes, the people spoke.

Yes, they spoke and they told us to get the hell out of there.

I've cited that as a part of -- the reason I cite it is because it's what the Iraqi people want.

What "Iraqi" people? The Sunnis who hate Shia and Kurds? The Shia who hate Sunni and Kurds? The Kurds who hate Shia and Sunni and have set up an independent state?

And the fundamental question facing this government is whether or not we will stand with reformers across the region.

Reformers, huh? Reformers seeking to reform WHAT?

It's really the task. And we're going to stand with this government.

What "government" is that? The one that controls NO territory? That has NO claim to legitimacy? That has NONE of the elements of statehood?

They're Glass Half Full Folks for Sure

What Happened:

Snipers targeted Shiite pilgrims as they passed through Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing 20 and wounding nearly 300

Sub-headline in the Chicago Tribune:

Relatively low toll in attack on Shiites seen as security success

They sure set the "success" bar pretty low over at Tribune Tower (if this wasn't so disgusting, I would insert a Cub joke here).

Quotes

"If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear
the results of a hundred battles." Sun Tzu. 500 B.C.

"The fact is, Iraqis really--Iraqis look upon themselves not at--at least, in all cases--as Sunni, Shia and Kurd, but as Iraqis." Tony Snow, last week

"Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory." Sun Tzu. 500 B.C.

If polls are to be believed--

then 129 million morons live in this country.

Has the war in Iraq been worth the loss of American lives?

Yes 38%
No 56%
Not sure 6%

Source: Zogby International
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,018 likely American voters, conducted from Aug. 11 to Aug. 15, 2006. Margin of error is 3.2 per cent.

Well, perhaps not 129 million, as not everyone who feels that way is a moron. I'm sure there are some very intelligent individuals who quite rationally think that the death and destruction is quite worth it--from the standpoint of their own financial gain and political power. Soulless ghouls?--Yes.



Morons--no. But leaving the self-promoting politicians, defense contractors and other profiteers out of the equation, how can anyone believe that this unmitigated disaster is worth this butcher's bill? How can anyone be "not sure?"

I don't even know what to say about this one

Just read it.

Maybe he did read it...

Quotes from Camus' The Stranger (translation)

"I would rather not have upset him, but I couldn't see any reason to change my life. Looking back on it, I wasn't unhappy. When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered."

"At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it."

"...for the first time in years, I had this stupid urge to cry, because I could feel how much all these people hated me."

"They [the jury] had before them the basest of crimes, a crime made worse than sordid by the fact that they were dealing with a monster, a man without morals."

"But all the long speeches, all the interminable days and hours that people had spent talking about my soul, had left me with the impression of a colorless swirling river that was making me dizzy."

"How had I not seen that there was nothing more important than an execution, and that when you come right down to it, it was the only thing a man could truly be interested in?"

"'I am on your side. But you have no way of knowing it, because our heart is blind.'"

They never heard of MapQuest?

"If we leave before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the enemy will follow us home."

So our "enemies" are lost puppies? Guys who won't ask for directions? God help us.

A picture is worth a thousand words

But please feel free to add some more.

Crony Capitalism

SEC Charges Former Officers of Military Body Armor Supplier with Financial Fraud

Washington, D.C., Aug. 17, 2006 - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the filing of securities fraud charges against Dawn M. Schlegel and Sandra L. Hatfield, two former officers of DHB Industries, Inc., a major supplier of body armor to the United States military and law enforcement agencies. The SEC alleges that Schlegel, DHB's former Chief Financial Officer, and Hatfield, DHB's former Chief Operating Officer, routinely overstated the value of the company's inventory and directed the booking of numerous fraudulent journal entries in order to reduce the company's cost of goods sold. This had the effect of falsely increasing the company's gross profit margins, and in some instances, net income. As a result of their misconduct, DHB materially misstated key financial information in filings with the SEC and in public statements.

Summer Reading

Note to the White House:

Please stop insulting our intelligence. I know that your entire political strategy involves your belief that the American public is collectively as stupid as a very large bag of hammers (note: we do not necessarily disagree). However, please don't expect us to believe that the president is reading absurdist novels and discoursing on existentialism amidst brush-clearing breaks.

Many have noted the irony of his choice of "reading material," Camus' The Stranger, which involves a westerner killing an Arab without remorse, but give us some credit. Camus? No.

Perhaps he was LISTENING to a cut from Billy Joel's The Stranger:

You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain't too pretty we ain't too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud



No, not even that.

Perhaps this would be more believable.

I searched my soul for some tiny piece of it that retained the capability to feel sorry for her, and still nothing.

I stole that title from a friend's email.

Watching Katherine Harris, who helped engineer the debacle in Florida which has caused such ruinous harm to our world, suffer a public and catastrophic defeat, is truly the most beautiful example of Schadenfreude we have seen in a very long time.

From Salon.com (Site Pass required):

The event was called "Soaring for the Senate," and the idea was to show off some of the high-profile endorsements Katherine Harris has received. The problem? As the Orlando Sentinel reports, not one of the nine endorsing officials listed on Harris' event flier showed up for Thursday's event, and one of them said that he actually supports somebody else in the race.

Harris sounds hurt about that last one. "They called back twice and said he'd be here," she tells the Sentinel. "He said he was going to be here on the stage with me today."

Bimodal Expectations for November

The upcoming elections, and the possible results, have been getting a lot of play recently online. Various pundits and tinfoil-hatted experts have been pontificating and spewing wisdom.

I've decided that we're going to get one of two possible outcomes:

1) The Republican and neocon cabal will be destroyed in a flood of holy fire, with ballots from coast to coast demonstrating the nation's utter sickness of corruption, death, greed, hatred, racism, theft, and the desecration of our most sacred national beliefs. The Democrats will take back the House and the Senate, with room to spare, in a wave which would make the 1994 GOP takeover look like nothing.

2) The GOP and Diebold will lie, cheat, steal, use dirty tactics, disenfranchise voters, use hatred and ignorance to divide the electorate like never before, make up fake victories in their war against humanity...and only manage to lose a few seats in Congress.

Barring the most corrupt, conspiracy-laden beliefs, is it possible that anything else happens?

The NSA opinion

The opinion in the wiretapping case is very well-reasoned and is tightly written. She carefully distinguishes between the wiretaps and the data mining under the "state secrets" privilege. She noted that the "TSP' claims were based "solely on what Defendants have publicly admitted," and hence not privileged, while the data mining claims were barred by the secrets privilege. The bifurcated analysis, clearly written with an eye toward surviving appellate challenge, is very persuasive.

The sticky issue in these cases is always the notion of "standing." Federal courts may only hear "cases" or "controversies" brought by parties with recognized justiciable interests. They cannot issue advisory opinions or rule on questions unless put forth by a party that suffered actual harm. To use the jargon, standing requires a showing of an invasion of a legally protected interest that is 1) concrete and particularized and 2) actual or imminent rather than conjectural or hypothetical. There must also be a 3) causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of and 4) it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.

She finds real harm done to specific persons, such as scholars, journalists and (bastards) attorneys, as the surveillance actually interfered with their work.

"Here, Plaintiffs are not asserting speculative allegations. Instead, the declarations asserted by Plaintiffs establish that they are suffering a present concrete injury in addition to a chill of their First Amendment rights. Plaintiffs would be able to continue using the telephone and email in the execution of their professional responsibilities if the Defendants were not undisputedly and admittedly conducting warrantless wiretaps of conversations."

The problem with standing challenges, which will definitely be asserted on appeal, is that it is an easy way out for appellate panels that don't like the result but don't want to go on record in addressing the merits. Another way out comes from the nature of the ruling. This was a grant of summary judgment, a judgment on the pleadings before trial. Such an order involves a finding that there is no question of material fact, and the issue presented to the court is purely a question of law. Appeals courts can reverse that finding, by holding that there were factual issues that needed resolution, without speaking to the merits (and also embarrassing the district judge in so doing).

I honestly am not all that familiar with the 6th Circuit. Quite a few W appointees sit there, so panel makeup will be crucial (these cases are normally heard by a panel of three judges). However, she is certainly sending them a well-crafted district court opinion with no glaring holes.

And kudos to Judge Taylor for some great lines:

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all “inherent powers” must derive from that Constitution.

Indeed, since Ex Parte Milligan, we have been taught that the “Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace. . . Again, in Home Building & Loan Ass’n v. Blaisdell, we were taught that no emergency can create power.

Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution.

Double wow.

"The President of the United States, a creature of the same Constitution which gave us these Amendments, has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders as required by FISA, and accordingly has violated the First Amendment Rights of these Plaintiffs as well."

ACLU v. NSA (Eastern District of Michigan). Opinion here.

Wow.

Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, running as an independent, gets 53 percent of likely voters, with 41 percent for Democratic primary winner Ned Lamont and 4 percent for Republican Alan Schlesinger, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

New Member

Welcome Dienne to our little group. Dienne is a frequent and thoughtful contributor to the Tribune's Voice of the People blog and a welcome addition here.

Rush's Dumber Brother

RDB (Rush's Dumber Brother) said that "the political party that is known for nothing if not for politicizing the War on Terror claims to be upset that Vice President Dick Cheney was `politicizing' the war when he suggested that Ned Lamont's primary victory over Joe Lieberman could embolden terrorists."

OK, I could refute that, with the landslide of evidence of how the GOP has used "terror" as a bludgeon throughout the Bush years, and has done NOTHING but politicize this nonsense, while ignoring REAL security, but that would be putting on the defense case in the Scopes trial.

RDB went on to claim that "we have never ceased vigorous pursuit of bin Laden." Hmm, the administration dissolved the bin Laden task force? And RDB failed to note that GWB effectively caved into bin Laden's demands by withdrawing troops from Saudi Arabia? But then again, he is RDB.

On Fox News....

I usually don't watch Fox News, because I am not part of their target demographic:


but sometimes, the train wreck impulse just takes over. On Hannity and Colmes last night (Colmes pictured below)



Dick Morris, disgraced buffoon who insists on being called a "former Clinton advisor," said that without the grossly unconstitutional NSA wiretapping program, "the Brooklyn Bridge would certainly have been destroyed."

Right. Iyman Faris? The psychotic Ohio truck driver who wanted to bring down this:


with this:



Amazing. First of all, the truck driver was a delusional psychotic. Next, I doubt that Roebling's masterpiece could br brought down with a blowtorch.

And that whole constitution thing?

First of all, ordinary police work within constitutional bounds would have turned up this bozo, for what he was worth. Morris also claims that you couldn't get a warrant because you didn't know who, where, or what ahead of time, despite the disgracefully low bar set by FISA, so we had to illegally LISTEN TO EVERYONE. There might be a crime out there somewhere so screw that 4th amendment nonsense!

Great quotes from great men

FDR: If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships--the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.

JFK: A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Pee-Wee's Big Presidentin' Adventure: The United States of America is engaged in a war against an extremist group of folks..link.

We're Fightin' "Turr"

WASHINGTON -- As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology. Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of Homeland Security Department steps that have left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

Here's a really GREAT quote

From the soon-to-be new CEO of PepsiCo, Indira Nooyi, who was born and raised in India before coming to the States and taking charge of the company which brings us all KenTacoHut at the age of fifty:

She had compared the five fingers of the human hand to the continents of the world, identifying the dominant middle finger as the US. "If used inappropriately - just like the US itself - the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble."

"Because the US - the middle finger - sticks out so much, we can send the wrong message unintentionally. Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the US right now."

She be right.

More Misty Watercolored Memories

From August 2002:

"Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region, extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad, moderates throughout the region would take heart, and our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced."

Vice President Dick Cheney

Some posts just write themselves

Yes, this is real. I know it sounds like the Onion, but it's the real McCoy.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

(Crawford, Texas)

For Immediate Release August 10, 2006

Fact Sheet: National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy

“High-level corruption by senior government officials, or kleptocracy, is a grave and corrosive abuse of power and represents the most invidious type of public corruption. It threatens our national interest and violates our values. It impedes our efforts to promote freedom and democracy, end poverty, and combat international crime and terrorism. Kleptocracy is an obstacle to democratic progress, undermines faith in government institutions, and steals prosperity from the people. Promoting transparent, accountable governance is a critical component of our freedom agenda.

-- President George W. Bush, August 10, 2006

I'll let you read the rest below, but W is out to stop "high-level corruption by senior government officials, in order to promote transparent, accountable governance!!"

Ladies and gentlemen, the comedy stylings of George W. Bush! He's here all week, tip your servers and drive home safely!

Today, The President Unveiled His National Strategy To Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy, Pledging To Confront High-Level, Large-Scale Corruption By Public Officials And Target The Proceeds Of Their Corrupt Acts. This Strategy Is A New Component Of His Plan To Fight Corruption Around The World.

Public corruption erodes democracy, rule of law, and economic well-being by undermining public financial management and accountability, discouraging foreign investment, and stifling economic growth and sustainable development.

Ø Kleptocracy Is A Threat To The Governments And Citizens Of Both Developing And Developed Countries. Corruption by senior officials in executive, judicial, legislative, or other official positions in government can destabilize whole societies and destroy the aspirations of their people for a better way of life.

The President's National Strategy To Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy

This New National Strategy Builds On The President’s Commitment Made With The G-8 Leaders At Their Recent Summit In St. Petersburg. At the G-8 summit, President Bush committed to promote legal frameworks and a global financial system that will reduce the opportunities for kleptocracies to develop and to deny safe haven to corrupt officials, those who corrupt them, and the proceeds of corrupt activity.

Ø The Strategy Has As Its Foundation In The President’s Proclamation, Made In January 2004, To Generally Deny Entry Into The United States Of Persons Engaged In Or Benefiting From Corruption.

Ø The Strategy Advances Many Of The Objectives In The National Security Strategy By Mobilizing The International Community To Confront Large-Scale Corruption By High-Level Foreign Public Officials And Target The Fruits Of Their Ill-Gotten Gains.

Ø The Strategy Reaffirms The President’s Commitment To Ensure That Integrity And Transparency Triumph Over Corruption And Lawlessness Around The World, Expand The Circle Of Prosperity, And Extend America’s Transformational Democratic Values To All Free And Open Societies.

Specifically, The Strategy Promotes Our Objectives By Committing To:

Ø Launch A Coalition Of International Financial Centers Committed To Denying Access And Financial Safe Haven To Kleptocrats. The United States Government will enhance its work with international financial partners, in the public and private sectors, to pinpoint best practices for identifying, tracing, freezing, and recovering assets illicitly acquired through kleptocracy. The U.S. will also work bilaterally and multilaterally to immobilize kleptocratic foreign public officials using financial and economic sanctions against them and their network of cronies.

Ø Vigorously Prosecute Foreign Corruption Offenses and Seize Illicitly Acquired Assets. In its continuing efforts against bribery of foreign officials, the United States Government will expand its capacity to investigate and prosecute criminal violations associated with high-level foreign official corruption and related money laundering, as well as to seize the proceeds of such crimes.

Ø Deny Physical Safe Haven. We will work closely with international partners to identify kleptocrats and those who corrupt them, and deny such persons entry and safe haven.

Ø Strengthen Multilateral Action Against Bribery. The United States will work with international partners to more vigorously investigate and prosecute those who pay or promise to pay bribes to public officials; to strengthen multilateral and national disciplines to stop bribery of foreign public officials; and to halt bribery of foreign political parties, party officials, and candidates for office.

Ø Facilitate And Reinforce Responsible Repatriation And Use. We will also work with our partners to develop and promote mechanisms that capture and dispose of recovered assets for the benefit of the citizens of countries victimized by high-level public corruption.

Ø Target And Internationalize Enhanced Capacity. The United States will target technical assistance and focus international attention on building capacity to detect, prosecute, and recover the proceeds of high-level public corruption, while helping build strong systems to promote responsible, accountable, and honest governance.

One possible advantage

The new airport rules may tame one of the most boorish monsters out there--the carry-on hog. You know who you are, trying to stuff a suitcase that could hold a small child into the overhead bin. That is why they have those signs saying "baggage claim" all over.

While on that same topic....

NOTE: The post below is mine (Peter). The wireless network at the house is on the fritz, and Xanth (my 15-year old son) was still signed in. While I'm sure he would agree with these points, I don't want his mom to bust him for dropping the F-bomb.

The topic--Missing the Point.

America's dumbest president gets off the plane from brush-clearing and headed to a fundraiser and then back to brush-clearing to tell us that whatever happened in Britain was:

"a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

George, George, George...

First of all, we are not AT WAR. We are OCCUPYING Iraq, but we are not AT WAR (if you disagree, PLEASE 1) identify the "enemy" and 2) identify the "objective." If you can't do that, from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz, shut the fuck up)

Secondly, I can also hardly find a more laughable term than "IslamoFASCISM." Fascism suggests extreme nationalism and an identity with the corporate state. Hmm, I see no NATIONALISM given these are not nation-states, And "FASCISM?" The identification of the corporate state with the polity? Hardly here (but George--see "Halliburton.").

And of course, this has NOTHING to do with OUR FREEDOMS. It has to do with international arrogance, and yes, lessons unlearned from Viet Nam and the "fall" of the "Soviet Union."

Lessons unlearned, where should I begin?

1) Be honest with your citizenry (read Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly) Admittedly, the American electorate is not comprised of rocket scientists (DocMagoo excepted) but eventually they catch on.

2) You can't bomb people into liking you.

3) Overwhelming military force cannot change fundamental realities on the ground.

And how about INTERNATIONAL ARROGANCE?

"They" don't give a damn about our "freedoms"--honestly, I wonder if we do.

They care about OUR POLICIES. They "care" about us invading an Arab country without provocation. "They" "care" about us supporting repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. "They" care historically about our support of the Shah, who in terms of abusive dictators, made Hussein look like the shallow end of the pool. "They" care about our unconditional support of Israel, having pissed away our role as "honest broker." "They" care about Abu Ghrahib and Gitmo and 14-year old girls raped and killed.

But what do "they" know?

Missing the Point

Well, now we know that Darth Cheney knew of the "terror" plot when he did his rant:

The thing that’s partly disturbing about it [Lieberman's loss] is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al-Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.

My question/observation is--doesn't this whole thing prove the administration to be absolutely WRONG in their approach to "turr?" Odds are, these British "home-grown terrorists," skepticism intact, are probably pissed at their lap dog Tony Blair and his inexplicable support of W's cowboy game. So, the "war on terror" caused it and good old-fashioned police work stopped it. The administration wants war, which causes death and destruction, and they disparage "law enforcement," which stops it.

At the Battle of Yorktown, when the British surrendered, their musicians played "The World Turned Upside Down." That ditty marked the beginning of what would become the United States of America. Perhaps we should play it again.