that the USAT is reporting it makes me hopeful

that Americans will begin to see what this administration has wrought upon this country.

USAT reports on a Pentagon investigation of two incidents in which U.S. troops are accused of killing 26 Iraqi civilians. The first incident was reported first in Time magazine and centers around Marines who allegedly killed 15 civilians in Hadithah in November after a roadside bomb killed a fellow Marine. Separately, Iraqi police claim that U.S. troops killed 11 civilians, including children, during a raid last week at a house 60 miles north of Baghdad; these allegations were first reported by Knight Ridder.

i've always maintained the Knight-Ridder was a good source for breaking news. they have suffered greatly at the hands of the military.

and now on to iraq

once again, it appears we're losing the war.

The LAT fronts an examination of an extremely coordinated rebel attack in a city northeast of Baghdad Tuesday, an area U.S. and Iraqi officials said last year was no longer an insurgent stronghold. A dozen cars and trucks unloaded masked men outside a local courthouse, where they then killed 17 policemen, freed 33 prisoners, and set fire to the courthouse.

staying the course eh?

sounds more like flip-flopping to me?

Reversing an earlier policy, the White House will ban evidence elicited by torture from its Gitmo military courts, according to the WSJ. The new rule, which the Defense Department plans to release later this week, could help the special military commissions survive Supreme Court review. The high court is hearing arguments next week over the legality of the special military courts.

when do we call it corruption?

The Post fronts its investigation into organizations receiving large federal grants under the Bush administration. The paper found that $157 million in taxpayer funds has been farmed out to organizations that promote abstinence and anti-abortion messages and are run by big Bush boosters. Hundreds of once-small anti-abortion and crisis-pregnancy centers have received federal grants that doubled or even tripled their budgets; overall, these groups have gotten more than $60 million for abstinence education and other programming. Rep. Chet Edwards, a Democrat from Texas, told the paper: "The Post fronts its investigation into organizations receiving large federal grants under the Bush administration. The paper found that $157 million in taxpayer funds has been farmed out to organizations that promote abstinence and anti-abortion messages and are run by big Bush boosters. Hundreds of once-small anti-abortion and crisis-pregnancy centers have received federal grants that doubled or even tripled their budgets; overall, these groups have gotten more than $60 million for abstinence education and other programming. Rep. Chet Edwards, a Democrat from Texas, told the paper: "I believe ultimately this will be seen as one of the largest patronage programs in American history.""

why the media has turned lapdog instead of remaining watchdog

from today's papers:

For the most part, the papers concentrate on Bush's "punchy" performance; largely absent from the coverage is a substantial fact-check of Bush's contentions.

Letter Of The Day

I join the sea of protest against Cal Thomas' assertion that peace activists are naive. Those who believe that war and violence bring peace are the ones who are naive and gullible.

Thomas claims that the peace movement mobilizes only against America. This is way wrong. As a peace activist fortunate enough to have been born in a democracy, I am immensely grateful for the heritage of freedom that generations of men and women have nonviolently struggled to bring forward. I have inherited the duty to further this heritage. My responsibility to confront the sins of my own government is greater than my responsibility to confront the sins of the government of Sweden.

Thomas' statement that evil cannot be accommodated is hogwash. Living in a country of savage inequalities, paying taxes for an illegal war and having a government bought by the highest bidder, I accommodate evil every day. Because the United States is a democracy, I am more responsible for it than I would be if I lived under a military dictatorship. Those who love America must protest.

Tom Fox went to Iraq knowing the dangers. Would that I and others could carry on with his courage and commitment.
— Deborah Fink, Ames.

attribution

signs your youngster might be a conservative

found this over on DU. brought a much needed smile to my day.

Brings to school elaborate lunch packed by nanny which includes sandwich, fruit roll-up, potato chips, candy, soft drink, sugar packets, and a $10 bill to purchase whatever he wants from the school vending machine. Insists it is "unfair" when poor kids get free beef-a-roni from government.

American flag Underoos.

Claims that a classmate "recently sought significant quantities of whoopee cushions, tacks, silly string, and Chinese handcuffs from Spencer Gifts." Uses this claim as a pretext to beat up that classmate. Unable to find whoopee cushions, tacks, silly string, or Chinese handcuffs after the fact.

Says "Highlights" and "Weekly Reader" are part of the liberal media.

Pees in pants whenever he is in the vicinity of Middle Eastern-looking classmate.

Favorite Book: "The O'Reilly Factor -- for Kids!"

Tells other boys that "Girls play with dolls; boys play with trucks." Secretly plays with dolls.

Spells potato with an e.

Blames low grade in finger painting on "racial preferences."

Favorite Animal: Elephant

Shoots close friend in the face with Super Soaker. Graciously accepts apology from close friend, who is "deeply sorry for all the bad stuff that has happened this week."

Obsessed with wee-wee of a certain classmate from Arkansas.

Favorite After-School Special: "The poor boy who got kissed by another boy on the school bus and had no choice but to beat up the boy who kissed him."

Takes lunch money from classmates, gives it to friend named Hal E. Burton.

Declines to participate in fire drill because he is busy reading "My Pet Goat."

"Operation Iraqi Freedom" lunch box.

and now for today's CRAZY TALQ

USAT fronts an interesting news feature on a new trend in, ahem, law enforcement: States are now passing laws that grant immunity from prosecution to crime victims who retaliate against their attackers with deadly force. The laws, championed by the NRA, are meant to deter carjackers, muggers, and the like. Critics say they are a license for vigilantism, since it's hard to define what constitutes an attack. Case in point: A tow-truck operator who shot a man for driving his car away without paying a fee is invoking the defense, saying the driver could have run him down.

and on to iran

the saber rattling by some is based on very murky evidence - if that much credence is worthy at all. seems the lack of intel on iran is spookin the spooks.

"It blows me away the lack of intelligence that's out there," one counterterrorism official tells the paper (LAT).

time for some reality checking

bush was in cleveland touting tal afar... the same area cbsnews' lara logan was reporting on, and lapdogging the bushites. i don't know what got into cbsnews lately, but they have been decidedly pro-bush lately. did karl make a call to someone there?

a little reality check is in order:

...lately, residents say, the city has taken another dark turn. "The armed men are fewer," Nassir Sebti, 42, an air-conditioning mechanic, told a Washington Post interviewer Monday, "but the assassinations between Sunni and Shiites have increased."

they could have prevented 9/11

"the FBI would have raised 'alarm bells' and could have stopped the Sept. 11 attacks,"

AND THIS

there was even a suggestion that one might be flown into the World Trade Center, according to the NYT—and said that he raised the possibility to his superiors more than 70 times.

and finally THIS

"You thought a terrorist attack was coming, and you were being obstructed, right?" a defense attorney asked at one point.

"Yes, sir," Samit answered.

what more evidence do you NEED that they KNEW and did NOTHING about it.

the touchplay debacle in iowa

a few months ago, the iowa lottery was told to make more money. in that vein, they went and let convenience stores and grocery stores, just about anybody, have these new slottery machines, called touch play, in their businesses.

now because of established casino lobbying and some very disappointed losers, the legislature acted with a post-haste that hasn't been seen in decades, a state-wide ban on the machines.

but to find out who won and who lost, check out the searchable database HERE.

Letter of the WeeQ

I'm responding to Rob Borsellino's column ("Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Worse," March 8):

Uh-oh. I think I'm the culprit here. You see, after the last election I was feeling blue, so I prayed that this administration would show all of its flaws and people could make a better choice at the polls next time.

But I didn't know I had this kind of power. One calamity followed the other. I tried to stop it with a counter prayer (as in "enough already"), but the laws of physics must have been in play here (a body in motion tends to stay in motion - I guess that must apply to administrations, too). The moral: Be careful what you pray for!
— Cheryl Long, Johnston.

attribution

i read rob's column that day too, and i emailed him right away letting him know how good i felt after reading it.

Letter Of The Day

It shouldn't surprise anyone that President Bush so adamantly embraced the decision approving a foreign country running six of our ports without the 45-day investigation required by law. Just like the FISA law, this law was also created in the pre-9/11 era (1970s), and Bush doesn't feel he has to follow any laws that old if he doesn't want to.

With almost exclusive emphasis on port security, it didn't become obvious why Bush supported the deal until it was revealed that the United Arab Emirates allowed us to dock military ships in its ports and use military bases in the country.

In addition, trade between our countries doubled last year to $9.5 billion, and United Arab Emirates has no income or consumption tax (another tax haven?).

In Bush's simple-minded thinking, that is all that is necessary to call the nation an ally against terror. Remember, we used to consider Saddam Hussein an ally against our enemy Iran, and bin Laden an ally against our enemy the Soviet Union. The lesson: Today's ally could be tomorrow's enemy.
— Larry Claus, Des Moines.

attribution

FARPOINT.FACTOID

According to estimates by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in 2005, the cost to the federal government for a senior on traditional Medicare was $6,527, on average.

When seniors enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, the 2005 payment from the federal government to that insurance company was $7,851 per senior — $1,300 more than it cost the government to pay for a senior's care. In 2006, the reimbursement jumps to $8,223. If the plan offers a drug benefit, the feds fork over an additional $1,100 per year to the insurance company, according to the agency.

So if it costs more to cover seniors through private-sector programs than through traditional Medicare plans, why did Congress expand opportunities for private-sector coverage? One of the main arguments was that more competition in the marketplace would drive down the cost of health care.

But that doesn't mean taxpayers will pay less for seniors' care. If an insurance company holds down health-care costs for seniors, the federal government will continue to pay those companies a set amount, which increases each year.

"Savings" mean higher profits for insurance companies.

--SOURCE

they LIED. why can't people see that? republicans LIE to get their way. they have to because if they didn't they wouldn't get what they want.

we got a shoot-out at the OK corral

http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2006/03/21/opinion/doc441f86683dc62889850366.txt#blogcomments

they KNEW and they LIED

In the period before the Iraq war, the CIA and the Bush administration erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding major programs for weapons of mass destruction. Now NBC News has learned that for a short time the CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence.

What makes the story significant is the high rank of the source. His name, officials tell NBC News, was Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam. Although Sabri was in Saddam's inner circle, his cosmopolitan ways also helped him fit into diplomatic circles.

In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. In front of the assembled diplomats, he read a letter from the Iraqi leader. "The United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism," he said. He announced that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. planned war in Iraq because it wanted the country’s oil.

But on that very trip, there was also a secret contact made. The contact was brokered by the French intelligence service, sources say. Intelligence sources say that in a New York hotel room, CIA officers met with an intermediary who represented Sabri. All discussions between Sabri and the CIA were conducted through a "cutout," or third party. Through the intermediary, intelligence sources say, the CIA paid Sabri more than $100,000 in what was, essentially, "good-faith money." And for his part, Sabri, again through the intermediary, relayed information about Saddam’s actual capabilities.

<snip>

"A source," he said in a speech on Feb. 5, 2004, "who had direct access to Saddam and his inner circle." Sources tell NBC News Tenet was alluding to Sabri. Tenet said that the source — meaning Sabri — had said Iraq was stockpiling chemical weapons and that equipment to produce insecticides, under the oil-for-food program, had been diverted to covert chemical weapons production. However, in that speech, Tenet also laid out what Sabri had disclosed: that there was no biological program, that Saddam wanted nuclear weapons but had none.

MSNBC

just made myself visible

on technorati. wonder what'll come of it. i wonder how long it'll be before i get some baffoon emailing me on why i named the site poopy when all there is is a bunch of shit.

i'll have to think up something real funny to say.

watching bonanza

and it pains me to say that i know people like the characters playing the townspeople, getting all excited on a hot blistery dry miserable day. i remember seeing the episode, but i cant remember play by play. what happens next. but i remember it being a good one. how people can be manipulated into believing just about anything. how so much could be relative to present day politics.

Hot Day for a Hanging" Episode #406.
A desperate town tries to frame Hoss for murder and bank robbery in order to take the $12,000 he carries; guest Denver Pyle.

catch it before they ban it

from my friend josh marshall:

Yesterday, retired Major General Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the post-Saddam Iraqi Army from 2003 to 2004, wrote a devastating oped column on Sec. Def. Don Rumsfeld.

Here's a glowing article about Eaton still up on defendamerica.mil, the DOD's war on terrorism website.

and lastly.... something even more ghastly

"The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.

,,,

"The new account reveals the extent to which the unit members mistreated prisoners months before and after the photographs of abuse from Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, and it helps belie the original Pentagon assertions that abuse was confined to a small number of rogue reservists at Abu Ghraib."

--editor & publisher

The complete article is published in the Sunday Times, with graphics, and available at www.nytimes.com.

a scandal the likes of which we'll never see again

"Iraq was awash in cash - in dollar bills. Piles and piles of money," says Frank Willis, a former senior official with the governing Coalition Provisional Authority. "We played football with some of the bricks of $100 bills before delivery. It was a wild-west crazy atmosphere, the likes of which none of us had ever experienced."

-more

no WONDER some of the men coming back from iraq wanted to go back.

oh and at the end:

"I believe it had a lot to do with showing that the US was in control," she says. "I believe that it had to do with rewarding people that were politically loyal. So rather than being a technical agenda, I believe it was largely a politically motivated reward-and-punishment kind of agenda."

Which sounds like the way Saddam used to run the country. "If you were to interview Iraqis today about what they see day to day," she says, "I think they will tell you that they don't see a lot of difference".

no difference eh?

kids who are whiney grow up to be conservative --study

that's really not news to me. i always figured the reich-wing nuts out there were a bratty bunch growing up. that and the bullies. but now we have proof.

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative. At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding.

--SOURCE

is this what we fought and died for?

the WP and USA Today mention that a man in Afghanistan could be sentenced to death for converting from Islam to Christianity.

we have a "do nothing" congress

USAT fronts an analysis that shows that the House of Representatives is scheduled to meet only 97 days this year. This amounts to fewer days than in 1948, when Harry Truman labeled the Congress as "do-nothing." So far this year, the House has been in session for 19 days, compared to the Senate's 33. Representatives say that since it is an election year, they want to spend more time with their constituents.

now who do you believe?

the military, who have continued to lie lie lie, or a news agency?

The Post mentions inside a report from Time that looks into the investigation by U.S. officials to determine whether Marines were responsible for the death of 15 civilians on Nov. 19. Originally the U.S. military had said a roadside bomb, which also killed a U.S. Marine, was responsible for the deaths. Now there is growing suspicion that Marines killed the civilians, including seven women and three children, as they searched the area.

ok, then we have this:

Knight Ridder got its hands on an Iraqi police document that says American troops executed 11 people, including an elderly woman and an infant, after a raid last Wednesday. A U.S. military spokesman said they had never heard of the allegations and added that it's "highly unlikely that they're true."

the next time a repuke tells you only democrats bring up vietnam

when talking about iraq, point them to this:

The WSJ says on its front page that American military officials are now, more than ever in the three years since the invasion, looking to Vietnam histories in order to understand how they can win the Iraq war. The paper claims that this re-examination of history is changing the way the Army is fighting the war.

Letter Of The Day

The TouchPlay issue isn’t about gambling — Iowa already has gambling everywhere. I stand in line an extra five minutes a day at the convenience stores while people young and old cash lotto tickets.

The TouchPlay issue is about who gets the money. Casinos are sending a big chunk of their profits back to Nevada; the state of Iowa wants the lotto profits. TouchPlay profits are staying in Iowa, and the newspapers didn’t let the people know what the fight was about.

How about a compromise? Why not let the TouchPlay machines in place remain, but see that the Iowa portion of the profits goes 100 percent for increasing teachers’ salaries?
I am embarrassed to live in a state that is 41st in pay to teachers.
— Michael Montross, Winterset.

attribution

why we call them repukes

chris rants is the speaker of the house in the iowa legistature. just 6 months after they allowed touchplay (slottery machines) in grocery stores and everywhere inbetween, they are going to ban them. wonder why? wonder no longer:

At 10:30 a.m., Rants fielded questions from reporters about why he went on a golf trip to South Carolina on the eve of the TouchPlay debate with a group that included a casino lobbyist . He paid his own way, but the timing raised eyebrows.

and further down:

Rants bought plenty of that ‘heat’ with a $1,000 check.

That’s how much he loaned to the Iowa Leadership Council, a political “527” group formed to raise money and help conservative candidates in the state. While the council was accepting contributions from the car title loan industry and tobacco companies, Rants was in the speaker’s office blocking bills those groups oppose.

say what you will, but this smacks of corruption. duke cunningham style.

i should start a thread: DUKE WATCH

to catch all the comings and goings about duke cunningham and his corruptive cohorts in crime. like, who gets mentioned in news articles about the corruption in congress. today we have this:

None of the lawmakers Cunningham mentioned by name – Reps. Katherine Harris of Florida, Virgil Goode of Virginia and John Doolittle from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay – has been accused of criminal wrongdoing. But each has admitted assisting either Mitchell Wade or Brent Wilkes, co-conspirators in the Cunningham case, at a time when the two businessmen were giving them tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions.
--source

and speaking of the witch without a broom

headline in the palm beach post:

Harris tells Christian group she believes God wants her in public service

*pssst* those voices you hear kathy dear? aren't from God.

Quote of the Year

in speaking about kathy harris' dismal run for senate in florida:

I've encountered the Florida belle on several occasions. They're cheerleaders at their high schools and state colleges where they latch themselves to the hairy armed football captains; then they graduate and try to get jobs in the chamber of commerce where they latch themselves to the hairy armed shakers and movers of the city; and when their youthful beauty begins to fade, they marry hairy armed, whiskey drinking country clubbers.
--The Backlash Cometh

attribution

bwaahaha

Quote of the Day

"A city without children has no future,"
--San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom.

saddam would be proud

of taskforce 6-26

The NYT off-leads a huge feature on systematic military prison abuse by a Special Ops unit called Task Force 6-26. From Camp Nama, their base at Baghdad's airport, the elite soldiers regularly abused and degraded Iraqi detainees in attempts to elicit information as to the whereabouts of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Whether shooting prisoners with paintball guns or punching them repeatedly in their spines, the soldiers of Task Force 6-26 adhered to an unofficial motto: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it."

open message to bob schieffer

you SUCK. you finally have shown your true colors. for anybody who can sit down with that epitome of all that is wrong with America today and have a nice chit chat, lobbing softball questions as if you were some hard hitting journalist, strikes me of someone who is incapable of bringing me the nightly news with a fairness that is required of news anchors. if your whole premise was to bring on this born-again nazi and portray him in a light that we didn't see before, you failed miserably. all anybody saw was cbs trying to cozy up to the administration like a lapdog that just gnawed the ol' man's easy chair. pathetic doesn't begin to describe your appearance this morning. more like a danger to American democracy.

what the headline SHOULD have been

IS:

Pentagon hired contractor to advise on collecting information on churches, mosques, other U.S. sites

SHOULD BE:

Pentagon hired contractor (who pleaded guilty to bribing Rep. Duke Cunningham) to advise on collecting information on churches, mosques, other U.S. sites

talk about a waste of money

Web Exclusive| World
On Scene: How Operation Swarmer Fizzled
Not a shot was fired, or a leader nabbed, in a major offensive that failed to live up to its advance billing

from TIME magazine

Quote of the WeeQ

on the release of the ba'athist docs:

"One hates to be cynical so early in the morning, but seriously: what are the odds that these documents are going to be 'vetted on a nonpartisan and scholarly basis'? Every single piece of intelligence ever made public by the Bush administration — every single piece — has been cherry picked for maximum partisan effectiveness. Surely no one seriously believes it's going to be any different this time?"

--source

read more about them

to prove my point that there are some really dumb people out there

not only because bush is president, but ....

At a conference … [an] executive of General Mills Inc. … described the kind of e-mails and calls the company gets asking for cooking advice: the person who didn't have any eggs for baking and asked if a peach would do instead, for example; and the man who railed about the fire that resulted when he thought he was following instructions to grease the bottom of the pan—the outside of the pan.

thanks to today's papers for that tidbit.

this is how they cheat the system

and congress would be well within it's recourse to dissolve all attributes that make this possible. from today's papers:

The Journal fronts a long feature on stock-option grants to corporate executives that repeatedly fall on days when the company's stock price is at a low point. Soon after the options are granted, the stock takes off. The paper describes repeated examples of this phenomenon. This exerpt is representative: "In eight of [CEO Louis] Tomasetta's nine option grants from 1994 to 2001, the grants were dated just before double-digit price surges in the next 20 trading days. The odds of such a pattern occurring by chance are about one in 26 billion."

Quote Of The Day

i really hate myself to do this, but today's QOTD comes from none other than Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:

EPA's approach would ostensibly require that the definition of "modification" include a phrase such as "regardless of size, cost, frequency, effect," or other distinguishing characteristic. Only in a Humpty Dumpty world would Congress be required to use superfluous words while an agency could ignore an expansive word that Congress did use. We decline to adopt such a world-view.

--source

Column Of The Day

“Hate cannot be conquered by force and punishment. It can only be conquered with assistance, understanding, and tolerance. All world experiences prove this to be so.

“We must change our approach from a war against terrorism to a war against poverty and hunger. We must direct our goals and trade to give more mutual benefit, respect and understanding in order to win their friendship.

“It’s no longer possible for us to control world resources for mostly our benefit. … The USA cannot play God … or unilaterally try to retain our economic advantage or force our moral standards on others. “We must give greater support and encouragement to the United Nations and world opinions.”

Three years later, no biological or chemical weapons found, billions of dollars in hock, lives lost, many maimed and psychologically damaged and more terrorism with no end in sight, only the most zealous empire builders would not like to turn the clock back three years, get our facts straight and let the family of nations chart the course.

--source

FARPOINT.FACTOID

... the richest 1 percent of households have, in the aggregate, almost 10 times the wealth of the bottom 46 percent.
--SOURCE

i'm glad i'm not the only one thinking civil war in iraq

it appears that there are iraqis who feel it as well:

Om Hussein, who was reluctant to give her full name, and her Shiite family are preparing for war. They've stocked up on food. They bought a Kalashnikov rifle and a second car -- so that there is space for all 13 members of their extended family should they need to flee in a hurry.

"We are afraid of what will happen in the coming days," she says. "Maybe there will be a monthlong curfew, or maybe fighting in the streets will force my family to stay in the house for days at a time."

In the past week, President Bush has tried to assure Americans that Iraq has stepped back from the brink of civil war. "Iraqis have shown the world they want a future of freedom and peace," he told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Monday.

Few Iraqis, however, share Bush's view that the crisis has been averted. They are readying themselves for the worst, fleeing likely flash points, stockpiling weapons and basic foodstuffs, barricading their neighborhoods, and drawing lines in the sand delineating Sunni and Shiite territory.
--source

progress? what progress?

hite House Says "Operation Swarmer" in Iraq "Tactical"

The White House said on Thursday that Operation Swarmer, believed to be the biggest one since March 2003, is a tactical decision made by U.S. generals in Iraq.

"Our commanders in the theater have the authorization to make tactical decisions about the operations that they undertake," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told a news briefing.

"This operation is part of our ongoing efforts to help move forward on the security front," he said.

McClellan said that U.S. President George W. Bush was briefed on the operation. But he denied that Bush authorized the operation. "This was not something that he needed to authorize," the spokesman said.

--source

oh really?

UNDER the watchful eye of drone spy planes, joint US-Iraqi patrols have surrounded and entered hamlets near Samarra on the second day of a major operation to find insurgents.

Around 50 suspects were detained during the first 24 hours of "Operation Swarmer" which kicked off Thursday morning in Al-Jalam, a large flat area of farmland and desert north of Samarra, but a third of those arrested were later released.
US officials also admitted that of the six weapons caches found, none were substantial.

"The individual caches are not huge," said Major John Callahan of the 101st Airborne Division.
--source

you should be outraged

The Bush administration could continue its policy of spying on targeted Americans without obtaining warrants, but only if it justifies the action to a small group of lawmakers, under legislation introduced yesterday by key Republican senators.

The four senators hope to settle the debate over National Security Agency eavesdropping on international communications involving Americans when one of the parties is suspected of terrorist ties. President Bush prompted a months-long uproar when he said that constitutional powers absolve him of the need to seek warrants in such cases, even though the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires warrants for domestic wiretaps.

--washington post

you see that small group of lawmakers? they're all republican. it's as if democrats don't exist. i'm OUTRAGED!

a thread to watch

Technorati : bush, constitution, dictatorship, nsa, republican, spying, warrantless

remember this the next time you see bush talking about his "GOOD FRIEND" musharref

US AND Nato forces are following up reports that the Taliban has received vital component parts for American shoulder-fired Stinger missiles from Pakistani officials enabling them to be used against helicopters in Afghanistan.

Western sources say they are not sure whether the supplies, needed to make the American-made missiles operational, were provided by rogue elements within the Pakistani secret service or approved at a high level.

However, the effect of rearming the Stingers could be to make Nato aircraft vulnerable at a time when Britain is carrying out the deployment of a force of almost 6,000 in southern Afghanistan.

US and Nato forces have carried out a series of searches along the border areas in the hunt for the missiles with one large-scale operation taking place a month ago.

--source

and in case you're as confused as to who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, here's a lil' primer:

The Taliban is a creation of Pakistan's ISI (same as our CIA). There is no difference. In fact, I would argue that Pakistan is the most dangerous enemy we have. Certain "business" relationships have made sure that the ISI continues to traffic in guns, drugs, and WMD and they are largely responsible for proliferation in the Mid-East.

They train terrorists at the same facilities ISI officers are trained in. They house the Bin Laden bunch and the head of the ISI passed 100k to Atta (via Dubai) before resigning when the story broke. In addition, an ISI agent killed Dan Pearl, although he was "arrested" there has been no trial and no one really knows where he is. Pakistan's far right military/mafia complex is in bed with the Turkish military/mafia complex and so forth.
--courtesy of my friend lala-rawraw

in april eh?

Teheran, 16 March (AKI) - The former reformist president of Iran, Mohammed Khatami, believes the option of a military strike by Washington is being seriously considered by the Pentagon. The daily Rooz on Line, close to the reformists, on Thursday reported that in a recent meeting in Tehran, Khatami revealed to a selected group some details of a message from the White House. According to the online daily, in the message relayed by an emissary of the White House to Khatami on a recent visit to Berlin, the American warned him of their intention to bomb Iran's nuclear installations if the government continued enriching uranium.

Rooz on Line goes on to quote Khatami, as saying that in the American message there was reference to an approximate date of an attack. "One month after the first meeting of the UN Security Council on the Iranian dossier," which is scheduled for Friday.

The Internet daily adds that on his return from Germany, Khatami immediately informed the authorities of the contents of the message.

--source

they seem to be a credible source. but i'll let you decide. i've heard april bashed about before in another forum, so maybe this only confirms that one. april is not far off. i'll have to pay more close attention to the iranian talk. especially bolton. he's so easily read.

Quote of the Day

The gasoline pump: Bushism's umbilical cord to your life.
--Voltaire99

attribution

what's the bushites' relationship with belarus?

The NYT reports on electoral strongarm tactics in Belarus, known as Europe's last dictatorship. Days before the presidential election, the current Lukashenko administration has been arresting opposition campaign workers and pledging to jail anyone who protests the election's outcome.

wanna bet that they talk monthly? maybe some renditions are completed there? who knows? you won't by reading the newbush times.