the numbers

teehee from today's papers:

The story (on the ports deal) also touts an in-house poll with opposition to the ports deal running nearly 4-1. President Bush's approval rating fell to 38 percent and his approval on terrorism issues fell to 47 percent, a record low and a seven point drop from a month ago. The LAT fronts a poll with similar findings:
the president's disapproval rating clocked in at 58 percent.

Letter Of The Day

Discussion among state legislators to allow Iowa student athletes to fail classes and still compete is ironic considering its source. It undermines the Iowa Board of Education’s attempts to increase standards and improve student achievement.

The irony is that this is coming from the same people who have been telling us for some time now that although Iowa ranks near the bottom in teacher pay, any increase in teacher compensation must be tied to improved student performance.

Insisting on increased achievement on the one hand while taking away a tool that educators could use to help achieve improvement at the same time is counterproductive and an example of micromanaging by politicians at its worst.
— Dennis Miller, Des Moines.

attribution

is "believer" the new politically corect term now?

i'm seeing it more and more. "believer" this, "believer" that.

what's up with that? are those who 'believe' in God call believers now? or are anybody who professes to be better than you called that now?

and if as wolf just said, he flaunted it all
how come it took this long to bring him to justice?

THEY LIED!! and they're hoping you don't remember

from the national journal:

Two highly classified intelligence reports delivered directly to President Bush before the Iraq war cast doubt on key public assertions made by the president, Vice President Cheney, and other administration officials as justifications for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, according to records and knowledgeable sources.

The first report, delivered to Bush in early October 2002, was a one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate that discussed whether Saddam's procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes was for the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon.

Among other things, the report stated that the Energy Department and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research believed that the tubes were "intended for conventional weapons," a view disagreeing with that of other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, which believed that the tubes were intended for a nuclear bomb.

The disclosure that Bush was informed of the DOE and State dissents is the first evidence that the president himself knew

of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies.

--source

so when do we get to start IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS?

and look what i found:

Joke of the Day

anytime there's the word "BOLTON" tied to it, it's bound to be a joke.

An unpopular punctuality drive launched in the U.N. Security Council last month by U.S. Ambassador John Bolton came to an abrupt end on Thursday when Argentina took over the council's rotating presidency.

Bolton had cracked the whip while presiding over the 15-nation U.N. body in February, starting meetings precisely on time, even with empty chairs in the room, as part of a plan to modernize council operations.
--source

so they KNEW

The LAT and Post front a newly leaked video of top federal officials in the immediate hours before and after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. The obviously selective excerpts show Hurricane Max and former FEMA man Mike Brown warning of a big disaster—including the possibility of overtopped levees—while the president tried to buck up spirits and declared "we are fully prepared."

--

today's papers

the devil is in the details

According to late-night news reports caught by a few of the papers, there were two near-simultaneous bombs exploded next to the U.S. consulate in Karachi, killing four people and injuring about 20. Speaking early this morning in India, President Bush said one U.S. diplomat was killed. He also announced a long-expected deal to help India with civilian nuclear reactors. Bush is heading to Pakistan later on the trip.

--today's papers

the intellect column of the day

http://www.slate.com/id/2137208/nav/tap1/

if you didn't understand neocons before, you will after reading that.

Letter Of The Day

there were several letters that could have made today's tribute, but this one stood out.

Who is running our country? If the president didn’t know until after the fact about management of U.S. ports being turned over to a Middle Eastern country, who is the big decision maker?

I feel really comfortable now with the leadership and security of our nation.

Is that what went wrong with the government’s response to Katrina?
— Judy Paulson, Ogden.

attribution

imagine working for 9 years and never getting a raise

that's how iowa republican leaders think you should be. they're refusing to raise the minimum wage a buck.

God i really REALLY hate republicans.

want proof of the bullying tactics used by repukes?

Legendary entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte on Tuesday explained his absence from Coretta Scott King's funeral.

Belafonte told reporters before a speech at Case Western Reserve University that President Bush influenced the King family to disinvite him from the funeral in suburban Atlanta on Feb. 7.

Belafonte, known to be a friend of Martin Luther King Jr., said he was told about the decision the day before the funeral, at which he had been scheduled to speak.

The King children made the final decision, Belafonte said, but they were "fiercely intimidated by the president's representatives."...
--source

and then there's this:

SAN DIEGO Mar 1, 2006 (AP)— Former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham bullied Defense Department officials as he worked to ensure deals for contractors who had bribed him with gifts and cash, federal prosecutors said in court papers Tuesday.

Cunningham, 64, a once-powerful member of the House Defense Appropriations Committee, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday for accepting $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for steering government work to defense contractors.

Prosecutor's said there was no way to distinguish between defense contracts funded through Cunningham's intervention or legitimate means, according to court documents.

They claim Cunningham berated Pentagon employees and tried to get them fired for withholding money from two contractors.
--source

ever since the election in 2000 where the bullying klan made their way south and intimidated officials there..... the coup has lasted 6 years. it's time for a REGIME CHANGE.

corruption defined

from the daily muck over at TPM:

In the latest court filing, federal prosecutors declared that Cunningham worked diligently to steer millions of federal dollars to [Mitchell Wade's] MZM and [Brent Wilkes'] ADCS. Justice Department documents say the two firms were his top priority for defense funding requests from the House Appropriations and Armed Services committees during 2003. Those firms, in turn, earned huge profits on those defense contracts, with profit margins exceeding 800 percent for some intelligence- related work, prosecutors charge. Part of that money was then returned to Cunningham in the form of bribes, a cycle that went on for more than five years.

When MZM and ADCS did not receive payments promptly from Defense Department officials, Cunningham personally intervened, calling or meeting with DOD officials to “browbeat” them into releasing the funds to MZM and ADCS and threatening to go to their superiors unless they moved quickly, according to the documents. In at least one case, Cunningham sought to have a DOD official fired because that official refused to respond to his demands.

Cunningham even “provided numerous blank sheets of his [C]ongressional letterhead to Wade” to enable Wade to draft letters on his behalf. Several of these blank sheets were seized during the search of MZM’s offices last year by federal agents, according to the latest government filing.

they say that now, but what will they tell us tomorrow?

from the nytimes' correction box:

The Istanbul Journal article on Feb. 14 about "Valley of the Wolves—Iraq," a popular Turkish-made film that depicts American soldiers in Iraq as tyrannical occupiers, referred imprecisely to scenes cited by the screenwriter as "inspired by real events." While two such scenes—the killing of Iraqis by American soldiers and the mistreatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison—have been documented, the scene depicting an American Jewish surgeon at Abu Ghraib removing organs from Iraqi prisoners for shipment to recipients in New York, London and Israel is fictional.

seems to me that if we were able to witness abu ghraib and other attrocities in iraq, why shouldn't we believe that organs were being transpoarted to new york?

from the "well DUH" file

The Bush administration is scaling back on audits of energy companies that pay billions of dollars for leases to produce oil and gas on federal property, state officials said.

--source

Quote of the Day

"People say climate change is something for our kids to worry about. No. It's now."
--Allan Carroll, a research scientist at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, whose studies tracked a lock step between warmer winters and the spread of the beetle.

attribution

you mean they lied to us, part deux

The Post stuffs Attorney General Gonzales perhaps hinting that the

administration's extra-legal snooping is wider than known Gonzales previously told senators that the wiretapping "is all that [the president] has authorized." But in a recent letter to senators, he clarified, "I did not and could not address ... any other classified intelligence activities." "It seems to me he is conceding that there are other NSA surveillance programs ongoing that the president hasn't told anyone about," said one lawyer for previous Republican administrations.

you mean they lied to us?

Knight Ridder reports that U.S. intel agencies warned the White House in the fall of 2003 that the Iraq insurgency was taking off and was made up mostly of locals— both contrary to the administration's assertions at the time. "Frankly, senior officials simply weren't ready to pay attention to analysis that didn't conform to their own optimistic scenarios," said one official who was then chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

if you think it's only iraq going down the drain

think again

The Post goes inside with the head of military intel telling senators things are going downhill in Afghanistan. Suicide attacks increased "almost fourfold" last year, and the number of roadside bombs, long the insurgent weapon of choice in Iraq, "more than doubled."

want drama?

read THIS

it's about anna nicole smith's day in the United States supreme court.

who hates who most?

take a gander at stephen colbert's latest

the shotgun cheney challenge

The vice president told an American Legion conference today that those who are against the war should make it known if they think the U-S should "break our word and abandon our Iraqi allies."

He also told the conference that the U-S must treat Iraq as the "central front on the war on terror."

--source

IRAN WATCH

A report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency shows there is no proof Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday in Japan.

They could not find evidence which shows that Iran has diverted from its peaceful purposes of nuclear activities in Iran," said Manouchehr Mottaki, who was in Tokyo to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

A confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report made available to The Associated Press Monday said that a more than three-year probe has not revealed "any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

--source

DELAY WATCH

The Austin nonprofit group whose complaint sparked U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's indictment on campaign finance charges accused one of his allies of dirty tricks, saying Monday that U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson of Plano used his influence to prompt a tax audit.

"It's intimidation," said Craig McDonald, founder and director of Texans for Public Justice, which was cleared this month after a 13-month inquiry into whether it violated a ban on partisan activity by tax-exempt groups. "The IRS has every right to audit nonprofit organizations, but we think this was an abuse."

--source

tom delay - the face of republiconism

cattle call for video enthusiasts

We are looking for cool, fun, funny, smart, sick, sublime, irreverent, crazy, disturbing, hip, erotic, important, trippy, and/or subversive, self-contained 3-5 minute video bits to show on this program.

contact rusirius@well.com & Jeff Diehl jeffdiehl@gmail.com

the numbers

from zogby

Le Moyne College/Zogby Poll shows just one in five troops want to heed Bush call to stay “as long as they are needed”

While 58% say mission is clear, 42% say U.S. role is hazy

Plurality believes Iraqi insurgents are mostly homegrown

Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11, most don’t blame Iraqi public for insurgent attacks

Majority of troops oppose use of harsh prisoner interrogation

Plurality of troops pleased with their armor and equipment

the numbers

from zogby

• Le Moyne College/Zogby Poll shows just one in five troops want to heed Bush call to stay “as long as they are needed”
• While 58% say mission is clear, 42% say U.S. role is hazy
• Plurality believes Iraqi insurgents are mostly homegrown
• Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11, most don’t blame Iraqi public for insurgent attacks
• Majority of troops oppose use of harsh prisoner interrogation
• Plurality of troops pleased with their armor and equipment

that's the way i like it, uh huh uh huh

AFL-CIO leaders on Monday approved an ambitious and expensive political strategy aimed at mobilizing their members to put Democrats back in control of Congress and several state legislatures.

While a few Republicans may get labor backing, the $40 million plan -- the biggest ever for the labor federation in a non-presidential election year -- would target 21 states and 40 congressional districts where union officials believe Democratic candidates can win in the November election.

--source

you mean we were lied to?

The Washington Post leads with a near-banner headline announcing that"more than" 1,300 Iraqis have been killed since last week's attack on a Shiite shrine. The WP got the number, which is about four times more than has been widely reported, from a visit to Baghdad's main morgue.

could this be why?

Open street-fighting and bombings are easy to spot. With late-night abductions and executions, it's hard to know they've happened ... until of course the bodies turn up at the morgue.

from the "well DUH" file

Republican governors are openly worrying that the Bush administration's latest stumbles — from the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina to those of its own making on prescription drugs and ports security — are taking an election-year toll on the party back home.

--source

NYT sues DOD over NSA

tee hee

lets see where this goes. from yahoo:

The New York Times sued the U.S. Defense Department on Monday demanding that it hand over documents about the National Security Agency's domestic spying program.

with iraq heading to civil war

one should keep an eye out for juan cole

approve me, i'm gay!

to my new friends over at leftyblogs:

YOU ROCK!

from the GOOD NEWS file

The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.

Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they're opposed to the agreement.

The troubling results for the Bush administration come amid reminders about the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina and negative assessments of how the government and the president have handled it for six months.

In a separate poll, two out of three Americans said they do not think President Bush has responded adequately to the needs of Katrina victims. Only 32 percent approve of the way President Bush is responding to those needs, a drop of 12 points from last September’s poll, taken just two weeks after the storm made landfall

Mr. Bush's overall job rating has fallen to 34 percent, down from 42 percent last month. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job the president is doing.

--source

R.I.P. Dennis Weaver

there's a good memory of him HERE


to don knotts
and darren mcgavin too.

duke cunningham's psychiatric report

is HERE

the daily muck has some interesting tidbits on the culture of corruption

foxnews and the saudis

According to the publication Trading Places (not to be confused with the movie of the same name), which offers news and commentary about "exchanges and trading values worldwide," Shadi Sadeek Sanbar, Special Advisor to Kingdom Holding Company, joined the Board of Directors of the DIFX on September 1, 2005.

In addition to Kingdom Holding Company and Kingdom Hotels Investments, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns 5.5% of News Corporation stock.

News Corporation owns FOX News Channel.

--source

no WONDER fox is pushing the UAE deal

CORRUPTION DEFINED

Although a Pentagon audit determined that a Halliburton subsidiary submitted $262 million worth of questionable costs as part of a fuel-delivery contract, the Army still plans to pay the company the bulk of the money, the NYT reports. Only 3.4 percent of the reimbursement will be withheld—an amount more than 50 percent below the average amount of money withheld by the military on disputed contractor charges.

that flip-flopper bush

being the grand hypocrite, it's only fitting that we expose his flip-flopping he so grandly accused john kerry of being.

The Los Angeles Times leads with President Bush's decision to reopen the federal investigation into a Dubai-based firm's bid to gain control of six U.S. ports. Bush's reversal comes after significant bipartisan criticism of the deal and the firm's own suggestion that the matter be reexamined.

Letter Of The Day

In response to Roger Engebretson letter “Deception is Democrats’ Way”: It appears you need to advance forward a few decades to present time and deal with real facts and not fiction.

The American people (regardless of party affiliation) need to acknowledge our administration ranks among the top in corruption and deceit, and apparently has little conscience as is evidenced by loss of lives, and the many thousands maimed for life in Iraq.

Each day brings a new scandal. Are we all just going to sit back and continue to accept this? I shudder to think of our country’s image and stability by 2OO8.

And, for the record I am registered as an independent.

--MYRNA MARNIN, Rockwel

attribution

from the "well DUH" file

the ex-we-used-to-prance-around somethings telling whomever would bother to listen:

"We suggest you decline an invitation to a civil commitment ceremony," Melissa Fryrear told a group of parents. Some busily took notes; a few others wiped away tears. "So many Christians are yielding on this part,"

--source

perhaps they recognize democracy has no limits

that the u.s. would work to suppress a duly elected government when they're running around the world beating their chests like monkeys proclaiming that freedom is on the march. they're finding out that they can not be selective when it comes to who that freedom represents.

The US effort to isolate the Palestinian militant group Hamas has suffered serious setbacks in recent days , as countries around the world have expressed a reluctance to block financial aid and rule out diplomatic ties with the group.

from time magazine

Buried in the huge budget-reconciliation bill, on which House and Senate conferees are putting the final touches right now, are a few paragraphs that accomplish an extraordinary feat. They roll back the price of a barrel of crude oil to what it sold for two years ago. They create this pretend price for the benefit of a small group of the politically well connected. You still won't be able to buy gasoline for $1.73 per gal. as you did then, instead of today's $2.28. You still won't be able to buy home heating oil for $1.60 per gal., in place of today's $2.39. But a select group of investors and companies will walk away with billions of dollars in tax subsidies, not from oil but from the marketing of a dubious concoction of synthetic fuel produced from coal and dependent on government tax credits tied to the price of oil.

Today about 55 such plants around the U.S. process 125 million tons of coal or, in many cases, coal waste from an earlier mining era. For owners and operators, the whole point isn't creating a profitable new energy resource for the U.S.; it's about collecting the tax subsidy. Progress Energy Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., which owns electric utilities that serve portions of the Carolinas and Florida, reported in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that in 2002-04 its synfuel-production losses added up to $400 million. No problem: the company claimed $852 million in tax credits, magically transforming a money-losing operation into a money-making business with $452 million in profits—courtesy of the American taxpayer. And that's not all. Like other synfuel producers, Progress Energy can't immediately use all the tax credits it mines because of tax-law limitations. As of Dec. 31, 2004, it was sitting on $745 million in deferred credits that it can write off against future earnings for years to come. And Progress Energy is not alone. Plants run by DTE Energy Co. of Detroit generated $1.2 billion in tax credits during the same years.

--source

one only has to wonder if all those mining accidents lately had anything to do with this.

from paul bremer's book

in it:

the head of the American occupation harbored doubts about troop levels and Iraqi forces, even though he always sounded sure of himself when he spoke. Bremer reveals that at one point he secretly requested more troops from the Pentagon even though in public he never recognized that he thought it was necessary.

isn't that just like this administration. telling the American people one thing, and doing something completely different?

hm, is this good or what?

A senior U.S. diplomat told the Palestinian leader that U.S. aid will continue, despite the appointment of a new Hamas government.

from the UNDERSTATEMENT of the century dept.

At a time when considerable political attention is focused on the Democrats' uphill struggle to recapture Congress, leaders of both parties say Democrats appear to be in a much stronger position on another pivotal battlefield this November, the contests for governors.
--source

and then to find out that the questions being raised now

are not even the proper questions when talking about port security.

tom kean, from the 9/11 commission, argues that in a nyt dispatch.

democrats don't matter

the company from dubai is inviting the bush administration over to alleviate any fears of security. the problem seems to be not the dubai company, but the republicans who are standing in the way.

The hope is that this announcement will prevent Republicans in Congress from taking any action next week to stop the deal from going through.

so the democrats don't matter?

What Civil War Could Look Like

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/weekinreview/26weis.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=login

guantanamo II

Officials who spoke anonymously to the NYT insist that Bagram was never meant to house long-term prisoners, but now some have been there for three years . Although conditions at the detention center seem to have improved since the military decided to renovate the facilities,

by all accounts the situation is still bleak and prisoners are mostly held in large wire cages.

this is sickening. if that's not torture, i don't know what is. imagine a foreign government coming to nab you and put you inside a cage for three years, without being charged or having the opportunity to defend yourself. God have mercy on the souls of those men who are behind this.

Letter Of The Day

On war and mind control:

I have found myself very disturbed as I watch the Olympics by the ad from “Progress for America.” It runs repeatedly and offers the contention that we must support the war in Iraq and continue sending more people there to die so that those already dead will not have died in vain.

Does anyone remember the same logic used for staying in Vietnam? To me, this is faulty thinking, and for love of our country and people, we need to speak back.

The other component of this ad that disturbs me is the attempt to teach us to hate and fear our enemies.

We have a long history of this. I can remember the “Japs” and Germans of World War II, followed by the terrors that soulless communism would unleash against us.

Post-USSR, there was a failed attempt to label secular humanists the enemy; this was followed by an entire summer of Congress trying to figure out a way to punish desecrators of the flag.

Finally, homosexuality was raised to an exalted level of threat to our way of life. Now it seems to me, we are to believe that we must put Islam, Muslims and Arabs on the highest podium.

I do not deny that there are serious problems in our world, and I love my people and my country. But one of my “core religious values” is the belief that all are children of God. This is the strongest influence on my outlook on the world. In this context, I feel that we should not demonize our enemies, and we should call ourselves, our government and any group who would have us hate and fear to task.

--ANNE GANNETT, Mason City

attribution