a worthy ready

it's not often that i read the front page of DU, (here's where i declare my $10/month membership), but this one was a worthy read by all.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/11/12_believe.html

read it and tell me that it's not true. i dare ya.

any narnia fans out there?

this was mentioned on DU about narnia:

It is the big daddy who makes the rules and doesn't tell you what they are and requires that you live your life by them and as means to his end, and judges you by them and bestows rewards or imposes punishment on you when you die, except you really don't die, according to whether he likes you or not content.

shit, you cant unquote out of this damn GUI on blogger. i hate their shit. but if that's what narnia is really all about, i think i wanna take a gander at it.

Paragraph Pick of the Day

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, in a Page One WP fact-check, note that the administration's defense—that Congress saw the same intelligence as the White House before the war and that independent commissions have determined the intelligence to have been represented accurately—is not quite true.

(thanks to today's papers for their patriotic service to America)

Letter of the WeeQ

After the last election I made the statement that mass education was not working in America. Well I was wrong. President Bush's approval rating is down to 34 percent, Vice President Dick Cheney's is down to 19 percent. The public can be educated — it just takes time.

—William Tempelmeyer, retired special education teacher, Marshalltown.

attribution

i jus happen to know bill tempelmeyer. he used to come into the tallcorn hotel where i worked as a bartender.

Letter Of The Day

today, you get to make the choice. which letter would you pick to win LOTD?

Why do President Bush and Vice President Cheney continue to fight Sen. John McCain's amendment to codify what is the armed forces' official stance on torture?

This is from the White House's official statement on the matter: "The administration strongly opposes such amendments, which would interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war to answer unnecessary or duplicative inquiry or by restricting the president's ability to conduct the war effectively under existing law."

Set aside the fact that torture has been shown to be ineffective. Ignore the fact that we condemn such behavior in other countries (such as Saddam's Iraq), or that the Army's own guide to conduct explicitly forbids such behavior.

Ask yourself this question: Why is President Bush willing to exercise the first veto of his two terms in office to allow torture? And then ask yourself this: If the president is successful, are you still proud to be an American citizen?

—-Jeff Dickey-Chasins, Grinnell.

Regarding the recent Nov. 5 article, "Cheney Says Exempt CIA From Suspect Torture Ban": The truly interesting, below-the-surface part of this article is not that Vice President Cheney wants to continue ignoring the Geneva Convention rules on the treatment of prisoners of war. That is to be expected from this crowd.

The interesting part is that someone "leaked" what Cheney said at a weekly private meeting of Republican senators.

This has been the most secretive and behind-the-scenes administration for many years. The fact that the dike is cracking and that the veil of secrecy and the "house of cards" is coming down is the real headline.

It's due time.

—Rodger Routh, Ankeny.

attribution

a great editorial

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051112/OPINION04/511120311/1035/OPINION

keeping him in the dark

won't work for an excuse, i'm sorry sir, but you'll need to do better than that.

A former top official in the Bush administration is suggesting that a White House memo outlining the need for hundreds of thousands of troops for the Iraq invasion was kept from the president. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to then-secretary of state Colin Powell during President Bush's first term, said in a November 7 speech that the National Security Council had prepared a pre-war memo recommending that hundreds of thousands of troops and other security personnel were needed. “I don't know if the president saw it,” Wilkerson told the audience of military officers and international lawyers, who had gathered at the military for a conference on on international humanitarian law. In response to a follow-up question after his speech, Wilkerson, a retired U.S. army colonel, said he believed that then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice or her deputy, Stephen Hadley, had blocked the memo, but he acknowledged that he had no clear evidence.

--source

i am convinced

cbsnews has seen the light and is helping to dethrone the thieves of washington.

Pundit Pic of the Day

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/10.html#a5800

Caught On Kos

A proposal to end the long-standing practice of veterans groups addressing a joint session of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees is an insult to all who have fought, sacrificed and died to defend the Constitution, according to the Disabled American Veterans (DAV). And in a strongly worded letter to House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), the DAV has urged him to continue the joint hearings as an invaluable tool in formulating public policy toward America's veterans.
Chairman Buyer recently announced that veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees.

"The tradition of legislative presentations by veterans service organizations dates back to at least the 1950s. And the timing of this announcement---just before Veterans Day---could not have been worse," said DAV National Commander Paul W. Jackson.

--attribution

links of the day

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/11/MNGFMFMNV41.DTL

"You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds,' " O'Reilly said Tuesday on his radio show as San Franciscans were approving the two measures. Perhaps, he didn't realize that he'd be speaking mostly to foreign tourists and suburbanites if he were standing in Union Square.

"Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead," O'Reilly went on. "And if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/politics/11policy.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - Faced with a bleak public mood about Iraq and stung by Democratic accusations that he led the nation into war on false pretenses, President Bush is beginning a new effort to shore up his credibility and cast his critics as hypocrites.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-11-10T211653Z_01_SCH076551_RTRUKOC_0_US-RELIGION-ROBERTSON.xml&archived=False

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said.

(they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design")

and finally, from foxnews no less:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175184,00.html

Today, 36 percent of Americans approve and 53 percent disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president. For comparison, two weeks ago 41 percent said they approved and 51 percent disapproved, and at the beginning of his second term 50 percent approved and 40 percent disapproved (January 25-26).

lets see if i got this right

you lie to me, and convince me of that lie to be the truth. i go along with you believing you. it turns out that it wasn't the truth, and now YOU WANT ME TO SHARE THE BLAME?

HOW IN THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK? only in republiCON circles does that work. not in democractic America.

The White House went on the offensive in the debate over the Iraq war yesterday, insisting that U.S. intelligence had compiled a "very strong case" that Saddam Hussein harbored banned weapons and accusing congressional critics of hypocrisy because many of them voted for force three years ago.

--WaPo

so, the president is going to spring some new zingers this time to convince us that we didn't hear with our lying ears what we heard. this i gotta watch. get the popcorn out girls, tis a party waitin to happen.

see how the NYT fibs?

The NYT says that in Jordan, "the nation grew defiant Thursday." Along with other papers, the Times describes protesters in the streets of Amman vowing to stand by their government and the fight against terrorism. And exactly how many people were engaged in this mass show of defiance? "About 300 residents."

from today's papers.

Letter Of The Day

The government is looking to save money for hurricane relief, among other things. Apparently it has settled on upping charges on student loans along with other fees.

If a Democrat were president with a Democratic Congress, this would be called a tax increase for out-of-control government spending. But since both are Republican-controlled, it is called "fiscal responsibility."

-Eric McLuen, Des Moines.
attribution

judy miller's crybaby fareway letter to the editor

is up on the times' site.

another lie another dollar

The Marines said that, according to a witness, rebels broke into a family's home, killed two of the occupants and locked the rest in a room. The insurgents then used the house as a base to launch attacks on American and Iraqi troops, the Marines said. Unaware that civilians were in the house, Marine aircraft bombed it on Monday, reducing it to rubble.

...

"It is unknown why insurgents used this particular house, which was occupied, when there were so many homes in the area that were abandoned," Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, a spokesman for the Second Marine Division, said in a statement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/international/10iraq.html?pagewanted=all

gee, do you REALLY believe that line?

random thoughts on a wednesday night

i just had the thought and it escaped me as soon as i pulled out the pen (if you will). dammit all.

i'd sure like to know why my text paragraphs are double. i like it, but still, i don't remember turning that on.

shit, i wish i could remember what the hell it was i was rememberin'. it had to do with something from years and years ago. back when i didn't have a care in the world, made a ton of money, and spent it like no tomorrow. dammit all anyway.

if it comes back, i'll update this post.

hey howard!

ya out there babe? here's a whisper for your ear:

come up with an agenda. a rock solid one that can even attract the centrists out there. but one that is sure to energize your base. an agenda that sets not only the goals but the time in which they are to be met. an agenda that is bold, and enough out there that some will question the feasibility of the idea. which is where you'll shine even brighter if you have the answer.

but having an agenda when the republicans don't will not only give you that edge but provide you with a foot inside that winner's circle we so desperately want. making your agenda a reality will put your other foot inside the winner's circle.

so go get 'em howard. give 'em hell!

just upgraded zoundry

zoundry, which is how i publish most of my posts, has a new version of their software out, and it takes a bit getting used to. more features always get me confused.

Technorati : zoundry

Quote of the Day

"If someone lies to me, and I believe them, then afterwards I realized they lied to me, am I not entitled to say "If I knew you'd been lying to me - or even not giving me the full story - my decision would've been different"?
--Brooklyn Michael
attribution

it's getting legs

and God i hope it runs like hell.

A leading campaign group has demanded an urgent inquiry into a report that US troops indiscriminately used a controversial incendiary weapon during the battle for Fallujah. Photographic evidence gathered from the aftermath of the battle suggests that women and children were killed by horrific burns caused by the white phosphorus shells dropped by US forces.

The Pentagon has always admitted it used phosphorus during last year's assault on the city, which US commanders said was an insurgent stronghold. But they claimed they used the brightly burning shells "very sparingly" and only to illuminate combat areas.

But the documentary Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre, broadcast yesterday by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, suggested the shells were commonly used and killed an unspecified number of civilians. Photographs obtained by RAI from the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, show the bodies of dozens of Fallujah residents whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised by the effects of the phosphorus shells. The use of incendiary weapons against civilian targets is banned by treaty.

Last night Robert Musil, director of the group Physicians for Social Responsibility, called for an investigation. He told The Independent: "When there is clear testimony that use of such weapons has done this, it demands a full investigation. From Vietnam onwards there has been a general condemnation of [the use of white phosphorus] and concern about the injuries and consequences."

--source

nothing to see here, move along

USA TODAY analysis of MZM-related campaign contributions shows how the company's growth and its political activities became intertwined at key moments. In more than 30 instances, donations from MZM's political action committee or company employees went to two members of the House Appropriations Committee — Cunningham and Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va. — in the days surrounding key votes or contract awards that helped MZM grow.

For example, MZM's political action committee gave Cunningham $5,000 in 2003 the day before his appointment to a congressional panel negotiating the final version of the defense budget. Ten days later, the day after the House passed the final Pentagon spending bill, Wade gave Cunningham $2,000.

Both lawmakers sit on the subcommittee overseeing the Pentagon's spending and have acknowledged putting language in bills that created or expanded contracts that went to MZM.

--source

what if you were to line up the networks to the armed forces?

what pairing would you come up with?

me?

abc = army
nbc = navy
fox = airforce
cbs = marines

dont ask me how i did that, i wouldn't be able to explain it.

FARPOINT FACTOID

this shows up on a google search

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=us+military+denies&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Results 1 - 10 of about 5,680,000 for us military denies. (0.21 seconds)

that is 5 million 6 hundred 80 thousand times - for US Military denies

followed by:

5,480,000 hits for US Military Admits.

so who would you believe? last nite i posted the link to a video (i have since copied it to here. i report, you decide. ya gonna believe proven liars, or your own eyes?

ROME (Reuters) - The U.S. military in Iraq denied a report shown on Italian state television on Tuesday saying U.S. forces used incendiary white phosphorus against civilians in a November 2004 offensive on the Iraqi town of Falluja.

It confirmed, however, that U.S. forces had dropped MK 77 firebombs -- which a documentary on Italian state-run broadcaster RAI compared to napalm -- against military targets in Iraq in March and April 2003.
--source

another scandal?

god, how much more can this administration swallow???

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top U.S. Republican lawmakers are seeking a congressional investigation into leaks of information used by The Washington Post in an article on the CIA's secret global prison system, congressional aides said on Tuesday.
--source

dealing with social security

is a horror show. and now with this part D program getting started. i'm on the phone with that 800# that came in the mail. its basically an automated service that doesn't do anything but take messages.

this is one of the most insane things that has ever come out of our Congress. i'm ashamed for them. whoever voted on this boondoggle should be too embarrassed to show his or her face in public again.

Letter Of The Day

By BRAD PAULSEN, Mason City

The No Child Left Behind Act, Social Security, Medicare, enough nursing homes for the Americans in their golden years, homelessness, hunger, poverty, environmental concerns, decaying infrastructure, heating our homes, fuel for our cars, trucks, trains, planes, lawn mowers, snowblowers, wars on drugs, illegal immigration, hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma, homeland security, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the trade deficit, the national debt, which, is only $4.50 over $7 trillion.

The issues facing America, mentioned above, are not at all troublesome, worrisome or perplexing whatsoever.

Why? Because we Americans are very fortunate that we have in place a government in absolute complete control of the “compassionate conservatives.” The late Lawrence Welk would say, “A wonderful! A wonderful!”

Dissent of government policy is of no use; ask anyone who knew of the late Rosa Parks. Rosa was arrested and had to pay a fine for practicing the undefined art of dissent.

So stop complaining, Americans. But just as a precaution, open a Swiss bank account and learn to speak Chinese.

attribution

and now for something really shocking

Italian media going full-bore on the Bush Administration. After its revelations on the subterfuge behind the Nigergate forgeries, documentary evidence of the use by US troops of phosphorus and a new formulaton of napalm [MK77] on the Sunni civilian population will be broadcast tomorrow on international satellite TV. Global coverage of the atrocity, folks.

(from kos)
grabbed this from elsewhere

http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/video/fallujah_ING.wmv

what more can we expect from our punk in the whitehouse? what more can we stomach from this administration? how much more torture does the world have to endure because of this man?

they lied, part 10

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Senator Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Levin said the new evidence of early doubts about Mr. Libi's statements dramatized what he called the Bush administration's misuse of prewar intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq. That is an issue that Mr. Levin and other Senate Democrats have been seeking to emphasize, in part by calling attention to the fact that the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to deliver a promised report, first sought more than two years ago, on the use of prewar intelligence.

A White House spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the D.I.A. report on Mr. Libi. But Senate Republicans, put on the defensive when Democrats forced a closed session of the Senate this week to discuss the issue, have been arguing that Republicans were not alone in making prewar assertions about Iraq, illicit weapons and terrorism that have since been discredited.

--nytimes

so that's their defense? "they did it tooo"?? how infantile.

incompetence defined

The LAT fronts an investigation of the extreme mismanagement of equipment procurement in Iraq's military. The U.S. appointed a Polish Iraqi with no weapons-buying experience who proceeded to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on no-bid contracts for shoddy materiel. The Iraqi Justice Ministry is now charging him with corruption, but his case is far from isolated: "The portrait that emerges from interviews and documents," the paper informs, "is a Defense Ministry whose members were picked [by the U.S.] with the care of choosing a pickup basketball team."

again the source for this is today's papers

what's wrong with this picture?

"National security letters" have been around for decades, the Post reports, but since the Patriot Act became law in October 2001 their use has expanded from 300 to 30,000 per year. Such a letter can compel an institution to hand over "transaction records" on a suspect—who he called, what Web sites he visited, where he traveled, what he bought, etc. Unlike issuing a regular subpoena, issuing an NSL requires no grand jury investigation or judicial oversight, allows for the dissemination of compelled information among multiple government agencies, and prohibits the suspect from even knowing he is being investigated. Since the Patriot Act, an FBI agent need merely request authorization—with little-to-no justification—from one of five-dozen bureau supervisors. NSL-obtained information used to be destroyed when a suspect was cleared; now information on cleared suspects is permanently stored in a database.

--source

that there is no judicial oversight regarding these 'letters' goes against everything this country stands for.