Friday, December 26, 2003

The Rest of the Marbles The Rest of the Marbles These are all the doublethink entries between March 28, 2003 and May 17, 2003 that I haven't gotten around to archiving properly. They're just raw posts, stripped of reader comments (and I've left the all-graphical entries out). This is a HUGE page - but until the day I actually have time to split it up by post and reproduce it here, this is the best I can do. There's just too much good info here not to have it up, in some readable form, on the Web. Your Required Weekend Reading posted Sat, 17 May 2003 18:50:35 -0700 If you don't have an account with the online version of The New York Times, you should; fickle left-right pendulum swings (it's never "neutral") and Jayson Blair aside, its op/ed pages are nearly unbeatable. (I said "nearly"; the NYT is still consistently too far to the right for my liking.) And it's worth registering (for free, mind you) just to read the piece below in its entirety: Is President Bush a religious zealot, or does he just pander to that crowd? ... [Mr. Bush's public piety] contributes to an image of crusading arrogance abroad, and to a fear of invasive moralism at home. Most recently, the president's reluctance to offend Senator Rick Santorum - a Catholic theocrat who believes that states should have the power to arrest gay lovers in their bedrooms, or even to criminalize couples who use contraceptives - was an occasion to wonder what, exactly, Mr. Bush was born-again into. ... I've long suspected the essential fact about Mr. Bush is that God was his 12-step program. ... This kind of born-again epiphany is common in much of America - the red-state version of psychotherapy - and it creates the kind of faith that is not beset by doubt because the believer knows his life got better in the bargain. ... It is probably not entirely irrelevant to our international relations that Tony Blair is, as one British columnist put it, "the most overtly pious leader since Gladstone," while Jacques Chirac of France and Gerhard Schröder of Germany are adamantly secular. Mr. Schröder was the first German chancellor to refuse to end his oath of office with the customary "so help me God." ... So God is a kind of fraternity handshake. ... Mr. Bush's frequent invocation of the Almighty in his speeches grates on the ears of worldly Europeans, who, when the president says, "God bless America," imagine they hear, "And to hell with everybody else." But it is a tradition of long standing in America, where our dissident origins, First Amendment protections and entrepreneurial spirit have created the most diversely religious population in the world. Mr. Bush comes nowhere near the profuse sectarian language of, say, Lincoln or the Roosevelts. He is also the first president to expand the routine homage to "churches and synagogues" to include "mosques." That amendment came long before 9/11, and was welcome, even if it was motivated by the awareness that American Muslim voters constitute a growing, unexploited voter pool. ... His advocacy of faith-based social programs, for example, clearly grows from his conviction, based on personal experience, that religion can bring an extra charisma to problems like drug abuse. If that also happens to win him religious votes and to coincide with the Republican aversion to government social programs, so much the better for Mr. Bush. ... Perhaps the most important effect of Mr. Bush's religion is that, for better or for worse, it imparts a profound self-confidence once he has decided on a course of action. This has been most conspicuous since Sept. 11 in the way he has talked about his mission to make the world safe for democracy. Some listeners take it as presumptuous, messianic, even blasphemous. ... As for the enduring notion that Mr. Bush takes his instructions from the organized Christian right, it misses a much more interesting story: as an independent political structure, the Christian right is dying. For one thing, the organizations that hit their stride in the 1980's have waned. The Moral Majority is long gone. The Christian Coalition is withering. Bombastic evangelical power brokers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have aged into irrelevance, and now exist mainly as ludicrous foils. ... At the same time... many local activists have gravitated into the Republican Party as county chairmen and campaign consultants. Once an independent force hammering at the president and Congress, they are now an institutional part of the party base. They must be kept mollified - but in balance with other parts of the coalition, like business, and within the bounds of what a majority of voters will accept. Karl Rove, the White House political genius, has a master plan for enlarging that ecumenical array of believers - churchgoing Catholics, Mormons and Jews as well as the evangelicals - and welding them permanently into the Republican mainstream. The interesting story, then, is not that Mr. Bush is a captive of the religious right, but that his people are striving to make the religious right a captive of the Republican Party. Bill Keller God and George W. Bush New York Times May 17, 2003 Another 242 Iraqis Liberated! posted Sat, 17 May 2003 18:28:49 -0700 This should warm the hearts of the pro-war brigades (sorry I couldn't find any pictures for the truly bloodthirsty - or for those who like their real-life gore in living color): Statistics unpublished until today reveal the stark facts: 242 people have died in Baghdad in just over three weeks, almost all from bullet wounds. It is an epidemic, and it is getting worse. But the late-night scenes in a city hospital tell the real story of the postwar price that the Iraqi capital is paying for the occupying forces' failure to live up to their responsibility to make the streets safe. At 3.20am yesterday, Haider Khassem's friends stuffed him half-dead into the back seat of a car. Doctors at al-Kindi hospital's casualty department had done all they could to treat the four bullet wounds in his chest with which he had been brought to them 90 minutes earlier, a hefty young man thrashing in agony and spouting blood like a clubbed seal. They concluded he needed urgent treatment by specialists at a cardiothoracic hospital 20 minutes away. The driver of al-Kindi's only remaining ambulance - the other three have been stolen or looted - had disappeared. So the dangerously ill Mr Khassem was bundled into a clapped-out, rust-bitten orange Moskavich 408. A friend held his intravenous drip out of the back window. In the front seat sat Salah Fayek, his head wrapped in a turban of bandages to staunch an injury inflicted in the same attack. Thus, the maimed and wounded set off into the benighted streets of Baghdad, a city under curfew and echoing with sporadic gunfire, to try to save a life. ... Dr Fa'ak Amin Bakr, director of the city mortuary, says 242 people have died in the past 25 days, of whom more than nine out of 10 had been shot. He says that before the invasion Baghdad had an average of one death a day caused by gunshot wounds. Battles between looters and score-settling from the Saddam years have taken hold, fuelled by a security vacuum that owes much to a decision by Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary, to invade and occupy Iraq with minimum troop numbers - two divisions short, say well-informed sources within the Allies' reconstruction team. They are the by-product, too, of the failure of the Allies to coax the Baghdad police to return to work in sufficient numbers. Most of the Iraqi officers who have returned have yet to come out of their police stations. And homicide figures are going up. The 124 who died from bullet wounds in the past 10 days is a rise of 60 per cent on the previous 10-day period. ... This is the mess that Washington has deployed Paul Bremer, a protégé of Henry Kissinger, to sort out. Unlike Jay Garner, the man he replaces as Iraq's chief administrator, he has been assigned full authority over the Allied administration in Iraq. At his first press conference in Baghdad yesterday, Mr Bremer... [said the] "serious law and order problem" in the capital was a top priority... He noted that 100,000 inmates were released from Iraqi prisons in October by Saddam Hussein. "It's time those people are put back in jail," he said. This peculiar endorsement of Saddam's judicial system will not endear Mr Bremer to human and civil rights activists. Less likely to object are the desperate doctors of Baghdad who want something to be done before hundreds more end up in the mortuary. Baghdad pays the postwar price: 242 die in three weeks The Independent May 16, 2003 Gee, I hope this story was enough to make the anti-peace bunch happy. I sure will try to do better next time, and find you some nice, big pictures of this Crusade of Carnage you support. Sleep well tonight. Just Plain Common Sense(milla) posted Sat, 17 May 2003 18:03:00 -0700 At least one Ontario judge refuses to succumb to the U.S.'s hysterical (and long-lost) "war on drugs": Canada has no laws prohibiting marijuana possession, an Ontario Superior Court judge said yesterday in a ruling that will be binding on judges in the province and may soon be picked up across the country. "For today, and for the Victoria Day weekend, it's a very pleasant state of affairs for recreational pot smokers," said criminal lawyer Paul Burstein, who helped argue the case successfully. It was the second time that a Windsor teenager who was caught smoking pot while playing hooky in a park has been found not to have broken any law because, the courts ruled, there are effectively no longer any marijuana laws to break. Mr. Justice Steven Rogin upheld yesterday a lower-court decision, based on complex arguments, that has already had far-reaching influence. The new ruling means that proposed federal legislation to decriminalize possession of a small amount of marijuana would actually "recriminalize" it, defence lawyers said yesterday. While the new law would impose fines for pot possession, yesterday's ruling effectively eliminated any sanctions for simple pot possession in Ontario, they said. The decision "has effectively erased the criminal prohibition on marijuana possession from the law books in Ontario," said Brian McAllister, the lawyer for the accused teenager. ... The federal Department of Justice, which appealed the initial ruling, is planning another appeal. The government still plans to introduce its marijuana-decriminalization legislation later this month. Most Canadians are behind the idea, according to an Ipsos-Reid poll released yesterday. It found that 55 per cent of Canadians did not believe smoking marijuana should be a criminal offence, while 42 per cent thought it should be. More telling, 63 per cent of respondents supported Ottawa's plans to issue tickets and fines similar to traffic violations to those caught with 15 grams or less of marijuana, the poll found. Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has said he is seeking the changes so that people who are caught with small amounts will not clog up the court system, potentially receiving criminal records. For the moment, however, marijuana possession remains the most frequently laid drug charge in Canada even though courts are becoming increasingly resistant to hearing those cases. ... No laws ban possession of marijuana, court rules The Globe and Mail May 17, 2003 Now don't get on my case about how drugs are bad, and ruining the moral fabric of America, and all those other canned, knee-jerk responses I can hear on any 15-second public-service announcement. Marijuana is not heroin, and it's positively moronic to equate all drugs. Do that, and you may as well outlaw your grandmother's Norvasc; it'll lower her blood pressure, but it can also drop her heart rate to a dangerously slow pace, make her too dizzy to drive responsibly, and make her ankles swell. And you may as well outlaw alcohol while you're at it. Frankly, I've never seen anybody who's smoked too much pot die of cirrhosis of the liver, become obnoxious at a bar, or beat his wife. The most horrendous "marijuana crime" I've ever witnessed was that of a terminal stoner who opined that Drew Carey was actually funny. Do you want to compare the dangers of pot to the dangers of cigarettes next? The fact of the matter is that the only reason pot hasn't been legalized in the U.S. is that nobody's figured out how to regulate it yet. And frankly, I can't understand why the federal government hasn't re-focused its efforts on finding a way to do just that, instead of clogging the already-overstrained U.S. court system, packing prisons with small-time offenders given utterly unreasonable sentences, framing law-abiding bong-sellers like Tommy Chong, turning AIDS and cancer patients into criminals, and completely steamrolling the concept of states' rights. God knows the revenue from controlled licensing of marijuana would be a boon to both cash-strapped states and the foundering fed; a 1998 report by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) states: "Marijuana remains the fourth largest cash crop in America despite law enforcement spending an estimated $10 billion annually to pursue efforts to outlaw the plant. In many states, marijuana ranked as the top cash crop for farmers. United States marijuana growers harvested a minimum of 5.5 million pounds of saleable marijuana in 1997 worth $15.1 billion to growers and $25.2 billion on the retail market." It's no secret that here in California - where agriculture is a massive industry, of unbelievable volume - pot has been the number-one cash crop for years, outranking everything from grapes to walnuts. (Keep your "fruits and nuts" jokes to yourselves, folks - I've heard 'em all, and they were only mildly amusing the first 350 times.) I mention California naturally because I have a vested interest in the state's welfare (which ain't so hot these days), but mostly because, even though I hear the number every damned day, I still can't comprehend the fact that we are facing a $38 billion budget crisis that has to be solved within the next two weeks. It won't be solved this year - or next, I'm afraid - but do you have any idea what a dent tax revenues from the legalized sale of marijuana would put in that $38 billion? Especially in a state where both personal and business income-tax revenues keep falling by the month? (Thanks for a wrecked economy, George!) And don't tell me you really want to talk about the morality of decriminalizing marijuana. If you haven't made up your own mind by now, you never will - and if you're worried that I'm a bad influence on young minds, I suggest you take a look at the influence of your own attitudes about booze, tobacco, and even violent movies and video games before you jump all over me for refusing to demonize weed. And having lived through the 1960s and 70s, I've seen it all, folks, and there's not a thing anyone could say to change my thinking about pot, so don't waste your time. The bottom line is that I'm neither condoning nor condemning marijuana use by responsible adults - but neither do I condone nor condemn adult use of alcohol, cigarettes, kava, or most organized religions. (Although I will say that of the above, only wine, marijuana, and kava have been proven to offer any conclusive therapeutic benefits that outweigh the dangers). When pressed to judge whether a thing is right or wrong, the only question I ask is: Does it hurt anybody else? All told, too much of anything is bad for you - and that includes black-and-white thinking. So, How Many Have You Read? posted Fri, 16 May 2003 23:14:34 -0700 BANNED BOOKS The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990 _ 2000* Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz Daddy _ s Roommate by Michael Willhoite I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling Forever by Judy Blume Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger The Giver by Lois Lowry It _ s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck The Color Purple by Alice Walker Sex by Madonna Earth _ s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L _ Engle Go Ask Alice by Anonymous Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard The Witches by Roald Dahl The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry The Goats by Brock Cole Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane Blubber by Judy Blume Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier Final Exit by Derek Humphry The Handmaid _ s Tale by Margaret Atwood Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison What _ s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Beloved by Toni Morrison The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton The Pigman by Paul Zindel Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard Deenie by Judy Blume Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice) Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole Cujo by Stephen King James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy Ordinary People by Judith Guest American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras Are You There, God? It _ s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume Crazy Lady by Jane Conly Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher Fade by Robert Cormier Guess What? by Mem Fox The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Lord of the Flies by William Golding Native Son by Richard Wright Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women _ s Fantasies by Nancy Friday Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen Jack by A.M. Homes Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle Carrie by Stephen King Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge Family Secrets by Norma Klein Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole The Dead Zone by Stephen King The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison Always Running by Luis Rodriguez Private Parts by Howard Stern Where _ s Waldo? by Martin Hanford Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett Running Loose by Chris Crutcher Sex Education by Jenny Davis The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier Also well worth reading: Banned Books Online The Savannah Morning News reported in November 1999 that a teacher at the Windsor Forest High School required seniors to obtain permission slips before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear... * © Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 American Library Association. This document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not for resale. No resale use may be made of material on this web site at any time. All other rights reserved. One Texan All of Us Dang Li-buh-ruls Jes' Love posted Fri, 16 May 2003 21:20:57 -0700 Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the incomparable, indomitable heroine of all liberals stuck in the Bible Belt (and we in "freeman" country who would like to rescue you)... the one and only Molly! ...with the story that was made just for her: Killer D's attack! Texas to Oklahoma, now back to Texas - bills die by the dozens When last we left the saga of Texas' few living elected Democrats, they had fled the state pursued by minions of the law - legislators on the lam. These courageous citizens, fleeing vile Republican oppression in their state capital, took refuge at the Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Reporters embedded with the law-breaker law-makers in Ardmore say the perps remain unrepentant. ... The manhunt continued despite the presence of a swelling press corps in Ardmore. Gov. Perry asked neighboring governors to arrest the perps on sight. The attorney general of New Mexico obligingly put out an all-points bulletin on any politicians who favor health care and oppose tax cuts for the rich. U.S. House Majority Leader Tom (the Hammer) DeLay, who caused the walkout with a stupefying redistricting map, threatened to send the federales after the recalcitrant D's. Yup, he wants to send the FBI and the U.S. Marshals to bring the runaway solons home in cuffs. ... Now, on the redistricting map that touched off this mess, I have seen maps that are works of art. I have seen districts that look like giant chickens and districts that look like coiled snakes. But this map is a masterpiece, a veritable Dadaist work reminiscent of Salvador Dali's more lunatic productions. ... Thursday brought us a kinder, gentler Speaker Craddick, the Disney version if you will. Come home, he said, all is forgiven. Redistricting is dead. There will be no retribution. This was widely disbelieved by a churlish press corps. ... They come home heroes to their people. A Boise Democrat said he planned to confront the state's legislative D's with headlines and pictures of the Texas Killer D's and to label the montage, "Democrats With Cojones." Unfortunately, it was pointed out, there aren't enough Idaho Democrats to break a quorum. This episode has nothing to do with "payback." The Texas congressional redistricting plan currently in effect was drawn by the courts and was a great disappointment to Democrats. It is not outrageous Democratic gerrymandering: Texas Republicans vote for D's like Charlie Stenholm because they like them. Nor is Speaker Craddick's session-long performance combining the best elements of "Dracula" and "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago" payback for some heavy-handed Democratic domination. For the past 10 years, the speaker of the House has been a decent, honorable and exceptionally fair man named Pete Laney. If you don't believe me, go ask George W. Bush. (Of course, Laney does sound exactly like Boomhauer on "King of the Hill," but that's a different problem.) ... Molly Ivins Killer D's attack! May 16, 2003 Truth Hurts (So Good)! posted Fri, 16 May 2003 15:58:18 -0700 A Berkeley-based peace group intends to place advertisements depicting U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in mass transit systems from coast to coast. The photo is real - it was taken Dec. 20, 1983, when Rumsfeld, then a special envoy for the Reagan administration, visited Saddam to discuss U.S. support for Iraq in its war with Iran. California Peace Action and its sister Peace Education Fund incorporated the photo into an ad emblazoned with the words, "Who are we arming now?" "U.S. troops die for the failures of policy makers," the ad says. "The war in Iraq marked the seventh consecutive time that American troops have been sent into combat against a regime the U.S. had previously backed. We aided both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. While American soldiers and innocent civilians paid the price, policy makers avoided accountability." ... California Peace Action Executive Director Peter Ferenbach said Monday that his group had collected about $41,000 since launching its fund-raising appeal five days earlier. It will cost about $55,000 to place the ads in BART stations and in the mass transit systems of Washington, D.C., Boston and Chicago, as well as more detailed full-page ads in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. ... It is understandable if people are disturbed by the photo, [Ferenbach] said. "They should find it upsetting. On some level, there's the old adage that 'the truth hurts.'" Ad depicts Rumsfeld, Saddam Oakland Tribune May 15, 2003 Or Is It Just a Little Too Close to Home? posted Fri, 16 May 2003 15:07:43 -0700 The CBS affiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas, has opted not to air a two-part miniseries dramatizing the young life of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Dale Remy, general manager of KZTV Channel 10, said he was concerned that the film could give harmful ideas to white supremacists and disturbed young people. "The Nazi concept, if you will, is still very real, and I think anything we do to give that particular thinking a venue, a format, is a mistake," Remy said. "More people that are already on the fence on this and have issues might find something in this character to identify with, and that bothers me tremendously." The company that owns KZTV has a second CBS affiliate in Laredo, Texas, that has also chosen not to air "Hitler: the Rise of Evil." CBS spokesman Chris Ender said that of the more than 200 CBS affiliates in the country, he knew of no others that have declined to show the film. "It is a story that everybody knows how it ended, but very few know how it began," Ender said. "We think the story is compelling, and we think the producers have done an excellent job of presenting it in a compelling and thoughtful manner." The network considers "Hitler: the Rise of Evil" - scheduled to run Sunday and Tuesday - its event mini-series for the May sweeps, Ender said. Locally, KZTV plans to run "Superman II" and "Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear" in those slots. "If Nazism had risen, fallen and gone away, I would not have the issue with it that I do," Remy said. "My issue is that Nazism is real in our society. I think that we as the media have to take some responsibility and I just felt like the Hitler life story was a line I wasn't willing to cross." ... According to CBS, the company that developed the mini-series, Alliance Atlas, drew on biographies, periodicals, documentaries, archival information, journalistic accounts and consultations with prominent academics for research. The miniseries has inspired other controversies. Early on, the Anti-Defamation League, the New York-based group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, came out against the mini-series. But the league has since publicly endorsed it, saying the film shows how fragile democracy is and how potent evil is. "You can't look at films like 'The Pianist' or 'Schindler's List' or a TV series like 'Shoah' without being repelled by what Hitler and his followers did," said Rabbi Kenneth Roseman of Temple Beth El in Corpus Christi. "I generally tend to think that it is more worthwhile to tell the truth and that people are smart enough and ethical and moral enough to draw the proper conclusion. I trust people." Texas TV stations pull CBS 'Hitler' TV miniseries Scripps Howard News Service May 15, 2003 Messin' with Texas & Flirtin' with Feds posted Fri, 16 May 2003 14:47:11 -0700 Willie Nelson has(marginally, at least) redeemed himself in my eyes: He sent bandanas, T-shirts, and whiskey to the exiled Texas Democrats, along with a note that said, "Way to go - stand your ground." Whaddya mean you haven't been following the saga of the Texas Dems? It's not exactly "Run, Bambi, Run" - but it is the most entertaining story of the week: There are - aside from Howard Dean and my mom - at least 51 Democrats in the United States with guts: the Democratic wing of the Texas state legislature. Rather than allow the Republicans to re-district Texas to suit the GOP agenda, the Texas Dems walked out (or rather, fled the Lone Star State) so there wouldn't be enough bodies for a quorum. See, the Repubs wanted to re-map Texas voting districts to give the GOP an unfair advantage. That's called gerrymandering - which is actually illegal in some parts - except when it's not. (I don't make the rules, folks - this is just politics.) Take Colorado, which has been going through a similar brouhaha, but hasn't been getting as much attention. Standing between the Colorado Repubs and their gerrymandering is the state constitution, which requires a minimum of three days to pass a law. To speed things up, the Repubs moved to suspend a rule that requires a proposed bill be read aloud. This is okay if everybody votes to waive the reading. But this time, the Dems said no. Of course, the Repubs tried to worm their way around the law: When Republicans tried to suspend the rules anyway, Democrats pointed out that these rules derive directly from the Colorado Constitution... At that point, Senate President John Andrews tried to outflank the requirement to read the 28-page bill by having 14 clerks each read two pages - simultaneously. The result was a cacophony that clearly violated both the spirit and the letter of the law - which was clearly intended to ensure that legislators understood laws before voting on them. (In 1876, it was by no means certain that all members could read.) Gerrymandering misstep Denver Post May 16, 2003 Which is all amusing, perhaps, but just the usual GOP tricks - skirting, flying in the face of, and throttling the law in order to get their own way. (They're spoiled, you see; they've gotten so used to having their way for the past couple of years, they tend to go into terrible temper tantrums when somebody tries to make them follow the rules for a change.) What will happen with Colorado is anybody's guess; the whole mess will probably end up in federal court. (By the way, the same sort of thing is going on in Montana - a state that really doesn't get any attention, unless it's on fire.) Anyway, back to Texas, where the story gets a lot more interesting... and where the Repubs are finding themselves in hot water - not for messin' with Texas law, but for messin' with Ashcroft Nation! The Repubs wanted to hunt down the runaway Dems and drag 'em back to Austin (or, as Ragtime Cowboy George would put it, "hunt 'em down and bring 'em to justice"). So House Speaker Tom Craddick (a Repub, of course), sent state troopers to find the Dems (who by this time were holed up 300 miles away in an Oklahoma Holiday Inn). Now, never mind the obvious waste of law-enforcement resources and taxpayer money just yet; the real problem isn't what Craddick & Co. did, but how. They lied. Well, okay, maybe they didn't all lie, but somebody told an un-truth - and the Texas cops were left with the story that one of the Dems, James E. "Pete" Laney, had shuttled the rest of the Dems out of the state in his private plane - and now, the plane was "missing." What would you call that? A half-truth? A quarter-truth? 1/1000 of a truth? Technically, the whereabouts of Laney's plane weren't known - to the Repubs - but the cops were misled into thinking that it was "missing" - as in lost, downed, hijacked. The whole thing snowballed - precisely because a state investigator did his job: He called the Air and Marine Interdiction Coordination Center in Riverside, Calif., part of the Homeland Security Department, to ask officials there to use their nationwide radar network to help locate the plane. The call from the unnamed investigator came as an "urgent plea," describing a plane with state officials aboard that was overdue, according to a statement issued yesterday by the Homeland Security Department's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We got a problem, and I hope you can help me out," the statement quoted the officer as saying. "We had a plane that was supposed to be going from Ardmore, Okla., to Georgetown, Tex. It had state representatives on it, and we cannot find this plane." Believing they had an emergency on their hands, agency officials called the Federal Aviation Administration in Fort Worth, and airport officials in two other Texas cities, but were unable to find the plane. "When law enforcement calls us asking for assistance in locating an aircraft that may be missing or lost or downed, it's certainly an appropriate response to try to locate that aircraft," said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the bureau. "We take these statements at face value." In fact, there was no plane. Most of the Democrats had taken buses to Ardmore, where they holed up in a hotel. They were expected to stay there until at least midnight last night - the deadline for new bills to be brought to the House floor. The only thing in jeopardy was the GOP legislative agenda. Bid to Find Tex. Lawmakers Decried Washington Post May 16, 2003 It reminds me of an "I Love Lucy" episode, where one of Lucy's "harmless" little white lies lands Lucy and Ethel in the pokey. Now, get this: A spokesman for Craddick... said Craddick did not tell the state police to seek federal help. "He called [state police] in and let them do their job ... There was an effort made to find out if they could get some federal help in that. ... I think Craddick is getting credit for a lot of things other people did. He may have said, 'Let's do what we can to find them.'" Or: "I didn't mean for it to get out of hand! Nobody was supposed to call the feds! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Oh, Rickyyyyy!" What a mealy-mouthed pile o' crap. I like what the Dems are saying - and not because they're Dems, but because they're absolutely right: "Not since Richard Nixon and Watergate 30 years ago has anyone tried to use law enforcement agencies of the federal government for domestic political purposes," [said] Rep. Martin Frost... "This is an abuse of criminal- and terrorist-fighting resources of the U.S. government for a domestic political matter. ... There should be a complete investigation." Rep. Jim Turner (Tex.), ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, said it was "deeply disturbing" that federal resources were diverted to try to track down Laney... "We created the Department of Homeland Security to track down terrorists, not law-abiding citizens." Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, joined eight other House Democrats yesterday in asking the acting inspector general at Homeland Security to investigate what happened. "If true, this report represents a shameful diversion of taxpayer resources for partisan purposes," the lawmakers wrote to Clark Kent Irvin. There are other anecdotes - which are either hilarious or horrifying, depending on your P.O.V.: See the big, brave Texas trooper hunt down a Daddy Dem in the hospital where his newborn twins are in intensive care! Watch the Dems' wives and teenage daughters harrassed in the streets, and on their cell phones! Witness the Dems' triumphant return! Sung to the tune of Yellow Rose of Texas: You can send the Texas troopers, you can threaten all our wives But we'll stayed holed up in Ardmore, in a dozen different dives We're all fed up with your bullying, you hot old bags of gas And for once your sneaky tactics brought you blowback up the ass! (Yes, I wrote it.) With Every New "Scramble," Another Reminder (3/3) posted Thu, 15 May 2003 20:33:31 -0700 This is Part 3 of 3. Make sure to read Parts 1 and 2 (below) first! Let's take one more look at the Russert-Cheney interview: Russert: "So if the United States government became aware that a hijacked commercial airline[r] was destined for the White House or the Capitol, we would take the plane down?" Cheney: "Yes. The president made the decision... that if the plane would not divert... as a last resort, our pilots were authorized to take them out. Now, people say, you know, that's a horrendous decision to make. Well, it is. You've got an airplane full of American citizens, civilians, captured by... terrorists, headed and are you going to, in fact, shoot it down, obviously, and kill all those Americans on board?" And what was the alternative, Dick? Kill a couple of hundred people by shooting down the planes - or sit on your hands, watch the planes crash, and kill a few thousand? Playing along with the idea that it was ever "your" decision to authorize intercepts: NORAD managed to get not one, but multiple F-16s into the air to intercept Payne Stewart's plane. But "you" couldn't manage to scramble a single jet the morning of September 11th - until after American Flight 11 had already crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. The USAF was ready to shoot down Payne Stewart's plane and didn't, because there was no danger of it hitting a densely-populated area - like Pierre, South Dakota (population: 13,876). But "you" couldn't manage to get a single jet in the air before the crash of the first of two planes you already knew were headed straight for New York City (population: 7,322,564). Sounds to me like the Air Force was more prepared to take out a plane containing nine people to prevent it from crashing into a rural town of 13,000, than "you" were to take out four commercial jets, containing a total of 245 people, from crashing into two of the most densely-populated metropolitan areas in the United States (one of which, incidentally, is the nerve center of the federal government). Now, I don't mean to make it sound as though the lives of the folks in South Dakota are any less important than the lives of those in New York or Washington. It's as great a tragedy, in my eyes, to lose nine souls - or even one - as it is 3,000. And, in fact, I commend all involved for their handling of the Payne Stewart incident; shoot it down or let it crash - what else could be done? But I do find it curious, Dick, that "they" could hold the total death count in South Dakota to a mere nine, while "you" allowed... Wait, let me do some math here... 87 aboard Flight 11, plus 59 aboard Flight 77... carry the one... 40 aboard Flight 93, plus 59 aboard Flight 175... carry one... plus 2,629 in the WTC, and another 125 at the Pentagon... zero on the ground in Penn... Got it. As I was saying: I find it curious, Dick, that the USAF was authorized (without any need to clear it with President Clinton) to use all means available to hold the South Dakota death toll to nine, while "you" used none of the means available to avoid the deaths of 2,999 - until it was much too late. Granted, there's probably nothing that could have been done to save the lives of the 245 aboard those planes. But as far as I'm concerned, Dick, somebody - maybe not "you," but somebody on your watch - had more than enough time to do something about saving the lives of the other 2,754 people on the ground. But it looks like "you" didn't even try. Of course, there are countless questions about September 11th aside from the failure to scramble F-16s - but you no doubt realize what a monumental task it would be to compile them all here. Besides, every time I delve into the details, my eyes nearly roll back in their sockets at the overwhelming volume of information, and the mind-boggling contradictions all screaming for attention at once. So, when the subject of 9-11 comes up, I intend - as I did here - to try to concentrate on just one aspect, and in fairly brief form, so as to overwhlem neither myself nor you. I want you, dear reader, to become aware of facts you may not have heard before, and to be able to digest those facts - and realize why it really is so important that you know these things, and start asking your own questions. September 11th wasn't something that happened "out there"; no matter where it was, or who died, or why, it was the trigger the PNAC boys had been waiting for; they were desperate for some excuse - any excuse - to unleash decades of carefully-worked back-room plans on the unsuspecting public. With 9-11, they got their excuse - in spades. As a result, your life has changed in ways you may already feel, and in ways you may not recognize until the next time you try to board a plane, take a day trip to Tijuana - or say the "wrong thing" in class (and suddenly find yourself hauled off for questioning by Secret Service agents). It seems to me that the only reasonable way to absorb the reality of 9-11 is to look at one small aspect at a time. However, if you'd like to try to digest the whole enchilada (and it's one damn-big enchilada), you couldn't find a better starting point than 911 Timeline.net (which also provides links to many more sites guaranteed to overwhelm you with detail). Good luck. I feel my eyes starting to roll back in their sockets... With Every New "Scramble," Another Reminder (2/3) posted Thu, 15 May 2003 20:15:04 -0700 This is Part 2 of 3. Make sure to read Part 1 (below) first! One might argue that, even if NORAD protocols have not changed since 9-11 (which they have not), then NORAD has become more vigilant in the past 20 months. It hasn't. Whenever I think of September 11th - and the complete failure to scramble Air Force jets in any reasonable (much less expedient) time - Payne Stewart always come to mind. If you're not familiar with the story: Payne Stewart was a professional golfer who was killed in the crash of a Learjet on October 25, 1999. The flight left Orlando for Dallas, then inexplicably turned north, and kept flying until it ran out of fuel over South Dakota. The last transmission from the plane to ground control was at 9:27 a.m. At 9:33 a.m., ground control radioed instructions to the plane to change frequencies, and waited for acknowledgement. Over the span of the next four and a half minutes, the controller made five more calls to the flight, but received no response. Thus, at about 9:38 a.m., the ground controller ceased calls to the plane. By 9:52 a.m., "a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm" of the doomed aircraft. That's a total of 14 minutes from the time the ground controller gave up on raising a response from the plane, and the time NORAD was contacted, ordered an F-16 intercept, and the F-16 was in the air and a mere 8nm from the Learjet. After making two calls to Stewart's plane and receiving no response, the F-16 began its visual inspection at about 10:00 a.m. And here's the punch line: The F-16 from Eglin AFB was only the first plane scrambled to intercept the Learjet: Over Missouri, four F-16s from an Air National Guard unit based in Fargo, North Dakota, took over the escort mission, and stayed with the plane until it crashed. The Air Force says additional F-16s were also scrambled from the Oklahoma Air National Guard unit in Tulsa, but were not used because the Fargo planes arrived first. ... Investigators arrive at Payne Stewart crash site CNN October 26, 1999 The CNN article also goes on to note that shooting down the Learjet wasn't an option - but only because there was no need to shoot it down: The Pentagon said Monday it never came close to shooting down Stewart's wayward plane in order to prevent a possible crash into a heavily populated area. Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said, "Once it was determined it was apparently going to crash in a lightly populated area, we didn't have to deal with other options, so we didn't. ... At 11:10 p.m. [sic] CDT (12:10 p.m. EDT) the Northeast Air Defense sector estimated the Learjet would run out of fuel in one hour, and calculated the plane would likely to go down in a sparsely populated area near Pierre, South Dakota. And it's not as if the Air Force wasn't ready to shoot the plane down if necessary: In fact, a Pentagon spokesman said, the F-16 fighter planes that monitored the jet's flight were not armed with air-to-air missiles. ... Two other F-16s on "strip alert" at Fargo, South Dakota, were armed, but never took off. So, if the F-16s weren't about to shoot down Stewart's plane, what could they have done? The FAA routed air traffic around the Learjet and kept planes from flying underneath it in case it crashed. Pentagon officials say the fighter jets could do little but watch as the plane completed it fatal fight. ... In theory, the fighters could have tried to tip or nudge the wings of the plane to change it's [sic] course, but it's not clear if the Learjet's auto-pilot would have simply automatically corrected its course. It's impossible to say what those jets might have done, had the Learjet been headed straight for a densely-populated area - and "other options" had to be considered. But one wonders: Who would have been responsible for making the call? Curiously, Vice President Dick Cheney would have you believe that the responsibility for the decision to intercept errant aircraft belongs to the Commander-in-Chief - and on the morning of September 11, 2001, that would have been George W. Bush. Five days after the September 11th attacks, Cheney appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," and, in discussing American Flight 77 (the plane that hit the Pentagon), Tim Russert asked, "What's the most important decision you think he [Bush] made during the course of the day?" Cheney: "Well, the--I suppose the toughest decision was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft." Russert: "And you decided?" Cheney: "We decided to do it. We'd, in effect, put a flying combat air patrol up over the city; F-16s with an AWACS, which is an airborne radar system, and tanker support so they could stay up a long time... It doesn't do any good to put up a combat air patrol if you don't give them instructions to act, if, in fact, they feel it's appropriate." There are some glaring problems with Cheney's statements: Cheney confused (deliberately? that's not my judgment to make) "intercept" with "shoot down." "Intercept" means to deflect, divert, or just get the attention of another aircraft by any number of means (from a simple radio call to signalling the errant plane visually to the more desperate "wing-nudging"); it does not necessarily mean "shoot down." Cheney knows that. And if he doesn't, he should. The decision to intercept errant aircraft is not that of the President of the United States. Intercepts are more frequent than you can imagine - and if the decision to intercept fell to the president, no president since the start of the jet age would have had time to do much else. Bill Clinton was not consulted about the Payne Stewart intercept - regardless of whether "interception" included a shoot-down. Cheney knows that, too - or should. Cheney said it "doesn't do any good to put up a combat air patrol if you don't give them instructions to act." Ignoring the fact that neither Bush nor Cheney needed to issue any order to intercept (and/or fire), it sounds to me like the pilots who finally did get into the air on 9-11 had carte blanche to take out any subsequent commercial flights gone astray. Of course, the point is moot; once the fourth and final plane went down in Pennyslvania (and all other commercial flights were either grounded or diverted), there was nothing left to shoot out of the sky. The only thing that was "diverted" - temporarily, at least - was the public's attention, away from questions which beg answers. Continued... With Every New "Scramble," Another Reminder (1/3) posted Thu, 15 May 2003 19:57:31 -0700 This is Part 1 of 3. An F-16 fighter jet was sent to investigate a plane carrying Gov. Jeb Bush after it lost radio contact Wednesday on approach to Reagan National Airport in Washington. It was unclear why the plane lost radio contact at 7:30 a.m., FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. Once contact was re-established, controllers were able to "authenticate that they were who they said they were," she said. The plane, en route from Tallahassee, was allowed to land about an hour later, and Bush went on to conduct his planned business in Washington. The fighter jet was sent from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland because Bush's plane was approaching restricted airspace around the nation's capital. "But we realized very quickly there was no threat to the capital, we never did an intercept, and we brought our fighter home," said Canadian Army Maj. Douglas Martin, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command. ... Jet Sent to Probe Fla. Gov. Plane Associated Press May 15, 2003 Now, this is all fine and good - the Gov's plane lost radio contact, and our flyboys were scrambled to go see what was wrong. And, despite the temptation to point out the irony of the Bush boys' plane troubles this year (come on, struck by lightning, twice, within a month? how Old Testament can a message get?), I am sincerely glad to see Jeb back on the ground, safe and sound.  (Yes, people, sincerely - I think Jebby's as bad as his big bro, but I wish no harm to anyone - and with the way I feel about - or, rather, crashing - I certainly wouldn't wish my worst nightmare on anybody... not even Jesse Helms). However (you knew there'd be a "however"), I have questions: Why did Maj. Douglas Martin say "we never did an intercept," when sending an F-16 into the air to investigate is an intercept? (More about this later.) Jeb's plane lost radio contact at 7:30 a.m. When was NORAD notified? When did NORAD give the order to send up the F-16? How much time elapsed bteween that order and the takeoff of the F-16? How was an F-16 scrambled from Andrews AFB yesterday morning, when it was apparently impossible to scramble one from Andrews on the morning of September 11, 2001? How was it possible to scramble the jet before the governor's plane had even entered restricted airspace (it was "approaching," not "in" restricted airspace), when on September 11th the first jet was not scrambled until a full 32 minutes after contact was lost with American Airlines Flight 11 - and after Flight 11 had already deviated from its flight path, and after flight attendants made two separate emergency calls to report "a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and the infliction of injuries on passengers and crew"? Why is the text transcript of Mindy Kleinberg's testimony to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States now missing from the commission's Web site (http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/witness_kleinberg.htm)?  Kleinberg testified on March 31, 2003, and asked many of the most logical (and damning) questions all Americans (or nearly all) want answered.  Specifically regarding the failure to scramble F-16 intercepts, Kleinberg noted: Prior to 9/11, FAA and Department of Defense Manuals gave clear, comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor emergencies to full blown hijackings. ... Those protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, it is then the responsibility of NORAD to scramble fighter-jets to intercept the errant plane(s). It is a matter of routine procedure for fighter-jets to "intercept" commercial airliners in order to regain contact with the pilot. If that weren't protection enough, on September 11th, NEADS (or the North East Air Defense System dept of NORAD) was several days into a semiannual exercise known as "Vigilant Guardian". This meant that our North East Air Defense system was fully staffed. In short, key officers were manning the operation battle center, "fighter jets were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board." ... American Airlines Flight 11 departed from Boston Logan Airport at 7:45 a.m. The last routine communication between ground control and the plane occurred at 8:13 a.m. Between 8:13 and 8:20 a.m. Flight 11 became unresponsive to ground control. Additionally, radar indicated that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight. Soon thereafter, transponder contact was lost (although planes can still be seen on radar - even without their transponders). Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and the infliction of injuries on passengers and crew. At this point, it would seem abundantly clear that Flight 11 was an emergency. Yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 a.m. Tragically the fighter jets were not deployed until 8:52 a.m. - a full 32 minutes after the loss of contact with flight 11. Why was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a delay in NORAD scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible when NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready and monitoring our Northeast airspace? Flights 175, 77 and 93 all had this same repeat pattern of delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets. Delays that are unimaginable considering a plane had, by this time, already hit the WTC. Even more baffling for us is the fact that the fighter jets were not scrambled from the closest air force bases. For example, for the flight that hit the Pentagon, the jets were scrambled from Langley Air Force in Hampton, Virginia rather than Andrews Air Force Base right outside D.C. As a result, Washington skies remained wholly unprotected on the morning of September 11th. At 9:41 a.m. one hour and 11 minutes after the first plane was hijack confirmed by NORAD, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fighter jets were still miles away. Why? On September 11th both the FAA and NORAD deviated from standard emergency operating procedures. Who were the people that delayed the notification? Have they been questioned? In addition, the interceptor planes or fighter jets did not fly at their maximum speed. Had the belatedly scrambled fighter jets flown at their maximum speed of engagement, MACH-12, they would have reached NYC and the Pentagon within moments of their deployment, intercepted the hijacked airliners before they could have hit their targets, and undoubtedly saved lives. Continued... Special "Hunt 'em Down & Bring 'em to Justice" Edition posted Wed, 14 May 2003 19:44:32 -0700 President George W. Bush vowed on Tuesday to bring to justice the culprits in the fatal apartment bombings in Saudi Arabia, saying the attacks showed that the war on terror continues. "These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate and the United States will find the killers and they will learn the meaning of American justice," Bush told an audience in Indianapolis. ... Bush vows to bring Saudi bombers to justice Reuters May 13, 2003 We're not just going out there to win - we're going out there for glory! We're going to yank 'em, tear 'em, and rip 'em! We're going to roll 'em around and rip 'em up! Then we're going to slaughter 'em! After the slaughter is over, we'll come back here, and ring that victory bell... like we always wanted to! -- Coach, Grease Oh, that's rich! Excuse me for a moment - I have to wipe the tears from my eyes. This guy is such a card... cracks me up every time... We will find these people... We will find those responsible and bring them to justice. George W. Bush September 11, 2001 We will find those who did it. We will smoke them out of their holes, we'll get them running, and we'll bring them to justice. ... We will find them in their hiding places, and we'll get them moving, and we'll bring them to justice. George W. Bush September 15, 2001 Our military action is also designed to clear the way for sustained, comprehensive and relentless operations to drive them out and bring them to justice. George W. Bush October 7, 2001 We won't forget what took place. And we will bring them to justice. We'll bring them to justice in Afghanistan, and we'll bring them to justice... And if it's in our national security interests to bring people to justice, I will use a military tribunal. ... My job is to protect the United States people... And that's exactly what I'm going to do and, at the same time, bring al Qaeda to justice. ... Those nations... better be aware... because they will be brought to justice. ... But, evidently, there are terrorists who can't stand the thought of peace, and they must be brought to justice. George W. Bush December 5, 2001 We get all kinds of reports - that he is in a cave, that he is not in a cave... But when the dust clears, we will find out where he is and he will be brought to justice. ... He is not escaping us. ... He's on the run. ...we're going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice. George W. Bush December 28, 2001 [We must] hunt down the killers and the terrorists wherever they try to hide and bring them to justice. George W. Bush January 24, 2002 First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans and bring terrorists to justice. George W. Bush January 29, 2002 ...the surest way to make sure our children grow up in a peaceful and free society, is to be relentless in our pursuit of those who would harm America, those who hate freedom, and bring them to justice. George W. Bush February 4, 2002 We've got to find those al Qaeda killers and bring them to justice. George W. Bush April 5, 2002 ...it reminds me of what was done to us there on September 11th, and how important it is that... we chase down these killers one by one, and bring them to justice. George W. Bush May 14, 2002 ...this country must have the will and the determination to chase these killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice. And that's exactly what is going to happen, so long as I am the President of the United States of America. George W. Bush May 17, 2002 The best way for me to do my most important job... is to go on the offense and chase them down one by one, and bring them to justice, which is precisely what America is going to do. George W. Bush June 3, 2002 You need to know that the United States of America will track the terrorists down, one by one, and bring them to justice. ... We're going to get 'em on the run, and we're going to keep them on the run until we bring them to justice. George W. Bush July 18, 2002 I know that the best way to secure the homeland is to hunt these cold-blooded killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice. And that's what we're going to do. George W. Bush July 22, 2002 I made the pledge to myself and to people that I'm not going to forget what happened on Sept. 11. So long as I'm president, we will pursue the killers and bring them to justice. George W. Bush September 11, 2002 I have told Vladimir Putin ... an objective that's important for the United States - and that is to get the al Qaeda killers and bring them to justice. George W. Bush September 16, 2002 We're going to hunt them down one at a time... As we work with our friends, we will find them and bring them to justice. George W. Bush November 22, 2002 And overseas we're chasing the killers down one person at a time. ...this nation will stay on course to find them, to bring them to justice... George W. Bush November 27, 2002 What's important is we continue to disrupt his network, to bring people to justice and to "haul 'em in," as I like to put it. And, you know, [Osama is] holed up somewhere evidently... and when we find him holed up somewhere we're going in, either we or our buddies are going in to, to bring him to justice. I promised the people right after September the 11th that we would not - we would not tire in our effort to make sure that not only people were brought to justice, but that our children could grow up in a peaceful society, and I will continue to uphold that promise and continue to do everything in our power to bring people to justice. ... I want to know whether or not the top al Qaeda generals have been brought to justice. George W. Bush December 13, 2002 The terrorists who struck the United States are still determined... But we are even more determined to hunt them down one by one, to disrupt their plans, and to bring them to justice. George W. Bush February 20, 2003 Stay tuned for the Special "We Will Find WMD" Edition - that is, if I can hunt 'em all down... and bring 'em to justice! Sources for 20/23/21 posted Wed, 14 May 2003 17:18:43 -0700 Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain; Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. -- Mark Twain Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. -- Johann Schiller No god, The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782 no deity will save us; While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves. -- Humanist Manifesto II, 1973 We must become the change we want to see. We must become the change we want to see. -- Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi But how is it possible But it is objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for? This is the foundation on which persecution has been raised in every part of the world. The people in power were always right, and every body else wrong. -- Henry Abbot, rebuttal to James Iredell, Debate in North Carolina Ratifying Convention, July 30, 1788 to enlighten the masses And God missed an even better chance, if there were a God who wished to punish rebels against his majesty and inscrutability. Just a few hundred miles north and east of Bethany, Okla., is Girard... the center of American free thought where an enormous stream of atheistic literature and godless modern knowledge pours forth to enlighten the masses. If there were a God directing hurricanes and he wanted to really "get" an uncompromising foe, whom he has no chance of persuading in the ordinary way, it would have been a devastating stroke for him to send his howling Punitive blasts through the town of Girard. -- E. Haldeman-Julius, The Meaning Of Atheism doped with religion and sex and TV? Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV, And you think you're so clever and classless and free, But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see, A working class hero is something to be, -- John Lennon, Working Class Hero Vagueness is all Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell you. Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all. -- Bernard Levin in the kingdom of the blind: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. -- Desiderius Erasmus Fools and fanatics, The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. -- Bertrand Russell a nation of finks; Thanks, for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business. Thanks, for a nation of finks. -- William S. Burroughs, A Thanksgiving Prayer A scream is better; Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks. The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks. -- Voltaire I either choose the truth or I am deceit. In all things there are three choices: Yes, No, and no choice, except in this - I either choose the truth or I am deceit. -- Sovereign Truth does not change because it is, or is not. It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. -- Giordano Bruno Most people would rather die than think; Most people would rather die than think: many do. -- Bertrand Russell Give me the storm and tempest of thought! Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge! -- Robert Green Ingersoll, The Gods, 1872 When the need for illusion is deep, A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. -- Saul Bellow Men willingly believe what they wish. Many things persuaded the Gauls to this measure; the delay of Sabinus during the previous days; the positive assertion of the deserter; want of provisions, for a supply of which they had not taken the requisite precautions; the hope springing from the Venetic war; and because in most cases men willingly believe what they wish. -- Julius Caesar, De bello Gallico (The Gallic Wars) Silence gives consent -- Silence gives consent. -- Canon Law show the world its own shame: The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. -- Oscar Wilde Stick in their throats like a pufferfish! Don't become a well rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their throats like a pufferfish. -- Bruce Sterling For My Fellow Mavericks posted Tue, 13 May 2003 22:33:22 -0700 The following poem - expressing my own feelings about dissent, individuality, and the angry refusal to be silenced - is composed of 20 lines, from 23 different quotations, by 21 different writers and other thinkers who have, in one way or another, inspired and influenced my thinking over the years. (I'll identify the sources, in context, soon; for now, see how many lines nag at you in their familiarity.) While the rhyme works, the meter is admittedly awkward - but after reading it aloud a couple of times, I've found a rhythm comfortable to my ears. I dedicate this to my fellow mavericks - you know who you are. 20/23/21 Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain; Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. No god, no deity will save us; We must become the change we want to see. But how is it possible to enlighten the masses doped with religion and sex and TV? Vagueness is all in the kingdom of the blind: Fools and fanatics, a nation of finks; A scream is better; The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks. I either choose the truth or I am deceit. Truth does not change because it is, or is not. Most people would rather die than think; Give me the storm and tempest of thought! When the need for illusion is deep, Men willingly believe what they wish. Silence gives consent - show the world its own shame: Stick in their throats like a pufferfish! Where There's Smoke, There's... posted Mon, 12 May 2003 17:08:39 -0700 ...Fire! U.S. Sen. Bob Graham told a national television audience Sunday that the Bush administration is hiding intelligence information from the American people to "cover up" failures both before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Graham, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, helped author a House-Senate intelligence report concerning terrorist activity and the role of the nation's intelligence community. ... [T]he Florida Democrat said the report completed in December remains classified because the Bush administration is afraid to release it. Calling the White House "one of the most secretive administrations in American history," Graham... said even testimony given in public has been classified by the White House. Unable to reveal details because it remains classified, Graham said the report provides detailed information that "the American people have been denied" which would help in the continuing fight against terrorists. ... Graham said the adminstration is worried about the Congressional report because, "We have connected the dots." ... Graham alleges Bush 'cover up' Palm Beach Post May 11, 2003 Now, while I accord Senator Graham a lot more credibility than I do some of the folks you'll meet in the following piece (my awe at the uncanny clairvoyance of Mike Ruppert notwithstanding), and I do not believe that BushCo actually ordered 9-11 (if forced at gunpoint to choose between crazy conspiracy theories, I would lean toward LIHOP, not MIHOP), this is nevertheless worth the read in full. As with anything, take what you like from it, and leave the rest: The greatest deception ever launched. That is how Canadian broadcaster Barrie Zwicker described the U.S. government's "official" version of 9/11 at an activist-organized event in San Francisco April 21. ... Zwicker called the government's story of 9/11 "The Big Lie" and likened it to the Reichstag Fire which Adolph Hitler and the Nazis used to launch their murderous attacks against people they deemed undesirable. ...   Zwicker said the 9/11 deception was "perpetrated by powerful special interests to jumpstart the war on terrorism," which he called the "toxic tip" for world domination, and was leveraged by neo-conservatives in the U.S. government who have "hijacked U.S. foreign policy at the behest of Big Arms and Big Oil."   Media critic of Canada's non-profit Vision TV, Zwicker produced the video The Great Deception, which analyzes the events of 9/11 and received the largest response of any television program in Canada.   The event featured the film AfterMath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11... Questions the film addresses include: What did the Bush administration know and when; why did the U.S. military fail to intercept the hijacked planes; what ties did the U.S. military and intelligence agencies have with the terrorists and their supporters? ... Zwicker asked the audience for a show of hands about four questions. How many believe, he asked, that elements of the U.S. government not only knew about but also participated in 9/11? ... A majority-possibly 80 percent-answered affirmatively to Zwicker's first question. ... Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the Department of Transportation and an aviation disaster attorney who appears in the GNN film, says that in the year 2000, the Air National Guard scrambled fighter jets to intercept U.S. planes which were off course 80 to 100 times. On 9/11, when four planes were hijacked, these procedures and those of NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) were not followed. ... Enteen said the Bush administration is creating fear to justify "their repressive legislation" like the USA PATRIOT Act and to perpetuate the war on terrorism and dissent. ... Zwicker called the American people "ignorant of the extent of the deception about 9/11" and urged the media's hypnotic hold on the public be broken so people can begin to "even question" 9/11. Canadian Broadcaster: "U.S. government's 'official' version of 9/11 is the greatest deception ever launched." GoOFF!com May 10, 2003 Dean Supporters, This One's for You! posted Mon, 12 May 2003 17:02:25 -0700 Howard Dean in 2004 Web Portal Support the Troops? Good. Now, Let's Talk About DU posted Mon, 12 May 2003 16:30:28 -0700 Most young Americans who enlist in our all-volunteer armed forces... do not expect to be shot at. ... But what the Pentagon is not saying to the Private Lynches and their families is that they stand a very good chance of dying or being catastrophically disabled precisely because they chose the U.S. military as a route of social mobility. There are serious unintended consequences to our most recent "no contact" or "painless dentistry" wars that contradict the Pentagon's claims of low casualties. The most important is the malady that goes by the name "Gulf War Syndrome," a potentially deadly medical disorder that first appeared among combat veterans of the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Just as the effects of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War were first explained away by the Pentagon as "post-traumatic stress disorder," "combat fatigue," or "shell shock," so the Bush administration is now playing down the potential toxic side effects of the ammunition now being widely used by its armed forces. ... The first Iraq War produced four classes of casualties - killed in action, wounded in action, killed in accidents (including "friendly fire"), and injuries and illnesses that appeared only after the end of hostilities. During 1990 and 1991, some 696,778 individuals served in the Persian Gulf as elements of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Of these 148 were killed in battle, 467 were wounded in action, and 145 were killed in accidents, producing a total of 760 casualties, quite a low number given the scale of the operations. However, as of May 2002, the Veterans Administration (VA) reported that an additional 8,306 soldiers had died and 159,705 were injured or ill as a result of service-connected "exposures" suffered during the war. Even more alarmingly, the VA revealed that 206,861 veterans, almost a third of General Schwarzkopf's entire army, had filed claims for medical care, compensation, and pension benefits based on injuries and illnesses caused by combat in 1991. After reviewing the cases, the agency has classified 168,011 applicants as "disabled veterans." In light of these deaths and disabilities, the casualty rate for the first Gulf War is actually a staggering 29.3%. Dr. Doug Rokke, a former Army colonel and professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University, was in charge of the military's environmental clean-up following the first Gulf War. Dr. Rokke notes that many thousands of American troops have been based in and around Kuwait since 1990, and according to his calculations, between August 1990 and May 2002, a total of 262,586 soldiers became "disabled veterans" and 10,617 have died. His numbers produce a casualty rate for the whole decade of 30.8%. A significant probable factor in these deaths and disabilities is depleted uranium (DU) ammunition... In 1991, U.S. forces fired a staggering 944,000 DU rounds in Kuwait and Iraq. The Pentagon admits that it left behind at a bare minimum 320 metric tons of DU on the battlefield. One study of Gulf War veterans showed that their children had a higher possibility of being born with severe deformities, including missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems, and fused fingers. ... Young Americans being seduced into the armed forces these days are quite literally making themselves into "cannon fodder," even if they have been able to secure non-combat jobs. Before we begin to celebrate how few American casualties there were in the brief Iraq war, we might pause to consider the future. ... Chalmers Johnson Our Latest Wars Are Killing a Lot More Americans than You Think TomDispatch, via History News Network May 12, 2003 The Creepiest, Sickest Story I've Heard All Day posted Mon, 12 May 2003 15:11:09 -0700 This is actually quite a good piece (as all of Signorile's op/eds are) about GOP hypocrisy, rhetoric, and pandering to the extreme Religious Right - but the opening is what threw me for a loop, and I feel I owe you a caveat: If you're of an especially sensitive nature (or easily upset by the mention of infant death), skip this. Otherwise, don't say I didn't warn you... It's true that Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum's comments last week about homosexuality were more outrageous than even the most garish gay pride parade. In a now infamous Associated Press interview, he defended sodomy laws, equating homosexuality with incest, polygamy, adultery and bigamy. And Santorum later refused to apologize. But the creepiest bit in the article actually had nothing to do with gays or sodomy. It was this buried little factoid: "He and his wife, Karen, have seven children - including, as Santorum puts it, 'the one in Heaven.' Their fourth baby, Gabriel Michael, died in 1996, two hours after an emergency delivery in Karen Santorum's 20th week of pregnancy. The couple took Gabriel's body home to let their three other young children see and hold the baby before burying him..." That's been reported before - it is in fact often repeated in the context of Santorum's crusade against abortion - but having this weirdness brought forth within the context of the guy's condemning other people's behavior is pretty jarring. I mean, how much more perverted can you get than walking around with a dead, five-month-old fetus and having your kids caress it? ... Michelangelo Signorile Santorum's Slip 365gay.com Those Darn Bushisms! posted Mon, 12 May 2003 01:45:05 -0700 Since GrammarGirl seems to have become even more interested in Bush quotes lately, I thought I'd post two of Georgie's quotes I find especially funny. Of course, "funny" doesn't necessarily mean "ha-ha funny." So, these are for you, GG... I hope you're not disappointed that they're not exactly model examples of "incoherence and inanity." In fact, I think their meanings are quite clear.  But I hope you enjoy them all the same. :) Dear Ken, One of the sad things about old friends is that they seem to be getting older - just like you! ... Laura and I value our friendship with you... Your younger friend, George W. Bush." George W. Bush 1997 letter to Enron CEO Kenneth Lay Originally published in USA Today February 26, 2002 [Lay] was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994, and she named him the head of the Governor's Business Council. And I decided to leave him in place, just for the sake of continuity. And that's when I first got to know Ken, and worked with Ken, and he supported my candidacy. George W. Bush January 11, 2002 In distancing himself from Enron, President Bush said that CEO Kenneth Lay 'was a supporter' of Democrat Ann Richards in his first race for Texas governor in 1994. But records and interviews with people involved in the Richards campaign show that he was a far bigger Bush supporter. Mr. Lay and his wife gave Mr. Bush three times more money than Ms. Richards in their gubernatorial contest, according to a computer-assisted review of campaign finance reports by The Dallas Morning News. ... Mr. Bush, a Republican, collected $37,500 from the Lays in his successful bid to unseat the Democratic incumbent, state records show. Ms. Richards received $12,500. Lay Gave More To Bush Dallas Morning News January 12, 2002 When Governor Bush, now President Bush, decided to run for the governor's spot, [there was] a little difficult situation. I _ d worked very closely with Ann Richards also, the four years she was governor. But I was very close to George W. and had a lot of respect for him, had watched him over the years, particularly with reference to dealing with his father when his father was in the White House and some of the things he did to work for his father, and so did support him. Ken Lay PBS "Frontline" March 27, 2001 The relationship between Mr. Bush and Mr. Lay is close, and old: the two men got to know each other in the 1980's, when Mr. Lay was a big political supporter of Governor Bush's father, former President George Bush. For a Generous Donor and Bush, the Support Is a Two-Way Street New York Times June 30, 2000 Lay, as chairman of the University of Houston board of regents in the late 1980s, tried to bring the senior Bush's presidential library to his school. George W. Bush was involved in setting up the library, which eventually went to College Station, Texas, instead. Lay also was co-chairman of the host committee for the Republican National Convention when it was held in Houston in 1992. George W. Bush played an active role in his father's unsuccessful campaign for a second term that year. Bush's friendship with Enron chief dates back to late 1980s Associated Press January 12, 2002 The president also does not recall specifics of his dealings with Enron, and was unaware his oil company had joint ventures with Enron. White House communications director Dan Bartlett March 5, 2002 A few weeks after the U.S. presidential election in 1988, [Argentina's minister of public works, Rodolfo Terragno] received a phone call from a failed Texas oilman named George W. Bush, who happened to be the son of the president-elect. "He told me he had recently returned from a campaign tour with his father," the Argentine minister recalls. The purpose of the call was clear: to push Terragno to accept the bid from Enron. Don't Cry for Bush, Argentina Mother Jones March/April, 2000 Now, aren't those funny? FLASH: Disney Picks Up Michael Moore! posted Sun, 11 May 2003 21:58:58 -0700 No, I'm not on drugs - and I don't do fiction: Filmmaker Michael Moore, fresh from his Oscar night bashing of President Bush, will be financed in his next movie project _ explaining how Osama bin Laden was enriched by the Bush family _ by none other than Walt Disney, reports Daily Variety. Disney subsidiary Miramax is providing millions in bridge financing for "Fahrenheit 911," Moore's documentary on what happened to the U.S. since Sept. 11. The movie is set for release before the 2004 presidential election. The director claims he will document on film how the "senior Bush kept his ties with the bin Laden family up until two months after Sept. 11." Mel Gibson's Icon Productions abruptly dropped the financing deal it made right after Moore won the Oscar for "Bowling for Columbine" and assailed Bush's Iraqi invasion. Miramax is stopping short from saying the studio will be the movie's distributor. Disney to finance Moore's Bush-bash Gibson drops project, Miramax picks up 'Fahrenheit 911' WorldNet Daily May 11, 2003 If this pans out, the fundies are going to go ballistic! You may (or may not) remember that... In June of 1997, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas voted overwhelmingly to boycott the Walt Disney Company to protest the company's gay friendly policies. The boycott, originally aimed solely at Disney theme parks and stores, was expanded on the floor to include the whole of the Disney empire, including movie studios, cable TV channels, book and magazine publishers, trade publications, newspapers, television and radio stations and the ABC network. Since then, smaller evangelical denominations in Florida and radical fringe groups such as Operation Rescue have lent their support to the Disney boycott. The boycott has had absolutely no impact on Disney's earnings according to industry analysts. The company reported record revenues of $22.5 billion in 1997. Disney Boycott and Gay Days Protests The Data Lounge Like, that really worked, eh? Well, I'll tell yuh whut: If the Disney Corp. has suffered from anything, it's this royally-screwed economy, specifically the near-death of the American tourism industry. And whose fault do you think that is? Rhetorical question. Anyway, say what you like about the Disney Evil Empire (death coverups and - gasp! - smoking bans aside) - but Diz has remained one of the stellar role models in the big-business world for inclusion and diversity. The fundies hate that. And they can protest their bigoted little asses off about anything they want - Michael Moore included - but the simple truth is that the hard-right-wingers already hate Disney - not just for the Gay Days thing, but over TV's "Ellen," all the "sexual imagery" their twisted little minds conjured up in films like Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and The Lion King, and a hundred other "atrocities" - so how are they going to "hurt" a mega-giant they're (supposedly) already boycotting? Like Moore himself, Disney has nothing to lose! And - like Moore himself - Disney is the only independent media giant there is - meaning, The Mouse is not owned by defense contractor. Anyway... This news is sweet. Of course, it's not sweet to Matt Drudge, that bastion of right-wing drivel who fancies himself a real newsman; it's obvious his take on the story is designed to enrage his fellow neo-cons and other frothing reactionaries. Of course, Matt is probably still stinging over the cancellation of his short-lived ABC Radio show. Poor baby. P.S. I never did like Mel Gibson, either. Blue eyes or none, he's an anti-choice, pro-death penalty, gay-bashing revisionist. And he's not even an Australian - he just plays one in the movies. Achtung, Omaha! Get Yer Gas Masks Out - A Hot Wind's A-Comin'! posted Sun, 11 May 2003 01:29:21 -0700 As if Junior wasn't (weren't?) pleased enough with himself for his little aircraft-carrier stunt costing us taxpayers a million bucks, he's going to stick it to the little guy again: He's due to appear Monday at an Omaha plastics factory, which will have to shut down in order to roll out the red carpet for the Boy King: Airlite, which will shut down for its first shift and part of the second shift to provide a photogenic backdrop for Bush's speech, will be the Monday afternoon stop on a two-day swing by Bush to pressure senators to support a large tax cut as the measure heads to the Senate floor. Bush will stand near a production line that makes polystyrene containers for shipping steak, vaccines and other goods. ... Bush Visit Could Cost Some Omaha Workers a Day's Pay Washington Post May 11, 2003 Workers can either lose their pay for the day, or make up the lost workday the following Saturday. That, in a word, sucks. O'course, this is just another of Junior's staged stops on his cross-country crusade campaign to shove his doomed-to-fu screw-up-the-nation tax cut. But we won't talk about that, because it just gets me all hot under the collar.  (Is there anybody who doesn't understand why I - and everybody else with working grey matter in this country - is so dead-set against Bush's tax-cut plan? If so, tell me - leave a comment - and I'll expain it in 25 words or less.) This little photo-op also reminds me of a couple of other staged Georgie Love Fests - the leaked details of which would be an embarrassment to any legitimate president - so, of course, Georgie wasn't fazed a bit. Let's flash back, shall we? At first look, the stage for President Bush's speech on the economy in St. Louis was set perfectly. The White House, long known for its catchy, attention-grabbing backdrops, had designed a gigantic banner made to look like stacked boxes stamped with "MADE IN U.S.A." ... The problem was that the real boxes surrounding the president at the scene of his speech _ a small shipping and receiving plant, JS Logistics _ should have read: "NOT Made in U.S.A." ... Next to the banner and stacked around his podium were hundreds of boxes labeled "Made in China" _ and Taiwan and Hong Kong. Someone apparently became aware of the mixed message, for white stickers and brown packing tape were mysteriously taped over the true origin of the real boxes that travel through the trucking and warehouse business daily. ... White House officials traveling with the president today said the tape job came as a complete surprise to them. Backdrop Snafu in Bush Speech ABC News January 22, 2003 Fun stuff, eh? Okay, get ready to get riled: The theme involves working Americans. Visually, this will involve a sea of hard hats, which our construction and contractor and building groups are working very hard to provide. But the Speaker's office was very clear in saying that they do not need people in suits. If people want to participate - AND WE DO NEED BODIES - they must be DRESSED DOWN, appear to be REAL WORKER types, etc. We plan to have hard hats for people to wear. Other groups are providing waiters/waitresses, and other types of workers. Slate Whopper of the Week Memo from Russ Freyman, associate director for media relations National Association of Manufacturers soliciting participants for staged publicity photo to rally support for Republican tax-cut plan First published in the Washington Post March 9, 2001 You think I make this stuff up? Florida Shunts Off Foster Kids, with Tragic Results posted Sat, 10 May 2003 22:57:06 -0700 Ironically, April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Child protection officials placed three children in the home of a North Port man who had a lengthy criminal arrest record which included sex offenses. After Mervin Kitnurse, 36, got custody of the niece and twin nephews last summer, he struck them every day with a switch, a hose or a shoe, and sexually molested the girl, according to North Port police. ... Family Continuity Program, the Pinellas County agency which placed the children in Kitnurse's home, only did a local background check, missing a string of arrests in south Florida. ... Social Workers Place Kids With Southwest Florida Sex Offender Associated Press May 10, 2003 The story is even more disturbing when you learn that just three months ago... In a stark change of philosophy, Florida's social services director said Thursday the state should put new emphasis on keeping families together and remove fewer children from parents accused of abuse or neglect. ... Gov. Jeb Bush last year chose [DCF Secretary Jerry Regier] to replace Kathleen Kearney, a former judge who was considered an advocate of "family safety," the philosophy that favors protecting children even when it means removing them from their home. Regier insisted his reforms would be implemented "without lowering any standard of safety." Children still would be removed from dangerously abusive and neglectful parents. But his plan for changing which calls to Florida's abuse hotline merit investigation will get careful scrutiny. As recently as 1999, the Florida Legislature expanded the number of allegations that prompt mandatory abuse investigations, upset over DCF's failure to catch obvious signs of abuse in a 6-year-old Lake County girl who was killed by her father. Regier says some requirements could be relaxed. ... DCF policy shift aims to keep families together St. Petersburg Times February 7, 2003 And just one month before that... Even as he promises to hire more child welfare workers and pay them better, Gov. Jeb Bush is pushing to put more of the responsibility of safeguarding kids in the hands of local agencies and police. Bush used his annual press interviews Thursday to promote taking key child welfare duties away from the Department of Children and Families, leaving that agency to do mostly administrative work. Community agencies could do the job better, he said, because they think differently. ... That means shifting more work to contractors ... Despite remarks he made at his inauguration on Tuesday that adding caseworkers will not solve Florida's social problems, on Thursday, Bush said he does support DCF Secretary Jerry Regier's plea for more money to hire more case workers and to pay them better. ... Bush seeks to ease DCF's load: Gov. wants local agencies responsible for safeguarding kids Gannett News Service January 9, 2003 As much as we might like to hope that the Kitnurse story is an isolated case, it's not; the truth is that the Family Continuity Program faces a long list of alleged charges: A state-funded agency sent children into abusive foster homes, falsified records, failed to report new cases of abuse and allowed foster parents to swap children, according to a lawsuit filed this week. And when workers at another agency complained, their employer fired them, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit alleges that the Family Continuity Program, which handles foster care and other programs in Pinellas and Pasco counties, violated some of the most basic rules for ensuring the safety of abused and neglected children. That's an explosive charge, because the Family Continuity Program works under contract for the Department of Children and Families, the state agency that this year came under a firestorm of criticism for many similar problems. ... Agency fostered abuse of kids, lawsuit alleges St. Petersburg Times October 17, 2002 What makes this even more appalling is that one of Gov. Bush's prime reasons for taking kids out of the state system and putting them in the hands of community agencies was, supposedly, to ease the caseload on DCF workers: Billed as a solution to the state's perpetually troubled social services agency, a private organization in Pinellas and Pasco counties is supposed to make life safer for foster children. But the workers are swamped. Staff at the Family Continuity Program, hired two years ago to work with foster children and abused kids, is "consistently working 50- to 60-hour weeks" without overtime, according to a state Department of Children and Families report. ... The troubles cited in the report have a familiar ring for the Department of Children and Families... When children have died under the department's supervision, later investigations often have turned up a troubling pattern of overworked staff, poorly maintained case files, and crucial information that leaked through holes in the system. But this time, the DCF is making the criticism instead of taking it. ... State criticizes private program for foster kids St. Petersburg Times February 13, 2002 Now, here's the kicker: The State of Florida has sub-contracted child protective services to private companies. This means that, instead of channeling state funds back into a state agency and improving that agency's services (as Gov. Bush indicated he would do by allotting funds for more caseworkers and better pay), Florida is shirking its responsibility to its children - and funneling taxpayer dollars into a privatized network. Why? Let's talk money: Privatization has its roots in economics as well as ideologies. Economically, it is widely believed that the private sector offers cost and administrative efficiencies not available in the public sector. Ideologically, privatization provides a rationale for decentralized government and local responsiveness to social service needs. ... CBC Foster Care and Related Services Implementation (Procurement/Contracting) in Pinellas and Pasco Counties (.PDF) Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) The real question is this: How can a private company provide better services unless it receives sufficient funding from the state - which Florida has never provided for its own state agency in the first place? Your Assigned Weekend Reading posted Sat, 10 May 2003 17:45:31 -0700 Want to know what we're doing wrong - and why we're not winning yet? Cal Berkeley professor, and author of Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, George Lakoff explains it all for you: Liberals have no idea that language is not neutral, it is framed - they walk into these things all the time. So, liberals have the idea that if you just tell people the facts, people will be rational, and reach the right conclusion. ... They won't! ... People won't reach the appropriate conclusions. It is very important that the facts be understood in some moral framework. The conservatives have understood that, and they frame everything they have in a moral framework.... I don't want to say that all conservative communication is deceptive. ... But there is something in the worldview that leads to seeing deception as a reasonable thing to do. It has to do with the idea of ... if you are fighting evil, you can use evil to fight evil - you can use fire to fight fire. The assumption is that, you know, if you are out there in a world against evil-doers, you may have to do some not very nice things. That is part of the conservative worldview. So they see liberals as doing something that they believe is simply wrong and immoral by their perspective. They can fight it anyway they can. Deceptive practices are all part of the game. ... The conservatives understand that language is framed - that it is not neutral, that it expresses ideas, that ideas are important, that ideas govern the way people act as well as the way they think. When they put out news releases or have interviews, they have learned to frame things very carefully. ... Conservatives have discovered ... that everything has a point of view. That even the idea of episodic news, where you report the news without its context, that is a political decision on the part of the news room. That political decisions are made all the time, and they have gone out and started to make those decisions. They will put in their context on their stories. They will frame it in all sorts of ways by using appropriate language, and Fox News is completely slanted toward a conservative world-view... Left Out By Right Rhetoric TomPaine.com May 8, 2003 And here is Part 2: Look at the way [Bush] did the State of the Union address. That address was very carefully crafted. What you have in the first part of it is examples of how he cares, and how conservatives care. Now, all of the examples are deceptive. So, for example, they say, "We are going to give $3 billion additional to AIDS in Africa." Well, they didn't say where the money is coming from. The money is coming from inoculations and drugs for other diseases in the Third World. They didn't say, "We are going to take money away from other health problems in the Third World and give it to AIDS in Africa." So it sounded as if they were going to give the $3 billion - as if they had it to give. They are taking it from somewhere else. They said, "We are going to give $1.5 billion to fuel cells so we can clean the air." What they didn't tell you is that the $1.5 billion is going to support the getting [of the] hydrogen from coal, natural gas, oil and nuclear stuff. So that it is going to these industries. And then where is it coming from? It is coming out of money for developing alternative clean fuels! ... Conservatives have spent 40 years developing a conceptual system that they can all pretty much agree on. Forty years ago, they were in disarray, they disagreed with each other, they hated each other, they fought. They have spent a lot of time on their think tanks with their intellectuals, developing an overall approach to conservatism and to conservative politics and morality that they largely agree on, and they have developed a language for that.... It is not easy, because you really have to do a lot of long-term work. But does that mean you can't fight it at all? No. You certainly can, but there are certain things you have to do... The Moral Imperative TomPaine.com May 9, 2003 More Good News: GOP Backs Down on Patriot Act! posted Sat, 10 May 2003 17:19:33 -0700 It's not a repeal of the whole invasive bloody thing (yet!), but at least you can exhale a bit come 2005... Senate Republicans backed down yesterday from an effort to make permanent the Patriot Act's sweeping anti-terrorism powers, clearing the way for passage of a less divisive measure that would still expand the government's ability to spy on foreign terrorist suspects in the United States. In an agreement finalized over the last week, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dropped his effort to extend provisions of the Patriot Act whose broad powers to investigate and track terrorists suspects were scheduled to expire in 2005. ... The day's developments represented a key test of the balancing act between fighting terrorism and protecting civil liberties, and the result delivered a mixed verdict as many lawmakers expressed reservations about giving law enforcement officials too much power to fight terrorism. ... The overwhelming passage of the measure masked intense behind-the-scenes maneuverings in recent weeks over the powers that the federal government had been given to fight terrorism. Hatch led a push beginning last month to attach to the bill an amendment that would have repealed time restrictions built into the Patriot Act of 2001. ... Hatch's effort to try to make the Patriot Act permanent set off immediate criticism from civil liberties groups and lawmakers, including some Republicans, who said that Congress needed more time to scrutinize how the Patriot Act was working - and whether law enforcement officials were abusing it - before revisiting it. ... As part of a tentative deal reached last week and finalized over the last several days, Republicans on the judiciary committee agreed not to seek a repeal of the Patriot Act's sunset provisions at yesterday's vote on the terrorism bill if Democrats pulled some of their own amendments that the Republicans considered objectionable. ... Senate GOP backs down on Patriot Act New York Times via Marin Independent Journal May 9, 2003 Good News: Estrada May Bork Himself posted Sat, 10 May 2003 16:14:20 -0700 Miguel Estrada Wants Name Withdrawn From Nomination, CNBC Says! Huh? Who? What? In a nutshell, lawyer Miguel Estrada was nominated by George W. Bush for a federal judgeship, and Senate Democrats have been filibustering to block Estrada's nomination. Now it appears that Estrada has finally given up hope of donning a black robe. It's no secret that Bush has been trying to "stack the courts with ultra-conservative ideologues." And - shockingly, if not surprisingly - in early March (and obviously in response to the Estrada block), Bush called for a permanent "ban on judicial filibusters and a mandatory vote on all court nominations he and future presidents send to the Senate." Talk about trying to subvert the system! Never mind that the Repubs are no strangers to filibustering - or that Congressional Republicans killed more than a third (167 out of 377) of President Clinton's nominations as too liberal for their liking.*** Of course, the opportunistic and hypocritical GOP have cited the Dems' block of Honduran-born Estrada as "racist" - as if anybody (besides a Republican) is going to believe that the GOP is the "inclusive party." The truth is that the Estrada nomination is a racially and ethnically motivated straw man set up by the GOP. By naming a minority candidate, the Repubs knew this was a no-brainer win: They figured the Dems would give him a free pass solely on the basis of ethnicity - and if they blocked the nomination, the Repubs would get to cry foul and charge the Dems with racism. It's like saying those who opposed Clarence Thomas did so because Thomas is black, when everyone - especially Republicans - know the real reasons he never should have reached the highest court in the nation: You don't have to be white to be an off-the-scale right-wing crackpot. Either way, the Repubs are trying to court the Hispanic vote - and if Estrada is blocked, they get the added bonus of telling Hispanic voters, "See? We tried - but the Democrats are anti-Latino!" (Yeah, right - and so is the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.) Only a fool would buy the GOP's crap: They scream about racism when the opportunity arises, yet scream even more about "racial quotas." And (and at the risk of using a loaded "color" word in this sentence) talk about calling the kettle black: Looks like the Repubs have conveniently forgotten all about submarining Clinton's nominations of Judges James Beaty, Jr., James Wynn, Andre Davis, and Roger Gregory to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals; how do they explain shooting down four different African-Americans when two of the five vacancies were deemed "judicial emergencies"? It was Senator Jesse Helms, Patron Saint of Right-Wing Bigotry, who, rather than fill the vacancies (one of which was left unfilled for the better part of a decade), "introduced legislation in the Senate that would eliminate two of those seats altogether." Of course, it would be patently unfair to accuse Helms and the rest of the GOP of racism in this instance - but far less unfair than it is for the GOP to accuse Senate Dems of racism in the Estrada affair. Sadly, no matter which way the Estrada nomination goes, in the end the real loser is the Hispanic community, which is being torn in two over the whole issue; some groups are allowing Estrada's ethnicity to blind them to the fact that the installation of "Judge" Estrada would not be at all in anyone's best interests - including their own. The real reasons to stop Estrada from becoming a federal judge - which his Hispanic supporters gloss right over - are clear: He is an ultra-conservative who has never been a judge before. He has consistently and repeatedly refused to answer pertinent questions about his judicial philosophy - even refusing to name a single U.S. Supreme Court decision with which he disagreed. Furthermore, his record as a private-practice attorney (in partnership with ultra-con Solicitor General Ted Olson) betrays his own anti-minority views; for one - just one - example, he argued that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) should not be allowed to challenge anti-loitering laws - many of which have been invalidated by federal and state courts as disproportionately unfair to African-Americans and Latinos as a matter of racial profiling. (In other words: Anti-loitering laws are often used for no other purpose than to give cops an excuse, when they have no other reason, to hassle blacks and Latinos who happen to be hanging out on the street.) Beyond all this, Estrada is also pro-death penalty, anti-choice, and is so extremely conservative that he is frequently (and rightly) compared to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In the end, if Estrada's name is withdrawn, this will give Bush the opportunity to nominate somebody even worse - but he's already nominated plenty worse, and will continue to do so until the end of his term, so... big deal. That doesn't dim the possibility that, by the time you read this, one more rabidly anti-progressive ultra-con may have been eliminated from the running. Which means you may never have to stand before "Judge" Estrada. What's interesting is that Estrada gave up so early in the game. Maybe he really does have something to hide. *** For comparison, see Senator Patrick Leahy's "At-A-Glance Facts on Judicial Nominations" (http://www.senate.gov/~leahy/press/200211/112002b.html): "In the 16 months of Democratic control of the Judiciary Committee, the committee has voted on 102 judicial nominations and approved 100 (the two not approved due to their records of activism on the bench were Charles Pickering Sr., to the 5th Circuit, and Priscilla Owen, also to the 5th Circuit). THE SENATE NOW HAS CONFIRMED ALL 100, with none remaining on the Senate calendar. ..." Scary Right-Wing Quotes, Part I posted Sat, 10 May 2003 03:22:17 -0700 This is especially for [name dedacted], who wants to see some of the scariest right-wing quotes I've been collecting for years. (I'll add another installment from time to time.) Let me know if you find it useful, or a waste of space. Of course this stuff makes me see red. But everyone needs to know what the Right Wing is really all about. This is the propaganda they use to sway people who can't think for themselves. This is the stuff you are fighting against. I find my quotes collection a very useful reference - and the very best means of exposing hypocrisy, by letting the right-wingers speak for themselves. (For brevity, I've eliminated the source of each quote, but if you'd like to know when and where each was made, leave me a comment.) Part I: Barefoot & Pregnant Rev. Jerry Falwell: I listen to feminists and all these radical gals - most of them are failures. They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men - that's their problem. Most of these feminists are radical, frustrated lesbians... who have declared war on the male gender. The Biblical condemnation of feminism has to do with its radical philosophy and goals. That's the bottom line. Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum: Women have babies and men provide the support. If you don't like the way we're made you've got to take it up with God. It's very healthy for a young girl to be deterred from promiscuity by fear of contracting a painful, incurable disease, or cervical cancer, or sterility, or the likelihood of giving birth to a dead, blind or brain-damaged baby (even ten years later when she may be happily married). Rush Limbaugh: Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream. I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, "All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?" We all know what was chosen. Militant feminists are pro-choice because it's their ultimate avenue of power over men. ... It is their attempt to impose their will on the rest of society, particularly on men. Tony Evans, Promise Keepers leader, Dallas Bible Fellowship pastor: I believe that feminists of the more aggressive persuasion are frustrated women unable to find the proper male leadership. If a woman were receiving the right kind of love and attention and leadership, she would not want to be liberated from that. The demise of our community and culture is the fault of sissified men who have been overly influenced by women. I can hear you saying, 'I want to be a spiritually pure man. Where do I start?' The first thing you do is sit down with your wife and say something like this: 'Honey, I've made a terrible mistake. I've given you my role. I gave up leading this family, and I forced you to take my place. Now I must reclaim that role.' Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not suggesting that you ask for your role back, I'm urging you to take it back. Ann Coulter: I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote. Men who get upset and lose their tempers and claim to be sensitive males: talk about girly boys. No, there's a reason hurricanes are named after women and homosexual men, it's one of our little methods of social control. We're supposed to fly off the handle. Pat Robertson, The 700 Club: I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period. As long as the husband is following the mandate of the Lord, the wife should submit to his leadership even though she may disagree with it. ... This wife must resist the temptation to dominate her husband. Her husband will sometimes make decisions that the wife feels are wrong. She must either gently persuade her husband or pray that God will change her husband's mind. N.O.W. is saying that in order to be a woman, you've got to be a lesbian. One of the reasons so many lesbians are at the forefront of the pro-choice movement is because being a mother is the unique characteristic of womanhood, and these lesbians will never be mothers naturally, so they don't want anybody else to have that privilege either. I think what you should do, if you want to do some praying, is ask God to send you a husband. The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians. Beverly LaHaye: The woman who is truly Spirit-filled will want to be totally submissive to her husband... This is a truly liberated woman. Submission is God's design for women. Pat Buchanan: Rail as they will about 'discrimination,' women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism. The real liberators of American women were not the feminist noise-makers, they were the automobile, the supermarket, the shopping center, the dishwasher, the washer-dryer, the freezer. Michael Savage, The Savage Nation: Today in America, we have a 'she-ocracy' where a minority of feminist zealots rule the culture... At the top of this hierarchy is Hillary Clinton, followed by others, such as... Barbara Boxer, the radical abortion supporter from California... Together they have both feminized and homosexualized much of America to the point where the nation has become passive, receptive, and masochistic. In the new 'she-ocracy,' the overt target for every piece of legislation seems to be the white, heterosexual, taxpaying, working male. Recent hate-crime legislation, of course, was a payoff to the homosexual lobby pushed through Congress by those in the she-ocracy with deep ties to the House and Senate. The next step, of course, will be to go a step further in the hate-crime legislation to further feminize the white, heterosexual male. How to Pick up Liberal Women: [T]he first thing you do is express a love for 'people of cover,' [sic] ... even if they're mass murders. Let her know that you love all gays even if they've raped young boys. It doesn't matter. As for alcoholics and all junkies, just say that you feel they're victims of a racist society. By now, you'll have her complete attention. Maybe suggest a latte and biscotti form the coffee shop. While you wait in line, attack our war on terror as a front from the globalist oil lobby. Then tell her immigrants are the strength of America. That's it. You're over. Scott Garman, Founder, Stop Hating Men: Men as a class have never had much power. Okay, relax! Take a deep breath, and repeat after me:  "Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean..." Now, if you'd like to get that smile back on your face with some of the best anti-Right Wing humor on the Web, I suggest Landover Baptist Church, Betty Bowers, Empower Amurrica, The White House, or, of course, The Onion. Need something more inspiring and uplifting? Try my hero, Granny D. Love Letter to San Francisco (and Kindred Spirits) posted Fri, 9 May 2003 15:14:40 -0700 I could launch into a long dissertation on the nature of memes and synchronicity right now, but all I would achieve is another migraine, and I've had enough migraines this week. Instead, I'll merely point out that yesterday, while ranting about that white-only prom at a Georgia high school, I waxed proudly over the distinct contrast between living in a place that celebrates diversity, and the parallel planet of mind-boggling racism. Today, I was delighted to find in my mailbox the latest no-holds-barred rant from my favorite wild-man journalist, Mark Morford - who, serendipitously, waxes even more proudly, and with greater abandon, than I did. But lest you blow this off as just a lot of chest-thumping from a single inhabit of a single city, I'd like you to read it with this thought as your guide: San Francisco as a state of mind. By that I mean you don't have to live in Gomorrah by the Bay in order to be one of "us." Do you get my meaning? If you do - and if you get Mark's meaning - then I say you're already one of "us." It's that odd dumbstruck jolting feeling you get as soon as you step more than 25 miles away from this most progressive and funked-out and deeply flawed and self-consciously screwy of kaleidoscopic American urban metropoli: oh my freaking God, what is happening to the world? ... Because suddenly you find yourself pummeled with many of those lovely bleak horrible things you've somehow become so inured to while living in S.F., those things you might've slowly come to hope don't really exist quite so violently and vehemently anymore. ... It happens when you step off that plane in some - let's say - "differently evolved" part of the country and don't see a single ethnic person for four days and can't get a decent organic basil-and-goat-cheese omelet to save your life and all the theaters are playing Adam Sandler and the concept of fresh sushi means "less freezer burn than the corn dogs." Elitist? Whatever. Sexism. Racism. Guns. Jingoism. Jesus fetishism. Psychopatriotism. Rampant pseudo-religious family-values faux-ethical circle jerking masquerading as Christian humility. Wal-Marts like giant florescent-lit viruses. Strip malls like a stucco plague. Ho hum, ain't that America. It so is. Let's face it: We in S.F. live in a cultural bubble. A giant tofu-huggin' gay-lovin' lusciously fed hippie liberal sunshine-y cocoon that might as well get blasted by terrorists and die of AIDS and drop off into the ocean for all the relevance it has to the rest of the world - that is, if my rabid monosyllabic gun-lickin' hate mail from, say, the psychopatriot Freeps over at freerepublic.com or the bilious dittoheads of lucianne.com is to be believed. And they're right - sort of. It's so very true. We are freaks and crazies and tend to shrug it all off, we in our radical prosaic goofy normalcy. We live in "the Granola State," full of "fruits and nuts and flakes." (Isn't that cute? That's about as clever as it gets, slam-wise. The poor things. They try so hard). We are indeed anti-gunlicking and pro-organic and avidly orgasmic. We are more flagrantly enthusiastically balls-out do-it-now feel-good suck-me hell-yes tolerant than Austin and Chicago and Seattle put together. We are a danger to the status quo, a nipple-twisted threat to the "nukular" family, a pantheistic whip on the ass of the Bible Belt, a pox on the house that oil built. Or at least we try to be. ... Because despite S.F.'s adorable slew of brazen flaws... we sense that San Francisco still remains the most luminously progressive and culturally frappeéd and perfectly climated major metropolis in the nation, if not the entire goddamn universe, and for that we can only kneel down and be forever grateful. ... Seems millions still want to live here. Go figure. Something about the weather. And the dazzling beauty. And the tolerance. The intellectual buzz. The mind-set. The great food and juicy sexuality and progressive politics and funky architecture and the wide-open encouragement to be as independently minded and screamingly divinely naked as you can possibly be. But hey, only if you want to. Can you get doses of S.F.'s brand of rainbow acceptance elsewhere, in other major cities? Of course. Small but wonderful hot pockets abound in, say, Austin and N.Y. and L.A., delicious enclaves of Chicago and Miami Beach and Atlanta. Not to mention the dozens of staunchly quirky college towns from Ann Arbor to Ashville to Eugene. But overall, in a nation where innovative, even anarchic ideas about gender and belief and the violent insult that is our sanctimonious oil-drunk warmongering government are not only frowned upon but also openly mocked and threatened and sneered at, San Francisco still reins as the funk epicenter, the winking liberal stronghold, the ecstatic 69 to the nation's droning missionary position. Hey, we know it's a bubble. Most of us love the bubble, are exceedingly proud of the bubble, kneel at its gloriously flawed but still radiant altar. Anti-progressives want to burst that bubble? Have at it, honey. Go on and burst it - all over the rest of the country. C'mon, you know you want to. The Great San Francisco Bubble: Life in America's last great progressive cocoon, as conservatives snicker and pule SF Gate May 9, 2003 The whole piece is much longer - and well worth the read, as is everything Mark writes. Poetry for a New World Order posted Fri, 9 May 2003 13:02:28 -0700 I scarfed a link for Rob's Amazing Poem Generator from one of my faves, eternalfool.  In short, you plug in a URL, and out comes a poem (of sorts), using the words on the page you entered. Of course, I had to see how it would digest my journal - and was pretty surprised by the results. After deleting a few lines of true gibberish and HTML formatting tags, and adding line breaks (but leaving everything else intact as it came out of the "machine"), I was left with the following. It's not exactly haiku, but it's pretty impressive - and often eerie - "political poetry": after the guy even Texas gets it feels natural. or deranged. Democrat! Upset Although to talk about what violent overthrow just so shaken up says We kick Me! Bush On US Hint: taking Air National Guard a completely unsupportable government flying Bush is too Happy Now, look, if in your opinions Bin Laden victory Hey! you a threat. Myopic, misguided, irrational, unconscionable POW Girls Gone losing Control? excellent talking about that and from the Union in them, a threat against women. black. kid. to rant about Confederate flags and interrogating our freedoms Another World is a Fast One more. my eyes pop, for Alabama More excellent talking about its color Dixie Too, worthy of pink. London Mayor Blasts Bush posted Thu, 8 May 2003 23:44:35 -0700 I might have made some amusing, offhanded remark about this - save for one little word the London Mayor uses that I, as a loyal American patriot, cannot abide by: "overthrow." I do not condone even a remote hint of anything but purely legal means to take the White House back from the thieves who stole it. So "overthrow" in my book, is a dirty word - and, were Mayor Livingstone's remarks uttered by a Yank, that one little word would constitute treason. I am also taken aback (and even horrified) by the idea that the mayor would eliminate all doubt that he was using the word in a literal sense, by making a comparison between the violent overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and his own wish for Bush's fate. And Livingstone's wish, mind you, is not my wish. My wish is for impeachment; my second (and more realistic) choice is waiting until Bush is voted out of power in just 18 months. That said, read on: London Mayor Ken Livingstone has launched an astonishing attack on US President George W Bush, calling him "corrupt". ... He said he would get as much pleasure from Mr Bush being forced out of office as he had done from the downfall of former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein. ... The mayor said: "I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties. "He is not the legitimate president." He later added: "This really is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown." ... Livingstone attacks President Bush BBC News May 8, 2003 On the journalspace front... posted Thu, 8 May 2003 22:48:28 -0700 There are lots of reasons I don't trust the pharmaceutical industry any more than I do the current administration (take, for instance, Homeland Security pork designed to excuse drug co.'s from culpability in the occurrence of autism linked to childhood vaccinations), and hellion798 has just give me one more. Make sure to click the link and read about the "controversy" he mentions re DepressionForums.com. It's long, but if you have any interest whatsoever in antidepressants (and the companies that want you to pop their pills), it's well worth the read. Ingenious caught a link that made my eyes pop, for the five simple facts at the top of the article, in which the writer, truthfully and succinctly, illustrates the hypocrisy of unconditional U.S. support of Israel. (The rest of the piece is excellent, too - worthy of cutting and pasting into an e-mail for people who still don't understand why attacking Iraq was simply and plainly wrong.) Good stuff - and good catch, Ingenious. Do you read Jonk? If not, you should. I have never seen such a straightforward, thoughtful - and strong - perspective on the issue of violence against women. I just entered a comment in Jonk's journal, for what I think might be the first time - only because Jonk puts it all so well, I can't think of a thing to add. But - while I can't speak for Jonk - sometimes just a "Great entry, thanks!" is what keeps us writing. And I want Jonk to keep writing. There Is No God posted Thu, 8 May 2003 20:03:23 -0700 Either that, or the fallout from Chernobyl has affected the brain of "right-wing independent" Norwegian MP Jan Simonsen: Bush, Blair nominated for Nobel prize for Iraq war Something Rotten in the State of Georgia posted Thu, 8 May 2003 19:26:14 -0700 I almost thought this week was going to be calm. Or, rather, I thought this week, I would be calm. Aside from Junior making a spectacle of himself aboard an aircraft carrier, there just hasn't been that much this week to get under my skin. Skin.  Hmmm... Without a doubt, I have skin. It covers my whole body - a good thing, for without it my insides would make quite a mess all over the keyboard. I expect that's one of the reasons you like skin, too.  Maybe you tattoo yours, pierce it, shave it, make it darker, or make it lighter - but, all told, you're happy it covers your insides, lets you sweat, and has ready-made holes right where you need them. For the sake of convenience, I call my skin white. Of course, it's not really white; it's sort of pink. It wasn't long ago in this country that I wouldn't have been called white at all, but brown. In fact, just a few generations ago, my people were called brown, and one uncle was mistaken for black.  And (thanks to a lot of ignorance on both sides) Uncle X would end up brawling in a bar when somebody called him "black." (Although I have a feeling "black" wasn't the word anyone used.) As I understand it, I may have a few drops of African blood running through the veins that are covered by all this white skin. In fact, I wish I could prove I do, so I could fantasize about some connection to the ancient Egyptians. They didn't know much about the human brain (they thought the heart contained the soul, so they'd chuck the brain before mummification), but I'm in awe of their achievements (and I dig on the art). Of course, I can freely express a wish to trace an African bloodline; I have the advantage of having been born in the latter half of the 20th century, when words like "octoroon" were not only archaic, but had begun to take on a distinctly offensive flavor. I also have the advantage of having grown up on the West Coast, where hardly anybody notices color, much less cares about it. Sure, there are distinct pockets of serious racism here, but thankfully our bigots are not only far outnumbered, but tend to tuck themselves away in the kind of backwoods you wouldn't want to venture into without a Ford pickup, a gun rack, and a "Love It or Leave It" bumper sticker. Are there any drawbacks to living amid great diversity? There certainly are: The fact that most of us natives never learned a second language precludes us from eavesdropping on many co-workers' personal calls, and from pronouncing the name Nguyen correctly.  And statistics show that 4.7% of all Californians have suffered grave embarrassment for confusing the words chimichanga and chingar. (Okay, I made up that statistic - but, yes, I've heard someone actually try to order chimi-chingars.) Different factions can and do butt heads - although I'm hard-pressed to recall a major racial "incident" since the Rodney King riots. Even L.A. gang wars don't necessarily cross racial lines. We can't boast seamless integration here; it's not perfect. But it feels natural. No one is actually color- or culture-blind - that wouldn't be natural, or even normal; yet most of us seem to be comfortable enough with one another to avoid the kind of paralyzing political correctness that makes people feel they have to pussyfoot around issues of race and ethnicity.  Most of us can and do joke about our differences. What purpose is there in living and working and playing together if there isn't any fun in it? Is there a point to my meandering reflection on living in the melting pot of the melting pot? Oh, yes: my skin, and how its color isn't an issue. But I suppose the color of my skin - and perhaps those few drops of African blood in my veins - might be a very large issue indeed were I unfortunate enough to have attended Taylor County High School in Albany, Georgia. You see, a year ago, Taylor held its first integrated prom. For 31 years, there were two proms, one for the white kids and one for the black kids, in order to avoid "problems arising from interracial dating." As to what those "problems" might be, I can't guess. I have a feeling the real "problem" is that some redneck would have a stroke if his lily-white daughter made physical contact with a black kid. (Good God! Dancing between the races? The next thing you know, they'll have to take anti-miscegenation laws off the books! And then, those white kids'll never get into Bob Jones University!) Anyway, one year later, Taylor is again having two separate - and segregated - proms. This regression is blamed on "a small number of white juniors [who] decided they wanted a separate prom." And just where were the parents and teachers when this "small number of white juniors" made this decision? Egging them on from the sidelines? Invoking the ghost of an unredeemed George Wallace? Sacrificing goats in front of a shrine to Trent Lott? What century do these people come from?  What country? Because this sure doesn't sound like the United States I've heard about. At times like this, I'm sorely tempted to rant about Confederate flags and the KKK and Medgar Evers and firehoses in Birmingham, and wish the Union had just let the South damned well secede instead of losing 600,000 soldiers to a war that, 140 years later, it seems nobody's actually won yet! Of course, I don't mean that. I'm angry - but I can't dis the South in good conscience.  I like the South. I like the people (in truth, one of my closest friends in the world is a proper Southern gentleman firmly planted deep in the heart of Dixie). Too, there are plenty of good liberals south of the Mason-Dixon line, and I'd be loath to abandon them to the kind of defective thinking (or lack of thinking) they seem to be surrounded by. But there are some things I cannot, and will never, understand. I don't understand racism. And it's not because, as a liberal, I'm supposed to abhor it; I mean, I really, truly do not understand it. And I cannot excuse it. Especially institutionalized racism.  Especially when these burgeoning little racists are old enough to know better. Especially when their parents - most of whom are probably younger than I am - really do know better. There are no excuses.  These kids are wrong, and their parents and teachers are compounding the wrong by failing to correct it immediately. If it were up to me, I would cancel the white-only prom. Don't want to mix it up with the black kids?  Fine, you little bigots, stay home. A prom is a rite of passage you don't deserve to celebrate - you're nowhere near adulthood. And I predict, with sadness, that you never will be. Top Ten Reasons to Vote for Lieberman posted Thu, 8 May 2003 09:31:33 -0700 If you missed Letterman last night, Holy Joe Lieberman delivered the Top Ten List (which makes ten reasons more than I could ever think of to vote for him): Top Ten Reasons, I, Joe Lieberman, Would Make A Great President 10. "Not only will my vice president be in an undisclosed location, I won't even reveal who he is" 9. "I know Microsoft Excel and can type 65 words a minute" 8. "I've gotten a lot of good advice from Martin Sheen" 7. "Instead of taking Air Force One, I can use all of my accumulated frequent flier miles" 6. "Saddam's a president and I'm way less nuts than he is" 5. "I will change the Constitution to guarantee every American a free DVD player" 4. "I am very comfortable in oval-shaped rooms" 3. "It just so happens Spider-Man is a close, personal friend of mine" 2. "I won't take any crap from France" 1. "Look at me. Do you honestly think there'll be a sex scandal?" Teacher Calls Secret Service on Students posted Wed, 7 May 2003 21:01:11 -0700 Interesting that this just broke on the TV news, and is only beginning to hit the print media - it happened two weeks ago: Two students at Oakland High School were interrogated last month by the U.S. Secret Service after allegedly threatening the life of President Bush in a classroom discussion, school officials confirmed Friday. English teacher Sandy Whitney said she called the Secret Service after two boys in her English class, both 16, made comments about getting a sniper to "take care" of Bush. Oakland High sophomores John and Billy, who did not want their last names published, said their comments were made in jest. They said the April 23 interviews with federal agents left them scared and upset. Although John admitted he made an ill-worded comment about Bush, one that he didn't want to repeat Friday, Billy said his only remark was "Bush is wacked," slang for crazy or deranged. After the meeting with Secret Service agents, "I was traumatized," John said. "I was just sitting in class, just looking at the door to see if they were going to come get me or whatever." ... The way Whitney remembers it, John "said something like 'We need a sniper to take care of Bush,' and Billy said, 'Yeah, I'd do it.'" The class in question is at times "challenging," Whitney said. Whitney said she called the San Francisco office of the Secret Service, now under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to ask what her responsibilities were if one of her students had made a threat. Under federal law, making a threat against the president's life is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. ... California law allows peace officers to question students on school grounds without notifying parents. ... The boys said the agents asked questions such as "Are you a terrorist?", "What is your opinion of the president?" and "What would you say to the president if he was here?" Both said they would apologize. John said the questions were intimidating, and claimed the agents told him he had no rights after what he had said about Bush. The agents asked whether his family had guns at home, and whether he considered himself a good shot... Billy said the agents also wanted to know if he had a picture of Bush with a target on it, and if he had ever been to Washington, D.C. "I was crying at the moment," Billy recalled. He has not returned to Whitney's class since the incident. Some of Whitney's colleagues said they would have used the boys' comments as an opportunity to discuss the consequences of threats. ... Legislators in Sacramento are considering a bill backed by the ACLU that would make it mandatory for high school principals to tell students they can have a parent present during on-campus police interviews. "If they thought it was serious enough of an incident to call in the Secret Service, it should have been serious enough to get the parents involved," Ehrlich said. Teens questioned about threat Tri-Valley Herald May 4, 2003 Teacher Cassie Lopez says, "They were so shaken up and afraid." Now, other teachers are coming to the aid of the two students and crying foul. "I would start with the teacher, she made a poor judgement," Lopez says. ... "When one of the students asked, 'do we have to talk now? Can we be silent? Can we get legal council?' they were told, 'we own you, you don't have any legal rights,'" [teacher Larry Felson] says. "We don't want federal agents or police coming in our schools and interrogating our children at the whim of someone who has a hunch something might be wrong," Lopez says. The union representing Oakland teachers requires that students be afforded legal counsel and parental guidance before they're interrogated by authorities. ... "I tell you the looks on those children's faces. I don't know if they'll say anything about anything ever again. Is that what we want? I don't think we want that," says Lopez. Secret Service Questions Students KRON May 7, 2003 How realistic do you suppose the boys' "threat" was? Was Whitney right to call the Secret Service? How would you have handled the situation in Whitney's place? Does having a sometimes-"challenging" class have any effect on your opinion? Does the fact that both boys are minors change anything? What do you think of California's law that allows peace officers to question minors without parental notification? Were the agents' questions to the boys appropriate and reasonable? Any thoughts on the USA PATRIOT Act in relation to this incident? If you're in high school yourself, does this story give you pause about what you might say in class? Is this a free-speech issue? You tell me. Safe Landing? Not. posted Wed, 7 May 2003 18:44:59 -0700 I do believe Georgie's aircraft-carrier spectacle was so demeaning to our troops that journalists and others thwarted in earlier attempts to bring Junior's lies to light have experienced a sudden infusion of fresh enthusiasm. Not only have the facts about Georgie's desertion from the Air National Guard taken on a new life, but there's plenty of rumbling about how no U.S. president since Teddy Roosevelt has donned a military uniform in office (as do only certain modern dictators). I have a lot more to say about this newest chink in St. George's armor, but for now I'll just leave you with a few items that should put a smirk on your face almost as big as the permanent one emblazoned on Georgie's own: "To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the president to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech," [Senator Robert] Byrd said. "I do not begrudge his salute to America's warriors aboard the carrier Lincoln... but I do question the motives of a deskbound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech." ... Washington Post May 7, 2003 The "Bush AWOL?" story appeared in this newspaper and was based on good reporting and still-unanswered questions. It faded away--a scant 14 mentions in the database for all of 2001 and 2002 due to the age of the allegations, the lack of any new developments and the urgency of current events. Last week, though, the president all but wore a "Kick Me!" sticker on the back of his flight suit when he decided to land on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the co-pilot's seat of an S-3B Viking jet. Imagine the derisive merriment in the columns and on the chat shows if former President Bill Clinton revived the skirt-chasing issue by touring a sorority house or if Gore delivered a lecture to the engineers at Netscape Communications Corp. ... Chicago Tribune May 6, 2003 [DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe] denounced Bush's "photo op" on the deck of the aircraft carrier as cheap propaganda (my paraphrase) and went on to talk about Bush being "MIA" for a year during his National Guard stint... Democratic Underground May 7, 2003 Democrats in Congress on Wednesday demanded to know the costs of President Bush's jet landing on an aircraft carrier last week that they branded a costly political stunt. ... Democrats on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee said costs could top $1 million. They included delaying the USS Lincoln that was steaming from the Gulf to San Diego, California, an extra day of air patrols, keeping the crew at sea, presidential security and flying Bush to the ship. ... Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Senate's senior Democrat, said: 'I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan.' Reuters May 7, 2003 Hey, Hoosiers! posted Wed, 7 May 2003 15:08:28 -0700 So, Budget Director Mitch Daniels has resigned. Big deal. Yeah, actually - I mean it really is a big deal: He's just been subpeonaed! - and under circumstances uncannily similar to Georgie's Harken stock dump! (Can you say "insider trading"? I knew ya could.) Indian-ites... er, Indianians...  Hey, Hoosiers! Watch out! If, for some reason, Daniels actually survives this and makes it to the gubernatorial race, is this the guy you want at the helm? The guy Georgie Boy said was "a really good watchdog of the people's money"? The guy who's alienated both sides of the aisle? The guy Senator Byrd called a "little Caesar"? Look, if nothing else, you've got to be worried when his run for the top state office is something "a prospect Republicans have been salivating over for months." Now, look, I know you guys had a little trouble getting motivated about the polls in your own municipal elections (come on - a 10% turnout? that's pathetic!), but when 2004 rolls around, you'd better get your butts out there and vote. If you don't - well, I guess it's up to you if you want Indiana to turn into Bush Country. It's... Scary, Indiana! Scary, Indiana! Scary, Indiana! Let me warn you once again... (With apologies to Meredith Willson.) Tom Cruise, You Ain't. posted Tue, 6 May 2003 19:13:13 -0700 I just noticed I haven't taken a good pot-shot at the Commando-in-Chief in three whole days! Actually, I don't have to - there are plenty of folks already doing it for me: Paul Krugman has done an unusually fine job of taking Junior to task for everything from the real message Georgie was sending out by donning military duds, to his wartime desertion, to the failure to turn up WMD in Iraq, to exploiting September 11th for the Repub convention this fall - all in just a few short sentences. Jolly good work, Paul! And a tip of the hat to the Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi for an even more detailed (and more seriously-toned) dissection of chickenhawk hypocrisy. (Excellent talking points here - you really should read it.) Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) has also ripped (AP's word, not mine) Dubs for his aircraft grandstanding (while Ari the Egghead got a little pissy about the incident)... Speaking of whom, the perfectly noxious press secretary lives up to his "Ari fLIEscher" soubriquet with this amusing Reuters item that exposes both Ari's b.s.-ing around, as well as the Little Cowboy's insistence on playing Top Gun: "It turns out that President George W. Bush was intent on landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln by jet plane even though the aircraft carrier was well within helicopter range. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer had said last week that Bush would land on the Lincoln in a S-3B Viking jet. "It will not be a helicopter arrival, because the ship is so far out at sea," he said, adding the aircraft carrier would be hundreds of miles from shore. As it happened, the Lincoln was only 30 miles (45 km) from shore, well within helicopter range..." Well, I hope the crew of the Abraham Lincoln and their families - anxiously awaiting their arrival as the carrier was kept 30 miles offshore just so Georgie could have a sleepover with the admiral - found the spectacle worth the delay. Heavens knows we taxpayers didn't. (Oops, was that a pot-shot?) And here's the best for last: The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) - a group of ex-CIA analysts and spooks - has issued a truly damning memo that Georgie Boy will never read - but you should. Oh, by the way - and this is totally off-topic, but while I'm thinking about it - Mitch Daniels is resigning as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. No, that's not Mitch's pot-shot at Dubs - he just wants to run for governor of Indiana. However, the mere mention of Daniels compels me to repeat his reference to the Shrub's infamous trifecta line - which is my real pot-shot for the day: [Bush] had always listed, throughout his campaign and since, the reasons why the nation might depart from this policy, reasons he had given as acceptable for running fiscal deficits: for war, recession, or emergency. As he said to me in mid-September, "Lucky me. I hit the trifecta." Mitch Daniels October 16, 2001 Saving Private Lynch Whopper of the Day posted Tue, 6 May 2003 17:07:46 -0700 Why does my gut tell me this will clear up once the TV movie is in the can? Rescued U.S. POW Has Amnesia Alien Nation: International Edition posted Tue, 6 May 2003 15:10:22 -0700 As much as us 'Murkins would like to think the entire bloody universe revolves around Main Street, U.S.A., it's time to get outside our own little borders (well, more or less) and see what's going on in the world... If you're in Washington tomorrow, try to take a picture of Jose Maria Aznar - it'll last longer than he does. The Spanish Prime Minister will be in the capital for more mutual mastu- another tête-a-tête with Junior. It's probably his last chance to travel on the public peseta (oops, make that the public Euro); he's looking at national elections next month - and Spaniards were not exactly overjoyed by Aznar's dragging the country into Shrub's Coalition of the Unwitting. Oh, well, the PM is still fairly young - if he keeps the moustache, he could get a job as a porn star. Ya gotta love foreign diplomats - they're so much smarter than ours are. The trick to saying whatever you want is to apologize for saying something you never actually said in the first place. Got that? Never mind - German foreign ministry spokesman Walter Lindner got it, when he denied that German deputy foreign minister Juergen Chrobog said the U.S. was a "police state." Which is true - Chrobog never said the U.S. was a "police state." He only said it was turning into one. Speaking of nifty verbal tricks, ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev ragged on the U.S. yesterday for "casting away international law" in attacking Iraq. Can't disagree with him on that point - even though by making it, he's displaying either a very short memory, or stunning hubris; where was Misha's indignation when his old bum chum Ronnie Reagan was casting aside international law left and right during his crusade throughout Latin America in the 1980s? Of course, American mucking-about in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, et al, wasn't a threat to Soviet interests in Middle Eastern oil reserves. Got SARS yet?  Probably not - and you sure won't get it at UC Berkeley this summer, either: The regents have decided to bar all students from China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong from enrolling in summer programs this year. This is just bizarre; while Cal (the school, that is, not the state) has a ton of Asian students, it hasn't seen a single case of SARS. Why does this action strike yours truly as something more than simple paranoid overreaction? I can't decide if it looks more like a kick in the pants to China (which is not a Friend of Junior's), blatant discrimination, blind xenophobia, or yet another sneaky, underhanded way to absolutely kill the California economy - which, believe you me, is in far more serious trouble than the national economy as a whole. (Do you have any idea how much money Cal is going to lose by refunding all that tuition?) Now, I might be able to understand this kind of idiocy if 1) the San Francisco Bay Area were overrun by SARS (it's not; there has been exactly one case in San Francisco proper, and a relative handful scattered throughout the rest of the state), and 2) Cal were not such a longtime bastion of liberalism (and thus a prime target in the war on dissent). Cal isn't the only American university considering such a plan, but it is the first to go through with it - which is going to seriously hobble collaborative medical research between the West Coast and Asia.  Stanford may get all the attention, but Berkeley deserves a lot more credit than it gets for huge contributions in groundbreaking research to everything from agriculture to genetics. So what's the real story behind Cal's Asian ban? Cal's too smart to buy into this kind of paranoia. Anything going on with our old unconditional-love interest, Israel? You bet - and most of the action is taking place in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah (near the Egyptian border). On May 3rd, British cameraman James Miller was shot dead while filming a documentary on Israel's regular practice of bulldozing Palestinian houses (sometimes with - surprise! - Palestinians still inside). Miller is just the latest foreigner killed by Israeli troops; perhaps you remember 24-year-old Briton Tom Hurndall, a member of the International Solidarity Movement (as was American Rachel Corrie), who's still in a coma after being picked off by an Israeli soldier April 11th while coming to the aid of two terrified Palestinian children. Well, Tom's back in the news today - or rather, his parents are:  Anthony and Jocelyn Hurndall, as well as Tom's younger brother, came to Rafah with a British diplomatic convoy to see the spot where their son had been hit, when an Israeli checkpoint soldier fired on the convoy. Said Mrs. Hurndall: "What struck me was the ludicrousness of the situation. Here we were, the parents and brother of someone who has been wounded by Israeli Defence Forces and who then fire a warning shot over our car for no apparent reason." Mrs. Hurndall, what makes you think it was a warning shot? Sure will be interesting to see what happens if any more Brits meet their Maker at the business end of a Galil. Could cause a bit of a rift between the U.K. and the U.S. if British nationals keep getting cut down by Israeli troops. Sidenote re Israel: Last week, jewels9445 asked if anybody could make sense of the whole Israel-Palestine conflict. Well, I can't make sense of it, because there is no sense to be made, but I'm just about finished writing a summary of it... So stay tuned, jewels - and everybody else who can't understand why the U.S. keeps supporting a Middle Eastern country, armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, that continues to... well, do what it does. Finally... The U.S. says Canada is too concerned about freedom and privacy. Oh, God forbid those Canucks should let something so trivial as civil liberties get in the way of the mighty U.S. interrogation machine! How dare Canada try to protect its own citizens and landed immigrants - like, they might have actual rights or something. Oh, yes, there's a lot more happening beyond the confines of Hot Coffee, Mississippi, but we'll get to it all later. I don't want to overload your circuits - and besides, my typing finger has a cramp. Transience and Permanence posted Mon, 5 May 2003 07:04:01 -0700 I awoke, as I often do, in the dead of night, trying to guess the time before looking at the clock. Usually, I'm pleasantly surprised to find my guess within twenty minutes of the clock; this morning, I was about four hours off. It was one of those nights - not filled with bad dreams, just odd ones, that began with a handshake from Al Gore, and ended with my mother pulling out a shotgun and blasting the windows out of a car - an old classic car that, in real life, I used to own. No, Mom's not the violent sort, and I wasn't upset about her blowing away my old car; from the context and the feeling of the whole thing, I see this dream as having to do with letting go of the past - even if takes somebody else pushing me into it. Which is why the first two news stories I heard this morning were especially compelling - at least, they were to me. But I think you'll find something to think about here, too, in terms of loss and acceptance - and priorities. First, I see that tornadoes have torn through Missouri and Kansas, leaving 22 dead - no, make that 26 now, according to the ABC News scroll - so far. Other than donate a pint of blood, what can one say, or do, except express one's sadness and sympathy? As much as we'd like to set the clock back and get all those people out of their homes in time, we can't. They're gone. When I'm in the Midwest, the locals laugh at my fear of tornadoes - it's a seasonal thing, they tell me, and you get used to it - and then invariably question my sanity for living in earthquake country. Somehow, explaining that there's no such thing as an "earthquake season" (although I am a firm believer in "earthquake weather") has no impact - nor does reiterating that temblors are not terribly frequent, and when they do happen, are usually so mild that their effect is about the same as being awakened by the dog on the foot of the bed, scratching a flea. (I've experienced no more than three or four shakers at or above magnitude 6.0 in my lifetime.) When all else fails, I tell my Midwestern friends I think it just sounds cooler to live on the edge of the Ring of Fire than in the path of Tornado Alley. (Yes, folks, that was sarcasm, and no, there's nothing cool about being crushed under a collapsed freeway overpass. Fact is, we're all sitting ducks.) Other than the occasional quake, there's not much else that bothers us here in the Golden State. We're spoiled; two inches of rain in a day is a flood, and temperatures below 72°F/22°C in the summer and 60°F/15°C in the winter may as well be ice storms as far as we're concerned. We like our snow, but we like it to stay in the mountains and go to it rather than have it come to us. And if you're one of those rich, crazy people who insists on living on top of a mountain in one of those houses on stilts, just so you can gloat over a breathtaking view of Malibu, well, we'll all feel sorry for you when the next mudslide sends your home sliding across PCH - but we'll also shake our heads, cluck our tongues, and say, "Well, what did you expect?" There's nowhere perfectly "safe" to live in the world; it's just a matter of deciding what sort of dangers you can live with. Ya place yer bets, ya take yer chances. Of course, the more one is exposed to the elements, the more common sense one develops - and the more one appreciates, respects, and defers to the pure wildness of nature. Having lived literally out in the middle of nowhere myself at one time, the lesson was forced on me - and I had a much easier time of things once I conceded and learned to live by nature's rules, instead of trying to bend them to my own will. It just doesn't work any other way. Which brings me to the second story of the morning... My sincere condolences go out to the state of New Hampshire today: The Old Man of the Mountain - a 40-foot-tall granite outcropping that resembled the profile of an old man - collapsed over the weekend, and now resembles nothing more than a pile of rocks. The formation, the state's most cherished symbol, was depicted on license plates, road signs, official vehicles, and the like. Now, you might expect a spate of memorials and tributes to the fallen symbol - and there will be all that - but what ruins and distorts a simple tale of loss, grief, resolution, and acceptance is this: Some folks way up there in the extreme northeast (including the governor) are so griefstricken that they want to - get ready for it - restore (i.e., rebuild) the Old Man. It was a rock, people - and as much as I appreciate your sadness (more than twenty years later, we're still in mourning out here for the loss of Natural Bridges), it seems entirely inappropriate and even morbid to try to resurrect (and fabricate) something natural and beautiful, whose time it was to go. There's also something awfully American about the whole idea, as well. Perhaps we can all ponder the larger implications of such an unnatural plan to bring the dead back to life. It doesn't work. It isn't real. It's simply... against nature. To rebuild the World Trade Center, or entertain the thought of raising the Titanic, are different ideas entirely. These are man-made things - and it is not lost on me that while each is a symbol, that symbol is one of opulence, excess, living large. And neither was formed by the hand of nature. To my New Hampshire readers: I'm not trivializing your loss. But the Old Man was a symbol, nothing more, nothing less. Does its loss also symbolize the loss of your resolve and determination to "Live Free or Die"? Maybe I'm missing something here. Maybe I don't understand. But it seems to me that I'd rather tell my children about what used to be, show them pictures of what was, and impress upon them the importance of appreciating what we have while it is here, because nothing - nothing - on this earth is permanent. And I would explain that their own determination and resolve must be greater than any physical thing in this transitory world of ours. Wouldn't you rather your own children understand that? Or would you rather point to a false idol of deceptive permanence - a grotesque, Disneyesque creation - as their symbol of freedom? The folks in Missouri have no choice this morning; there's no resurrecting the dead. They will be forced to grieve, ro rage, to accept, and finally resume their lives - lives no doubt altered forever, but they will go on. And you want to rebuild a rock? Nothing is permanent. Grieve. But let it go. Let the Old Man rest in peace. While You Were Sleeping posted Sun, 4 May 2003 16:28:44 -0700 As the Resident-in-Chief dodges a trip to the Merry Old Land of Oz (where "The Bush" does not mean "Bush Country"), President Gore is scheduled to travel to Sydney and pick up the slack from our environmentally-hostile Boy King - Big Al is going to try to talk PM John Howard into signing the Kyoto Treaty. Of course, Howard is merely an even-less likeable version of Tony Blair, Junior's pet poodle... which must make Howard Junior's pet dingo. But I really shouldn't say that; fantastic claims of Lindy Chamberlain aside, it's a nasty thing to say about dingos. Speaking of Poodle Boy, one of his advisors (soon, no doubt, to become an ex-advisor), Sir Jonathan Porritt, pretty much came right and said that the Iraq "war" was all about oil. "I don't think the war would have happened if Iraq didn't have the second-largest oil reserves in the world," sez the ballsy Brit. If you're not surprised to hear these words come out of one of Blair's supposed suporters, then maybe you'll be surprised the story was actually printed in a big U.S. news outlet: Bloomberg. I know I am. (Pleased, mind you, but still surprised.) This sort of thing, naturally, provokes The Shrub to reprise his little "WMD will be found!" ditty - a song aired so often it's gone past the point of overplay, and into overkill. Georgie, we don't believe you. We never believed you. And if you manage to produce so much as a firecracker with a drop of mustard gas on it, we'll believe it was planted. Give it up, George - you've done it to death, and destroyed your credibility; if we were were facing such "imminent" threat from all those fantasy weapons, somebody would have used them against us by now. What do you think those Iraqis are waiting for, anyway? As they say in Texas, Ah'll tell yuh whut: If somebody invaded my country, and blew my family to bits where they slept, and I had access to so much as a pea shooter, you can bet your shit-kickers I'd use it on the first invader I saw. What would I have to lose? But, getting back to our British cousins: The Telegraph gave the U.S. a good kick in the slats over the differences in the ways our respective troops deal with Iraqi locals. Simply put, the Iraqis like the British better than the Americans because the Brits treat the Iraqis like human beings. I'm sure not every Yank is a psychotic Rambo pumped up on steroids, nor every Brit the Laurence Olivier of the battlefield; but I'm also certain there's more truth in this story than anybody this side of the pond would care to admit. "Our methods of dealing with the locals are very, very different from that of the Yanks," notes one officer. "Unlike the Americans we have taken off our helmets and sunglasses and we look the locals in the eye. If we see one vehicle heading at speed towards a checkpoint we let it through. It is only one vehicle. We call our method 'raid and aid' - don't ask me what we call the American way." What else have we today? Oh, yes - "Saving Private Lynch" is back in the news... a story I normally avoid like the plague these days, since it, too, gives me a rash. However, this is actually interesting: The medical staff who treated Lynch after her miraculous, awe-inspiring, heartwarming (and ultimately nausea-inducing) TV-movie-of-the-week rescue say the myth is, well, a myth. It's a long story, but well worth the read. Finally, the Bush Assh- Nominee of the Day is Claude A. Allen - who has not only made his disdain for "queers" (in quotes this time because it's his word) perfectly clear, and confirmed his enormous disconnect with reality by believing abstinence-only programs are the sole route to stopping the spread of HIV, but has demonstrated what must be an unfathomable amount of self-loathing, through his support of racist bigot Jesse Helms - who uses the N-word with the most casual aplomb; i.e., "I think all men are equal, be they sl-nts, b--ners or n-----s". (Did I mention Allen is black?) In Case You Missed It (And You Probably Did)... posted Sun, 4 May 2003 15:46:48 -0700 The players (in alphabetical order): Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, Bob Graham, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun, and Al Sharpton. If you missed last night's televised debate among the nine (!) Democratic presidential hopefuls, you missed a scene that was curiously heartwarming to those of us desperate to spend time with some intelligent Washington denizens for a change. They could have done nothing but sit around a table and play poker without diminishing my enjoyment of seeing this wide variety of personalities and hairstyles (including that of mop-topped mediator George Stephanopoulos) in the same room. First thought: I never realized how much Dennis Kucinich looks like a young Ross Perot. (Sorry, Dennis; I love you dearly for your courageous anti-war stance - even if your abortion flip-flop makes me nervous.)  Now, I could give Kucinich my final vote, but that's because I don't need a candidate to look like a Kennedy; unfortunately, most of the American public is far too hung up on image to give a guy like Kucinich a chance; he'll never make it past the primaries. Steph played devil's advocate, practically begging the lady and gentlemen to go on the attack against one another. But (despite some relatively mild snippiness between Kerry and Dean, giving Bob Graham the opportunity to play peacemaker) everybody kept it pretty civilized, saving their choice zingers for that guy who lives in the White House (Kerry: "The one person in America who does deserve to be laid off is George W. Bush"). Predictably, it was Al Sharpton who elicited an audible collective gasp from the audience with his parting shot, in which he said the Bush tax cut is "like Jim Jones and Kool-Aid: It tastes great, but it'll kill you." Pure Reverend Al. On the rest of the issues (as best as I can summarize without a transcript), it went something like this: Nobody likes the PATRIOT Act. Nobody thinks sodomy should be outlawed.  Al Sharpton is the only one of the bunch who favors federal licensing of handguns. Kerry wants to take back the flag; Dean wants to take back the country. Graham called himself "electable," while Dean took the party to task for being indistinguishable from the Repubs (a good poke at Leiberman), while Holy Joe says he's with Bush on defense and "morality" (referring to his Clinton- and Hollywood-bashing) and against him on the economy - and still, apparently, buys into the whole "Saddam was an imminent threat" hogwash.  That prompted Reverend Al to say we could have disarmed Saddam by continuing to work with the U.N. - and, best of all, that the fact no weapons of mass destruction have been found is proof that the "war" was illegitimate. That gave Carol Moseley Braun the chance to get into the issue of the bazillions we're spending to keep the troops in Iraq, and build up their country (while ours goes to hell). Somewhere in there (mostly in his closing bit), Kerry worked in his Vietnam vet's status (a smart thing to do), and capped it with another shot at Lieberman: "I'm the only one running for this job who's actually fought in a war, Joe. I'm not ambivalent about it." And to Steph's obnoxiously blunt "You can't win," Moseley Braun shot back, "That's what they said when I ran for Senate." Kucinich, incidentally, got lots of extra brownie points from me when he said he wanted to kill both NAFTA and the WTO. Oh, and Dick Gephardt was there. I pay so little attention to him under any circumstances, I almost forgot to mention his presence. From under his hair-helmet, The Dick yammered on about his firsthand experience with Homeland Security or some damned thing (at which Dean chuckled and reminded him that state governors have plenty of experience in that arena). Maybe if The Dick would find a bloody spine, I'd pay more attention. Can you believe he actually had the audacity to remind his fellow Dems that they can't afford to be "Bush-lite" - when he himself is second only to Lieberman in that department?  (Okay, third, behind that continually shameless sell-out Tom Daschle, but Tommy's not in the race - thank God). Well, at least Dickie wants to repeal Bush's tax-cut plan, so he's got something right. As for John Edwards... Don't like him, never will; he's a warmonger, anti-choice, and has no problem with the Patriot Act other than the way it's being enforced - which means there's not much he could say (short of backing gay marriage, which ain't gonna happen) to convince me to listen to him. So I went to the bathroom while he tried to sell himself, which was a much more productive use of my time. But I did hear him scold Lieberman for supporting Bush's flawed economic policy of cutting taxes and relying on big corporations to bring America out of her slump: "That sounds like Reaganomics to me." (Umm, maybe 'cause it is Reaganomics, Johhny?) Should anyone run across a transcript of the debate, I'd love to see it; this is all from memory, and I'd like to grab a few of the choicest quotes of the evening. In Honor of Jeff, Allison, Sandy, and Bill posted Sun, 4 May 2003 02:27:57 -0700 Fourteen-year-old Mary Vecchio kneels, screaming, over the body of Jeff Miller. Pulitzer Prizewinning photo by Kent State senior John Filo. (Public domain: court exhibit). The May 4 shootings at Kent State need to be remembered... [They] symbolize a great American tragedy which occurred at the height of... a period in which the nation found itself deeply divided both politically and culturally. ... It is certainly important that Americans have a realistic view of the facts associated with this event. ... Healing will not occur if events are either forgotten or distorted... [M]ost importantly, May 4 at Kent State should be remembered in order that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. [The National Guardsmen] at the end of the civil trials recognized that better ways have to be found... Insofar as this has happened, lessons have been learned, and the deaths of four young Kent State students have not been in vain. ... Jerry M. Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy My Son Died 30 Years Ago At Kent State Today is the 30th anniversary of the killing of four students - including my son Jeff Miller... Jeff was killed 275 feet away from his killer. Allison was 350 feet away. Sandy and Bill were approximately 390 feet away. Nine others, including myself, were wounded. Dean Kahler remains in a wheelchair after he was shot in the back. Alan Canfora At a few minutes past noon today, I am once again observing this anniversary - an anniversary that marks not only the most tragic event of my life but also one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. Thirty years! That's 10 years longer than Jeff's life. He had turned 20 just a month before he decided to attend the protest rally that ended in his death and the deaths of Allison Krause, Sandy Scheuer and Bill Schroeder, and the wounding of nine of their fellow students. That Jeff chose to attend that demonstration came as no surprise... At the age of 8, Jeff wrote an article expressing his concern for the plight of black Americans. I learned of this only when I received a call from Ebony magazine, which assumed he was black and assured me he was bound to be a "future leader of the black community." Shortly before his 16th birthday, Jeff composed a poem he called "Where Does It End?" In it, he expressed the horror he felt about "the War Without a Purpose." So when Jeff called me on the morning of May 4th and told me he planned to attend a rally to protest the "incursion" of U.S. military forces into Cambodia, I merely expressed my doubt as to the effectiveness of still another demonstration. I feel a great sense of guilt because I realized what was going on but didn _ t do a damn thing about it. ... We, the people, have to make the government good. Apathy will not be part of my make-up anymore. Apathy is what caused Kent State. Arthur Krause Allison's father "Don't worry, Mom," he said. "I may get arrested, but I won't get my head busted." I laughed and assured him I wasn't worried. The bullet that ended Jeff's life also destroyed the person I had been - a naive, politically unaware woman. Until the spring of 1970, I would have stated with absolute assurance that Americans have the right to dissent publicly from the policies pursued by their government. The Constitution says so. And even if the dissent got noisy and disruptive, was it conceivable that an arm of the government would shoot at random into a crowd of unarmed students? With live ammunition? No way! The myth of a benign America was one casualty of the shootings at Kent State. Another was my assumption that everyone shared my belief that we were engaged in a no-win situation in Vietnam and had to get out. Alan Canfora: "Few people defend the role of the National Guard at Kent State." But it didn't begin that way. "If more of these radicals have to be killed to teach them a lesson, I'm all for it," responded one student. 30th anniversary represents a dividing line As the body count mounted and the footage of napalmed babies became a nightly television staple, I was certain that no one would want the war to go on. The hate mail that began arriving at my home after Jeff died showed me how wrong I was. To most people, Kent State is just one of those traumatic events that occurred during a tumultuous time. To me, it's the one experience I will never recover from. It's also the one gap in my communication with my older son, Russ... Whenever there is another death in the family, we not only mourn the elderly parent or grandparent or aunt who has passed away; we also experience again the loss of Jeff. Elaine Holstein Common Dreams April 27, 2000 Q. Did the National Guardsmen seem to care what they had done? A.No. That was evident in that the squad that came over to examine the body of Jeffrey Miller was armed... No one even bent down to get a closer look. The sergeant... rolled the body of Jeffrey Miller over with his boot. Photographer John Filo Years from now, I wonder how many Americans will look back on the war in Iraq and remember themselves, not as they were, but as they should have been. ... On May 4, 1970, Kent State University students rallied to protest President Nixon's decision to expand the Vietnam conflict into Cambodia. Poorly trained Ohio National Guard troops were called to the campus, where, after some mild skirmishing with the students, they fired without warning, killing four and wounding nine. ... The revulsion of those who thought the war wrong crystallized around a photo... of a dying youngster and the teenaged girl who knelt over him screaming. FBI records show the governor's main concern was protecting the men who pulled the triggers... FBI Files Look at Kent State Shootings What is less remembered today is how smug that photo made many people in this country, possibly the majority. ... The Kent State kids were "bums," to use the president's term, who asked for it and got what they deserved. And the people were tickled pink. Who was the "good American" in 1970? We may tell ourselves differently now, but the truth is it was someone who thought the cowards with blood on their hands in the White House were swell fellows. ... David Kirby 'Good American' Revisionism Christian Science Monitor Make sure you see Howard Ruffner's amazing photographic chronology of the day. What Dixie Chicks Boycott? posted Sat, 3 May 2003 16:35:56 -0700 Sorry, no nudes handy - but even clothed, they're hot. Hail to the Chicks! Dixie gives the Dixies a warm welcome Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines began the band's U.S. tour with an open invitation to heckle her. "If you're here to boo, we welcome that because we welcome freedom of speech," she said from the stage of Greenville, South Carolina's Bi-Lo Center Thursday night. "So we're going to give you fifteen seconds to get whatever you have out." Instead, the 15,000-strong crowd erupted in cheers. ... The Dixies became a punching bag for conservative pundits, their CDs were crushed beneath a tractor in Louisiana, some radio stations pulled their music from the airwaves and a nationally syndicated radio host organized an "anti-Dixie Chicks" concert to take place at the same time as the Chicks' tour kickoff. Outside the Bi-Lo Center, arena officials had designated an area for protests. [Approximately twenty protesters] showed... The Chicks didn't shy away from making their own statements last night. As they sang "Truth No. 2," large television screens showed images of civil rights marches and woman's suffrage protests, as well as pictures of Beatles and, of course, Dixies albums being crushed. ... Rolling Stone May 2, 2003 Satisfying Reads posted Sat, 3 May 2003 16:17:16 -0700 There's plenty of injustice and and nastiness to talk about later; for now, just revel in the fact that nobody is really buying the Bushit (not even the Pope - but we'll get to JPII sometime later today): George W. Bush's macho performance aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was something straight out of a Michael Deaver fantasy production for Ronald Reagan. There was Bush flying a naval bomber right onto the deck. There was Bush emerging from the cockpit with a grin and a swagger. There was Bush giving his speech as the sun cast a shine on his head, and the soldiers cheered with every triumphant boast. Never mind that he was up to his old rhetorical tricks. ... Matthew Rothschild Bush's Top Gun Speech The Progressive May 2, 2003 Television networks carried President Bush's speech Thursday from a color-splashed aircraft carrier deck, but many appeared to have a limited attention span. Less than two minutes after Bush stopped talking, CBS' Dan Rather introduced an episode of TV's most popular show, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." NBC was back to a "Friends" episode that had been interrupted in midstream. Fox showed cops arresting criminals. ... It was a sign the networks didn't believe that Bush, who said the major combat operations were over but didn't declare victory, made a particularly newsworthy speech. ... [Dan] Rather called it a "production." NBC's Tom Brokaw, after showing tape of the president landing on the aircraft carrier deck in a fighter jet, said White House aides "openly acknowledge this photo is likely to show up again as the president campaigns for re-election." "There is some criticism coming that this is one big photo opportunity," said CNN's Paula Zahn. Even Fox News Channel, with the most vociferous war supporters, noted the political symbolism. ... The White House asked for the time, and networks rarely, if ever, refuse that request. ... Television Networks Had Limited Attention Span for President's Speech on Iraq Associated Press May 3, 2003 Finally, a quick quote from Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) - which, as the reporter notes, will probably never see the light of day in the mainstream press: "I saw President Bush on that aircraft carrier in the Pacific yesterday. Incidentally, that's the closest he's ever got to the War in Vietnam." The Wyeth Wire Associated Press May 2, 2003 All the News You Missed Today posted Fri, 2 May 2003 23:01:03 -0700 Okay, not all the news - just the stuff I'm ruminating on... er, on which I'm ruminating... There was white stuff in Southern California last night - in the form of a great big snow job from Resident Dubs aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. He snowed them up north in Santa Clara, too - "them" being a crowd of hand-picked automatrons pre-programmed to applaud wildly every time Junior stopped to take a breath during his sales pitch for his big tax cut.  Hear tell major Silicon Valley leaders spoiled by a long and close working relationship with Presidents Clinton and Gore were not invited to the clusterf-- circle j-- speech. Your intrepid analyst stayed up late last night finishing a long response to Dubbie's talk to the troops, and decided to shelve the whole thing; it was just too long. Instead, kindly direct your attention to this most excellent open letter to the Commando-in-Chief, from the blessedly fair-minded San Jose Mercury News - which says everything we'd all like to say, but much more politely. This is a must-must-must-read you'll truly appreciate, even if you've never been to the Golden State. Couldn't help but notice the Shrubster's crowing, in both speeches, about how nicely the U.S. put the Taliban out of business in Afghanistan (you know - the country we laid waste to a year and a half ago). Said Dubs: "In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed one of the most barbaric regimes in the history of mankind. A regime so barbaric, they would not allow young girls to go to school." Which makes today's grammatically-awkward AP headline - Afghan Women Urged to Dress Traditional - a curious juxtaposition indeed. Don't buy the no-big-deal tone of the story; Afghan women (at least outside of Kabul) are no better off than they ever were.  Their oppressors are the Afghan warlords now - who are doing a lot worse than merely "urging" women to don the hijab. So don't let Bush & Rummy's happy talk fool you. And, judging from America's sorry track record, it's an even-money bet that we'll pull out and leave the country to its own grim fate, just like we did the first time around. (For news and commentary from those who really know what's going on over there, you'll find no better source than RAWA.) Speaking of countries that hate our guts, what's up with Iraq?  Well, when I read the first headline this a.m., I thought I'd fallen into some parallel universe: The U.S. has decided to divide Iraq into three "military sectors," divvying up duty among itself, Britain, and Poland. (Gee, guess Australia's 2,000 elite SAS troops were no match for Poland's 700 regular grunts - maybe the Aussies didn't kill enough Iraqis to merit their own sector - and maybe that's what Little Johnny Howard has come to 'Murika to discuss with the Boy King). Six more countries - Spain, Italy, Denmark, Bulgaria, Ukraine and the Netherlands - are going to help out in the British and Polish sectors, while the U.S. is telling the United Nations (remember them?) that although the U.N. can provide humanitarian aid, it won't be "allowed" to contribute to peacekeeping efforts. Well, boo-hoo - the U.N. isn't interested in playing Police Squad, anyway; Kofi Annan says he's more interested in "political facilitation." Good for you, Kofi - they're going to need it. Now, don't get your hopes up that the arrival of all these new international troops are going to bring our men and women home any sooner; the influx of all those Italians and Bulgarians and the rest are only going to "augment" the troops already there. Of course, France, Germany, and Russia all got the royal Dub Snub. Meanwhile, the folks in Fallujah - where U.S. troops shot and killed a bunch of protesters last week - say they'll start lobbing bombs (instead of mere grenades) at occupying forces if the U.S. refuses to clear out. The locals are Sunnis - and some of them believe the troops' sunglasses offer X-ray vision. Yes, really. Three-dot quickies: Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle again demonstrated his need for a spinal implant in another shameless display of sucking up to Sonny Bush... Maybe Ashcroft's dog ate the fax (or the courier); either way, some evidence about false testimony from a key witness in the Timothy McVeigh trial was never revealed to the Oklahoma City bomber's defense team... Finally, Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos (in real life, the lead prosecutor in the Sean "Puffy" Combs' nightclub-shooting trial, and well-known pit bull), in charge of investigating the rape of Iraq's National Museum, is trying to convince the public that - contrary to reports of more than 170,000 priceless antiquities stolen from Baghdad - no more than 25 are missing (which may just be his way of saying the other 169,975 were smashed to bits). And You Thought Santorum Was Bad? Try Gay = Necrophilia posted Fri, 2 May 2003 12:53:21 -0700 Update: Gay-Bashing Weenie Can't Take the Heat Senator in Heated Exchange With Parents of Gay Children Four parents of gay children had a fiery private exchange tonight with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The meeting did not go well, and Mr. Santorum, who has infuriated gays by likening homosexuality to incest and bigamy, left in a hurry, tripping over a chair, the parents said. "What we tried to do in this meeting was reach him on a human level, and we found no humanity there," said Melina Waldo, a former constituent of Mr. Santorum who lives in Haddonfield, N.J. She said he was "condescending, belligerent, argumentative and arrogant." A spokeswoman for Mr. Santorum, Erica Clayton Wright, described the meeting as "a very professional and polite exchange." She declined to give details, however, saying, "Constituent meetings are private." ... The parents who met tonight are members of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays... Also present for the meeting were Mrs. Waldo's husband, Richard, a lifelong Republican who he voted two times for Mr. Santorum, and two constituents of the senator, Fran and Allen Kirschner of Philadelphia. Mrs. Kirschner said she spent much of last week telephoning Mr. Santorum's office to request a meeting and was told today that the senator would see them for 10 minutes. The meeting, with a heated exchange, ran 30 minutes, the parents said. The parents, Mrs. Kirschner said, insisted that the comments were hurtful to their children. Mr. Santorum, they said, wanted to talk about legal terms, insisting that he was just arguing against a right to privacy and that his remarks had been taken out of context. Finally, an aide interrupted the session and told Mr. Santorum that he would have to leave. "He couldn't get out of there fast enough," Mr. Kirschner said. New York Times May 1, 2003 Meanwhile, Bush Nominates Another Dirty Liar... Nominee for Bench Links Homosexual Acts to Pedophilia A nominee for a federal judgeship filed a Supreme Court brief that compares homosexual acts to "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography and even incest and pedophilia." The brief by Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, nominated by President Bush to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, resembles comments about the same Texas sodomy case by Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Pryor's "friend of the court" brief was filed Feb. 18, two months before Santorum - the Senate's third-ranking Republican - compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. ... Pryor... argued the Constitution protects orientation but not homosexual acts, which he contended are "historically recognized as a wrong." "Petitioners' protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, a constitutional right that protects 'the choice of one's partner' and 'whether and how to connect sexually' must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia [if the child should credibly claim to be 'willing']," he wrote. Pryor's nomination was already was under scrutiny because of his outspoken opposition to abortion rights. ... Associated Press May 2, 2003 What, this surprises you? In the Age of Ashcroft? Hey, things are just heating up; case in point: Bush nominee J. Leon Holmes, who "belittled the issue of whether to allow rape victims to seek abortions, calling the issue a 'red herring' because he believed that 'conceptions from rape occur with the same frequency as snow in Miami.'" The battle's just beginning, folks. And, as expected, the queers are the first ones under attack, with pro-choice advocates on deck. And they won't be satisfied until the only Americans allowed to walk the streets are white, heterosexual, Bush-voting, born-again Christians who wouldn't know a blow job if they were bitten on the... Well, you get the picture. I Don't Fly, Even for Free posted Thu, 1 May 2003 15:42:24 -0700 I hate flying. I hate everything about it. I hate dealing with parking lots and ticket agents and skycaps and surly security guards who get a hard-on by running a makeup mirror around the underside of my car. I hate airports. I hate checking in and hoping they haven't screwed up my reservation. I hate answering stupid questions ("Yes, I let those three illegal aliens over there - the ones next to the Cinnabon counter, with the automatic weapons under their arms - watch my bags for half an hour"). I hate going through security.  I hate watching my belongings pawed through by people I wouldn't have in my home, let alone in my underwear. I hate the fact that they always, always search my bags by hand, because I "fit the profile," and I never check any baggage, because I hate waiting at the baggage carousel - and because I hate risking my belongings to the same mysterious void that consumes one sock from each pair in the clothesdryer. I hate having to empty my pockets, remove my belt, hand over my wallet, and let a total stranger who's been handling other people's shoes all day handle my shoes while I wonder if I'm ever going to get them back. I hate having to stand on filthy airport carpet in my socks. I hate having to stand out in front of the crowd with legs and arms spread like a pimp on "Starksy and Hutch," while the goon in the suit runs something that looks like a combination Darth Vader lightsabre-Hitachi Magic Wand Vibrator over my body. I really, really hate getting patted down - no matter how cute the matron is.  I hate wondering what the hell she expects to find down there, and wondering if the reason she's taking so bloody long is that she really wants to get me into a private room with a latex glove. I hate being at the mercy of a pilot who might still be under the influence of a late-night party with the stews - or an early morning fight with the wife.  I hate feeling like I'm walking the last mile toward my certain death as I tromp down that claustrophobic-making little tunnel to the plane. I hate the smell of jet fuel. I hate the smell of the stale air forced through the craft until I'm certain of contracting the latest contagion of the week. I hate taking off, and I hate landing - but even more, I hate the alternative to landing. I hate being shut into a pressurized steel tube and shot through the air for two, or six, or sixteen hours, at a speed the human body wasn't meant to go. I hate sitting by the window because I feel hemmed in - and because I'll be the first one sucked out to my death if something goes wrong. I hate sitting on the emergency row for the same reason - but I hate sitting too far from the emergency row, too. I hate knowing that that if something does go wrong, I'll be wide awake and forced to experience my last 90 seconds of existence in sheer terror. I hate knowing that 90 seconds isn't long enough to have one last cigarette before I die, and that if it were, and if I don't die, then I'll be up on felony charges for lighting up when we land. I hate the noise and the crack-the-whip sensation in the rear of the cabin, and I hate sitting on the wing - because it is the safest place, and if we crash, I want to be killed immediately and get it over with, so I sit as close to first class as possible. I hate the first-class passengers, because they can afford another grand for a decent seat, and I can't. I hate the pressure in my ears, and the refuse that passes for food in my mouth. I hate trying to saw through leathery chicken with a plastic knife. I hate the fifth-rate movies (how many times must I be forced to sit through "Dennis the Menace," even without sound?), and I hate the fact that the only time there's ever a good movie, the plane is equipped with ten-inch screens twenty feet ahead of me - and obscured by the hulking football player sitting in front of me (who, I might add, can't stop coughing throughout the flight). I hate narrow seats, and the sweaty, four-hundred-pound man who always sits next to me and falls right to sleep, snoring for the next three hours - and then awakens, chipper as a squirrel, and spends the next three hours trying to strike up an inane conversation, peppered with lame pickup lines ("A lesbian, eh? So, what part of Lesbia are you from?"). I hate parents who can't keep their hyperactive brats from kicking the back of my seat and pulling on my headrest for the entire trip. I hate drunks on planes. I hate the smell of bloody marys first thing in the morning. I hate the lack of legroom, which brings on fears of blood clots forming instantly and traveling directly to my heart before we even get off the ground. I hate the fact that there's no soundproof booth in which to put screaming babies. I hate people who actually need to use the barf bags. I hate trying to pee in a moving aircraft, and I especially hate trying not to sit on the damned seat (partly from a fear of germs, and partly because of all those stories about people's asses getting sucked permanently into the bowl when the plane hits an air pocket), whilst attempting to hold all clothing free and clear of the plumbing (mine, and the plane's) with one hand, and scratching futilely with the other hand at toilet paper too fragile to come out of the little slot intact. I hate using the public sink, and I really hate having to touch the door handle when I exit. I hate the fact that a trip to the head guarantees an announcement over the PA system to return to my seat immediately. I hate turbulence - with a passion - and I hate wondering who I'd be willing to eat after a crash landing in the Andes with a bunch of rugby players. I hate the thump of the wheels touching down, and wondering if one of the tires is going to blow. I hate the sound of the engines reversing, and wondering of we're going to overshoot the end of the runway. I hate sitting on the tarmack for half an hour with the engines off and no air conditioning. I hate having to stand on the aisle seat to get my bag out of the overhead compartment. I hate my automatic, pre-programmed compulsion to smile back at the flight attendants as I leave and actually say "Thank you." And I hate answering the question, "How was your flight?" I hate flying. That said, you can have my free ticket to Toronto. I won't be using it. Best Reason Ever for Locking Down the Cockpit posted Thu, 1 May 2003 13:57:52 -0700 You really want to support the troops? Then get down on your knees and pray for the safety of the crew of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln: Practice flight? Bush to co-pilot plane to carrier When President Bush arrives aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier Thursday, he will be sitting in the co-pilot's seat of a U.S. Navy aircraft. The plane will make what is known as a "tailhook" landing, when the craft, traveling at about 150 mph, hooks onto a steel wire across the flight deck and comes to a complete stop in less than 400 feet. Capt. Kevin Albright, the commander of Airwing 14 aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, said Bush will be equipped with an air sickness bag, but he doubts the president will need it. "I suspect (with) his previous flight experience, he'll do just fine," Albright told CNN's Kyra Phillips aboard the carrier. Bush was an F-102 fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard after graduating from Yale University in 1968. ... Albright said Bush could fly the plane en route to the carrier if he so desires. "I imagine he will. He's an old fighter pilot," he said. "It shouldn't take a very long time, but I imagine if he wants to fly around a little bit, it'll take a little longer. We'll have a ready deck when he gets here." ... CNN May 1, 2003 I sincerely hope Captain Albright realizes that the bulk of Mr. Bush's "flight experience" is as a passenger aboard Air Force One. Somehow, I can't imagine that a month or so spent transporting tropical plants between Texas and Florida aboard an F-102 counts toward being an "old fighter pilot." And let's not forget that Junior was grounded after missing a physical in 1972 - and never showed up for duty again. (Can you say, "wartime deserter"? I knew you could.) Oh, yeah, sounds qualified to me. I wouldn't let him near the cockpit. But I would have a military tribunal waiting on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln. Incidentally, if you've ever been curious about Georgie's prowess behind the stick, here's quite an eye-opening piece you simply must read: At the airport he watched Bush stare at the controls, at the panel, and he realized that Bush - though not admitting it - had no idea how to fly the thing properly. ... [Bush] aimed the aircraft down, and the landing was as shaky and brutal as the takeoff. The plane careened off the runway and onto the desert. ... Evans stared at Bush. He could see the fear and panic flooding his face. ... The plane wobbled uncertainly back into the West Texas skies... It was the last time he flew a plane. ... Chasing George W. Bush and the F-102 Did Military Lie - And Then Lie About the Lie? posted Wed, 30 Apr 2003 19:03:26 -0700 Military Says It Gave Errant Information U.S. Central Command said Wednesday it erred when it said U.S. Army special forces had been secretly working in an Iraqi city for months before the war began, when they'd only been working with residents since early April. Central Command revised an earlier announcement, correcting the dates that special forces had been working with residents of Abu Ghraib in organizing an election for a city council from August or September to April. ... Originally, Central Command had said soldiers from the Army's 5th Special Forces Group had worked with residents for over eight months in organizing the first free election in Iraq's recent history. ... On Wednesday, Central Command said the work with residents began in early April, and omitted Capt. Mike's comments about the significance of a prewar presence. It attributed other quotes to an unidentified team leader. Associated Press April 30, 2003 Now, it sounds to me like Centcom is being very specific in discussing the presence of U.S. special forces in Iraq for no other purpose than the organization of the Abu Ghraib election. However, if Centcom's intention is to imply that special forces were not present in pre-war Iraq for any reason, then we're looking at something a wee bit different from a simple correction of "errant information." And AP appears to have caught that possibility - which many readers will tune out: The original announcement piqued interest because it appeared to confirm the presence of special forces in Iraq well before the Bush administration began publicly discussing its Iraq war plans. ... The new Central Command release only comments on when work with residents began, not when special forces team arrived. The point: Keep your eyes and ears open in case Centcom issues any future "corrections" regarding the dates U.S. special forces first entered Iraq (irrespective of any "election" activity). If that happens, this is what you'll need to remember: US hospital ship to sail as special forces reported in Iraq ...as the Pentagon staged a public show of its muscle, The Boston Globe reported Sunday that about 100 US special forces and more than 50 Central Intelligence Agency officers had already been infiltrated inside Iraq at least four months ago. AFP January 6, 2003 That already puts special forces inside Iraq as far back as September, 2002, or earlier. But let's not stop there - let's see what Israeli intelligence had to say... as far back as last August: Report: US Military Operations Already Underway in Iraq US Iraq Campaign Has Its First Engagement The fact of the matter is that American military concentrations are already unobtrusively present in northern and southern Iraq. ... Special US forces entered the Kurdish regions of north Iraq towards the end of March nearly four months ago, to set up local Kurdish militias and train them for battle. At around the same time, Turkish special forces went into northern Iraq in waves that continued through April, fetching up in Turkmen regions around the big oil towns of Mosul and Kirkuk. ... Since June, American and Turkish construction engineers have been working in northern Iraq, building and expanding airfields and air strips to make them fit for military use. Debka August 10, 2002 Remember, this is 2002 they're talking about, not 2003 - which means that if there is any truth at all to published reports (which were published long before April, 2003), U.S. special forces were in Iraq as early as March, 2002. And people actually thought Junior's dog-and-pony show at the U.N. actually meant anything?  Amazing. There are scores of other news links, citing plenty of evidence that the U.S. was working secretly inside Iraq long before any formal declaration of "war." Google it. So the Blow-Up Party Sheep is Out? posted Wed, 30 Apr 2003 15:00:20 -0700 Alabama Votes Against Legalizing Sex Toys Sex toys are still against the law in Alabama, at least as far as the Alabama Legislature is concerned. The Alabama House voted against a bill Tuesday that would have removed a ban on sexual devices, such as vibrators, from the state's obscenity law. The ban on sexual devices was added at the last minute when the obscenity law passed the Legislature in 1998. A federal district judge in Birmingham has twice ruled that the ban is unconstitutional. The first ruling was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the second ruling has been appealed to the appeals court. The sponsor of the bill, Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, said because of the court ruling, the obscenity law is unenforceable as long as it contains the ban on sex toys. "All this does is make our obscenity law constitutional," Rogers said. ... "What you just did is make our obscenity law illegal. You voted for obscenity," Rogers shouted at lawmakers. Associated Press April 30, 2003 Do the Right Thing, Get the Shaft posted Wed, 30 Apr 2003 14:57:29 -0700 For a quarter-century, Jane Turner has been a special agent for the FBI. But now the agency is trying to fire her, and Turner says it's because she blew the whistle on FBI wrongdoing. ... Veteran FBI agent Jane Turner was given an unpleasant assignment last year: investigate theft from Ground Zero _ a fire engine door, artifacts, goods donated to victims _ all allegedly stolen during the cleanup at New York _ s World Trade Center. But just as the case was heating up, Turner made a stunning discovery. Inside her own FBI office in Minneapolis, on a secretary _ s desk, was a severely damaged Tiffany crystal globe. ... FBI agent under fire _ from agency MSNBC April 29, 2003 How Much Do YOU Owe? posted Wed, 30 Apr 2003 14:43:56 -0700 I know this may sound awfully dry and coma-inducing, but bear with it - and just try to get a handle on how much money we're talking about here... Treasury Says U.S. Could Face Default The Treasury Department says the United States could face the prospect of not being able to pay its bills in late May unless Congress raises the government's borrowing authority, now capped at $6.4 trillion. ... Treasury has asked Congress to boost the government's borrowing authority, although it has not suggested a specific amount. A proposal is pending on Capitol Hill that would raise the debt ceiling to $7.38 trillion. ... Democrats point to the government's need to borrow more to ridicule President Bush's tax cuts, his handling of the economy and ballooning federal government budget deficits, which are expected to hit records this year and next. Republicans blame the lingering effects of the 2001 recession and the costs of fighting terrorism for the need to extend the debt limit. ... The government had to borrow a record $111 billion in the January-March quarter to cover the shortfall between expenses and tax revenue. It expects to borrow another $79 billion in the current quarter. Washington Post April 29, 2003 So how much money are we talking about here? Well, rather than even attempt to answer that, maybe this will bring home how much the Bush administration is spending (in dollars that don't actually exist) - and how fast they're spending it (yes, you must click this): U.S. National Debt Clock Bear in mind that during the Clinton administration, this clock was actually stopped. Riddle Me This posted Tue, 29 Apr 2003 20:54:41 -0700 Iraqi lawyer who helped rescue Jessica Lynch granted asylum Ridge: 'Americans are grateful for his bravery' An Iraqi lawyer who helped U.S commandos locate and rescue prisoner of war Jessica Lynch has been granted asylum in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced Tuesday. ... Ridge identified the man as Mohammed Al Rehaief and said the lawyer and his wife and 5-year-old daughter arrived in the United States earlier this month after Homeland Security granted them "humanitarian parole." On Monday, the family was granted asylum by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. ... CNN April 29, 2003 Now, tell me:  Why would an Iraqi need to claim asylum if the Iraqi people have been "liberated" and Iraq is on the verge of "democracy"? Perhaps because NBC needed an epilogue for the TV movie?) Regarding eligibility for asylum, the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (now the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services) states: An applicant must be a refugee in order to be eligible for asylum. The definition of a refugee is found in INA § 101(a)(42)(A) and requires that the applicant be: unable or unwilling to return to or avail himself or herself of the protection of the country of his or her nationality or, if stateless, the country where he or she last habitually resided because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion Hmm, doesn't seem to be any mention in there about "heroics" as perceived by the Director of Homeland Security. More interesting are the "mandatory bars" that would preclude a refugee's petition for asylum: You will be barred from being granted asylum under INA § 208(b)(2) if you: Ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion Were convicted of a particularly serious crime (includes aggravated felonies) Committed a serious nonpolitical crime outside the United States Pose a danger to the security of the United States Firmly resettled in another country prior to arriving in the United States You will also be barred from being granted asylum under INA § 208 if you are inadmissible under INA § 212(a)(3)(B) or removable under INA § 237(a)(4)(B) because you: Have engaged in terrorist activity; Are engaged in or are likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activity (a consular officer or the Attorney General knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe, that this is the case); Have, under any circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily harm, incited terrorist activity; Are a representative of a foreign terrorist organization, as designated by the Secretary of State under section 219 of the INA, or a political, social, or other similar group whose public endorsement of acts of terrorist activity the Secretary of State has determined undermines United States efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities; Are a member of a foreign terrorist organization, as designated by the Secretary of State under section 219 of the INA, or which you know or should have known is a terrorist organization; Have used a position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity, or to persuade others to support terrorist activity or a terrorist organization, in a way that the Secretary of State has determined undermines United States efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities. I would be most interested in a complete background check on Mr. Al Rehaief. I would be very surprised indeed if Mr. Al Rehaief were not considered a supporter of one Saddam Hussein. I would be stunned if Mr. Al Rehaief had been allowed to continue practicing law in Iraq if he were not a member or supporter of the Ba'athist Party. I will be very dismayed if Mr. Al Rehaief is not compelled to register as an over-16 male from one of those terrorist-harboring countries that makes the DHS so nervous. Meanwhile, countless would-be refugees are denied asylum for any number of specious reasons, despite meeting (and often exceeding) all requirements. What unadulerated bullshit. This Really IS Hawai'i's Day! posted Tue, 29 Apr 2003 18:16:14 -0700 Hawaii hate-crimes bill becomes law An extension of Hawaii's hate-crimes law to protect transgendered people and others whose gender identity might make them a target of abuse has become law without Gov. Linda Lingle's signature. ... The bill, sent to Lingle on April 1, amends Hawaii's hate-crimes law to impose longer sentences on convicts who intentionally victimize a person or their property "because of hostility toward the person's actual or perceived gender identity or expression." Three senate Republicans and eight house Republicans opposed the measure, which automatically became law without her signature 10 days after she received it for consideration. "It was just not something that I felt strongly about, but I know there was controversy on both sides," Lingle said Monday when asked about the measure. ... The Advocate April 30, 2003 Well, Governor Lingle, you might not feel strongly about it, but you can bet your muu-muu a lot of us feel very strongly indeed about recognizing the very real dangers faced by transgendered people, and doing everything in our power to protect the most invisible and maligned minority of all. Perhaps if more states followed Hawai'i's lead, Gwen Araujo and Brandon Teena might be alive today. Hawai'i No Ka Oi! posted Tue, 29 Apr 2003 17:28:50 -0700 Ho, brah!  Kama'aina akamai! Mahalo nui loa! Hawai'i, aloha au ia 'oe! Hawaii Legislature Becomes Nation _ s First to Pass Pro-Civil Liberties Bill   April 29, 2003 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Media@dcaclu.org HONOLULU _ The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii today applauded the state legislature for being the first in the nation to stand up for the rights of individuals by passing a joint resolution affirming and protecting the individual liberties of all the people of Hawaii and calling for the repeal of the most egregious provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. "The actions of the legislature truly represent the Aloha state _ we are a diverse people, and we have a long, proud tradition of respecting human rights and upholding civil liberties," said Vanessa Y. Chong, Executive Director of the ACLU of Hawaii. "We are proud to be the first state, hopefully of many, to recognize that our safety need not come at the expense of our individual rights and freedoms. This resolution sends a clear message to America - Hawaii want to remain both safe and free." The Hawaii House of Representatives adopted the "Reaffirming the State of Hawaii _ s Commitment to Civil Liberties and the Bill of Rights" Resolution on Friday, on a 35 to 12 vote. The Hawaii Senate had approved the measure earlier this month. The legislature _ s action was a response to the USA PATRIOT Act, which was rushed through Congress with little deliberation in the immediate aftermath of September 11. The broad and overreaching bill contains many provisions that erode checks and balances on law enforcement and threaten personal privacy and civil liberties. The resolution finds that many of the federal government _ s recent actions "pose significant threats to Constitutional protections"; it further instructs aw enforcement in Hawaii to uphold the human rights, civil liberties and constitutional protections of Hawaii people. Furthermore, the state legislature calls upon the Hawaii Congressional delegation to work to repeal sections of the USA PATRIOT Act, other federal legislation, and Executive Orders that violate or place an undue burden on personal freedoms. "In their attempt to make America safer, Washington also unnecessarily made America less free. Recent actions have granted the government too many powers; they went too far too fast," said Chong. "Many of the powers can be used against innocent Americans, indeed, many of the powers are not specifically tied to anti-terrorism efforts. Hawaii proudly stands as the first state to demand that our civil liberties and personal freedoms not be eroded under the guise of national security." Ninety-three communities in 23 states across the country have passed similar resolutions. A similar resolution opposing the USA PATRIOT Act passed overwhelmingly with strong bipartisan support in the New Mexico House of Representatives, although it failed to reach the New Mexico Senate floor in time for a vote before the end of the legislative term. The city of Juneau, Alaska passed a similar resolution late Monday night. ACLU Press Release April 29, 2003 Bet Time & Newsweek Aren't Too Happy About This posted Tue, 29 Apr 2003 16:46:56 -0700 While anxiously awaiting the new Entertainment Weekly, imagine my surprise when I found this in my mailbox instead - practically duplicate covers for Time and Newsweek. Yep, I subscribe to both - Time so I can digest the right-wing point of view without overdosing on too much rhetoric, and Newsweek because of my incurable crush on the beautiful mind of Anna Quindlen (without whom NW would dissolve into just another WH mouthpiece). Gosh, I Sure Feel Proud... Not. posted Tue, 29 Apr 2003 14:21:36 -0700 I've seen other reports of higher death and injury tolls, but this will do for a recounting of the latest firing-into-the-crowd story: FALLUJAH, Iraq - US troops shot dead 13 Iraqis including at least six children at a pro-Saddam Hussein rally, overshadowing the arrest of a key weapons advisor to the toppled president. US commanders said Tuesday that the shooting was in self-defence, without confirming the death toll, while in Baghdad a huge explosion rocked the capital, where a top US general announced fresh troop deployments to enforce order amid the chaos. Witnesses in the town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, told AFP that US troops had opened fire late Monday on demonstrators marking Saddam's birthday, killing 13 and wounding 45. "The shooting broke out when 500 protestors carrying portraits of Saddam and Iraqi flags approached a school manned by US troops," said resident Mohammed Hamid. Another witness, who asked not to be identified, said six of those shot dead were children aged just seven or eight. ... US troops kill 13 at pro-Saddam rally, claim self-defence AFP April 29, 2003 Best line in the whole article: US President George W. Bush vowed Monday to see Iraq through to democracy and said that the US-led occupation was already improving the lives of Iraqis "hour by hour". Gag me. Well, at least we know why another 4,000 U.S. troops are being added to the 12,000 already in Baghdad. Of course, as good Germans Americans, you will obey orders to divert your attention immediately to the heartwarming homecomings throughout the U.S. I'm as happy and relieved as anybody to see even one intact soldier exit an airport gate and collapse into the arms of his loved ones. But who's thinking about the soldiers who are en route to Baghdad as I write this? Brace yourself, folks - the "war" is far from over. And guess what? It's only beginning in an entirely new way for me: I just found out that my well-meaning, patriotic - but incredibly shortsighted - young cousin, who's been making noises about enlisting, finally did the unthinkable, and is now waiting for the call that will tell him when and where to report for boot camp. I love him dearly, but I could slap him silly for being such an idiot. Junior Hires... Ex-Girlfriend?! posted Tue, 29 Apr 2003 13:57:56 -0700 Whatever you do, try not to dwell on the idea of Young Master Bush getting cozy with a girlfriend (it's bad enough that we must confront the fact that Dubs & Pickles had to have done the nasty at least once in order for the Stepford Wife to pop out Jenna and Baby Babs - although rumor has it that Georgie firmly adheres to the belief that the production of twins proves they did it twice). That said, try not to think of a hippopotamus while you read this: The White House made a number of recess appointments last week as Congress fled for spring break. One was April H. Foley, a "homemaker," according to campaign contribution disclosure documents, from South Salem, N.Y. She was named to the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank. The appointment is good until Congress adjourns next year. So why a homemaker for this job? Well, "early in her career," the White House announcement says, she was director of business planning for corporate strategy with PepsiCo Inc. and director of strategy for Reader's Digest Association. More recently, she was president of the United Way of Northern Westchester County, N.Y. Not all of it, just the northern part. Still not locked in on the merits? Did we mention she used to date George W. Bush when both were at Harvard Business School and has remained friends with him? Shattered Imprimatur: Homemaker's Recipe for Success Washington Post April 28, 2003 The only other (even remotely interesting) mention I was able to dig up on April Foley was in a most amusing piece written last fall, on Georgie's tendency to channel Mommy Babs: "From his mother I see that feistiness, that street-smart person who has a good nose for people, a good political nose," says nasal-obsessed Bush friend April Foley. Barbara Bush's Mouth Open Democracy September 11, 2002 Now, if you want to hear what that rascally Larry Flynt has to say about another of Dubs' girlfriends... Well, never mind - we're not going to get into the abortion rumor here. We have no need to delve into any unfounded abortion rumor. With all the other documented facts about Junior's sordid past, we don't need no stinking abortion rumor. No, there's already plenty of other skull and bones skeletons in Georgie's closet. A Queer Request posted Mon, 28 Apr 2003 23:11:52 -0700 I don't normally sign petitions, but this one (from Howard Dean's site), I signed (yep, full name, address, phone number, and all) - and I'm asking you to do the same. If you don't normally sign petitions either, then please consider signing this one as a personal favor to me.  Remember that Rick Santorum's hateful, discriminatory remarks were directed personally at me, too - and George W. Bush's refusal to condemn Santorum's remarks is just another slap in the face from the party that would love to see people like me locked up - and not for my liberalism, either. As far as Santorum and his supporters are concerned, the value of my life, and the fact that I choose to act on my natural state of love for another human being, is equivalent to molesting a child - or screwing a farm animal. Do you have a brother, sister, parent, cousin, friend, or co-worker who is a lesbian or gay man?  Of course you do. Picture that person in your mind - and then remember Santorum was saying the very same thing about them, too. Do you think I'm belaboring the Santorum story? Well, perhaps I am - but this is my life we're talking about - and I find it sickening that this incident, which is representative of the sort of biogotry that not only runs rampant throughout the Right, but is condoned by its leaders, has been allowed to languish. True: Getting rid of Rick Santorum won't change everything. But his ouster will mean one less overt bigot in power - and you know as well as I do that change is accomplished just one step - and one person - at a time. So, will you please sign this petition - for the sake of that gay sibling, cousin, or friend you have pictured in your mind? Petition for the Removal of Senator Santorum And please pass the URL along - even blog it if you're feeling generous. If you're not gay, you can't understand what it's like to be attacked like this. Yes, it's hurtful - but not because I give a damn about what a hatemonger like Santorum thinks of me; it hurts because someone like Santorum can rise to such a position of influence and power in this country and spread such deliberate lies (which are swallowed as the gospel truth - literally - by the homophobes who drive the entire Republican party) with the ultimate goal of outlawing who I am. If nothing else moves you to act, then consider this: In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up.   Rev. Martin Niemöller 1892-1984 Well, folks, they're coming for the queers. They've been coming for us since the moment Bush moved into the White House. If you let them take us away, then who's next? My deepest thanks for your consideration. And You Thought Saddam Was Gassing His Own People? posted Mon, 28 Apr 2003 21:45:51 -0700 Secret exposure: U.S. tested chemical weapons on own citizens Earlier this year news that the army would conduct bio-terrorism tests in central Oklahoma sent a near panic through some communities. Clouds of clay dust and other substances were dropped to see if weather radar could detect a bio-terrorist attack. The army was up front and told those concerned what they were doing and promised there was nothing to worry about. But it hasn't always been that way when the army was testing the atmosphere. Oklahoma City and a local solider endured a secret exposure. It was in the 1950s and America was in the height of the Cold War. ... Little did Americans know they were already under attack - by America. ... The U.S. government was preparing for germ warfare by secretly spraying biological agents on its own citizens. The tests were conducted in 239 cities, including one of Oklahoma's most prominent communities. ... KFOR April 25, 2003 Speaking of "Saddam gassing his own people" (one of the Right's favorite comebacks when they run out of all other illogical arguments for waging war), here's the latest in a growing number of reports that it was Iran that gassed the Kurds - not Iraq: The Portugal News has received a full transcript of a report by a former CIA senior political analyst that states that Iran was responsible for the mass murder of 5,000 Kurds by chemicals at the Iraqi township of Halabja in 1988. ... Iraq - Did Portugal have all the facts? Portugal News April 19, 2003 Moralizing Clinton-Basher Guilty in Child Porn Case posted Mon, 28 Apr 2003 15:11:27 -0700 Fund-raiser for GOP pleads guilty in case of child pornography A prominent Republican fund-raiser who once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people" pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to production of child pornography. Richard Anthony Delgaudio, who was sentenced to two years' probation before judgment, admitted to taking lewd photographs of a 16-year-old girl he met in East Baltimore's Patterson Park in 2001. In some of the photos, he was engaged in sex with her, court records show. Delgaudio, 50, of Burke, Va., is a frequent talk-radio guest and national figure in conservative politics. He is president of the Legal Affairs Council, a group that helped pay the legal bills of former Reagan administration officials Oliver L. North and Caspar W. Weinberger after they were charged in connection with the Iran-contra affair. In his pornography case, there was additional evidence that Delgaudio took erotic images of at least one other, younger teen-ager, but that evidence was not admissible in court because police improperly stopped and searched Delgaudio, a judge ruled. ... In yesterday's ruling, Judge John M. Glynn ordered Delgaudio to stay away from Patterson Park and the neighboring Butchers Hill area. The judge also publicly acknowledged Delgaudio's humiliation. "Mr. Delgaudio has been very active in the state of Virginia and around the country. He was a respected member of the community," Glynn said. "This type of thing is a mortifying experience." ... In a letter to the judge, Delgaudio's attorneys - Bruce Fein and Howard L. Cardin - wrote that he was remorseful and did not know the girls were underage. Delgaudio, who has no prior record, was arrested in November 2001 with a book of obscene photographs he had taken of 15- and 16-year-old girls, according to court documents. The teen-agers went with him on several occasions to a hotel on Pulaski Highway... Baltimore Sun April 24, 2003 Well, boo-f***king-hoo for this sick freak's "humiliation" and "mortification." You think five grand and staying clean for two years is punishment? You think it fixes anything? How about making this pervert pay all costs for the lifelong therapy his young victim should have after being exploited like so much meat? He's off the hook, and she's the one who's going to encounter colossal obstacles to maintaining psychologically healthy relationships for the rest of her life. Two years' probation, my ass. How about two years' community service at a battered women's shelter? Better yet, how about two years' of being forced to sit in on group therapy sessions for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse? Ah, screw it - just lock the bastard up.  Prison inmates take a dim view of child abusers. Incidentally - just for the hell of it - let's see what kind of person we're looking at in Richard Delgaudio: He led the drive to eliminate ebonics in California, pushed for the passage of the state's anti-immigration initiative (Proposition 187), and worked on the defense of baton-wielder Laurence Powell (and even threw a "homecoming" dinner and rally for poor "Larry"!), one of the four white LAPD cops who beat the crap out of unarmed black motorist Rodney King. And besides campaign fundraisers for Reagan and that bastion of old-style bigotry, Jesse Helms, "Delgaudio's resume includes fund-raising for legal defense money for [Oliver] North and Casper Weinberger." (I'll tell you something else, too - half the ultra-conservative sites that made any mention whatsoever of Delgaudio have scrubbed all pages containing his name. Go ahead, Google him.) You make up your own mind about Richard Delgaudio. Mine's made up already. And this pig had the audacity to join the chorus of "moral" indignation against Clinton. No, I'm not surprised. Just disgusted. Something to Send to Your Right-Wing Friends! posted Mon, 28 Apr 2003 15:02:36 -0700 Nope, I didn't write it - it's an e-mail forward, courtesy of DU's talkinghand. But I love it - I'm copying and pasting it into an e-mail for all my misguided RW acquaintances, and encourage you to do the same - they'll hate it, but they won't be able to argue with it (that is, if they get it)! As mindless liberals reflexively attack our elected wartime President, George W. Bush over his brilliant and inspired handling of the near-crisis brought about by the sinister North Korean communist regime and the inept foreign policy of the failed Clinton administration, it is important that we true conservatives remember the nature of the Korean dictator and charter member of the Axis of Evil. He is the pampered and spoiled product of his country's ruling elite and the son of his country's former leader. Born to the wealth and high social standing of his family's political dynasty, he has enjoyed a life of privilege far removed from concerns of his exploited countrymen. Despite an obvious lack of merit, talent or aptitude, he received the best accommodations his country could offer. He was a notorious playboy and immoral rake until he reached an age at which most men have matured. He produced nothing and accomplished nothing unconnected to his family's name, and owes his current political position to solely his father's cronies. Surrounded by sycophants and toadies, he adheres to a discredited ideology that most of his countrymen would reject if they were not routinely and massively propagandized. He is unconcerned with the economic devastation his party's ideology has visited on his country, except as to avoid complete disaster and cynically manipulate each crisis to the passing advantage of his party and the ruling elite. Paranoid and contemptuous of foreign opinion, he has alienated almost the entire world with disjointed, bellicose, but often colorful rhetoric that most other nations find frightening. His erratic foreign policy consists solely of slogans intended to further propagandize a fearful domestic audience rather than assure his neighbors. Often, he unpredictibly reverses his own national policy and acts unilaterally to further a political ideology that is incompatible with democracy. These are the differences between Kim Jong Il and our own beloved and respected leader. Liberals are blind to those differences. Battening Down the Bushies posted Mon, 28 Apr 2003 02:37:08 -0700 Got a hot date in Lafayette Square? *** Well, forget it - it looks like barring U.S. citizens from the White House (which we bloody well own!), blocking traffic, throwing Jersey barriers around the Washington Monument, installing Orwellian surveillance cameras on the mall, surrounding the city with Stinger missiles, and generally turning Washington, D.C., into a virtual arms compound wasn't enough for the paranoid Bushy Bunch; now the city's famed Lafayette Park is off-limits. The hell with it. Who wants to feel like a damned criminal at every turn? I'll take my tourist dollars where the atmosphere isn't quite so 1984, thank you very much. I'm glad I got to actually touch the Lincoln Memorial, and wander completely unsupervised all over Arlington National Cemetery... What's next - the Vietnam Wall behind bulletproof glass? No wonder everything's so screwed up in Washington - I'm sure the city's feng shui is a mess. *** First one to identify the movie the "hot date in Lafayette Square" line is from is a... you guessed it! Quit, Sacked, Quit, Sacked, Quit... posted Mon, 28 Apr 2003 01:32:14 -0700 For Muse-Sick's reference the next time somebody "resigns," Plato's growing Rhetoric File, and everybody's head-shaking bemusement... Reuters: White quits as U.S. Army secretary Washington Times: Army Secretary White steps down Fox: Army Secretary Thomas White Resigns CNN: Army secretary resigns on Rumsfeld's demand The Guardian (U.K.): Rumsfeld Said to Fire Army Secretary USA Today: Rumsfeld fired Army secretary Thomas White Associated Press: Army Secretary Fired Sunday Times (Australia): Army chief marches out The War Is Over... Again posted Mon, 28 Apr 2003 01:21:52 -0700 No, not Iraq - Afghanistan. Seems Washington has seen fit to end combat... twice (note the date on each article): U.S. officials have concluded after 10 months of war that the combat mission of U.S. conventional military troops in Afghanistan is largely over and that whatever fighting remains is likely to be carried out by small numbers of Special Forces troops and CIA operatives. War Shifts From Combat Sweeps to Small Units Probing Shadows Washington Post July 7, 2002 Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today he will meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss a formal declaration ending combat operations by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and shifting their role to promoting stability in most parts of the country. U.S. to Announce End of Afghan Combat Washington Post April 27, 2003 Speaking of Afghanistan, were you aware that Rummy was planning on a trip there? Well, he's canceled it - and he's not saying why. Let's try to figure out why, shall we? Could it be the ongoing rocket attacks on U.S. targets, or land mines (that just killed 22 troops (including ten U.S. soldiers)? Could it be the "factional fighting" on the Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border?  Could it be the warning of suicide attacks by those to whom the Afghan warlords refer as "many bin Ladens"? I say all of the above. Not that Rummy would ever be in actual physical danger himself, mind you - but he might have a bit of trouble explaining that the fighting bloody well isn't over... and never was. Shocker: Latest U.S. Human-Rights Abuse posted Sun, 27 Apr 2003 20:49:22 -0700 Y'all remember the outrage at the exposure of American POWs on Iraqi television? No doubt about it: It was a clear violation of the Geneva Convention. No argument from me on that. But at least the Iraqis let the Americans keep their damned clothes on, and didn't humiliate them by scrawling anti-American epithets across their chests with Magic Markers! Fury Rages After U.S. Forces Display Iraqi Thieves Naked "Some of them [Iraqi inhabitants] gave us the idea so we took the clothes and burned them before we pushed them out with thief written on their chest. It was quite successful." Lt. Eric Canaday The United States was at the center of a new human rights row after four alleged Iraqi thieves were paraded naked in a Baghdad park by U.S. occupation forces on Friday, April 25. The humiliating spectacle of young men running to hide their shame was captured by at photographer for Norway's Dagbladet newspaper, which quoted a U.S. officer as saying the deterrent was effective. ... "If these pictures are accurate, this is an appalling way to treat prisoners. Such degrading treatment is a clear violation of the responsibilities of the occupying powers, said [Amnesty International] Director Kate Allen said. The four victims had their clothes burned before being publicly humiliated in the Zawra Park which is said be plagued by thieves trying to reach U.S. weapons store, said Mirror. A Muslim member of the Delta Squadron 10 Engineer Corps is alleged to have written _ Ali Baba. Haram _ in Arabic across the men _ s chests before they were evicted at gunpoint from an amusement park in the city. The phrase scrawled across the mens _ chests in black marker pen is a reference to the tale of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves and can be roughly translated as the vernacular for "sinful thieves _ . Times Online (U.K.) The degraded prisoners had the words "Ali Baba, Haram" - "Thief, Unclean" - scrawled in Arabic on their chests. ... Group Commander Eric Canaday, of 10th Engineer Corps, is quoted in Dagbladet as saying, "I think our job is to keep people out of the park to prevent theft of weapons." Lt Canaday added: "We have talked with the Iraqi inhabitants. Some of them gave us the idea so we took the clothes and burned them before we pushed them out with thief written on their chest. It was quite successful." The U.S. soldiers were seen chasing the Iraqi men shouting "Ali Baba, Ali Baba". All four ran as fast as they could to hide their nakedness, according to onlookers. Three of the young men got away... [20-year-old Zian Djumma] told Dagbladet, "This was terrible. Now I only want to go home and find a hand grenade and throw it at the soldiers. Not only against those who did it to us but at everybody. I hate the Americans for this." ... IslamOnline April 26, 2003 Here is the Dagbladet article, with pictures. And here is Amnesty International's statement. And if you're one of those xenophobic types who dismisses all "foreign" news sources, here's an AP link for you. Miracle on Christopher Street? posted Sun, 27 Apr 2003 20:27:09 -0700 Has Andrew Sullivan finally begun to see the light? Maybe just a teeny-tiny little splinter of light? Andy, Andy, Andy... You're so bright, and such a good writer... When, oh when are you going to realize that your own political party hates your gay ass? They always have, and they always will. Dear, poor, misguided Andy - come into the light!  Remember, even David Brock found his way after a lifetime of crimes you couldn't even begin to approach - and if we can forgive him, we can forgive you. I'll even introduce you to some boys who can help you shop for something other than those constipated Ivy League shirts and ten-pound Cordovan shoes I'm sure you wear. *** *** First one to identify the movie the "ten-pound Cordovan shoes" line is from is queer! George W. Bush: Not Just a Write-In for Alabama Anymore posted Sun, 27 Apr 2003 19:03:42 -0700 Methinks Shrubby's attempt to exploit 9-11 for his 2004 campaign stands a chance of backfiring in his smirky little face: No offense to Alabama, but it might get a bit dicey if he tries to convince two more states - plus the District of Columbia - to change state election laws so that he can qualify for inclusion on the '04 ballot. Believe it or not, both Alabama and West Virginia - as conservative as they may be - are hard to call on this one - so don't expect either to cave in immediately (as Idaho and Indiana, sadly but expectedly, already have). Alabama has a Republican governor, but the state legislature is Democratically-controlled. However, if the Dem legislators do the right thing and refuse to kowtow to the Gov, there will likely be a major anti-Dem backlash. On the other hand, the Alabama Repub legislators have been notorious lately for blocking all sorts of Dem-proposed bills - and if the Repubs cry "partisanship" over this one, they'll expose themselves as the true hypocrites. West Virginia, believe it or not, is also Dem-controlled - and they've got a Democratic governor, too. And don't give up too easily on D.C., either. It's never mattered that the White House in sitting right in the center of town; Washington, D.C., is still a city in its own right, and a heavily Democratic one at that. Since I'm a cynic and a pessimist, I actually do expect AL, WV, and D.C. to fold - but not without a fight. As for my own state - let's just see Georgie try to bully California into accommodating him, after giving the Golden State the biggest screwing in history from the moment he moved into President Gore's house. (Now, let's hope my faith is justified, and I'll still be able to fly the bear with pride come this summer.) In any case, no matter which way the states go, there's a larger issue at hand: George W. Bush was installed in the White House on the premise that state election deadlines do count. Start invalidating election laws, and it will be time to call Cruella de Harris on the carpet for real this time - as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. Hey, Fat Tony - care to re-open the case of Selection 2000 and be forced to invalidate the entire Bush II "presidency"? It's time somebody teach Georgie that he can't change every damned rule, every damned time, to suit his own damned agenda. More Eye Candy? Uh, Not Exactly! posted Sun, 27 Apr 2003 15:55:12 -0700 Don't ask me where this pic came from - I have no idea; one of my li-buh-rul friends forwarded it to me. (And I apologize profusely for the resulting gags and spit-takes this has undoubtedly caused - but I couldn't resist.) I'll make up for it with my favorite Dubya joke: So, one day in the far, far future, Dubya dies and goes straight to Hell, where Satan is waiting for him. "I don't know what to do," says Satan. "You're at top of the list, but there's no room in Hell right now. You definitely have to stay here, so I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I've got some folks here who weren't quite as bad as you were. I'll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. I'll even let YOU decide who leaves." Dubya thinks this sounds pretty fair, so Satan leads him down a long corridor, and opens the first door. Inside is Ronald Reagan and a swimming pool. Ronnie keeps diving in and surfacing, getting out, diving in and surfacing ... over and over and over again, forever. "No, sir," says Dubya, "that isn't for me." Satan leads him to the next room. Inside is Richard Nixon with a sledgehammer and an enormous pile of rocks. All he does is swing that hammer, breaking big rocks into little rocks, over and over and over. "No, I don't think that's for me," says Dubya. Satan opens the next door. Inside, Dubya sees Bill Clinton tied to a Barcalounger, with Monica Lewinsky on top of him, doing what she always did best. Dubya blinks and looks again. He rubs his eyes. Then he smiles. "Right, sir," he says to Satan. "This, I can can handle, for all eternity." Satan smiles, too. "OK, Monica - you're free to go!" Gitmo Update: Rummy, Myers Dis Concerns for Child Welfare posted Sun, 27 Apr 2003 15:17:25 -0700 A senior United Nations envoy has called on the United States to take prompt action over the fate of three teenage boys being held with other terror suspects in its prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Olara Otunnu, the special representative for the rights of children in war, told BBC News that the UN expected America to fulfil its obligations under international law. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has defended the detention of the boys - aged between 13 and 15 - at Camp Delta, saying they are "enemy combatants", captured while fighting for the Taleban or al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. General Richard Myers, chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the boys were being held "for a very good reason - for our safety". "They may be juveniles - but they're not on a Little League team anywhere," he said at a news conference along with Mr Rumsfeld at the Pentagon on Friday. "They're on a major league team, and it's a terrorist team. Some have killed. Some have stated they're going to kill again." ... If the teenagers were found to have been fighting as child soldiers, Mr Otunnu said, they should be demobilised, reintegrated and rehabilitated. ... "We do not sentence children to jail. We do not punish them. We give them healing and get them rehabilitated." One of the youths has been identified by Canadian media reports as a Canadian citizen wanted by the US over a grenade attack in Afghanistan which killed a US soldier. ... "That the US sees nothing wrong with holding children at Guantanamo and interrogating them is a shocking indicator of how cavalier the Bush administration has become about respecting human rights," [Amnesty International] spokesman Alistair Hodgett told the Associated Press news agency. US challenged over boy prisoners BBC News April 26, 2003 Officials ADMIT No WMD; War = Excuse to Flex U.S. Muscle posted Sun, 27 Apr 2003 15:14:33 -0700 Reason for War? White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed Everything To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war - a global show of American power and democracy. Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans. "We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." ... The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed everything, including the Bush administration's thinking about the Middle East - and not just Saddam Hussein. Senior officials decided that unless action was taken, the Middle East would continue to be a breeding ground for terrorists. Officials feared that young Arabs, angry about their lives and without hope, would always looking for someone to hate - and that someone would always be Israel and the United States. Europeans thought the solution was to get a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But American officials felt a Middle East peace agreement would only be part of the solution. The Bush administration... decided it must flex muscle to show it would fight terrorism, not just here at home and not just in Afghanistan against the Taliban, but in the Middle East, where it was thriving. Officials deny that Bush was captured by the aggressive views of neo-conservatives. But Bush did agree with some of their thinking. ... The Bush administration wanted to make a statement about its determination to fight terrorism. And officials acknowledge that Saddam had all the requirements to make him, from their standpoint, the perfect target. Other countries have such weapons, yet the United States did not go to war with them. And though Saddam oppressed and tortured his own people, other tyrants have done the same... But Saddam was guilty of all these things and he met another requirement as well - a prime location, in the heart of the Middle East, between Syria and Iran, two countries the United States wanted to send a message to. ... But what if Sept. 11 had never happened? Would the United States have gone to war with Iraq? Administration officials and others say no, at least not now. ... Listen closely, officials said, to what Bush was really saying to the American people before the war. "I hope they understand the lesson of September the 11th," Bush said on March 6. "The lesson is, is that we're vulnerable to attack, wherever it may occur, and we must take threats which gather overseas very seriously. We don't have to deal with them all militarily, but we have to deal with them." ... One official said that in the end, history and the American people will judge the United States not by whether U.S. officials find canisters of poison gas or vials of some biological agent. History will judge the United States, the official said, by whether this war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate America. ABC News April 25, 2003 The only surprise in this is that anyone in the know would 'fess up this early in the game, even off the record. Why has anyone spoken at all? Remember, you will not hear anything from the American media that the White House doesn't want you to hear... which suggests that this "admission" is just a deliberate ploy to... What? Class? Anyone? Could this "confession" just be another nail in somebody's coffin? But whose coffin?  Who do they want to bury? Tony Blair? His future rests on the existence of WMD in Iraq. Colin Powell? His entire U.N. presentation depended on the existence of WMD in Iraq. I say neither - because if the goal were to submarine Blair and/or Powell, this "leak" would have come from within the White House. And the ABC report (rather carefully) cites only unnamed "officials inside government and advisers" - not anyone in the White House. If the source was within the WH, I'm pretty certain ABC would have emphasized that, for the sake of credibility. Now, ask yourself: Who "resigned" the same day this report came out? Tommy White, are you our new Deep Throat? If you'd like a beautiful dissection of the White House bullshit factor, Media Whores has a great piece up on their front page right this second (go look now, before it gets moved). And here's a great companion piece - Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies - from the ever-reliable Independent. Santorum Update: WH No Longer Mum on Gay-Basher posted Sun, 27 Apr 2003 15:03:29 -0700 Get ready to throw up: White House Defends Santorum Aides Say Bush Believes Pa. Senator Is an 'Inclusive Man' The White House yesterday broke its silence over controversial remarks on homosexuality made by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), calling the number three Senate Republican leader "an inclusive man." President Bush's aides defended Santorum, a close White House ally and key social conservative, after the senator provoked a furor by condemning homosexual acts along with bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. "The president has confidence in the senator and believes he's doing a good job as senator," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters yesterday, four days after Santorum's remarks were reported. The spokesman also said Bush "believes the senator is an inclusive man." In taking that stand, Bush sided with social conservatives, who had criticized White House silence on the matter, and against moderate Republican groups and lawmakers who had condemned Santorum's remarks. But Fleischer did not endorse Santorum's remarks on homosexuality, saying Bush "doesn't ask that question about people"... The strong defense of Santorum was strikingly different from Bush's approach to remarks made by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) in December that were seen as praising segregation. After the White House initially supported Lott, Bush publicly rebuked him and set in motion Lott's removal as Senate Republican leader. In the case of Santorum, Bush had a simpler decision than he faced with Lott. Santorum is much more strongly supported by the party's conservative base than Lott was, and, strategists said, independent voters were much less likely to be alienated by Bush condoning anti-gay remarks than racist remarks. ... Washington Post April 25, 2003 Worth the click to read the rest - if you can stomach it. (Or you may want to try the slightly more palatable GOP defends Ayatollah Santorum and give Salon your traffic instead. Salon's also got a great picture of Santorum, who - yes - always looks this genetically defective.) Testing... Testing... Is This Thing On? posted Sun, 27 Apr 2003 14:26:54 -0700 What a difference a day makes Twenty-four little hours... I should be used to this by now: All the big news stories break between late Friday night and early Saturday morning. Of course they do - what better time for bad news to come down the pike than when most Americans are off doing whatever it is they do on weekends, and away from their TVs, newspapers, and computers? No matter. It just means there's going to be about five times as much news as usual to check out today.  That means it's highly likely even the fresh stuff is going to run off the screen before the end of the day. So do check that little drop-down menu box at the top of your screen to see if you've missed anything. Also, in case you missed it, I posted Part 2 of the Colin Powell saga just before the journalspace server blew up Friday night. FLASH: Resignation! (But It's Not Powell - Yet) posted Sat, 26 Apr 2003 01:20:09 -0700 Army Secretary Thomas White Resigns Post Army Secretary Thomas White, Who Has Been at Odds With Donald Rumsfeld, Resigns His Post Army Secretary Thomas White, whose tenure as civilian chief of the military's largest service was marked by tensions with his boss, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, is leaving office. A brief Pentagon statement late Friday announcing the resignation gave no reason for White's decision, and he made no public comment. In the statement, Rumsfeld tersely thanked White for his "long and able service to the country." He said White's departure date had not yet been determined. White's office had no immediate comment on the resignation of the former career Army officer. His departure portends a major shakeup in Army leadership. The top uniformed officer, Gen. Eric Shinseki, is due to finish his term as Army chief of staff in June. President Bush has not nominated a successor. Speculation that White would quit has circulated widely for many months... White, 59, became engaged in a public dispute with Rumsfeld last year over the defense secretary's proposal to cancel the Crusader artillery project... That was one of several areas of tension between Army leaders and Rumsfeld... White also became embroiled in a controversy over his former role as an executive with Enron Corp., the scandal-ridden energy trading company. ... Associated Press April 26, 2003 Countdown to Powell Resignation, Part 2 of 5 posted Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:43:39 -0700 The bottom line: I simply cannot comprehend how any African-American - or any other non-"mainstream" Republican, such as a Log Cabinite queer - can believe that the perceived benefits of GOP membership (i.e., fiscal and social conservatism) outweigh the party's long history of very real discrimination and thinly-veiled disdain toward all racial, cultural, and social minorities. It's utterly tragic when a member of any minority group possessed of traditional conservative ideals sees no alternative to subjugating himself to the Republican party. Contrary to popular belief, "conservative" and "Republican" are not mutually inclusive terms. In a frank look at J.C. Watts' autobiography, Washington Monthly writer Ta-Nehisi Coates elaborates: "Certainly one can hold conservative principles and question America's historic relationship with African Americans. ... But the GOP's rigidity, and ultimately, its tendency to airbrush the reality of racism... African Americans are acutely aware of this, and thus are acutely aware of the difference between being a conservative and being a Republican. While they don't advertise it, many blacks fall into the former category, but as things are, very few will ever fall into the latter." White Republicans love this kind of stuff. They wink and nod each time black Republicans claim that racism is a thing of the past, that whites and blacks are free to compete equally. Black Republicans have fooled themselves into believing that white Republicans are their brethren. Bill Maxwell St. Petersburg Times December 8, 1999 And any Republican, white or black, who denies the pervasive racism within the party is either lying or in complete denial. If race wasn't such a thorny issue for Republicans, they wouldn't be killing themselves trying to appeal to the elusive black voting bloc - while having no idea why their tactics aren't working. Colin Powell, meanwhile, who has alienated the voters who could have boosted him right into the White House, is done - and he has no one with any measurable influence in the white neo-con camp to rely on. He's served his purpose, and he's being spat out before your eyes. The reason you're now hearing more about the divisions within the ranks is that the White House wants you to hear it. The Bush administration is publicly distancing itself from Powell, so that his eventual (read: forced) resignation will come as no surprise to you. And if the team pariah refuses to resign? Well, you might expect him to get the sack - but in Powell's case, that doesn't seem likely. He still garners overwhelming respect from the general public, and he's often perceived as Bush's ace in the hole in the game of appealing to African-Americans. That thinking is awfully näive - and, in fact, downright insulting, as if to suggest that black Americans can't see past skin color. And it's this very thinking that has many Republicans drooling over the idea of Al Sharpton winning the Democratic nomination in 2004. In fact, they're dying for him to run, believing his divisive presence will ensure that Election '04 is a sweep for Junior. (Why do you think the GOP backed Ralph Nader's 2000 run on the Green Party ticket - even paying for pro-Nader ads in order to tip the scales against Al Gore? Why do you think 40% of all Californians who voted for Nader in 1996 were registered Republicans? What do you mean, you didn't know that? You didn't actually expect the Right to play fair, did you? Come on, folks - this is the Party of Dirty Tricks we're talking about.) So while the arrogant and overconfident Repubs are fooling themselves into thinking 2004 is going to be a cakewalk (and underestimating the likes of Dean, Kerry, and even that longshot, Edwards), they're completing ignoring the real problem of unleashing Powell from the Bush cabal: Powell may just decide to make a run for the presidency himself. Not in 2004 - but 2008 is wide open. It's extremely doubtful that Powell could or would win (where's he going to find a voting base?) - and he certainly wouldn't win the GOP nomination; you think the major funders of the GOP would ever allow it? The simple truth is that the Religious Right is the engine that drives the modern Republican party - and the Religious Right is inextricably tied to Christian Reconstructionism - which is dangerously close to Neo-Confederacy. Of course, Powell could always run as an independent. He'd have to. (But again, who would his base be?) In the end, if I could feel any sympathy for Powell, it would be at his own realization of how he'd been fooling himself into believing he was ever in with the in-crowd. But I honestly don't think he was ever fooling himself. Some people just sell their souls. In any case, the excuse of self-delusion is moot. The writing is on the wall. So prepare yourself for the "resignation" (read: sacking) of Colin Powell - and get ready for the man who's bucking (albeit vainly) for the appointment as the next U.S. Secretary of State: that neo-con of neo-cons, that chubby-cheeked leprechaun of evil, that bad penny we'd hoped had fallen irretrievably through the sewer grate, but which (to further mix metaphors) keeps coming back like a nagging cough - or a worrisome lump years after you thought you were disease-free. Truth is, the disease was never cured; it wasn't even in remission. And with the re-appearance of Newt Gingrich, it shows all the signs of an alarmingly rapid metastasis. Stay tuned for Part 3. Eye Candy for Free-Speech Advocates Only! posted Fri, 25 Apr 2003 13:22:36 -0700 Stop drooling - the issue won't be out 'til next week - but Entertainment Weekly has released the cover for your enjoyment (and definitely mine!). Nah, I didn't post this for some sort of gratuitous thrill (well, mostly not) - the cover photo is a great statement, and I can't wait to read the feature story, in which the Dixie Chicks reportedly "fire back at their critics." You'll either have to buy the mag, already subscribe to it, or be an AOL user to read the feature online - but, hey, with a cover like this, why wouldn't you buy it? Me, I'll have one ear cocked for the sound of the mail truck all week. Go, Chicks! You've made me a fan - and I can't stand country music. Countdown to Powell Resignation, Part 1 of 5 posted Fri, 25 Apr 2003 03:57:33 -0700 Settle in for a long one, folks - and get ready to either cheer (if you're a liberal) that I'm dragging the GOP's "race card" out into the open, or (if you're a conservative) burn me in effigy. Is this a smear piece on the GOP? Nope, it's just the truth. Is it a kick in the pants to African-Americans? Nope - it's a kick in the pants to anyone who's been duped by the GOP. There's a big difference - and the lesson in all this applies to everyone who does not fall into the privileged rich-white-heterosexual-male category. So don't anyone (you know who you are) dare get on my case and try to pull any "racist" crap on me. I may not be black, but I belong to the one minority it's still okay to hate - and I know better than 80% of all my readers exactly what bigotry is, and how futile and self-defeating it is to suck up to your own oppressors. Because this piece is going to get some of you very hot under the collar, I'm turning comments moderation back on - which means you won't see your comments show up immediately (i.e., until I wake up tomorrow and release comments for publication). So don't let that discourage you from commenting, openly and honestly (and feel free to comment on each part - you don't have to wait until the end of Part 5). However, if all you're going to do is flame me in my own journal for laying it on the line, then don't waste your time or mine - your comments will be deleted without ado. That said, here we go with Part 1. Part 2 will arrive sometime tomorrow. It's fascinating to watch them eat their own. The neo-cons have turned on Secretary of State Colin Powell, and you are about to witness a bloodbath - or perhaps just an outwardly quiet resignation by Powell (with most of the name-calling and the hair-pulling and the tears hidden behind closed doors). It was all summed up - long before any U.S. reports (as usual) - in a March headline from the ever-reliable Guardian: Powell will take the rap for failed diplomacy Of all of Bush's cabinet, Powell is the one I dislike the least. That's not saying much; compared to anyone at all in the Bushy Bunch, even Richard Nixon looks like a real swell guy. Nevertheless, I at least respect Powell for his rational demeanor (he's the only one who looks like he actually believes what he's saying), his attempt to bring some measure of sanity to this neverending rerun of "Neo-Cons Gone Wild", and, most of all, his characteristic preference of diplomacy over militarism - save, of course, for his frantic moment in the spotlight during Show-and-Tell Day at the U.N. (Not that I think Powell was deliberately lying; I think he actually did believe that the forged documents and those cartoons of imaginary "mobile labs" - which made South Park look like an excercise in classical realism - comprised genuine "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction. But if Powell still believes that, he's very much alone; even average American conservatives have finally seen through the baloney.) And that's really my best effort to say anything nice about Powell. See, I just can't quite get the My Lai coverup out of my mind. But even aside from My Lai and bogus WMD evidence, I question Powell's judgment. I think he was a fool to give up his own shot at the presidency and join the Bush cabal. I expect there's got to be some sort of self-loathing going on in there, as well; I can't imagine why any African-American man (or woman; i.e., Condi Rice) would join a political party whose roots are so steeped in overt racism, nothing can reduce the stink of the Lotts, the Helmses, and the Cubins that pervade the party. Or, as the Rev. "Buddy" Watts told his son, former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.): "A black man voting for the Republicans makes about as much sense as a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders." (That is, of course, if the black vote is even counted in the first place.) You don't have to like my opinion (or Rev. Watts'), but it's echoed - and much more bluntly - by countless African-Americans. In Part 2, I'll quote a few black commentators who make my point better than I can. Just when you think you have every reason to detest Faux News... posted Fri, 25 Apr 2003 00:49:59 -0700 A Fox News Channel engineer has been charged with trying to smuggle stolen paintings and other souvenirs from the Iraqi war into the United States. According to the below federal affidavit, Benjamin Johnson, 27, tried last Thursday to get the booty past Customs agents at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.. Included in Johnson's stash were paintings boosted from one of the lavish palaces occupied by Uday Hussein... The Smoking Gun April 22, 2003 Choose Your Poison posted Thu, 24 Apr 2003 19:09:43 -0700 Hey, folks, I have a couple of long pieces I've been working on, and I can't decide which one to go with first, so I want to know what you would like to see: More dish on the Neil Bush divorce... ...with a follow-up on Neil's scandalous past and dubious future (including horrifying stories about teenaged George W.) Colin Powell getting stabbed in the back by the Bush admin... ...with a follow-up on a subject hardly anybody will touch: African-American Republicans I'm too lazy to set up a poll - so hit me with your choice(s) in the comments... or let me know if there's something (or someone) else you'd like me to rip to shreds. I'm in a real shreddin' kind of mood tonight. ]:) More News to Boil Your Blood By posted Thu, 24 Apr 2003 17:14:41 -0700 Screw state elections laws! Georgie's got his own deadline to meet in order to exploit the deaths of 3,000 Americans: Unless Alabama's election law is changed, there could be one notable candidate missing from the state's 2004 presidential election ballot - President Bush. The problem is that the Republican National Convention is being held later than usual to avoid conflict with the Olympics, and the GOP won't choose a candidate until September 2 - two days after Alabama's August 31 deadline to certify presidential contenders. Republicans are asking the Democrat-controlled Legislature to change the law and extend the deadline until September 5. ... Bush may not make Alabama's ballot CNN April 23, 2003 As tempting as it is to wish that Texas would just secede from the Union once and for all, one must remember that there are plenty of liberals and innocent children in the Lone Star State - as well as countless soccer moms who don't yet realize how they're getting screwed without so much as a kiss. But they'll find out. Boy, will they find out: State budget cuts will affect a variety Not really blood-boiling - just mildly amusing: Rick Santorum is not just a bigot and a hypocrite - he's a disorganized mess, too: i wrote a letter to r. santorum... and now i can't stop the replies! AI Weighs in on Gitmo Children posted Thu, 24 Apr 2003 16:59:04 -0700 Children Detained at Guantanamo Should Be Released, Says Amnesty International Amnesty International today called for the immediate release of the children in detention at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay. If the US military will not release the children, then they should be charged with a recognizable offense, provided with full judicial safeguards applying to youthful offenders, and transferred to a suitable juvenile detention facility, the organization stated. ... Most of the 600-plus detainees in Guantanamo are confined to tiny cells for virtually 24 hours a day and reportedly allowed to exercise in shackles for only 15 minutes twice a week - conditions which in their totality Amnesty International believes can amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. These conditions are of concern for all detainees, but are particularly shocking when applied in the case of juveniles - some of whom may have been held there for many months, with no end in sight. Even if the children are held in a less restrictive section of the facility, the general conditions of their detention, coupled with the denial of access to courts, families or lawyers, is in serious breach of the special protections that should be afforded to juvenile detainees. Amnesty International is particularly disturbed by reports about the interrogation of the children. ... The United States last year ratified the treaty on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which reaffirms that "the rights of children require special protection" ... Amnesty USA April 23, 2003 If This Doesn't Outrage You, You're Not Human posted Thu, 24 Apr 2003 00:45:27 -0700 You're not going to believe this. I'm reeling in shock - although, frankly, I'm surprised anything could shock me anymore. Children held at Camp Xray, US admits The US military has revealed it is holding juveniles at its high-security prison for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, known as Camp Xray. The commander of the joint task force at Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller, says more than one child under the age of 16 is at the detention centre. However, Maj Gen Miller has revealed little more about their welfare. Maj Gen Miller says the US is holding "juvenile enemy combatants" at the centre, confirming rumours of children being held. He has refused to reveal how many there are, their exact ages or their countries of origin. ... The children are still being interrogated and will continue to be held at Guantanamo. ... ABC (Australia) April 22, 2003 And think about this: If there is even one child under the age of 16 now, it means he was captured, transported to Cuba, and has been rotting in a cage at Gitmo for nearly a year and a half - or since he was between 13 and 14 years old. I am so angry right now, I can't even write. I'm sure it's best I don't even try. Deep Throat Unmasked? posted Wed, 23 Apr 2003 21:41:50 -0700 Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy! My absolute, all-time, favorite part of the whole Watergate saga: the identity of Deep Throat! For nearly 30 years, my money's been on John Dean. Well, if the result of "four years of painstaking detective work" turns out to be correct, I'll be quite satisfied at being so close to the mark: Deep Throat said to be... Yep, Iraq Sure is Happy with Us... Not. posted Wed, 23 Apr 2003 20:34:24 -0700 As Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's candidate for leader of Iraq, was being asked if he was a thief, the sound of gunfire interrupted the press conference. Mr Chalabi insisted his conviction for embezzling $60m (£38m) was all a plot. ... But the shooting was just a vignette of post-Saddam politics in the Iraqi capital. Mr Chalabi, who left Iraq 45 years ago at the age of 12 and has just been flown back by the Americans, laid out his grand plans for the future of the country to the media. The reality, however, was out in the streets. ... In August 1989 [Chalabi] had been accused of fraud in Jordan over the collapse of Petra Bank, which he owned. He left for a holiday in Damascus _ in the boot of a friend's car _ and was convicted in absentia. ... In an increasingly surreal atmosphere he refused to explain what the flag of his movement _ yellow, green and blue with what looked like red cluster bombs in the middle _ symbolised. It was being carried by the Free Iraqi Forces, he said. But who exactly were they? "They are brave volunteers who are part of the coalition forces. Just like the British they are under General Tommy Franks," he responded. ... Gunfire interrupts first press conference by 'Pentagon's man' The Independent April 19, 2003 And if the Iraqis don't waste Chalabi on purpose, the U.S. just might do it by accident: Ahmed Chalabi, the man the Pentagon has been pushing as the face of the new Iraq, is mourning the first fatalities within his ranks. Two members of Mr Chalabi's pro-US Iraqi National Congress (INC) and one member of his militia, the Free Iraqi Forces, were shot dead by US Marines trying to protect a bank in Baghdad. ... The three men were shot in their car in the Iraqi capital late on Friday by a US Abrams tank outside the Central Bank, where US Marines were mounting guard to stop armed men who had been trying to blast their way into the vaults using rocket-propelled grenades and welding equipment. ... INC and American sources say the US Marines opened fire because of a misunderstanding. The men in the car, five in all, did not realise they were being told by the American troops to leave the area. Three were killed; two injured and taken by the Americans for treatment. ... The US Army has apologised, conceding unhappily that _ as one marine put it _ they "shot the good guys". ... Chalabi's men shot dead by American Marines The Independent April 22, 2003 Meanwhile, Iraqis show deep appreciation for their "liberation": Over four million Shiite Iraqis here on Wednesday took to streets to mourn the holy ritual of Arba'een in what later became a huge rally to voice anger at the foreign occupation of the country. An official with the Islamic Amal Organization of Iraq told IRNA that the mourners, most of whom had walked to Kerbala from other cities, were chanting slogans to condemn the presence of US and British troops in the country, and to support the establishment of an Islamic government in the country. The slogans included "Death to Israel", "Death to the US", "Yes to Islam", "Yes to Islamic Source of Emulation", "Yes to Freedom", and "Yes to Islamic Government". ... Shiite Iraqis stage huge anti-US rallies in Kerbala IRNA April 23, 2003 Joe Lieberman Possessed by Spirit of Actual Democrat! posted Wed, 23 Apr 2003 20:05:48 -0700 Lieberman Slams Bush On Environment President Bush's record on environmental issues is "the worst since the modern environmental movement began," Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said Tuesday. The president "wants to protect the power plants that make out air dirtier instead of protecting the people that are hurt by that pollution," said Lieberman, a Democratic presidential candidate, at an Earth Day news conference. "He wants to open up more and more of our public land to drilling and logging and mining. ... He tried to roll back the protections to keep our water safe from arsenic poisoning." In addition, Lieberman said, "The president has done nothing but keep his head in the clouds when it comes to global warming." Associated Press April 22, 2003 Fine, Joe - I'm all for anybody calling Bush on the carpet, but you lost any respect I once had for you a long time ago, and you wouldn't get my vote in the primaries if you were the last self-proclaimed Democrat on the planet. You're a DINO, Joe. You're wishy-washy, you're a Bush suck-up, and you're further to the right than John McCain. And before somebody hits me with the anti-Semite label, let's make it clear that I'm talking about your record. Frankly, every time you pop up in the news, I'm more inclined to believe you're nothing but an elephant in a donkey disguise. Look at you, Joe! Worse than the Dems who willingly but reluctantly (and stupidly) changed stripes to vote yes on Bush's "war resolution" - Daschle, Clinton, Kerry, Biden, Feinstein, and all the rest - you were in favor of attacking Iraq from day one - and insinuated your beaming visage into every photo-op with the Little Cowboy, at every opportunity. You supported a modified version of Bush's "faith-based" initiative - why, I'll never know (and I hate to suggest that a person should be judged by the company he keeps, but when that company is Rick Santorum - well, you figure it out). Do you actually think that load of doubletalk was ever intended for use by any organization falling outside the narrow definition of fundamentalist Christianity? And what's this with supporting school vouchers? I can't decide if that's as bad as the "faith-based" push - but your support of either isn't one-tenth as appalling as your endorsement of Ashcroft's T.I.P.S. program. What were you thinking? Did you really believe that a government-sanctioned spy on every American street corner would be a good thing? Were you one of those who said, "Only people who have something to hide should be worried"? Or was it something more than that? In any case, I'm glad you did a one-eighty on T.I.P.S. - but it doesn't inspire my confidence in you: Your about-face was typical of the way you backpeddle the moment it becomes clear that an idea is a most unpopular one. Speaking of having something to hide - you're an Enron payee, Joe! You accepted more filthy lucre both directly and indirectly from that icon of corporate corruption than any other Democrat in Congress! And when that uncomfortable little fact came to light, you mysteriously went silent on the issue of catching and punishing book-cookers. And speaking of crooked corporate shenanigans, you sided with the Repubs (again!) and voted to override President Clinton's veto of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act - a bill to protect corporate executives from shareholder lawsuits. Had you done the right thing and voted against the override, there might still be an Enron - in which case there would still be a whole bunch of Enron employees not out pounding the Texas pavement looking for work, and a whole bunch of Enron shareholders who might have fared this screwed economy just a little bit better had their life savings not been wiped out the minute the company collapsed. Why, Joe? What's the real reason you wanted to protect corporate executives from simple accountability? And what in the world provoked you to attack Hollywood? Did Lynne Cheney sneak into your bedroom one night and bite you in the neck? Finally, how dare you criticize Al Gore for being a "populist"? Worse yet, you went on television to undermine any hope of victory for YOUR running mate during the Florida recount. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! What, were you so pissed about losing your chance at a corner office in the White House for four years that you turned on Gore for revenge? What kind of Democrat are you? Certainly not a loyalist. No, no, no - in my book, there's only one name for you: DINO. Democrat In Name Only. Sure, you've got a pretty good record on a woman's right to choose, I'm grateful for your partial support of gay rights, and I was impressed that you drew attention to the union-busting addendum furtively inserted into the Homeland Security Bill. But, geez, Joe, if you went the other way on these issues, you would be a Republican. Even the most backhanded support of gay rights and trade unions is an absolute mandate if you want to keep people thinking you're actually a Democrat. And I do mean backhanded: On the gay-rights issue alone, you may have supported hate-crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), as well as ending the ban on gays in the military (even though you wanted to relinquish the dirty work of deciding how to deal with queer service members to the president, thus absolving Congress of any responsibility). You supported the nomination of James Hormel. You co-sponsored the Ryan White CARE Act. Those are all great, Joe - but all these issues pale in comparison to your dual-whammy of voting in favor of the wholly discriminatory (and ludicrously named) "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA), and in favor of barring people with HIV/AIDS from immigrating to the United States. (It isn't TB, Joe. It's isn't even SARS. The only reason you have to be paranoid about immigrants with AIDS is if you plan on having sex with one of them.) And let's not forget that you voted in favor of an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, pushed by the hysterically homophobic Religious Right, to cut off federal funding for school programs that would "encourage or promote homosexuality" - an amendment proposed by none other than that rabidly anti-gay, racist paleo-con, Jesse Helms himself! What a dupe you were! You're not a stupid man - and yet you failed to see that this was just another Helms ploy to feed on the anti-gay paranoia of Americans even more bigoted (and dense) than Helms himself. Sure, you "recanted" your vote later, Joe - but you can't take away those hateful words that came out of your mouth at the time: "Society should not be promoting the homosexual lifestyle." And you're a Democrat? A champion of the underdog? Yeah, right, Joe. Here's a quarter - tell somebody who'll believe it. Well, anyway, thanks for slamming Bush's anti-environmental environmental policies - we need high-profile people (even you) to speak out. Dean Blasts Santorum; Senate Dems Call for Resignation posted Tue, 22 Apr 2003 14:57:54 -0700 Dean's Statement on Sen. Santorum's Offensive Remarks In an interview published yesterday with the Associated Press, Rick Santorum, the third highest ranking Republican in the Senate, compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. I am outraged by Senator Santorum _ s remarks. That a leader of the Republican Party would make such insensitive and divisive comments - comments that are derogatory and meant to harm an entire group of Americans, their friends and their families - is not only outrageous, but deeply offensive. The silence with which President Bush and the Republican Party leadership have greeted Sen. Santorum _ s remarks is deafening. It is the same silence that greeted Senator Lott _ s offensive remarks in December. It is a silence that implicitly condones a policy of domestic divisiveness, a policy that seeks to divide Americans again and again on the basis of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It is a policy that must end, and it is a policy that will end with a Dean Presidency. This Saturday, April 26th, marks the third anniversary of the signing of the Civil Unions bill in Vermont. I signed that bill because I believe no human being should be treated with less dignity than others simply because that person belongs to a different category or group. I also believe that, as Americans, it is our duty to speak up when others are treated wrongly - especially when others are treated wrongly by a member of the Senate leadership. I urge all Americans, and members of both parties, to join me in condemning Sen. Santorum _ s remarks. They are unacceptable, and silence is an unacceptable response. By standing up against such divisive rhetoric - whether one is gay, lesbian, or straight - we can begin to achieve the American ideal of equal rights for all people. Howard Dean April 22, 2003 DSCC calls for Santorum to resign leadership post The Senate Democrats' political organization on Tuesday called for Republican Sen. Rick Santorum to resign his leadership position after the lawmaker compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. One day after gay-rights groups urged GOP senators to consider removing Santorum from his leadership post, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said the two-term Pennsylvania senator should step down as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the No. 3 job in the party leadership. The DSCC called Santorum's remarks "divisive, hurtful and reckless" and said they "are completely out of bounds for someone who is supposed to be a leader in the United States Senate." In an interview with The Associated Press, Santorum criticized homosexuality while discussing a pending Supreme Court case over a Texas sodomy law. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," Santorum said in the interview, published Monday. ... DSCC calls for Santorum to resign leadership post AP April 22, 2003 Name The Next War! posted Tue, 22 Apr 2003 13:55:09 -0700 The Next War Name Generator Just use the initials of your name to pick the name of Georgie's next big war! 1. Choose the word or phrase that corresponds with the initial letter of your first name: A - Operation B - Enduring C - Interim D - Eternal E - Mission: F - Final G - Objective: H - Embedded I - Persistent J - Perpetual K - Daddy's L - Target: M - Lasting N - God's O - Righteous P - Permanent Q - Revolving R - Surgical S - Project T - Relentless U - Wanted: V - Irreversible W - Divine X - Junior's Y - Unending Z - Critical 2. Choose the word or phrase that corresponds with the initial letter of your middle name (or, if you don't have a middle name, the first initial letter of your mother's maiden name): A - Iranian B - Syrian C - Korean D - Sudanese E - Zimbabwean F - Chilean G - Venezuelan H - Russian I - Chinese J - Salvadoran K - Mexican L - Canadian M - German N - French O - Bahrainian P - Bolivian Q - Yemenese R - Indonesian S - Ukrainian T - Cuban U - Colombian V - Timorese W - Ethiopian X - Palestinian Y - Saudi Z - U.N. 3. Choose the word or phrase that corresponds with the initial letter of your last name / surname: A - Oil B - Regime Change C - Shock & Awe D - Shellshock E - Subjugation F - Overthrow G - Blowback H - Cakewalk I - Strike J - Crusade K - Surprise L - Termination M - Collateral Damage N - Peace Offense O - Impairment P - Chaos Q - Looting R - Sanctions S - Friendly Fire T - Occupation U - Liquidation V - Poverty W - Conquest X - Extinction Y - Blitzkrieg Z - Rapture Now put all three words/phrases together, in order. And your name for Georgie's new war is...? I stole the idea for this from undisclosedlocation on Democratic Underground, but that's a screen-name generator, and this, well, isn't. Yep, we sure disempowered the Ba'ath Party... Not. posted Tue, 22 Apr 2003 00:51:18 -0700 Okay, read this carefully. Make sure you get Rummy's full meaning: "[B]uilding a free Iraq is the right - indeed the responsibility - of the Iraqi people," [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld said. The interim authority is conceived of as a stepping stone in that process. It will be a temporary structure, large and inclusive, welcoming all Iraqis who agree that a new Iraq should not threaten its neighbors, should not have or make weapons of mass destruction, should not support terrorists, and should guarantee the rights of ethnic and religious groups, political freedom, individual liberty and the rule of law," he said. That process will not involve the Ba'ath Party, Rumsfeld said. That party "does not fit the conditions that I've described," he said. Coalition Civil Affairs Team Meets Free Iraqis in An Nasiriyah Defense Department report, April 15: Operations in Iraq April 15, 2003 U.S. State Dept. Web site Got it? The Ba'athists - Saddam's party - according to our intrepid SecDef, are NOT going to be involved in rebuilding Iraq, in the interim governorship of Iraq, or in enforcing the laws of Iraq. Remember that. Now... Ba'athists slip quietly back into control Less than two weeks after the collapse of the regime, thousands of members of the Arab Ba'ath Socialist party, the all too willing instrument of Saddam, are resuming their roles as the men and women who run Iraq. Two thousand policemen - all cardholding party members - have put on the olive green, or the grey-and-white uniforms of traffic wardens, and returned to the streets of Baghdad at America's invitation. ... Seasoned bureaucrats at the oil ministry - including the brother of General Amer Saadi, the chemical weapons expert now in American custody - have been offered their jobs back by the US military. Feelers have also gone out to Saddam's health minister, despite past American charges that Iraqi hospitals stole medicine from the sick. It has become increasingly apparent that Washington cannot restore governance to Baghdad without resorting to the party which for decades controlled every aspect of life under the regime. ... The Guardian April 21, 2003 Gee, is it just me, or is something really wrong with this picture? Since "regime change" has remained one of the most popular choices on Dubya's Top Ten List of Reasons to Invade Iraq, let's look up the definition of the word "regime": re·gime also ré·gime n. A form of government: a fascist regime. A government in power; administration: suffered under the new regime. A prevailing social system or pattern. The period during which a particular administration or system prevails. A regulated system, as of diet and exercise; a regimen. Dictionary.com Hmmm... That's funny. I wonder how... Oh, wait a minute! I think I understand. Let's go back about a year and a half: Allies refine definition of the endgame United States and British officials backtracked yesterday on threats to oust the the ruling Taliban, after cracks appeared in the international anti-terrorist coalition against terrorism. ... On Tuesday, Mr Blair said Britain would inflict "very considerable damage" on the Taliban if they refused to hand over Bin Laden - something Mullah Mohammad Omar has so far refused to do. The planned military action in the region "is not designed to replace one regime with another regime", [Press Secretary Ari] Fleischer said yesterday. He conceded that it was "a complicated region of the world" in which there was a "historical relationship between the Northern Alliance and Pakistan's government which the United States is aware of and sensitive to". Downing Street also distanced itself from the aim of a change of regime. "We are taking this one step at a time," one government source said. "The idea that the west wants to impose a government on Afghanistan is wrong." However, the consensus of strategists on both sides of the Atlantic is that it will probably be impossible to fulfil the official war aims of rooting out terrorist networks in Afghanistan without a change in Taliban leadership. ... Washington and its allies are caught between the looming ghosts of two previous mistakes. On the one hand, the CIA "victory" in helping drive Russian troops out of Afghanistan left in its wake only violent anarchy as the US failed to provide economic aid and the Afghan warlords fought among themselves. The chaos paved the way for the rise to power in 1996 of the Taliban. On the other hand, US strategists have long blamed the first Bush administration for failing to use the opportunity in the 1991 Gulf War to oust Saddam Hussein, who has since remained a major threat to US interests. ... The Guardian September 27, 2001 So, let's see... We can threaten to take out a regime. But then it's okay to backpeddle and say we didn't really mean it - especially when we can't even capture the guy who leads that regime. And then, to make it all okay, we get Ari Fleischer to say that it's basically just too complicated for anybody to understand. Gee, I'm still a bit confused... but since the Taliban is still in control of every inch of Afghanistan outside Kabul, and Ari says that's okay, then "regime change" must really mean: Bomb holy hell out of a country, boast that you've got both the manpower and the firepower to install a working "democracy," and then - after suddenly realizing that you don't really have the resources to do everything you said you were going to do - declare the effort a resounding success and make a big show of capturing a few stray party big-wigs, but quietly leave the functioning, day-to-day operations of the existing governing structure (i.e., "regime") intact, and rely on the bad guys to maintain order. Uh, yeah, that makes sense... about as much sense as anything else. Sure worked for Afghanistan, didn't it? By the way: Santorum is a first-class hypocrite, too. posted Mon, 21 Apr 2003 20:10:45 -0700 Boy, does that title ever invite a libel suit! Well, I'd never put such a thing in print if it wasn't true. I'll take it back only if you can come up with a better word than "hypocrite" to describe a man who champions tort reform - yet testified in his wife's $500,000 malpractice suit against her chiropractor. (Guess what Santorum is really saying is: Now that Wifey's got hers, to hell with everybody else. And for the sake of "everybody else," let's hope Jesica Santillan's death was not in vain.) Of course, Santorum is hardly the only hypocrite in the tort-reform game; TomPaine.com details a long list of Santorum's fellow hypocrites - from frivolous-lawsuit complainant Dubya himself on down. But I'll pick on Santorum, because I can't think of a bigger anti-feminist, anti-choice (but only when his own wife isn't the one considering an abortion), anti-gay, elitist, anti-environment, anti-evolution, pro-censorship, Trent Lott apologist, whose inconsistency in the area of immigration alone somehow manages to screw both immigrants and American workers at the same time, whose hands are dirty with Carlyle money, and whose politics are as entertwined with Rev. Moon as Georges I & II themselves. And he's almost as ugly as Trent Lott. (I might have used the word troglodyte in there somewhere, but to my knowledge, Santorum lives neither alone, nor in an actual cave.) Santorum: Gayness = Bestiality (tired old GOP tactics again) posted Mon, 21 Apr 2003 19:50:39 -0700 Truly amazing. Everybody I've ever met in Pennyslvania has been a rational human being. Hey, Pennsylvanians! Why didn't you vote this longtime anti-gay zealot - who thinks the United States Constitution endangers "family values" - out of office a long time ago? Don't tell me you agree with his barefoot-and-pregnant mentality... Sen. Rick Santorum, a self-described compassionate conservative intent on climbing the Republican leadership ladder, filters all politics and policy through one guiding principle: what is best for the American family. Two-parent families, says Santorum, are good. Requiring people to work is good. So is banning late-term abortions and giving religion a greater role in government. Traditional welfare, on the other hand, hurts the family. Homosexuality, feminism, liberalism all undermine the family. Even parts of the Constitution can harm the family. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," the Pennsylvania lawmaker said in a recent interview, fuming over a landmark gay rights case before the high court that pits a Texas sodomy law against equality and privacy rights. "All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family," Santorum said. "And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution." ... Family Values Drive Pa. Sen. Santorum Newsday April 21, 2003 One more excellent read on Franklin Graham's Islam-bashing posted Mon, 21 Apr 2003 19:44:44 -0700 Evangelical charities with an overt hostility to Islam are preparing to distribute food, water, medicine and building materials in Iraq, all in the name of Jesus. One of the charities, Samaritan's Purse, is run by Franklin Graham... Another is the Southern Baptist Convention, whose former president once described the Prophet Mohamed as "a demon-possessed paedophile". About 800 of SBC's volunteers are reported to be on their way to Iraq to deliver food packages labelled with a verse from St John's Gospel, in Arabic, saying that "grace and truth were realised through Jesus Christ". Such insensitivity is viewed by some as playing into the hands of those to whom the "war on terrorism" is a religious crusade. But what really riles Muslim groups all over the world is that these activities are overtly supported by the Bush administration. ... Franklin Graham has a record of hostility to Islam and unabashed proselytising, even where it is illegal. After the 1991 Gulf War, he infuriated Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of Operation Desert Storm, by shipping tens of thousands of Arabic-language New Testaments to Saudi Arabia in defiance of Saudi law and the US-Saudi military alliance. ... Such gusto has won [Franklin] many friends in the Republican Party, including Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, who has joined him on missions in Sudan. And he is a popular figure on the fundamentalist right _ an important Bush constituency that loves the idea of good versus evil and a president ordained by God to lead America in tough times. ... Evangelical crusaders prepare to fight Islam with aid and a Bible The Independent April 22, 2003 Franklin Graham, Christian Crusader posted Mon, 21 Apr 2003 15:18:21 -0700 Like the despised Carpetbaggers of yore, Graham plans to exploit the humanitarian crisis for his own calculating gain, by subjecting vulnerable Iraqis to his Faustian Christ-for-food program. Franklin Graham: Spiritual Carpetbagger CounterPunch April 11, 2003 Let's see... Go to a country where we've just finished bombing the crap out of everything... where there's still no water or electricity... where people are starving to death... and then offer them food, water, and shelter in exchange for some good, old-fashioned proselytism, courtesy of the son of one of Bush's best buddies - who (not unlike his hypocritical Jew-bashing father) claims respect for non-Christian religions, yet "invalidates" Allah and implies that the Qur'an is just a rip-off of the Bible? In the meantime, use "security concerns" as an excuse to stall the delivery of U.N. aid, and refuse to allow a British Save the Children relief plane into Iraq to do the most immediate good - sans sermons? Gosh, it almost sounds like Bush & Co. are punishing legitimate humanitarian-aid organizations - and deliberately turning a blind eye to the hoards of Christian evangelicals already in Iraq, pumped up and convertin' them danged-to-heck Iraqi heathens by the multitude. Sounds like a sweet deal for the incestuous dyad of the Bush administration and the evangelical Religious Right. God might think it sounds more like blackmail. I'll just call it opportunism. And a slap in the face to Iraqi Muslims who held out the belief that the "war on terror" would never be used as an excuse for a war on Islam. The administration's sudden fastidiousness about civil liberties has everything to do with who Franklin Graham is: not only a friend of Bush's, but, along with his supporters and the Southern Baptist Convention, arguably the largest and most loyal voting bloc in Bush's re-election strategy. Jesus in Baghdad: Why we should keep Franklin Graham out of Iraq Slate April 11, 2003 Evangelist Franklin Graham, who has just about taken over his father's group, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, runs his own relief agency... Called Samaritan's Purse, it is one of the world's largest Christian relief agencies, and it "is mobilized and poised to assist those affected by the war to liberate Iraq," reports AgapePress, a Christian News Service. ... The Reverend Graham isn't alone in pursuing a twenty-first century crusade. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination and the kingpin of proselytizers, is also planning a large relief effort in Iraq once the war ends. ... The Reverend Donald Wildmon's American Family Association (AFA) also has a plan for a relief effort incursion. Despite a banner headline at the AFA Web site that reads "Is Islam a Peaceful Religion?" (the answer is no) the pastor-with-a-plan hopes "to help raise money to help the displaced people of Iraq rebuild their lives and let them know that Christians in America care for them and want to help them through their struggle against tyranny." ... Then, there is Jeff Christopherson, pastor of the Sanctuary of Oakville, a Southern Baptist-affiliated church just outside Toronto, who reports AgapePress, "hopes to plan churches in Baghdad once the regime of Saddam Hussein is deposed." ... Finally, the anti-abortion American Life League (ALL) is warning that if Planned Parenthood has its way, all the women in Iraq will be having abortions in the near future. In a press release headlined "PPFA [Planned Parenthood Federation of America] President Gloria Feldt Wants Abortion Forced on Iraqi Refugees In Spite of Muslim Beliefs," ALL claims that when the shooting war ends, the war over abortion rights will commence. What Are Those 'Compassionate' Christians Up To Now? GayToday April 21, 2003 Franklin Graham, the Christian evangelist who has branded Islam a "very wicked and evil" religion, was the honored speaker at the Pentagon's Good Friday service. ... When Muslim groups complained that the Pentagon was "endorsing" his attacks on Islam, Mr. Graham asked for a photo op with Muslim Pentagon employees. They declined. We are not attacking Islam, but Islam has attacked us... Islam is a very evil and wicked religion. Franklin Graham October, 2001 ...when asked to clarify his statement, Graham repeated his charge that Islam, as a whole, was evil. "It wasn't Methodists flying into those buildings, it wasn't Lutherans," he said. "It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith." Preacher's Anti-Islam Remarks Mobilize White House Charisma News Service Muslims suspicious that America is on a crusade against Islam were inflamed to learn that Mr. Graham is taking his missionary act to Iraq. They are still scorched by his remarks to NBC News after 9/11: "It wasn't Methodists flying into those buildings, and it wasn't Lutherans. It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith." He wrote in his last book that Christianity and Islam were "as different as lightness and darkness," and recently told the Sunday Times of London, "The true God is the God of the Bible, not the Koran." Workers from Mr. Graham's Christian relief organization, Samaritan's Purse, were in Jordan, waiting to inveigle Iraqi infidels with a blend of kitchen pantry and Elmer Gantry. ... Maureen Dowd A Tale of Two Fridays New York Times April 20, 2003 "Groups like Franklin Graham's go in and exploit vulnerable people under the guise of humanitarian relief," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "It will be perceived as the U.S. government endorsing the activity, whether or not that's the case. And that will confirm suspicions in the Muslim world that this is really a war against Islam." A Controversial Crusade Newsday April 21, 2003 The purpose is to love and save them in "the name of Jesus Christ," [Graham] said in an interview published Thursday on Beliefnet, a multifaith Web site. "God will always give us opportunities." Muslims were outraged. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called any plan to follow the invasion of Iraq with a conversion campaign "a public relations disaster" for Bush. ... Franklin Graham has been making headlines since he prayed in Jesus' name at George W. Bush's inauguration. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, Bush has distanced himself publicly from evangelists who condemn Islam. On Thursday, Graham told USA TODAY, "I would not take advantage of these people in their hour of tragedy to force them or coerce them to make them Christian converts. I don't do that at any time." But Hooper accused Graham of having a "deceitful track record." In his 1995 autobiography, Rebel With a Cause, Graham detailed how Samaritan's Purse sent Arabic-language Christian tracts and Bibles to the Persian Gulf region before Operation Desert Storm, which broke Saudi law and ignored complaints from the Red Cross and the U.S. military. ... Aid plan criticized as effort to convert Muslims to Christianity USA Today March 29, 2003 Gee - ya don't think Samaritan's Purse might just be eligible for faith-based funding, do ya? Gee... Surprise, surprise! Here's a real Easter message. posted Sun, 20 Apr 2003 12:00:34 -0700 Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality, or religion. -- John Comenius, 17th century philosopher Dig astrology? Want some good news for a change? posted Sun, 20 Apr 2003 11:58:54 -0700 Check this out. For more, see the author's site. 10 Great Moments in Jingoism posted Sat, 19 Apr 2003 22:57:15 -0700 Especially for my fellow student of shameless media rhetoric, Plato: CNN, MSNBC and Fox News... The competitive credo all three networks seem to have followed from the very beginning - when in doubt, wave a flag - was largely a reaction to Fox, which vaulted past CNN in the past year by embracing a conservative coloring of all news. CNN rallied with some shameless patriotism of its own, as did the major networks. But before long it was the struggling MSNBC that may have wrested from Fox the mantle of most blatant, schmaltzily jingoistic network in the land. MSNBC is still a distant third in the ratings race, but it tightened the slack between it and second-place CNN. Ah, but why give MSNBC all the glory? All the networks have had their moments in the past month. It's time for the highlight reel. So pin that flag on your lapel, and let's survey the top 10 moments in jingoistic war coverage. 10. The "surgical strike" ... 10 great moments in jingoism Salon April 18, 2003 And You Think My Rants Are Nasty? posted Sat, 19 Apr 2003 22:04:14 -0700 Mark Morford is a riot - and makes me think some of you who've written me privately are right: I should do this for a living myself. Boy howdy! The Warmongers Were Right! Oh my yes. What whimpering, unadulterated embarrassment the anti-war protesters must now feel, what heaping mountains of crow we must all imbibe. This is the general sentiment, the snickering attitude hissing from the Right like hot spittle spraying all over your nuanced perspective. Hail the great victor BushCo! Ha! The U.S. kicked ass! Who's your daddy, beeyatch? Thump thump thump on the manly chest of great liberator America! Liberals suck! Go, war! It's Miller Time. ... Whoever dared doubt our brawn should be immediately hanged and castrated and laughed at and called many violently homophobic names and run over with a big bitchin' Ford Expedition! Snicker! ... The peaceniks had it all wrong, what with our lame pacifist whining about thousands of needless deaths and BushCo's mad rush for oil and vicious regional control... Why, look what a nice, bloodless war we just executed. So fun, so easy, so painless, so made-for-TV. Almost makes you wonder why we don't just keep right on going, maintain that momentum, some sort of ultraviolent mutation of Newton's law - i.e., a rabidly power-mad body in motion stays in motion - only with more decapitations and limbless children. Cool. ... Damn liberals and their incessant "big picture" crapola. Do they not see the heartwarming photos? That amazing and poignant (staged) bogus PR shot of the giant Saddam statue being (staged) pulled down by a tiny crowd of (staged) cheering Iraqis... Clearly, God loves America more than anyone. ... See all those nasty WMDs? Those sprawling nuclear facilities? The huge biotoxin factories? The Saddam Club for al Qaeda members? See? No? Oh. Well, we'll find them! Just you wait. Saddam probably saw us coming and moved them all into Syria. Yeah! That's what happened! Syria! Those bastards! Peacenik dinks. Who's laughing now? The country loves its little Bush! He can do no wrong! His approval ratings are sky high! Just like his daddy's were right after Desert Storm. Remember? Right before they nosedived to the lowest of any president in history? ... Right. Well. Never mind all that now. Dubya rules! We won! War was justified! You liberal scumsuckers sure look like fools now, boy! ... Mark Morford SFGate April 18, 2003 It's Not the Animals Who Are "Animals" posted Sat, 19 Apr 2003 21:40:33 -0700 Let's see... Three weeks of bombing and shooting left - what? - around 120 Americans, 30-something Brits, a handful of journalists, and a few thousand Iraqis dead... Five-- no, six-- no, wait, nine thousand years' worth of priceless antiquities destroyed, from the land whence both the wheel and the written word came... A library full of irreplaceable works looted and then gutted by fire... Did I leave anything out? Oh, yes, I remember now: Animals. Specifically, the animals left to fend for themselves in Baghdad's two zoos: Monkeys, bears, horses, birds and camels have disappeared, carted off by thieves or simply left to roam the streets after their cages were prised open. More than 300 animals are missing - only the lions and tigers remain. The big cats, who were obviously too fearsome for the robbers, have been left neglected and starving in their enclosures. ... Mandor, a 20-year-old Siberian tiger and the personal property of Saddam Hussain's eldest son Uday, was slumped against the green bars of his cage, his beautifully-marked coat hanging off his bones. He looked up briefly as the vet approached, only to hang his head again when he realised his keeper was empty-handed. Next door, Sudqa, a nine-year-old lioness, got to her feet and let out a low moan. The remnants of her last meal lay in the corner, a white bone chewed over and over. [Zoo veterinarian Hashim Mohammed Hussain] said in all there were seven lions and two tigers, who each consume some five kilos of meat a day. ... He said the animals were last fed properly 10 days ago, just before U.S. forces entered Baghdad. Spent casings of shells and bullets outside the zoo and a burnt-out Iraqi armoured personnel carrier are proof of the invasion. The Americans quickly swept through the west of the city, said Hussain, leaving the area in the hands of looters, who grabbed chimpanzees, Vervet monkeys, Pekinese dogs, love birds and cockatoos. ... "There is no government, no security, no organisation," Hussain said. "We are alone here and without help our animals will die." Nothing stopped Baghdad zoo looters, except lions Reuters April 18, 2003 "It seems like only the big cats and some of the larger animals, like bears, survived. A lot of animals were stolen and quite possibly eaten during the looting," he said. "That certainly occurred in Kabul, Afghanistan, where a number of those animals were taken and put in the pot. We've had reports of camels wandering around; they'll be ok, they can just nibble on whatever's around" [said David Jones, director of the North Carolina Zoo]. Baghdad Zoo Animals to Get Help From U.S. Zoos National Geographic April 18, 2003 Could this shameful act of animal cruelty have been averted? Of course it could. While U.S. soldiers stood idly by and allowed looters to plunder Baghdad with little more than a wave and a nod, the complicity of both coalition and Iraqi troops in the animals' starvation was more than merely passive. From the National Geographic story above: "In Kabul, the few staff the zoo did have there were really dedicated and never left the animals. They stayed throughout the fall of the Taliban and the American invasion," said [Jane Ballentine, a spokesperson for the American Zoological and Aquarium Association]. "In Baghdad, American and British troops, as well as the Iraqi Republican Guard, used the zoo as a staging area, and the zoo people were forced to leave. So the biggest issue will be whether those folks will be able to come back and take over the day-to-day care of the animals, getting food, the right kind of food, and shelter for the animals." Fortunately, help is on the way; numerous U.S. zoological associations (with an interim assist from a Kuwaiti group sending a two-week supply of food) are chipping in to find a solution. But as the animals haven't had a decent meal in some two weeks, it may be already too late to help. Perhaps the war lovers might be affected by this tragic tale; after all, the vast majority certainly don't seem moved by the loss of human life. Incidentally, this is not the first time allied forces have destroyed completely defenseless - and trapped - zoo animals in the cruelest of ways. CounterPunch offers a short re-telling of the stomach-turning results of the Dresden firebombing at that city's once-world-class zoo; if you're already upset by the the fate of the Baghdad animals, I warn you not to click the link. (I'll put it this way: If you're an animal lover, I guarantee it will make you cry. It did me.) The only reason I imagine you might want to read the piece is to save it for further ammunition when some idiot claims there's such a thing as a "good" or "bloodless" or "necessary" war - and all your talk of Ali Ismail Abbas, and all the others like him, falls on deaf ears. London Evening Standard Photo Fake posted Sat, 19 Apr 2003 16:49:25 -0700 Title tells all. See for yourself (and make sure to scroll down the whole page): Doctored Photo from the London Evening Standard The Memory Hole April 18, 2003 And no comment from me. I want to hear what you think. Republicans Fake Out Their Own posted Sat, 19 Apr 2003 16:46:28 -0700 With the help of a little digital wizardry, the conservative Club for Growth is airing ads showing Republican Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and George V. Voinovich (Ohio) in proximity to French flags in order to disparage their resistance to President Bush's tax-cut plans. ... The TV ads, which will run for 10 days in Maine and Ohio, recall France's opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They go on to say "some so-called Republicans," naming Snowe in the Maine ads and Voinovich in the Ohio ads, "stand in the way" of Bush's tax-cutting plans at home. Digitally inserted French flags flutter beside the senators' images. "It's hilarious," said Voinovich spokesman Scott Milburn. "It reminds me of the Iraqi information minister's daily briefing. It's so incredible that it barely deserves a response." ... Conservatives Attack Two GOP Senators With Electronically Doctored Images Washington Post April 18, 2003 Welcome to Bushonomics posted Sat, 19 Apr 2003 16:44:53 -0700 The government ran up a deficit of $252.6 billion in the first six months of the 2003 budget year, nearly twice the total for the same period a year earlier. The latest figures, released Friday by the Treasury Department, highlighted the government's deteriorating fiscal situation. Record deficits are forecast this year and next. The total deficit so far this fiscal year, from October through March, compares with a shortfall of $131.9 billion a year earlier. ... Individual income tax payments totaled $372.1 billion, representing a 6.8 percent decline from the previous year. Corporate tax payments plunged by 43 percent to $44.6 billion. That sharp drop reflected in part the impact of business tax cuts enacted last year and weaker profits, the Congressional Budget Office said. Federal spending for the six months totaled $1.08 trillion, a 6.6 percent increase from the corresponding period in fiscal 2002. ... The Bush administration has blamed the return of deficits on lingering effects of the 2001 recession and the costs of fighting terrorism at home and abroad. Democrats say a major cause of the red ink has been Bush's 10-year $1.35 trillion tax cut and what they contend are bad economic policies being pursued by the administration. ... U.S. Faces $252B Deficit So Far In '03 CBS News April 18, 2003 The part I like best is how the "sharp drop" in corporate tax payments is correctly blamed on "business tax cuts enacted last year and weaker profits" - yet no explanation is given for the 6.8% drop in individual income tax payments. Gee, ya think the reason might have anything to do with a nationwide 5.8 percent unemployment rate? (Think that's bad? Try living in Oregon, where the jobless rate stands at 7.3 percent - or California, with a jobless rate of 6.6. percent - forecast to hit 7.1 percent this year - and a state deficit climbing past the $36 billion mark.) Republicans fail their own "patriotism test" posted Fri, 18 Apr 2003 17:40:58 -0700 Contains some excellent examples of hypocrisy in the form of anti-Clinton quotes from Dubya, Ashcroft, & others... Those comments may not undermine the President as he leads us into war, and they may not give comfort to our adversaries, but they come mighty close. Dennis Hastert, 3/18/02 This destructive rhetoric does nothing more than demoralize our troops and second-guess our commander in chief. Tom Delay, 3/20/03 With countless attacks like these on Democratic leaders, Republicans set a very high standard for patriotism: if you question the President of the United States while our troops are in danger, then you are not patriotic enough. But how do these same Republicans fare under their own standards? ... Republicans fail their own "patriotism test." As our troops faced danger overseas, Republicans were strident in their criticism of President Clinton and his foreign policy, even going as far as criticizing the military campaign itself... Democratic National Committee What's Next - Pat Robertson for AIDS Czar? posted Fri, 18 Apr 2003 17:35:34 -0700 Homeland Security Names First Privacy Czar Nuala O'Connor Kelly, currently the privacy officer and chief counsel for the Department of Commerce's Technology Administration, has been named the nation's first privacy czar at the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Prior to joining the government, she was the privacy officer for online ad firm DoubleClick. At DHS, O'Connor Kelly will be responsible for privacy development and enforcement, including oversight authority of the controversial Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II (CAPPS II) program at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). ... O'Connor Kelly, 34, saw her share of privacy controversy while she was DoubleClick. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated the company over complaints that DoubleClick was violating the privacy rights of Internet users by improperly sharing personal user data. Class action suits followed the FTC probe. DoubleClick ultimately settled the lawsuits and eventually satisfied the FTC it was complying with privacy laws. Part of the company's settlement included creating a privacy compliance division, which O'Connor Kelly ran. ... internetnews.com April 17, 2003 Q. What's 1,000 Lawyers on the Bottom of the Ocean? posted Fri, 18 Apr 2003 17:32:06 -0700 A. A good start. Okay, so there are good, honest lawyers out there. But it's lawyers like these who bring countless bad-lawyer jokes to mind: After months of working below the radar, a huge U.S. legal team hired by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has sprung into action and begun a major counteroffensive against a landmark lawsuit seeking $1 trillion in damages on behalf of the victims of the September 11 terror attacks... A Legal Counterattack MSNBC April 16, 2003 I know, I know - somebody's got to defend them - just as somebody's got to clean sewers and mop up homicide scenes. But I'd rather clean sewers and mop up homicide scenes than be on the defense team for the country that sired, funded, and harbored 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers (and the country whose long history of human-rights violations and Taliban-like "punishments" are glossed right over - and thus allowed to continue - by those who have the most to lose in the oil game). And if I had to put my trust in lawyers, my money would be on Ron Motley and Alan Gerson. Still, the likelihood of the 9-11 families winning this one is grim; the Saudis are into the U.S. for some $750 billion. That equates to $1,250,000,000 (that's one and quarter-billion U.S. greenbacks) per family represented in the lawsuit. Do you think the Bush administration puts that kind of value on a single life - or 600 lives - or 2,800 - or 275 million? Neither do I. My prediction: The 9-11 families will lose. Must-Read of the Day posted Thu, 17 Apr 2003 14:56:16 -0700 Make sure you click the link and read the whole piece. You'll want to bookmark this one. [T]he man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote... He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language... and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended... And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones. Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike... He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion. ... In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display. Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism. To get [the anti-terrorism act] passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it... Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it... Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches... Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage... instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland"... As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn... if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us. Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful... His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity... He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader. He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency... and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments. His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at our disposal"... Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies... A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas... With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with [terrorists] was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece. It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, [the Prime Minister] told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria... Thom Hartmann Ignore German History at Your Own Peril April 17, 2003 Perle's "Syrian Liberation Act" posted Thu, 17 Apr 2003 11:54:19 -0700 Hey, I don't make this stuff up - I'm just prescient***: Neoconservative Richard Perle, a leading hawk in the Iraq debate, yesterday called for Congress to pass a "Syrian Liberation Act" modeled on the 1998 law that made regime change in Baghdad official U.S. policy... Hawks recycle arguments for Iraq war against Syria Washington Times April 16, 2003 I chose the ultra-far-right, scary neo-con Moonie rag, The Washington Times, to cite, because it's the rag of choice for ultra-far-right, scary neo-cons - who usually try to discredit any non-U.S. news source. But you can find the same story in the U.K.'s Islam Online, Pakistan's Daily Times, and similar mentions in India's Indian Express and Mid-Day Mumbai, among other non-Faux News sources. *** Okay, so maybe I'm not prescient - but I do pay attention to Sy Hersh. Rule of thumb: The more the neo-cons try to smear a journalist, then that's a journalist worth listening to. Can Somebody Tell Me How this "Liberal Media" Thing Works Again? posted Thu, 17 Apr 2003 10:21:49 -0700 The two commentators were gleeful as they skewered the news media and antiwar protesters in Hollywood. "They are absolutely committing sedition, or treason," one commentator, Michael Savage, said of the protesters one recent night. His colleague, Joe Scarborough, responded: "These leftist stooges for anti-American causes are always given a free pass. Isn't it time to make them stand up and be counted for their views?" The conversation did not take place on A.M. radio, in an Internet chat room or even on the Fox News Channel. Rather, Mr. Savage, a longtime radio talk-show host, and Mr. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, were speaking during prime time on MSNBC, the cable news network owned by Microsoft and General Electric and overseen by G.E.'s NBC News division... Cable's War Coverage Suggests a New 'Fox Effect' on Television New York Times April 16, 2003 Next up: Canadian Bacon becomes Homeland Ham posted Thu, 17 Apr 2003 01:32:02 -0700 On the heels of Jean Chrétien's cancellation of an April 9th trip to the U.S., Dubs has turned around and "postponed" a trip to Ottawa scheduled for May 5th. Of course, both sides deny that this has anything to do with the ongoing volleys of verbal shots fired over the bow (or border), but I'm not buying it - especially now that Georgie's turned down three new dates - in the fall (that's autumn for you non-Americans, and not a wish for anyone to pull a Jerry Ford), offered by the PM's office. Noooooooo, no tensions there (and my next-door neighbors are planning on reconciling after a "trial separation," too). And then that jackass Paul Cellucci (remember him?) has to go shoot his big mouth off again, and tell the truth. If I were Chrétien, I'd be hunkering down with Vicente Fox right about now to discuss options before travel from Halifax to Acapulco means a cruise around Cape Horn. More on Israel posted Thu, 17 Apr 2003 00:02:21 -0700 For proof of what I was saying about having to speak in "hushed tones" in the entry just below this one, check this out (it wouldn't fit in the same entry): 14 April 2003 State Department Daily Briefing Transcript (Iraq, Syria, United Nations, Venezuela, North Korea, NATO) (8880) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE DAILY PRESS BRIEFING MONDAY, APRIL 14, 2003 (ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED) BRIEFER: Philip T. Reeker, Deputy Spokesman QUESTION: So the question back in the Middle East raised by the people, naïve as it may sound, is that while Syria is being now demanded to stop developing weapons of mass destruction, the Israelis do stockpile weapons of mass destruction. It's no secret. The administration is silent on that. How can you address that point? MR. REEKER: I just don't want to go down again one of these back and forth things. We have addressed the issues that we have about Syria, the concerns we have. As I said, much of this is stuff that is longstanding. And if you go back and look at the things we have said in reports, the things we have said in briefings, the things we said during travel, these are issues of concern to us and we will continue to address those with Syria. It's obviously high on our list of bilateral issues, and there are other countries that would be concerned about this, too. So the Secretary has been quite clear and the President has too, that this is an opportunity for Syria to think seriously about how it wants to relate with the region, with the United States, and with others in the international community, and where they want to direct their resources and their own aspirations for the region and for their own country. And that's what we will continue to do in terms of that regard. Yes. QUESTION: Are you not concerned about Israel's nuclear weapons? MR. REEKER: I don't have anything today for you, Jonathan, about alleged nuclear weapons -- QUESTION: You just don't want to say anything about it? Is that right? MR. REEKER: - or anything else. QUESTION: Okay. Why are you not concerned by Israel's nuclear weapons? MR. REEKER: Jonathan, this is just not a discussion about Israel. You are asking me questions about Syria -- QUESTION: We're talking about the Middle East. MR. REEKER: And then you can -- QUESTION: Israel is a neighbor of Syria. They are enemies. Do you understand that? I mean, of course it's relevant. MR. REEKER: Jonathan, do you want to come do a briefing? QUESTION: It's relevant. I mean, do you think it's irrelevant? Okay. Do you think it's relevant to the -- MR. REEKER: Jonathan. QUESTION: - to the case of Syria, that one of its neighbors has nuclear weapons or not? MR. REEKER: I have been asked about our discussions and concerns with Syria. That's what we have been addressing. You have turned this, you know, all the way around about something about, you know, what have we raised with Syria. And I have directed you to what the Secretary has said, what the President has said, and what we we'll continue to discuss in our relationship with Syria. That is separate from any other discussions about other countries or any other topics. That is what we will continue to look at with regard to Syria, and you can laugh and grin all you want. That's the issue here. And does anybody else have a question on the same subject, or shall we move on? To read the whole transcript, strip the spaces, and copy and paste this URL into your browser (I don't link live to U.S. government URLS): h t t p : / / u s i n f o . s t a t e . g o v / c g i - b i n / washfile / display . pl ? p= / products / washfile / latest & f = 03041405 . tlt & t= / products / washfile / newsitem . shtml Syria Pulls a Fast One on the U.S. posted Wed, 16 Apr 2003 23:47:43 -0700 I didn't think I could find any humor in the tragedy of Iraqi looting - I've been in deep mourning for the loss of the Code of Hammurabi, among countless other treasures - and then out comes this little gem of comic relief: Those nasty looters may have burned up all the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Looks to me like Koach Karl sent in Condi "Let's Play Dumb" Rice to set up the shot, so Ari Fleischer (one anagram of which is "A Rich Serf Lie" - or "Re: Chief's Liar," if you prefer) can spike into next week. Meanwhile, it was easier finding Laci Petersen than it's going to be, in Tommy Franks' estimation, to find the very WMD we sold Iraq in the first place. Gee, ya think Iraq might've actually been cooperating with U.N. inspectors? No? Oh, then, obviously, they hid everything in Syria, which is why we're going to go after them next (in spite of the fact that Syria is inarguably a more formidable adversary than Iraq). Well, if that's true, then how come those silly Syrians have just proposed the complete elimination of all WMD throughout the entire Middle East? I'll tell you why (you knew I would): On the surface, a person might think it's because Syria's got nothing to hide. And until somebody with a modicum of credibility can prove they do or not, we're not going to concern ourselves just yet with the "Do they or don't they?" question. (The short answer: Most likely, they do.) The real reason, in my not-so-humble opinion, is that Syria just delivered a good, hard whack the Bush administration didn't see coming. And it was a clever move indeed. This comes on the heels of Israel suddenly chiming in on the Syria situation. At the request of the U.S., Israel sat back and said nothing (and, presumably, did nothing) during the Iraq invasion. But now, with Bush & Co. ramping up the threat-o-meter on its next pre-emptive target, the time is ripe for Israel to make its own demands on Syria, in spades - and it's going to use its old ally, the U.S., to deliver the list. I can hear the conversation: "Just hold your horses 'til we're done with Iraq, Ariel - I promise, it'll be worth it." "Very well - I'll bide my time... but I'll get those Syrians - and the Hezbollah, too!" And then Syria throws a monkey wrench in the works. Don'tcha see? If Syria gets the rest of its neighbors to agree to give up or destroy any existing WMD, then how could the U.S. possibly justify the exemption of Syria's old nemesis - and the U.S.'s old buddy - Israel from such a treaty? Israel is the one Middle East nation the U.S. stands by, do or die, no matter what they've got, or how they use it. The U.S. has a long history of overlooking any naughtiness on Israel's part, and Dubya fawns over that scary Ariel Sharon like a bobby-soxer at a Frank Sinatra concert. I have a few of my own ideas about the reasons the U.S. damns Palestinian suicide bombers while continuing to overlook Israel's actions against Palestinians, but I'm not going to touch on any of them. Israel is, for lack of a better term, a sacred cow. Say one word against it, and suddenly everybody's branding you an anti-Semite. Which is a pile of reactionary crap; untold millions of people disagree with the cowboy tactics of one George W. Bush, but are no more anti-American than Audie Murphy. I don't expect my ultra-conservative, right-wing Christian readers to be able to digest that; maybe it will help if I draw this example: I love Canadians, I've always loved Canadians, and I always will love Canadians. But that doesn't change the fact that I couldn't find one damned thing to like about Brian Mulroney. And just because I didn't like Brian Mulroney doesn't change the fact that I love Canadians. Make more sense? No? I didn't think so. How's this: I think revisionism is as great an evil as the Holocaust itself. But centuries-long persecution of any people is no reason to excuse the current policies of any group - or government - so closely identified with that people. (Or, for another example: I can recite a litany of the most horrific crimes against gay people, but I'll go to my grave believing Rich Tafel is a traitor - and a misguided idiot. And that doesn't exactly make me a homophobe. You still don't get it, do you? Oh, well, I give up. Let the name-calling begin.) Anyway, back to Israel: Americans must speak in hushed tones about the potential threat of Israel's "alleged" nuclear arsenal. You see, if Israel admits it has nukes, then the U.S. has to impose sanctions on them. And if they don't admit it, then they should have no problem allowing U.N. inspectors in to confirm that Israel is a nuke-free zone. >Problem is, the evidence of Israel's nuclear capability is overwhelming - or at least a far cry better than the "evidence" against Iraq. But we're not supposed to talk about that. Consider it the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy of international relations. Or, as Voice of America put it a few years ago: "Israel's undeclared nuclear capability is such a sensitive issue that the Clinton Administration doesn't want to talk about it - at least not on the record. But privately, one official agreed with the Egyptian view, saying it's going to be very hard down the road to overlook Israel's nuclear potential if the world wants to keep countries like Iraq under sanctions for trying to go nuclear as well." So what happens if everybody in the Mideast agrees to give up their nukes and mustard gas and all those other nasty WMD? Will Israel be the lone hold-out? Probably. So where will that leave the U.S.? I'll tell you where (you knew I would): in one hell of an uncomfortable position indeed. If the U.S.'s justification of the day for the war of the week is the elimination of WMD, then the U.S. has got to come down as hard on Israel as it has Iraq, and now Syria (and tomorrow, Iran). Do you think we'll do it? Me neither. In any case, it was sure a cagey move by Syria. Saving Private Lynch Revisited posted Wed, 16 Apr 2003 11:17:16 -0700 Do indeed follow this discussion - and check out the links within... POW Lynch story - Wash. Post says just a minute Here's an article from the April 15 Washington Post which paints an entirely different picture from what the bush team told us... Democratic Underground April 16, 2003 Why The Anti-War Movement Was Right posted Wed, 16 Apr 2003 10:57:21 -0700 Beautiful read - well worth clicking the link: Why The Anti-War Movement Was Right The Bible tells us that pride goeth before the fall. In Iraq, it cameth right after it. From the moment that statue of Saddam hit the ground, the mood around the Rumsfeld campfire has been all high-fives, I-told-you-sos, and endless smug prattling about how the speedy fall of Baghdad is proof positive that those who opposed the invasion of Iraq were dead wrong. What utter nonsense. In fact, the speedy fall of Baghdad proves the anti-war movement was dead right. ... Arianna Huffington April 16, 2003 Oh, God, let it be true! posted Tue, 15 Apr 2003 20:27:14 -0700 Please, God, please, please, please, let it be true, let it be true, let it be true! Sharon Bush plans tell-all book about Bush family Sharon Bush is planning to write a tell all on the Bush family, The New York Observer is reporting exclusively in Wednesday's paper. Sharon Bush, the estranged wife of President George W. Bush's younger brother, Neil Bush, has spent two decades with the Bush family. Sharon Bush's spokesman, Lou Colasuonno, told The Observer: "This will be the story of Sharon Bush's life inside one of the most powerful families in America. She witnessed the evolution of a dynasty. She believes, and is prepared to reveal in her book, that the Bushs are far more pragmatic and calculating than has ever been seen before. She will show that the family orchestrates its public image from top to bottom. She will reveal that the family is in essence a political operation." ... She recently met extensively with renowned biographer Kitty Kelley, who is working on her own book on the Bushes... Kelley's agent, Wayne Kabak, of William Morris Agency, told the Observer: "Kitty had a very long lunch with Sharon, and a great deal of information was put on the table..." Mr. Colasuonno told The Observer: "This is a woman who has had some wonderful times with the Bushes and knows she's fortunate to have had a close-up view of two Presidencies. But she has seen the dark side, too. And she intends to provide a view of the family that everyone will want to read." Drudge Report April 15, 2003 And to think I was sitting around waiting for Nancy Reagan! But they're really still mad about Clinton's you-know-what posted Tue, 15 Apr 2003 19:58:45 -0700 When $52 million and six years wasted on Whitewater and a couple of hummers don't get you anywhere, go after Al Gore for a hundred bucks: FEC Clears Gore Camp Over Web Address Buy A complaint alleging that the sale of a Gore-Lieberman Web address to Democrat Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign for $100 amounted to an illegal campaign contribution has been dismissed by election officials. The campaign paid the holder of the gorelieberman.com domain name, then-University of Maryland student David Jackson, fair market value for it, the Federal Election Commission said in a 6-0 decision released Tuesday. ... The Gore campaign paid Jackson $70 to cover the original domain registration fee, plus $30 as compensation for the time he spent registering the name, FEC attorneys found. That can be considered fair market value, the commission concluded. Jackson originally offered the Gore campaign the Web address for free, but the campaign told him it had to pay for it. Associated Press April 15, 2003 If this is true... Whoa! posted Tue, 15 Apr 2003 18:36:02 -0700 Al-Sahaf in suicide riddle It may well be the ultimate in spin from the Iraqi minister of information, but this afternoon there are reports circulating that Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has committed suicide. Two Iranian newspapers today published reports of the minister's demise, which came from Iraqi refugees who took shelter at Iraq's borders near the Iranian town of Dehloran over the past week. They said that Iraq's famed information minister took his own life just hours before Baghdad fell into the hands of the coalition forces last Wednesday... The Guardian April 15, 2003 Big news (if it's true). But don't fail to click the link and read the rest of the story, which includes this: An Iranian news agency allegedly close to top conservative military figures attributed the fall of Baghdad to a secret tripartite agreement between Saddam Hussain, Russia and the US. I don't think it was all that secret - after all, did anyone actually believe the real reason Condi went to Moscow was to smoothe down Pootie-Poot's ruffled feathers? Which, of course, begs the question of why it was deemed necessary to bomb the hell out of Iraq in the first place. For those who support an attack on Syria posted Tue, 15 Apr 2003 16:38:35 -0700 Just thought those of you all fired up by the prospect of wipin' out them damn Syrian heathens might be gettin' a little antsy waiting for the first strike - so here's another story out of Iraq that should temporarily sate your unquenchable bloodlust: The little boy wailed and moaned and squirmed on the hospital bed stained with his own blood. A doctor struggled to hold a gauze bandage over the boys' eyes, which no longer existed. Ali Mustapha had found a small cylindrical object on the street near his Baghdad home Monday morning. He picked it up. He played with it. He had it in his hands and the object - a live explosive - literally blew up in his face. At Kadhymia Hospital, Dr. Ausama Saadi's diagnosis was blunt: "He will be blind for the rest of his life. _ Ali is 4. ... Grisly Results of U.S. Cluster Bombs April 15, 2003 Golly gee, I wonder if that ten-year-old who met up with Private Boggs was just a victim of curiosity, too? But hey, what's the life of a four-year-old compared to all that yummy, cash-producing oil we're getting out of the deal? Sounds like a fair trade, doesn't it? Meanwhile, on the Ali Ismail Abbas front, it looks like Ali's prospects were getting dimmer by the day - until (thank God!) he was airlifted to a decent burn unit in Kuwait City. So Ali's finally going to get some decent care - and the war lovers will point to his "rescue" as a shining example of compassion by the U.S. Face it: If the British press hadn't made Ali the poster boy for child casualties of Bush's war, he'd still be lying in filth, waiting to die of septicemia thanks to third-degree burns over two-thirds of his body (did you know he nearly burned to death in his own bedsheets?), while his aunt shoos the flies away (something he can't do for himself, because - surprise! - you can't shoo away flies if you don't have any arms of your own). And what of all the other Alis left in Iraq - and the thousands more destined to end up like him when Bush gives the order to start bombing Syria? But that doesn't matter, does it? As long as we can point to a single random act of kindness (and it is indeed random), the anti-peace brigades can boast about American magnanimity, and sleep at night with a clear conscience. When in truth, the anti-peace brigades don't give a flying f--- at a rolling doughnut about Ali Ismail Abbas, or the thousands of nameless, faceless - and limbless - little boys and girls like him. Now I'm going to be attacked by war lovers who will berate me for never being satisfied. And you're right, war lovers: I will never be satisfied. Saving Ali is not enough. You can't buy me off by a single attempt - especially forced by public outrage - to save one kid. You can buy me off when you start working to mop up the calamity we've already wrought, and - more importantly - to end the future destruction of all children in your name, and in mine. But you just don't get it. Big surprise... Not. posted Tue, 15 Apr 2003 15:16:21 -0700 "Sanctions," my ass: U.S. shuts off Iraq-Syria oil pipeline U.S. forces have shut down a pipeline sending oil from Iraq to Syria, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. The move came after multiple warnings of possible sanctions against Syria by the Bush administration, which accuses Damascus of giving safe haven to remnants of Saddam Hussein _ s Iraqi government and of developing weapons of mass destruction. Damascus rejected the accusations, calling the charges "threats and falsifications." ... MSNBC April 15, 2003 Any bets this story will sink into oblivion? posted Tue, 15 Apr 2003 15:06:42 -0700 At least 10 dead as US troops fired on crowd in northern Iraq: witnesses At least 10 people were killed and scores wounded in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Tuesday when US troops fired on a crowd angered by a speech by the new US-backed governor, witnesses said. The charges were denied by a US military spokesman in the city, who said troops had first come under fire from at least two gunmen and fired back, without aiming at the crowd. ... The firefight in Mosul broke out as the newly-appointed governor of the city was making a speech from the building housing his offices which listeners deemed was too pro-US, witnesses said. "We didn't fire at the crowd, but at the top of the building," the [US military] spokesman added. "There were at least two gunmen, I don't know if they were killed." ... But witnesses charged that US troops fired into the crowd after it became increasingly hostile towards the new governor, Mashaan al-Juburi. ... Channel NewsAsia April 15, 2003 At least 10 killed in Mosul shooting "There are perhaps 100 wounded and 10 to 12 dead" following the shooting near the local government offices in a central square, Dr Ayad al-Ramadhani said at the emergency department of the city hospital. Three witnesses questioned by AFP and casualties who spoke to hospital staff said US troops had fired on the crowd which was becoming increasingly hostile towards the city's new governor, Mashaan al-Juburi, as he was making a pro-US speech. An AFP journalist saw a wrecked car in the square and ambulances ferrying wounded people to hospital, while a US aircraft flew over the city at very low altitude. ABC (Australia) April 15, 2003 Odai & the Twins, Sittin' in a Tree posted Tue, 15 Apr 2003 14:40:17 -0700 Saddam's Playboy Son Had Pictures Of Bush Twins The Baghdad palace of Saddam Hussein's oldest son Odai is revealing more about his so-called "playboy" lifestyle. Looters stripped the palace of most valuables, but there was still ample evidence of Odai's extravagance... There were also some unusual discoveries in Odai's palace. In addition to finding a lot of liquor, electronics, Cuban cigars and porn - U.S. soldiers say they found pictures of President George W. Bush's twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush. They say the pictures were hanging in one of Odai Hussein's gymnasiums. Bakersfield Channel April 14, 2003 Hey, I'll bet I know what one of those pictures was! If you see what Odai does in Jenna and Babs, you can stay up to date on the the latest news and pics of America's Darling Duo at TheFirstTwins.com. And if you just can't get enough of those hot Bush girls, here's one more photo to add to your collection! Quick Takes posted Mon, 14 Apr 2003 23:13:22 -0700 Why I'll never buy a PlayStation now: Sony leads charge to cash in on Iraq What can you do about stopping the second phase of Iraqi conquest? StopJayGarner.com Why I love California (even if it doesn't hold up in court): Town ordinance penalizes officials who cooperate with Patriot Act Freepers busted on "astroturf" letters (Good!): Form letters? No thanks - write it right Little buddy calls it like it is (i.e., West v. Islam): Pakistan says US policies polarise world L.A. Times spanks Dale Petroskey (Good!): Free Speech, or a Lot of 'Bull'? Better do it before they get sucked into Syria, too: Cosgrove wants Aussie troops pulled out together Surprising Words from Unexpected Places posted Mon, 14 Apr 2003 22:38:24 -0700 When Poppy's Powell Uses the "I" word, It's Time to Listen Lawrence Eagleburger, who was US Secretary of State under George Bush Snr, told the BBC: "If George Bush [Jnr] decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes.In fact if President Bush were to try that now even I would think that he ought to be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing in this democracy." US warns Syria not to provide haven for wanted Iraqis The Independent April 14, 2003 Meanwhile, Dick Locates Testicles Democratic presidential contender Richard Gephardt tore into President Bush on the economy Sunday, calling it a mess during a campaign swing through New Hampshire. "Bush was handed the best economy we've had in 50 years. He came in and squandered the surplus," the Missouri congressman said. "I am furious at him and I am furious at the Republicans." "[The Bush tax cut plan] hasn't done anything other than enrich the wealthiest people in the country," Gephardt said. ... Gephardt also talked about the war in Iraq... "People that serve in the military and put their lives up for us deserve our highest respect and our highest value," Gephardt said. But he criticized President Bush for not pulling together a larger international coalition before invading Iraq, and said now is the time to create one to rebuild post-war Iraq. "We have to leave Iraq better than we found it," he said. Gephardt Tears Into Bush on the Economy Associated Press April 14, 2003 Revenge of the Son of the Bride of Reaganstein posted Mon, 14 Apr 2003 20:32:17 -0700 "My father crapped bigger ones than George Bush," says the former president's son, in a flame-throwing conversation about the war and the Bush administration's efforts to lay claim to the Reagan legacy. The Bush inner circle would like to think of George W.'s presidency as more of an extension of Ronald Reagan's than of his one-term father's. Reagan himself, who has long suffered from Alzheimer's disease, is unable to comment on those who lay claim to his political legacy. But his son, Ron Jr., is - and he's not pleased with the association. "The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he's in now," he said during a recent interview with Salon. "Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the '80s. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father's - these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive, and just plain corrupt. I don't trust these people." ... Reagan, still as lean as he was in his dancing days, has a sharp tongue - but like his father, he has a knack for softening his barbs with a charming affability and disarming sense of humor. Reagan took a swipe at Bush during the 2000 GOP convention in Philadelphia, which featured a tribute to his father, telling the Washington Post's Lloyd Grove, "The big elephant sitting in the corner is that George W. Bush is simply unqualified for the job... What's his accomplishment? That he's no longer an obnoxious drunk?" Since then he's been quiet about the current occupant of the White House - until now. "My father had decades of experience in public life. He was president of his union, he campaigned for presidential candidates, he served two terms as governor of California - and that was not a ceremonial office as it is in Texas... He knew where he was coming from, he had spent years thinking and speaking about his views. He didn't have to ask Dick Cheney what he thought. "Sure, he wasn't a technocrat like Clinton. But my father was a man - that's the difference between him and Bush. To paraphrase Jack Palance, my father crapped bigger ones than George Bush." Reagan says he doesn't have anything personal against Bush. He met him only once, at a White House event during the Reagan presidency. "At least my wife insists we did - he left absolutely no impression on me. But Doria remembers him very negatively - I can't repeat what she said about him, I'd rather not use profanity..." But Reagan has strong feelings about Bush's policies, including the war in Iraq, which he ardently opposes. "Nine-11 gave the Bush people carte blanche to carry out their extreme agenda - and they didn't hesitate for a moment to use it. I mean, by 9/12 Rumsfeld was saying, 'Let's hit Iraq.' They've used the war on terror to justify everything from tax cuts to Alaska oil drilling." ... "Yes," he concedes, "there are some holdovers from my dad's years, like Elliott Abrams and, my God, Admiral Poindexter, who's now keeping watch over us all. But that observation doesn't hold up... He had no thought that America should be the world's policeman... "Now George and Dick and Rummy and Wolfy all have a very different idea about America's role in the world..." Reagan says his opinions about the war were not changed by the rapid fall of Baghdad. "Look, whether or not Saddam was a bad guy, or whether the Iraqi people were terribly oppressed, was never the issue. I mean I'm happy for the Iraqis, but that's not what this was all about. Nor was the military conclusion ever in doubt; this was the Dallas Cowboys playing a high school team. Their army was a third the size it was in '91, and it didn't give us much trouble then. "And the weapons of mass destruction? Whatever happened to them? I'm sure we'll find some," he laughs. "They're being flown in right now in a C-130..." Reagan's parents were notoriously remote from their four children. Ron Jr. reportedly had the closest relations with his parents and he remains close with his mother... Reagan says his mother shares his "distrust of some of these [Bush] people. She gets that they're trouble in all kinds of ways. She doesn't like their religious fervor, their aggression." Reagan says his family feels particularly alienated from the Republican Party over its opposition to embryonic stem cell research... "And they told us, 'Don't worry about W. not knowing anything, good old Dick Cheney will be his minder.' Dick Cheney? And this was going to be compassionate conservatism? Dick Cheney is to the right of Genghis Khan, he wants to drill in your backyard, he wants to deny black people their rights --it was all there in his voting record for us to see. What were we, rubes?" While Reagan rejects a political career, he clearly doesn't shy from speaking out. What if GOP conservatives, who still lionize his father as the greatest president of the 20th century, pressure him to shut up? "That wouldn't be a smart thing for anyone to do." Salon April 14, 2003 Thoughts a-plenty here: As deliciously dicey as his remarks may be, don't get your hopes up that anything Ron Reagan, Jr., has to say will be taken seriously - or taken kindly to - by the Republican camp. Young Ron was never the John-John of the GOP; the right-wing has always branded him a sissy-boy, pointing to his career as a dancer as "proof" of that horror of horrors, homosexuality. Which would be understandable, from a narrow-minded bigot's point of view - if it were true. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, I know people who know Ron Reagan, Jr., and I assure you - Ron is no queer. (I find that rather unfortunate, actually; a charming gay First Son - especially a Raygun progeny, and a progressive, outspoken one at that - would have been even more satisfying than relying on the well-meaning but easily-ignored lesbian half-sister of Newt Gingrich. No offense to Candace, mind you, but in reality a gay Reagan would have been a much greater coup). And while it's true indeed that Dutch & Nancy were none too palsy-walsy with their kids, the article correctly notes that Ron, Jr., was closer to his parents than his siblings. Make no mistake about blood and water - or the bond between mother and son. Which brings us to Nancy - whose loathing for the BFEE isn't even a well-kept secret. Say what you like about Attila the Nun (I certainly do), but peel away the outer layers and layers (and layers) of the hollow-eyed shrew Tarpley & Chaitkin call "the social-climbing arriviste of capital society," and you'll find... well, "an evil-tongued presence on a thousand telephones a week complaining about the indignities she thought she was subjected to, always obsessed by public opinion and making Ronnie look good in the most ephemeral short term." But even the most passionate Reagan detractors are forced to admit that Nancy simply and truly loved Ronnie. And she still does. Don't ask me to explain it; the thought of those two "having congress" is enough to make anybody swear off ugly-bumping for life - and the idea of a 75-year-old man calling his wife "Mommy" evokes a distinctly sickening feel of incest to the whole affair, compounded by the spectre of your grandparents playing bedroom games you'd really rather not think about. Ahem. The point is, Nancy is fiercely devoted to Ronnie, and she'll go to her grave protecting his memory and (for better or worse) his legacy. (Granted, were it not for Ronald Reagan, hack actor, ex-rat fink, and framer of the "trickle-down theory" of economics - who was so politically self-conscious he couldn't even bring himself to say the word "AIDS," let alone deal with the issue, until 1987 - you and I would be much healthier, happier, and more flush with cash. But we'll save a detailed analysis of "How Reagan Ruined Your Life" for another day.) Since the Gipper's incapacitation by Alzheimer's, Nancy hasn't moved far from his bedside. No doubt she's in that unenviable position known all too well by those of us who have watched a loved one die a cruelly lingering death: You love 'em, but there's nothing you want more than to see them finally let go... let go. And when Ronnie finally lets go? What then? There are many who speculate that Queen Nancy will hold court and have her day - and make things mighty uncomfortable for her hubby's former Depressed, Fellow Peaceniks? Must-Read of the Day! posted Sun, 13 Apr 2003 17:31:47 -0700 I've posted this quote before, and no doubt I'll post it a thousand times again, because it bears repeating until it's your mantra: Never doubt that a small group of commited citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead What inspires me to repeat it is a most thought-provoking piece on depression: economic, societal, and personal - and the result when all three converge... as well as the antidote. Trust me on this one: If you are feeling at all depressed, discouraged, or ready to just end it all in the face of seemingly indomitable forces of violence and corruption in a world gone mad (and who in his/her right mind doesn't feel that way right now?), you need to click the link at the end of the following excerpt, and read the whole thing: Depression - And Its Activism Antidote - Will Lead to Bush's Downfall Depression is a sane, normal way of dealing with overwhelming grief, loss, confusion, shame - in this instance cluster-bombs, depleted uranium weapons, children being slaughtered as "collateral damage," and all in our name. Because depression shakes us up, it provides opportunities, once we regain our energy and focus, for effective political action. All three depressions can be agents of powerful change... Add all those together and you get a populace that is in a condition of numbed stasis... Economic Depression: It's the old trickle-down economic theory... The problem with this theory is that, on the whole - as was embarrassingly obvious during and after the Reagan presidency - it doesn't work... We can take a lesson from the Great Depression of the 1930s. When the situation got bad enough, the citizenry woke up and finally put the blame where it belonged - on the "leaders" and their rotten policies... Societal Depression: Terrorists are coming to get us, the rest of the world is unbelievably angry at America, the economy is in sad shape, there's no money for education or anything else, you may not have a job next week, your kids' after-school programs have been eliminated. Not even the election system is in your control... And so a society-wide depressive anxiety sets in. Not much energy or desire to act, just enough to try to get through the month as best as one can, always waiting for the other shoe to drop... This generalized depression ensures a passive society, one easily rolled by the ruling party faction - the same faction that, surprise!, controls the mass-media. Permanent war means permanent anxiety means permanent passivity means control from the top. Personal Depression: What you and I and a lot of others are feeling these days may not be full-bore clinical depression, but there are some troubling similarities... You think strange thoughts, including, at times, suicidal ones. The things that used to lift you, energize you, please you, no longer have that power. The world is gray, lifeless, unenjoyable... Already here at The Crisis Papers, we've received suicidal letters from readers... There are a lot of us ex-activists from the '60s and the '70s once again participating in the current anti-war/pro-democracy movement... we're all personally depressed, irritable, bummed out. We thought the U.S. never would get itself into a Vietnam-type situation again, and yet here we are the past is ever present... For the sake of our children, our grandchildren, America, the world, we older activists are cranking it up once again, both because the situation requires it, but also because our soul requires it, our love of country requires it, our desire to leave the world a better place requires it. And, lo and behold, being active once again becomes, in addition to an effective way of moving towards desirable social goals, an antidote to despair... This group of illegitimate U.S. "leaders" is so filled with itself, so cocky in its arrogant bullyboy approach to the world, so over-reaching in its haste to grab what it can get, so confident that its lies won't matter and that its outrageous behavior will not be opposed, that it is walking on the red carpet of hubris. Its downfall is inevitable, its days are numbered, regime change is in the air... -- Bernard Weiner The Crisis Papers April 7, 2003 What I'm Reading Right Now posted Sun, 13 Apr 2003 16:30:13 -0700 Would that I could blog every last article and essay I read on a daily basis, but there are only so many hours in a day (and I need at least three for sleeping). So here are all the windows I have open right this very minute - the title of each piece will give you a good idea of what's in store: Looting Rumsfeld cracks jokes, but Iraqis aren't laughing Baghdad Seeths With Anger Toward U.S. 'Our Heritage Is Finished' Mythical Garden of Eden now a wasteland No-exit strategy & post-invasion dirty deals Pentagon steamed at Bush's choice for postwar Iraq As looting continues, US hires controversial company to police Scandal-hit US firm wins key contracts In military procurement, old friends can help business Syria on deck Syria could be next, warns Washington Rumsfeld: Iraqi Leaders Fleeing to Syria Bush Warns Syria Not to Harbor Iraqis France Says Not Time for U.S. Accusations on Syria Bush ready to fight war on two fronts Domestic crises Why we may never regain the liberties that we've lost Jobless rate excludes many out of work Church & state Jesus in Baghdad: Why we should keep Franklin Graham out of Iraq Miscellaneous international cock-ups Cuba Dissident Case Revives U.S. Debate Howard and Islamic leader clash at dinner North Korea Shifts Stance on U.S. Talks Propaganda US to beam American news into Iraq Don't look for a reason Waging peace Rout proves anti-war point snarkthebold's expanded essay, begun with "Protest Sucks!, Part II: ...And How To Fix It." Pataki for Minister of Disinfo (and a Crash Course in 9-11 Lies) posted Sun, 13 Apr 2003 05:17:59 -0700 "Some of you may have seen yesterday in Baghdad a picture of a statue of that evil dictator being toppled and dragged through the streets by Iraqis. Let's melt it down. Let's bring it to New York and let's put it in one of the girders that's going to rise over here as a symbol of the rebuilding of New York and the rebuilding of America." -- New York Governor George Pataki CNN, et al. April 11, 2003 Since Governor Pataki's jaw-dropping remarks that whipped a crowd of some 15,000 New Yorkers into a frenzy on Friday, I've heard suggestions from several of my private correspondents as to what the Saddam statue should be melted down into, and how it might best be put to use - but I'll keep those creative ideas to myself. After all, we are civilized people here. More constructive would be a letter or e-mail to Governor Pataki enlightening him to one basic fact he has apparently overlooked in all his gubernatorial busy-ness: There is no credible evidence whatsoever of any connection between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda network responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on America. Here's a quick refresher course, in case your own circuits have been fried by information overload: The "evidence" of a Saddam-9-11 "connection" Colin Powell presented to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, was based entirely on the alleged existence of a training camp "headed by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants," in northeastern Iraq - Kurdish territory, outside the control of the Saddam Hussein regime. (This, of course, simply begs the question: Why, then, is the United States allying itself with the Kurds - who are harboring al-Qaeda terrorists within Kurdish-controlled territory?) Even Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage grudgingly admitted in August, 2002, that any al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq "may very well be in some of the areas not controlled by the government of Iraq." Powell inadvertently drove the point home with his assertion that "Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we swept al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today." For one fleeting moment, it appeared that Powell had redeemed his allegations, and cemented the alleged "connection" with the revelation that "Zarqawi's activities are not confined to this small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. "These al-Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months." However, the very day Powell made his case to the U.N., the BBC blew the lid off a classified British intelligence report leaked to the news agency, which "flatly contradicts one of the main charges laid against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by the United States and Britain - that he has cultivated contacts with the group blamed for the 11 September attacks." *** Additionally, even if Powell's claims are true (and they are at best highly specious), the Secretary's own words force an examination of the timing involved in establishing an Saddam-al-Qaeda "connection." Precisely: According to Powell, Zarqawi did not arrive in Baghdad (Saddam-controlled territory) until May, 2002, and did not establish a "base of operations" there until sometime between May and July of 2002. Yet: George W. Bush first publicly threatened Iraq during his State of the Union address (or, as it is more commonly known, his "Axis of Evil speech") on January 29, 2002. Time magazine notes it was in March, 2002, that Bush poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and spaketh: "F--- Saddam. We're taking him out." This, of course, directly contradicts Bush's statement of May 23, 2002: "I have no war plans on my desk." And these are but just a few of the glaring discrepancies in the Bush v. Iraq saga. So, who's lying - Time magazine or Bush? (So far, we haven't heard Bush demand a retraction of the "F--- Saddam" story.) What's more, on September 19, 2001 - just eight days after the attacks - an article in the Wall Street Journal was lost amidst the overwhelming volume of Ground-Zero reports - and has since been conveniently forgotten: U.S. Officials Discount Any Role by Iraq in Terrorist Attacks U.S. officials said there is no evidence Iraq had a role in last Tuesday's attacks in the U.S. or that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein helped prime suspect Osama bin Laden. The article is available online only to subscribers of the Wall Street Journal; an archived copy, however, is available from the LBO-Talk Archive. We'll stop here for the moment, without delving into "What Bush Knew," the report delivered to him during his month-long Crawford-ranch vacation in August, 2001, the European warnings delivered to U.S. intelligence as far back back as nine months before the attacks, the audacity (and subsequent humiliation) of British intelligence relying on the plagiarized paper of a university student as "proof" of Iraqi crimes, the PNAC plan to attack Iraq that was in place by the late 1990s, the numerous contradictions between Bush and Ari Fleischer, or even between Bush and himself - or any of that. No sense in contributing to further information overload. I promise, we will delve into all these things in the near future; for the moment, just concentrate on George Pataki's further propagation of the Saddam-9-11 "connection" myth, and the overwhelming body of evidence that contradicts this pervasive propaganda. Every faction of the war-support group has its own justification for attacking Iraq. Lately, it's been "Iraqi liberation." But you need to remember, always, in the forefront of your mind, that it all began with the gossamer-thin fantasy of blaming Iraq - with no evidence whatsoever - for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. Don't ever forget that. And don't let them get away with this lie. To give them a free pass is to dishonor the memory of our fallen brothers and sisters - whether they met their end on 9-11, or during the most recent shoot-out in the streets of Baghdad. It dishonors them because you are allowing these men, women, and children to be used as justification for Bush's war against a people who had nothing to do with their deaths. Governor Pataki can be reached by snail mail: Governor George E. Pataki State Capitol Albany, NY 12224 ...or by e-mail, using the form at this URL: http://161.11.3.75/ Should you be so moved as to inform the governor of his error (and especially if you have never before written to a public official), please refrain from personal attacks, sarcasm, or other displays of emotion. Keep it simple, professional, and to-the-point. I don't intend to insult anyone's intelligence, but I am aware that a good number of my readers are just getting their toes wet in the big, wide ocean of politics, and may be tempted to write something scathingly brutal. Take my advice: Don't do it. If you have to get your anger out, rant all you want on a piece of paper, then burn it - and start writing the letter you're actually going to send. If you need tips on getting started with your first letter of protest, either send me a private message, or leave a comment. I won't tell you what to write, but I'll be glad to help you with form. *** Interestingly, Powell left out one piece of "evidence" upon which the U.S. might have leaned heavily until it was debunked: an alleged meeting between 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi government official Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, on April 8, 2001. That the news was released at all, by the Czech government in late October, 2001, must have come as a welcome surprise to the Bush administration - even though the Bush admin claimed to have known about the meeting already. Ironically, the U.S. botched its own chance of using the story to bolster its case of an Iraq-al-Qaeda connection, after "FBI and CIA analysts who went over thousands of travel records concluded that 'there was no evidence Atta left or returned to the U.S.' at the time he was supposed to be in Prague." (Not too surprisi Another organized celebrity attack posted Sat, 12 Apr 2003 14:38:35 -0700 Protesters attack Garofalo show Will another anti-war celeb take a career hit? Bush supporters have been deluging ABC with calls and e-mails, complaining about a sitcom the network has in development starring outspoken war protester Janeane Garofalo... The pro-war protesters are threatening to organize a major campaign against ABC, including a boycott of advertisers, if the network airs the show. "We do not wish to see the faces of liberal Hollywood, particularly those that provided aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein," protester Jon Alvarez e-mailed ABC. "We will stand up and fight for our right to request their exclusion from shows and sponsors that seek our attention." Associated Press April 12, 2003 "liberal Hollywood" ... "aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein" ... "fight for our right" Oh, these jerks have really got the rhetoric down pat. Screw your "right," Alvarez. Where does it say you have the "right" to prevent people from earning a living because they support peace? Hey, Alvarez, how would you like to be turned down for a job because of your political views? "Sorry, son. Your resumé is perfect, but we can't trust our deep-fryer to somebody who supports an unelected president whose grandfather made his fortune by providing aid and support to the Nazi party." You'd sue. Guess you won't be satisfied until we're all silenced, imprisoned, expatriated, or dead. Hey, what's a few lousy antiques, as long as the oil wells work? posted Sat, 12 Apr 2003 12:23:17 -0700 Looters Swarm Into New Areas as Key Bridges Are Opened; Iraqis Disappointed With U.S. Response BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. forces reopened two strategic bridges Saturday in the heart of Baghdad and crowds of looters surged across - taking advantage of access to new territory that had not already been plundered. U.S. forces did nothing to stop them. Iraqis expressed increasing frustration over the lawlessness that has gripped the capital since the arrival of U.S. troops and the fall of Saddam Hussein. Looters ransacked government buildings, hospitals and schools, and trashed the National Museum, taking or destroying many of the country's archaeological treasures. A museum employee arrived Saturday to find the administrative offices trashed by looters. The only thing she could salvage was a telephone book-sized volume. She refused to give her name. With tears, she said, "It is all the fault of the Americans. This is Iraq's civilization. And it's all gone now." ... On Baghdad's chaotic streets, it appeared American troops were doing nothing to curb the feverish looting. Troops could be seen waving looters through checkpoints and standing idly in front of buildings while they were being pillaged... "The Americans have disappointed us all. This country will never be operational for at least a year or two," said Abbas Reta, 51, an engineer and father of five. "I've seen nothing new since Saddam's fall," he said. "All that we have seen is looting. The Americans are responsible. One round from their guns and all the looting would have stopped." ... [Al-Jazeera correspondent Maher Abdallah said] "They have ousted the regime and the authority, and in such an urban area where there is no tribal authority or rule, chaos should have been expected to break in such a way." ... Associated Press April 12, 2003 Spit-Take Headline of the Day posted Sat, 12 Apr 2003 12:11:55 -0700 France should pay for opposing Iraq war: US official France should "pay some consequences" for its opposition to the US-led war in Iraq, particularly for its veto of NATO support for Turkey, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz said. "The French have behaved in ways ... that have been very damaging to NATO. I think France is going to pay some consequences, not just with us but with our countries who view it that way," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "But I don't think we want to make the Iraqi people the victims of that particular quarrel," he said... "If we just looked at our military relationship, you'd get a reasonably healthy view of things. It's the politicians, I guess, that we have an issue," Wolfowitz said. Yahoo! News April 11, 2003 Okay, Wolfie, so what you're saying is: We tell the rest of the world to go get knotted while we go bomb holy hell out of Iraq, and then stick the costs of cleaning up the devastation we wrought to one of the countries who warned us not to do it? Guess the White House is scrambling to find a way to clean up this mess without turning the U.S. economy into a complete shambles - and shaft the French in the process. What the hell do you think France is, anyway? The 51st state? A U.S. territory? How about a colony? And what is this puckey about France's actions being "very damaging to NATO"? Can you say "U.S." and "U.N." in the same breath without snickering? But then, what else can we expect from a Deputy Defense Secretary who never served in the military? Your attempt to stick it to France makes about as much sense as anything else coming from one whose "military" experience is limited to pushing toy tanks around on a big paper map. As they say in the Deep South: I'm glad I don't have your nerve in my tooth. You chickenhawk. Thousands of Alis posted Sat, 12 Apr 2003 11:35:57 -0700 Frenzy over Ali, but there are thousands of children like him The pitiful pictures of Ali, his arms reduced to bandaged stumps and his body covered in burns, biting his lip in pain and grief, have been carried by newspapers around the world. He will become one of the enduring images of war. For millions of people around the world, Ali is already the face of this conflict... Yet three weeks of war have certainly left scars on countless other Iraqi children. There are no reliable figures for the numbers killed, orphaned or maimed. Thousands will have been affected by contaminated water as the power supplies in cities such as Basra and Baghdad were bombed. The immune systems of these children were already depressed by malnutrition after years of sanctions. Even before the war, experts warned the UN that Iraqi children were already suffering "significant psychological harm" from the fear of bombing and death... Ali has black curly hair and hazel eyes. His aunt Jamila and a nurse brushed away the flies. "If I had hands, I would shake your hand," he said. "They cut them off after the bomb. I want my hands." ... Ali cried a little and then, unprompted, began to say what happened that night. "We had all gone to bed and there was this loud noise and smoke. I felt very scared and I was in much pain. I kept shouting for my mother. I did not know at the time what had happened to her. "I do not remember much after that. I was taken to a hospital in Zafaraniya. After that they brought me here and the doctors cut off my arms." ... He has suffered third-degree burns over 60 per cent of his body. His chances of survival, said Dr Kinani, were 50-50... Two floors away, in another ward of Saddam General, lay 11-year-old Fouad Abu Haidar. He has lost his left arm, half his face is hidden by bandages and he may lose one of his eyes... His father, Haidar Hussein, said... "Why didn't the British and American people stop their leaders from doing this? What is the justification in bombing ordinary people? "Now the Americans are in Baghdad, and look what is going on here. There is looting and killing and the Americans are also killing Iraqis. What is their justification?" ... The Independent April 12, 2003 Feel like your own arms have been cut off? Here's one thing you can check into: Prompted by the incredible public response to the plight of 12 year old Ali Ismail Abbas, who lost both his arms in the Iraqi conflict, the Limbless Association has set up a restricted fund to assist those rendered amputees by the Iraqi conflict. The ALI fund (Ali's fund for the Limbless of Iraq) has now been established and from the 10th April, the general public will be able to make donations through the website or by telephone directly into the restricted fund set up by the Limbless Association. All these donations will go towards the rehabilitation and provision of prosthetic limbs, for Ali, and then for any other children who have been tragically rendered amputees by the Iraq conflict. Limbless Association Where's the Beef? posted Fri, 11 Apr 2003 23:31:55 -0700 It's beyond me why conservatives just don't declare victory. Why are they so aggrieved? Because they were driving their SUV and some hippie called them names? Boo-hoo. ... What will make the right wing happy? A statue of Jefferson Davis in downtown Seattle? Charlton Heston on the $3 bill? Doubtful. Like an elephant scared of a mouse, the right is a pitiful giant. It is still deeply insecure despite a half-century of successful political conquest. But in that insecurity they find strength and resolve: There are enemies to fight and liberals to demonize... -- Knute Berger Conservative Crybabies Seattle Weekly April 2-8, 2003 What is going on with the Right? They're madder than ever, and for the life of me, I can't understand why. They've got all the control - that "power, wonder-working power" they've been lusting after since 1992. For the moment, they feel this "war" of theirs has been vindicated. They already own the media. And yet they seem more hostile than ever toward us libs. Hey, you don't have to remind me at how my own anger just leaps right off your screen - I know it. And I do see a few more mainstream print columnists getting bolder and more specific in their criticism of the Bush administration. (Of course I see it - I actively go looking for it, as a balm to the constant assault of right-wing media.) And I've heard that innocent-sounding question from the Right, ad nauseum: "Why are liberals so angry all the time?" I don't deny we're angry. Of course we're angry - God knows we have more than enough cause. The Right has painted us as a bunch of anti-American radical extremists who just won't listen to reason. We've been silenced, suppressed, threatened, censured, mocked, dismissed, blacklisted, beaten, maced, pepper-sprayed, shot with wooden bullets and bean bags... Of course we're angry. So they hate us. No news there. What I don't understand is why they seem to be ratcheting up their attack. The rhetoric is constant, the threats less veiled, and there appears to be a significant increase in organized "direct action," right-wing style, in the form of celebrity blacklisting, GOP-backed boycotts, and intimidation tactics that - so far - fall just short of cross-burning. They continue to chant the mantra, "The only good liberal is a dead liberal" - and when accident or nature fails to take its course, dream of finishing us off themselves. I don't get it. They own everything. Is it just a matter of rubbing our faces in it, or is it something else? Let's see if we can figure it out... 43 Possible Reasons The Right is Crankier Than Usual Mob mentality. They're caught up in the contagion of hate. They're finally feeling their power, and flexing their muscle, because, damn it, it feels good to crush the opposition. They've had a taste of blood, and they like it. They somehow blame the Left for failing to stop a system gone out of control. While liberals are just disgusted with the spineless Democratic leadership (what an oxymoron) for capitulating - and failing to put a halt to a plan - and an administration - in freefall, perhaps the neo-cons are simply terrified that we let them go this far. In a similar vein, maybe they're furious with us for not preventing Bush & Co. from taking some very risky chances - because if Bush fails, they won't have us to blame. Think about it. If we had been able to prevent this "war," they could spend 24 hours a day pointing their fingers at us for all sorts of reasons - but if the Iraq situation ultimately sours, then they have only to blame the entire Bush administration. And of course, by putting themselves 100% behind Bush, that means that they also run the risk of being 100% wrong. (No, I don't see it that way; neither this "war" nor anything connected with it is 100% right or wrong. Nothing ever is. But you must remember we are talking about an all-or-nothing mentality; we are talking about people who subscribe to the black-and-white thinking of "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.") They've awakened to the fact that they've been had by the Bush administration - the lies have become so obvious that no amount of denial will suffice. They're out of work, out of benefits, and no longer qualify for federal unemployment. Their Social Security has been looted. Their last 401(k) statement is more valuable as toilet paper. They can't afford health insurance, and they're being blackmailed out of Medicare. And no matter how proud they are of Little Johnny stationed in Iraq right now, they've realized that when Johnny comes marching home again, he's going to learn that his commander-in-chief has gutted his veterans' benefits. They secretly worry that when everything finally comes out in the wash, we self-righteous liberals are going to be there, pointing, laughing, and singing an endless chorus of "I told you so." (Well, they're probably right about that. We may be peace-loving, but hey, we're only human.) They're under constant pressure to act as if the "war" is already won, but inside they're not so sure. They know the Fall of Baghdad is only a symbolic win, but they feel the need to lord it over us as if we ever doubted the U.S. would conquer Iraq (which is wrong; I've never met a liberal yet who ever doubted the U.S. would make hash out of Iraq in short order; that was never in question). But inside, they know that a nice, "clean" finish to this "war" is still not a given - and that, even if all the lootin' 'n' shootin' stopped tomorrow, there's a vast, unknown, empty space called "occupation" ahead, and nobody can predict how that's going to turn out. They're impatient for the end of the fighting, but as apprehensive as we are about what's to come. So they're basking in the moment of Baghdad (and trying to psy-op the Left with their gloating) - but they are quite aware that it's not over. Not by a long shot. Or maybe they're not so anxious for the "war" to end - because when it does, the nation - during the lull between Iraq and the next TV War of the Week - will have to turn its attention back to both domestic issues and the global fallout from Iraq - which can be summed up by the question, "Where are we? And how did we get in this handbasket?" Next up: Syria. Or maybe Iran. Next up: Iran. Or maybe Syria. Then there's the recent rekindling of Afghanistan - a painful reminder to the warring types that we never did finish what we started there, let alone find Osama. I expect a few are wondering if we will leave Iraq a shambles, and lose sight of Saddam forever, while our troops are sent to the next country on Bush's ever-growing list of evil empires. (For those who who remember "The Electric Company," sing "What About Naomi?" along with me - just replace "Naomi" with "Osama.") They're having a hard time ignoring North Korea, too. They thought that once they had Bush in the White House, things would get better. They thought that once they wiped us out in the 2002 congressional and state elections, things would get better. They thought that once Bush declared war on Iraq, things would get better. They thought that once Baghdad fell, things would get better. (How? Beats me. It sure hasn't gotten be TRUNCATED Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Joe McCarthy posted Thu, 10 Apr 2003 23:04:56 -0700 Contrary to popular belief, I really do understand what conservatives want. Boiled down to the bone, the one thing they really want is a return to good, old-fashioned American values. Well, little neo-cons, you've got it. To be more specific, your relentless hounding of anyone who dares think differently from you has time-warped us right back to 1951, and the Commie witch hunts that ended the careers (and in a few cases, lives) of some of the greatest talent to ever brighten Hollywood Boulevard. Let's just get the word right out in the open: blacklist. It's perfectly all right for a warmongering chucklehead like Toby Keith, a burned-out, xeonophobic, racist, gay-bashing gun nut like Ted Nugent, or a washed-up, no-talent, homophobic bigot like Charlie Daniels to glorify war and rip new assholes for those of us doing our patriotic duty - which is, if you don't get it yet, to shine a harsh light on everything that is wrong with America in order to make everything right again. But when a Michael Moore, a Natalie Maines, or a Susan Sarandon speaks out in gentler tones (and, believe you me, even Moore has never sunk to the level of vitriol spewed forth by some of your illiterate country-western "heroes"), you do your anti-American best to bash, boycott, and blacklist. Golly gee whiz, is that fair? Hell no, and you know it. And you delight in it. Just three dozen of you already managed to get Susan Sarandon canned as the guest speaker at the Florida United Way benefit. And now your warmongering, Reagan-worshipping leaders are doing their level best to finish off Sarandon and Tim Robbins for good, and simultaneously co-opt that icon of Americana - baseball, no less - in the war against free speech: Baseball Hall of Fame Cancels 'Bull Durham' Ceremony, Cites Actors' Anti-War Views Plans to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the popular baseball movie Bull Durham later this month in Cooperstown, N.Y. were cancelled Wednesday because of anti-war criticisms made by two of the film's co-stars. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum issued a release saying the recent views expressed by Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon "ultimately could put our troops in even more danger." [Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey] sent the following letter... to Robbins and Sarandon: "The President of the United States, as this nation's democratically-elected leader, is constitutionally bound to make decisions he believes are in the best interests of the American people. After months of careful deliberations, President Bush made the decision that it is in our nation's best interests to end the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, and to disarm Iraq of deadly weapons which could be used against its enemies, including the United States. In order to accomplish this, nearly 300,000 American military personnel are in harm's way at the moment. From the first day we opened our doors in 1939, The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum - and many players and executives in Baseball's family - has honored the United States and those who defend our freedoms. "In a free country such as ours, every American has the right to his or her own opinions, and to express them. Public figures, such as you, have platforms much larger than the average American's, which provides you an extraordinary opportunity to have your views heard - and an equally large obligation to act and speak responsibly. We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important - and sensitive - time in our nation's history helps undermine the U.S. position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger. As an institution, we stand behind our President and our troops in this conflict. "As a result, we have decided to cancel the April 26-27 programs in Cooperstown commemorating the 15th anniversary of Bull Durham." ESPN April 9, 2003 The letter also includes this bit of insanity: "We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important - and sensitive - time in our nation's history helps undermine the U.S. position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger." Huh? The peaceful protest of two actors is going to put our troops in danger by... by... How, exactly? Now, get this: Sarandon and Robbins are not being censured for what they might say - but for what they have said in the past, and who they are. Sarandon's herculean self-control at the Oscars is proof that she is not about to turn every public forum into a peace platform. Not that I either agree or disagree with her decision to shut up at the Oscars; that is not the point. The point is: The United Way and now the Baseball Hall of Fame are persecuting Sarandon and Robbins for their beliefs. Do you know Newspeak? Can you say "thoughtcrime"? Robbins - who displays admirable restraint in the face of modern-day McCarthyism - was at least given voice by an AP article that dared to call a spade a spade (or, more accurately, a right-wing assault a right-wing assault): Stung by anti-war criticism, Hall cancels 'Bull Durham' festivities Petroskey, a former White House assistant press secretary under Ronald Reagan, said recent comments by the actors "ultimately could put our troops in even more danger." Reached Wednesday night, Robbins said he was "dismayed" by the decision. He responded with a letter he planned to send to Petroskey, telling him: "You belong with the cowards and ideologues in a hall of infamy and shame." ... In his letter, Robbins said he'd been looking forward to "a weekend away from politics and war." He said he remained "skeptical" of the war plans and told Petroskey he did not realize baseball was "a Republican sport." "I am sorry that you have chosen to use baseball and your position at the Hall of Fame to make a political statement," Robbins wrote. "I know there are many baseball fans that disagree with you, and even more that will react with disgust to realize baseball is being politicized. "To suggest that my criticism of the President put the troops in danger is absurd. ... I wish you had, in your letter, saved me the rhetoric and talked honestly about your ties to the Bush and Reagan administrations. "You invoke patriotism and use words like 'freedom' in an attempt to intimidate and bully. In doing so, you dishonor the words 'patriotism' and 'freedom' and dishonor the men and women who have fought wars to keep this nation a place where one can freely express their opinions without fear of reprisal or punishment." Robbins signed his letter with a reference to an old World Series champion. "Long live democracy, free speech and the '69 Mets - all improbable, glorious miracles that I have always believed in," he wrote. AP April 9, 2003 God bless Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. God bless freedom of speech. And to hell with you bastards who dare try to take it away from us. I have had it with you people. Your hypocrisy is beyond explanation or redemption. You are exacting the same anti-American, wholly divisive, and utterly repulsive kind of paranoid vengeance as that whack job Joe McCarthy. You are the "anti-Americans." You are what is wrong with America today. You subvert the true American values of freedom and justice. Well, guess what? This isn't your country. As despicable a prospect as it is to swallow, this is our country - yours and ours, like it or not. You're going to have to kill us before you can silence us. And you may, before the day is through. But you can never kill us all. Show us your torts! posted Wed, 9 Apr 2003 21:35:03 -0700 Gee, ya think this gal supports Bush's proposed cap on medical malpractice suits? ST. PAUL, Minn. - The woman whose breasts were removed after she was mistakenly told she had cancer is suing the pathologist who made the misdiagnosis and the pathologist's employer. Linda McDougal... underwent a double mastectomy after doctors informed her last May that she had an aggressive form of cancer, based on a biopsy done after a spot showed up on her mammogram. The diagnosis was based on a lab mix-up that confused her tissue with another woman's... The lawsuit seeks more than $200,000. "There is no question I made a mistake," [pathologist Margaret Cochrane] told KSTP-TV. "I made a terrible mistake and you know I want to sincerely apologize to Mrs. McDougal for this mistake." Woman whose breasts were mistakenly removed sues pathologist AP April 9, 2003 And just in case you feel sorry for the doctors, consider this brain-dead Neanderthal: COLUMBIA, S.C. - Lawmakers and people fighting a cap on malpractice suit verdicts are angry about comments made by a Columbia doctor about a Wisconsin woman who lost her breasts because of a medical mistake. "She did not lose her life, and with the plastic surgery, she'll have breast reconstruction better than she had before. It won't be National Geographic, hanging to her knees. It'll be nice, firm breasts," Dr. Harry J. Metropol told a House Judiciary subcommittee last week... Metropol repeated his comments to The (Columbia) State newspaper and denied they were insensitive. "This isn't a beauty contest; it's about the survival of South Carolina," he said of doctors' rising malpractice insurance rates and the need for a cap on jury awards. ... Metropol also wondered why his comments were insensitive since McDougal wasn't in the room, the newspaper reported. McDougal, who lives in Wisconsin, is recovering from her first reconstructive surgery, said her lawyer, Chris Messerly. Speaking from his law firm's Minneapolis office on Monday, Messerly called Metropol's remarks "incredibly insensitive." "Linda has 31 inches of scars on her chest, and they removed her nipples," he said. "There is no way surgery will restore her." South Carolina is one of nearly two dozen states whose lawmakers are considering bills to change civil litigation laws. Congress has its own version of a bill, backed by President Bush. Lawmakers surprised by doctor's comments Associated Press April 8, 2003 Shining Examples of Compassionate Conservatism posted Wed, 9 Apr 2003 21:27:32 -0700 Late-Breaking Flash: Americans continue to act like arrogant jackasses: QUEBEC CITY - Officials with the American Consulate in Montreal say tensions over Canada's position on the war in Iraq may be leading to some anti-Canadianism on the highways south of the border. Marc Cadieux, vice-president of the Quebec Trucking Association, says truckers from that province have been tailgated, honked at and flashed the middle finger during trips in the U.S. He says Quebec truckers are receiving more traffic tickets and in some cases, have been vandalized at rest stops... Canadians targets on the road, say Quebec truckers CBC News April 9, 2003 ...while Republicans insist on sticking to Lott-like laughs (and backhanded apologies): TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A three-term legislator apologized to members of the Florida House after making a joke stereotyping blacks as superior basketball players. Rep. Fred Brummer, a white Republican, made the remark to another legislator Tuesday during the House session. He joked that an upcoming legislative basketball game would be unfair because the Democratic team would have all the black legislators... "It certainly was not my intention to be insensitive," Brummer said. Lawmaker Apologizes for Joke About Blacks Newsday April 9, 2003 ...and offer even emptier "apologies" for gloating over dead Democrats: WASHINGTON _ A contrite U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Tuesday gave a full apology for critical comments he made about the late Sen. Paul Wellstone in a Capitol Hill newspaper. Coleman was quoted Monday in Roll Call as saying, "To be very blunt, and God watch over Paul's soul, I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone. Just about on every issue." But just when 100 angry Minnesota Democrats began organizing a protest outside of Coleman's St. Paul office, the freshman senator apologized and promised to speak respectfully of Wellstone's memory. "I apologize for those comments which diminished the memory and legacy of Sen. Wellstone," Coleman said in an interview. "The people of Minnesota should expect more from this senator. When it comes to comments about my predecessor, anything about his legacy, I'll do my best to act that way, and speak that way, in the future. And I'll make sure it doesn't happen again." Asked if he wanted to explain the context of the Roll Call remarks, Coleman replied, "No, it doesn't matter. The context doesn't matter if the inference, or the perception, is something else. I need to hold myself to a higher standard. I think the legacy of Sen. Wellstone deserves that." ... The raw emotions generated by Wellstone's tragic death in a plane crash during the campaign, and later by a controversial memorial service-turned-rally, shook the political landscape in Minnesota and across the country. ... Prior to his apology, Coleman tried to clarify his remarks, saying he was speaking about how his support of Bush's agenda compared to Wellstone's. A Congressional Quarterly voting study ranked Wellstone as the senator who most opposed Bush. In the Roll Call interview, Coleman said, "In other words, Wellstone was never with the president. I could be with the president most of the time. If I disagree on affirmative action, if I disagree on ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), if I disagree on something else down the road, so what? The differences are so profound." Coleman offers apology Pioneer Press April 9, 2003 We don't do body counts either. posted Wed, 9 Apr 2003 07:33:27 -0700 ABC News scroll: RED CROSS: HOSPITALS IN BAGHDAD OVERWHELMED WITH CIVILIANS, SHORT OF SUPPLIES . . . NUMBER OF IRAQI CIVILIAN DEAD AND WOUNDED CAN NO LONGER BE COUNTED On Reaching Baghdad posted Wed, 9 Apr 2003 07:21:04 -0700 As I write this, it's nearing dusk in Baghdad, and there is a surreal picture on TV: Three weeks to the day after the latest installment of this nightmare began, the tanks have reached downtown Baghdad. It is a surreal moment because it is an historic one - and more than ever, I want to hit the fast-forward button on this bad movie, and get as far away from this scene as I can in whatever time I have left in this world. I wonder if I will live to see this moment considered in retrospect with any degree of rationality, or if it will be packaged, marketed, and sold to future generations as a modern-day Normandy? "I'm not sure this is a time for analysis" - the morning news anchor can barely hide the little-boy excitement in his voice - "but it is a time for emotion..." I think I know the answer. If nothing else, at least I know how I feel at this milestone of the invasion: distinct un-ease at the sight of tanks in the streets of a city that looks uncomfortably familiar, like the product of a drunken one-night stand between Paris and Palm Springs. It completes another scene in my mind, one I try to push away, but which insists on playing itself out. It is the scene of other tanks, and soldiers in foreign uniforms, come to "liberate" a people who do not want them there. And the city is Washington, D.C. It's just another nightmare, I know. Of course it is. No nation in its right mind would do a thing like that. No other nation on earth would invade my home on the premise that my people need to be "liberated." Our allies wouldn't let them do it. And our allies would never do it themselves. It can't happen here. (Never mind that they didn't think it could really happen there.) No nation on earth would do a thing like that. (Never mind that we did - no one else would dare.) It would just be... wrong. Coming to home video: "POW Girls Gone Wild" posted Tue, 8 Apr 2003 19:12:22 -0700 What did I say the other day about Jessica Lynch evolving into Teen RoboCop? Something like that. In any case, while the American press applies the usual candy-coating to the barf-making (and inevitable) metamorphosis of "The Jessica Lynch Story" into a TV movie of the week, this piece in the Toronto Star really hits the nail on the head... One could have easily gotten the impression last week that the war in Iraq is being fought to liberate pretty young American girls from Iraqi hospitals. After a week of news of Iraqis strenuously resisting U.S. efforts to liberate them, the American campaign badly needed something to make war feel good again in the homeland. The rescue of Jessica Lynch proved just the thing. The cute 19-year-old private, who had enlisted in the army so she could get a college education and become a kindergarten teacher when she grows up, instantly became the human face of the U.S. war effort. With the Jessica story front and centre, the most lethal war machine ever assembled in history could be presented as fresh-faced, innocent and eager to please... She'll emerge not only with her body intact but also with international celebrity and, if she wants, talk show spots and modeling contracts. (One can imagine Playboy is already thinking centrefold for a special issue: PoW Girls of Iraq). Needless to say, thousands of other people - mostly on the Iraqi side - will simply end up dead. But Jessica's story, milked endlessly by the media, is a reminder of the intense effort going on to ensure America is seen to occupy the moral high ground in this war. By focusing on the angel-faced, kindergarten-teacher-in-training, we easily forget Jessica is just a tiny cog in the massive U.S. war machine currently invading Iraq, with the stated goal of installing a former American general as military governor. (Not even the White House bothers any longer to pretend this war is about "disarming" Iraq...) Could imperial ambition be any plainer? ... Of course, the U.S. has opted out of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, so it won't have to account for its actions in front of people familiar with these sorts of notions. Mostly, it just has to explain itself to the CNN anchors, who seem considerably less rigorous. So far, "We're just trying to save Jessica," seems to be working out just fine as a defence. Now playing: Saving Private Lynch Toronto Star April 6, 2003 File this under "Words to Throw Back in Their Faces" posted Tue, 8 Apr 2003 16:58:25 -0700 By now, you probably already know this quote by heart (and if you don't, then memorize it): To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. -- President Theodore Roosevelt, 1918 But if you're tired of relying on Teddy to defend your right to dissent, then read on - this is even better: The next time some "patriot" insists it's un-American, or treasonous, or just plain poopy-pants behavior to criticize a sitting president (especially during wartime), give 'em this: Bush Sharpens Kosovo Critique: GOP Front-Runner Pans Clinton Strategy Photo caption: Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a Republican presidential hopeful, criticized President Clinton for his decision not to use ground troops in Yugoslavia. Austin, Texas, May 6 _ Republican presidential prospect George W. Bush said today that the United States must "ferociously" seek victory in Yugoslavia, and criticized President Clinton for his decision against using ground troops. ... The standoff with Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic has become an early touchstone of the 2000 presidential race, with a large field of GOP candidates trying to stake out positions on the headline-grabbing conflict. Arizona Sen. John McCain drew attention to his campaign by being the first to criticize Clinton for ruling out ground troops. Rep. John Kasich of Ohio urged mediation. Bush first moved cautiously to react to the crisis, but eventually said he supported the mission and questioned Clinton's decision to rule out ground troops. Sitting in his office at the pink granite capitol building today, the Texas governor offered what may be his most detailed and critical assessment of the crisis. Bush, son of the president who formed the Persian Gulf War coalition, said Clinton failed to clearly define the mission early on and questioned whether he has followed the exit-strategy doctrine established by President Bush and Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Any commander in chief has got to understand the true principles of the Powell Doctrine, which are: What are the objectives? How do you achieve the objective? And how do you end?," Bush said. ... "I thought saying right off the bat that we won _ t use land troops was a mistake." ... ABC News May 6, 1999 With that last line, it's tempting to quote another infamous Bush remark (delivered last summer to a reporter who criticized him): "Who cares what you think?" It's also tempting to go off on a tangent about warmongers who fail to follow "the exit-strategy doctrine" concocted by their own Secretary of State. But neither point is the real point - which is simply: Shrub (and here, McCain) openly and specifically criticized a sitting president - during wartime. Sit on that and spin like a top, "patriots." This one's for you, war lovers posted Mon, 7 Apr 2003 22:39:03 -0700 Hello, war lovers, wherever you are. Running out of arguments to justify your war? Starting to feel just a tiny twinge of human compassion (even - gasp! - guilt?) every time you stumble across a new photo of a young Iraqi father kneeling over the corpse of his five-year-old daughter as he tries to scoop her splattered brain matter out of the dirt and stuff the useless tissue back into her shattered skull? No? Well, never mind, then - you can skip right past this piece (unless, of course, you need extra ammo for your arguments in favor of senseless killing). As for those who are beginning to feel just a little sick about blowing up Iraqi families - maybe when you see your sister's new infant in her brand-new pink pajamas with the bunny-feet... or maybe when you, the proud new godparent, hold your baby nephew in your arms at the baptismal font... or maybe when you, mother-to-be, feel that first lively kick, or see the first faint ultrasound images - well, I'm here to make you feel a whole lot less guilty about your double standard. You know the double standard I mean - the one where it's not only okay but necessary to bomb and strafe thousands of strangers across the world so that you can maintain your suspension of disbelief in the lie that our boys in khaki are somehow avenging the September 11th attacks. Or protecting your right to watch "American Idol." Or whatever the hell this war of yours is supposed to be, or do, or cure. In any case, never let it be said I lack the same degree of compassion for you that I have for the modern Holy Innocents. It must be awfully tough on you - even if you do have the support of some 73% of the American public - to feel continually pressured by those stupid, mean, smelly peaceniks to justify the "liberation" of the Iraqi people... or are you justifying the "regime change" this week? It's hard for me to keep up with the current reasoning - I really should pay more attention to what's coming out of Ari Fleischer's mouth every day. Problem is, I can't decide which of Ari's mouths to listen to. In any case, let's address that little problem of justifying the slaughter of children so that you can pay $1.53 at the gas pump, instead of $1.74. Oops, sorry - I mean, so that you can feel better about "liberating" Iraqi brain stems from those pesky spinal cords that hold them in place. Oh, damn it, wait, I didn't put that right either... I'll work on my phrasing. In the meantime, clip and save this for reference the next time some goddamned, tree-hugging, hippie pinko-fag demands to know how you can support a "war" in which baby-killing is a daily event of simply mundane proportions: KERBALA, Iraq - When a young Iraqi boy stooped to pick up a rocket propelled grenade off the body of a dead paramilitary, U.S. Army Private Nick Boggs made a tough call. He unloaded machinegun fire and the boy, whom he puts at about 10 years old, fell dead on a garbage-strewn stretch of waste land. Boggs, a softly spoken 21-year-old former hunting guide from Alaska, says he knew when he joined the army 18 months ago he might someday have to make a decision like that. He hoped it would never come and, although he has no regrets about opening fire, it is clear he'd rather it wasn't a child he killed. "I did what I had to do. I don't have a big problem with it but anyone who shoots a little kid has to feel something," he said... As U.S. troops take the Iraq war out of the desert and into the main cities, they are increasingly seeing children in their line of fire. Many are innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time and military officers concede that some have may have been killed in artillery or mortar fire, or shot down by soldiers whose judgment is impaired in the "fog of war". But others are apparently being used as fighters or more often as scouts and weapons collectors. U.S. officers and soldiers say that turns them into legitimate targets. "I think they're cowards," Boggs said of the parents or Fedayeen paramilitaries who send out children to the battlefield. "I think they thought we wouldn't shoot kids. But we showed them we don't care. We are going to do what we have to do to stay alive and keep ourselves safe." ... "Does it haunt him? Absolutely. It haunts me and I didn't even pull the trigger," [Boggs' platoon leader, Lieutenant Jason Davis] said. "It blows my mind that they can put their children into that kind of situation." ... "It's not about killing people. It's about accomplishing a mission...When we talk, we don't say how scared we were. But we found out how you feel when an RPG hits the wall just up from you and you think 'Damn, I could have been right there'," he said. -- Kieran Murray US troops face children, and hard calls, in battle Reuters, April 7, 2003 "Legitimate targets." So there you go. Shooters, commanders, and supporters alike are now absolved of any responsibility - or even regret - whatsoever. Go ahead. Blame the parents, blame Saddam, blame France, blame us peaceniks, or use any other self-mind-f--k technique you need to soothe your tortured conscience. Oh, and remember: As Lt. Davis says, "It's not about killing people." Feel better now? Now, before you regulars launch your volley of obscenities and hate mail, I have one more thing to say to you, without any of the bone-cutting sarcasm above: Yes, I would rather be shot dead than run the risk of mistaking an innocent child for the "enemy." Now, go ahead and do your worst. Just remember that the thing that's pissing you off more than the story itself is my attitude about it. I'm angry as hell at those of you who support the war while dismissing the very real, very human costs. If I had any reason to believe that you (the collective you) are genuinely horrified by this carnage the vast majority of you pass off a "necessary" or simply "unfortunate" or as - my favorite - "collateral damage," I wouldn't be so angry with you, or attack your motives with such a vengeance. What gets me the most is your hypocrisy. It's a "tragedy" when a U.S. Marine is killed, but mere "spoils of war" when a child is blown to bits. But it's a Catch-22, folks: There's no way you can convince me that you abhor the human destruction of the Bush war while continuing to cheer it on. The only war I support is the one waged in self-defense. I will repeat it until they slide my body into the crematorium oven: This is not defense. This is not even revenge. This is aggression. And it is wrong. And you are fooling yourselves in your steadfast belief that it is anything else. "I took 4 wooden bullets to the left side of my body..." posted Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:51:53 -0700 Hey ho, let's go Shoot'em in the back now What they want, I don't know They're all reved up and ready to go They're forming in straight line They're going through a tight wind The kids are losing their minds Blitzkrieg Bop -- The Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop Want to know how the Oakland police deal with those nasty peace protesters? Easy: They just shoot 'em - in the back - with wooden bullets. Warning: Some of these images (beginning with the seventh image down) are especially disturbing. But yes, you should see them. In fact, you must. Oakland Demonstration and Aftermath Photos After the first post in this thread, make sure to scroll down to Post #17 for another shocking photo. And check the links within the other posts for more firsthand accounts from the front lines. It's a Great Day for the Irish! posted Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:10:56 -0700 Thousands of protesters marched on George Bush and Tony Blair's war summit near Belfast. ... Amid the beat of drums and chants the crowds told the two leaders to leave Northern Ireland... One Iraqi who travelled from his new home in Londonderry to take part in the protest told how he lost contact with his family in Kirkuk in the northern region of the country 13 days ago. [Abdul al-Jibouri] said: "We have come here to make sure both the cowboy and his poodle get the message, we are not supporting war. "They need to get it into their thick heads that this is a war for oil which is leading to the slaughter of innocents." Peace protesters march on Belfast summit Ananova April 7, 2003 Nor will I, sir. Nor will I. posted Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:05:05 -0700 Nothing is more precious to Americans than our freedom to speak out, to disagree. It's frightening that, in their passion for this war, some people are accusing anyone who opposes it of being unpatriotic. If members of Congress are going to be attacked for fulfilling their responsibility to their constituents to speak out on matters of war and peace, then we might as well tear up the Constitution. Demonizing dissenters has become the favorite tactic of the most vociferous supporters of the war in Iraq. At the same time, they are stifling debate, manipulating public opinion, distorting the facts about the loss of lives, betraying our troops, and defiling the Constitution. Those who oppose the war will continue to be vilified by some for their principled beliefs. I will continue speaking out for peace and on behalf of my constituents in name of the U.S. Constitution. I will not be intimidated. -- Hon. Charles Rangel (D-NY) The War in Iraq: I Will Not Be Intimidated March 28, 2003 For those unclear on the concept... posted Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:02:17 -0700 For those unclear on the concept of how one can "support the troops" without supporting Mr. Bush's war, perhaps this statement from the Hon. John Conyers, Jr., will make more sense to you. Rep. Conyers and many others who do not support this invasion have been backed into a corner: For all practical purposes, they must vote for this measure, or deny the troops the most real and valuable means of support. Left with no other choice, their support for the troops can easily be misconstrued as support for Mr. Bush. Fortunately, Rep. Conyers has made his reasoning and unwavering stance clear: [My vote on H.R.1559, the wartime emergency supplemental appropriations bill] is a vote to support our brave troops and to ensure they have all of the equipment and supplies that they need while they diligently perform their duties in times of great danger. My vote should not be misread, however, as endorsing President Bush's reckless diplomacy, his disdain for the U.N. and his decision to start this war. I have opposed this war as a matter of failed policy that will come back to haunt us in the coming years. That is still my view, even if the current hostilities end as soon and as favorably as we all hope they do, now that the war has started. I have opposed the decision to go to war as a perversion of the democratic process, because of all the misrepresentations that the Bush Administration has made to the American people in an effort to drum up support for war. And I have opposed the war as an unconstitutional action because the war was not properly authorized by the Congress as required by Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. ... This legislation is not satisfactory. The President's proposed supplemental appropriation sent to the Congress was disappointing and distorted. He proposed a grossly inadequate amount for homeland security, although the President knows full well that our states and cities face fiscal crises that have prevented funding adequate anti-terrorists precautions and response teams. The shortfall was so clear that this bill increases the President's request for homeland security somewhat. But it still falls short of the amount that the Democrats proposed to add and which our states and cities desperately need. Despite these and other objectionable features of the bill in its present form, I will support it, so that our troops are assured of the supplies and support they dearly deserve, and so that Detroit receives some of the funds they need to maintain and improve the medical facilities component of homeland security. For me, those are the overriding imperatives. -- Hon. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) Conyers Supports Supplemental for Our Brave Troops and Detroit Receiving Hospital April 3, 2003 And you thought Lennon's "Jesus" remark was a big deal... posted Sun, 6 Apr 2003 22:00:47 -0700 When Dixie Chick Natalie Maines took the stage in London and told fans that she and her fellow Texas-born chicks were ahsamed that George W. Bush was a Texan, it started a nationwide backlash against the group... Good old American pride? Not entirely. Turns out the whole thing was orchestrated by the National Republican Party. Party operatives spammed thrir [sic] email lists the day after Maines made her statement, urging them to contact radio stations. Phone calls originating from the GOP headquarters in Washington went out to country stations, urging them to remove the Chicks from their playlists. [An] "alternative" concert, supposedly promoted by [conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher], is actually the work of the South Carolina Republican Party... Earlier this week, we received a call from "Gallagher's Army," urging us to support the alternative comment [sic]. Caller ID backtraced the call to the South Carolina GOP Republican headquarters. American Newsreel April 5, 2003 Q. How do you know Hell has frozen over? posted Sun, 6 Apr 2003 21:04:18 -0700 A. When your liberal politics haven't changed, and yet you suddenly find yourself agreeing with both Pat Buchanan and Andy Rooney. I have watched "60 Minutes" an average of twice a month for as long as it's been on the air. Until tonight, I cannot recall a time I have been able to sit through an entire Andy Rooney monologue - at least, not without feeling compelled to hurl an ashtray through the television. Tonight, everything changed. Tonight, I entered a parallel universe known as... The Twilight Zone. Enjoy these excerpts from tonight's monologue (which is worth reading in its entirety): I hate everything about this war except that we're winning it. You can't even be critical, either, without sounding unpatriotic. It's why Peter Arnett got fired by NBC for speaking on Iraqi television. I'm patriotic but I wish our government would stop treating this war as if they had to sell it to us with slick advertising slogans... After the UN refused to approve the war, our government put together a list of countries it said supported us. They called it a "coalition of the willing"... The word makes it sound as though we're just a few countries short of having the whole world on our side, and that isn't true. Most of the world is against us. The Administration says 49 countries are part of the coalition. I see that Eritrea, Uganda and Iceland are on our side. The fact is, though, we're in this thing with the British, who have 45,000 soldiers there, and the Australians, who have 2,000. That's it. The other 46 wish us well or let us fly bombers over their country. Big deal. We've practically bribed some of them. We offered Turkey $15 billion to let our troops go through there but they refused... There aren't any good wars, but this one is especially bad. We want to win it quickly without more death but we're grown-up people, too. The President, Rumsfeld and the generals ought to stop treating us like children. Tell us the truth. We can take it even when it's bad. And the only real good news will be when this terrible time in American history is over. -- Andy Rooney An Especially Bad War "60 Minutes," April 6, 2003 B.S. Primer posted Sun, 6 Apr 2003 16:33:07 -0700 This should be required reading for every American. In an effort to "tell genuine reporting from an article manufactured to produce the desired propaganda effect," the author dissects a March 26th article about the murky "Basra uprising," published by that mainstay of right-wing propaganda, the Wall Street Journal. For example: The title of the article sounds quite definitive. The article starts, however, with the much less certain "Military officials said the Shiite population of Basra ... appeared to be rising". "Military officials" and "appeared to be" should immediately raise a red flag for a reader, especially given a mismatch with such a definitive title. Why "officials"? Were they speaking in a chorus? Or was each one providing a complementary piece of information? A genuine report certainly would tell us this and also name the officials or at least say why they cannot be identified... Going further down the article, we see even more astonishing example of the same vagueness. "Reporters on the scene said that Iraqi troops were firing on the protesting citizens ..." For an astute reader, this short sentence should raise a whole host of questions. Were the above-mentioned reporters Western media reporters embedded with the troops? What was their location and the distance from which they observed the event? -- Gregory Sinaisky Detecting disinformation, without radar Asia Times April 3, 2003 This is a fine guide to separating the wheat from the chaff, especially for those just learning to question what they read - and for anyone who'd like to further calibrate an already-functioning bullshit detector. Now, this is one good Christian... Not! posted Sun, 6 Apr 2003 15:27:14 -0700 CAMP BUSHMASTER, Iraq - In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army V Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water. It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage, which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks, as an opportunity. "It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized," he said. And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks. "They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed," Llano said. First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible. "Regardless of their motives," Llano said, "I get the chance to take them closer to the Lord." Army chaplain offers baptisms, baths Miami Herald April 4, 2003 I'll bet the Faith-Based Initiative Bunch are just creaming their jeans over this one. Josh Llano, you represent everything wrong with American Christianity today. You are a modern "crusader" - and that's no compliment, you short-sighted little bully. People like you tempt me to convert back to Christianity just so I can leave it all over again. (And, hey, what's with this "Camp Bushmaster" moniker? A tribute to the Resident-in-Chief, or some sort of exercise in phallus-waving?) What's worse: Getting hummer, or blocking 9-11 investigation? posted Sun, 6 Apr 2003 15:19:40 -0700 Next time some twit screeches about Clinton's penis, as if the vitality of the Presidential Member were some sort of lame basis for defending the criminality of Bush & Co., send 'em here: Bush vs. Clinton It's a nice little chart comparing the "crimes" of President Clinton and Unelected Resident Bush. And go help this guy out - he's still building his chart, and no doubt those of us sick to death of hearing that Bush is a saint and Clinton is evil incarnate can contribute dozens more examples. Let's hope this guy fleshes out this project in detail - because if he doesn't, I might just steal his fine idea. In the meantime, the rest of the site is pretty intriguing, too, with lots of articles about "Campaign Lies," "Terror Lies," "Iraq Lies," and lots more. The Pro-War Crowd are the Real Anti-Americans posted Sun, 6 Apr 2003 15:12:00 -0700 The current war on Iraq is proving to be the most divisive issue the people of this country have had to face since the Vietnam war. And just as was the case with many of those who supported the war in Vietnam, many of those who support the war in Iraq are fond of doing two things. First, they routinely accuse those who oppose this war of being "anti-American." Second, they consistently ignore the historical context in which this war is being waged... The term "America" is virtually synonymous with individualism, and one of the central tenets of individualism is that there is a fundamental difference between the government of a country and the country itself. Thus, in the very act of accusing dissenters of being "anti-American," pro-war advocates unwittingly reveal themselves to be anti-American. Why? Because the premise of their accusation is the collectivist notion that there is not a fundamental difference between the government of a country and the country itself, and that it is therefore impossible to criticize one without criticizing the other. There is an eerie sense of Orwellian doublethink to this sort of "patriotism," and I think more and more Americans are starting to realize this... -- Todd Altman Why Pro-War Advocates Have Got It Wrong The Progress Report April, 2003 I couldn't agree more. This is a great piece, with lots of links to lies the war-lovers wish you didn't know about. A must-bookmark. Speaking of Rachel Corrie (and we were)... posted Sun, 6 Apr 2003 15:08:15 -0700 Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian; U.S. Activist Hurt JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian gunman who fired on a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Saturday, the army said, and U.S. peace activist Brian Avery was severely wounded in the face in another incident. Witnesses said Avery was hit by an apparent ricochet bullet from an Israeli armored vehicle while in the streets of the West Bank city of Jenin during a curfew. Israeli military sources said the armored vehicle was exchanging fire with a Palestinian gunman. The sources said Avery was in a critical condition and had been put into intensive care at an Israeli hospital. ... Tobia Karlsson, a colleague from the International Solidarity Movement to Protect the Palestinian People whose supporters act as "human shields" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said he was standing next to Avery at the time. "Although we were wearing vests identifying ourselves as internationals, the armored vehicle fired its main gun at us," Karlsson told Reuters. "The bullets hit the ground only two or three meters (six to nine ft) away from us. I was showered with fragments, and I turned to see Brian lying down in a big pool of blood." Karlsson said he heard shots before the incident but could see no Palestinians in the area where Avery was hit. ... At least 1,968 Palestinians and 727 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000 after peace talks stalled. International peace activists and aid workers have on occasion fallen casualty to the violence. Last month, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza's Rafah refugee camp, frequent scene of clashes between the army and militants. The army called the incident a "regrettable accident," saying the driver could not see Corrie as she tried to block the bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home in a flashpoint border area. The ISM said Corrie was run over deliberately... Reuters April 5, 2003 Does this one tweak your radar? posted Sat, 5 Apr 2003 23:53:54 -0800 Close ally of Karzai shot dead in Afghanistan Kandahar, Afghanistan _ A close ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai was gunned down in southern Afghanistan in an attack provincial officials blamed on the Taliban Saturday. Haji Gilani and his nephew were killed outside their home in the town of Deh Rawood on Thursday night by six gunmen, said Dad Mullah, a spokesman for the Uruzgan provincial government. Globe and Mail April 5, 2003 I'll tell you why it tweaks my radar: It reminds me of the assassination of Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, on September 9, 2001. And that bothered me the moment I heard about it. I told my sweetie I had a funny feeling that Massoud's murder was indicative of something big about to go down. At the time I thought that "something" could be a Russian attempt to take back Afghanistan; little did I realize that "something" was going to be September 11th. So, think about it: One of the big guys in charge of the rebel group the U.S. backed to overthrow the Taliban (which we originally backed in order to drive off the Russians) gets killed by the Taliban. And two days later, the World Trade Center comes crashing down. Now, one of the guys closest to Hamid Karzai - the president we installed in Afghanistan - gets killed by the Taliban. So... Ah, it's probably nothing. I sure hope not. We'll see. On the Death of One of "Them" posted Sat, 5 Apr 2003 22:16:40 -0800 You can call me a lot of things - like a bleeding-heart, left-wing, faggot-loving war resister - and be perfectly correct in your assessment, even if your choice of words is questionable. But you can't call me a hypocrite. When you can prove me wrong, I'll admit I'm wrong. When you can prove I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll admit my ignorance. And when something ugly and base comes alive inside me like some sort of self-generating virus, I'll confess it. I'm confessing now: I'm feeling rotten inside, because I feel so little compassion at the death of a fellow human being. The story: Michael Kelly has become the first American journalist killed in the Iraq fiasco. Not just a reporter, Kelly was editor-at-large for The Atlantic Monthly, as well as a Washington Post columnist. A former editor at The New Republic, he was also the author of Martyrs' Day, a book inspired by his coverage of Gulf War I. Ironically, and with the sort of fact-twisting rhetoric and rabid gusto that would make Karl Rove proud, Kelly regularly demonized opponents of the very "war" that killed him. My immediate reaction was exactly what you might expect: "Well, there's one less lying son of a bitch in the world." Just as immediately, I felt deeply ashamed of myself. There's no stopping an emotion, and it's usually both futile and unhealthy to try to do so. I'm not blaming myself for allowing this ugly feeling to emerge; what shames me is its mere existence. I thought I had trained myself better than that. I thought I was better than that. Now, at least, I am approaching this clash between emotions and ideals from the foundation of logic, and the willingness to work through my feelings regardless of how personally painful and humiliating the process may be. I'm happy to report that I've come to the point of A) forgiving myself for my gut reaction, and B) recognizing the very real, human tragedy of this loss, especially when it is so pointless and meaningless. From the purely logical point of view, Michael Kelly's death is a blow to debate. Any chance for a meeting of the minds - or even marginally rational debate - between Kelly and the loyal opposition is gone. With the death of any right-winger (but especially one so dedicated to the downfall of the Left), the idealistic hope of any reconciliation between left and right dies a little more too. Perhaps more importantly, however, is this: Kelly's death is a reminder to those of us who preach peace that we are not immune to the hate we so despise. You see, if there is one lesson I have learned from right-wingers, it is the putrid ugliness of fear manifested in the speech of hatred. The death of someone like Michael Kelly is a true test of my humanity. The Michael Kellys - and Rush Limbaughs, and Sean Hannitys, and Michael Savages, and Ann Coulters - of this world may not be representative of all American conservatives. But they are the most vocal, and the most visible, and they are constant reminders of the worst the right-wing has to offer. Their greatest crime is not being simply and plainly wrong a great deal of the time (everyone has the right to be wrong, and expose their bigotry to their heart's content); the real offense is taking advantage of broad and instantaneous distribution of disinformation, thus fueling the hatred of their followers, precious few of whom boast the ability to distinguish opinion from fact. Their effect is painfully evident in the mini-me's found in startling abundance throughout every right-wing message board on the Net. While I suppose there must, somewhere in our digital world, exist a pro-conservative forum in which participants are held accountable to the standards of responsible debate, I have not seen it. What I see instead is a proliferation of Coulterite groupthink (or, if you prefer, the natural long-term evolution of the Two Minutes Hate), in which fact is shouted down by parroted rhetoric - and the death of one of "us" (i.e., any human being whose politics lie to the left of Jesse Helms) is greeted with ejaculations of vile glee. Go ahead and hate everything Paul Wellstone stood for. It's your right. But mock the man and rejoice in his death, and you earn nothing but my contempt. And God forbid one of those from the furthest leftward reaches of our clan should perish, for such deaths inspire the most despicable savagery of all. On the death of Rachel Corrie, the "human shield" mowed down by an Israeli bulldozer, I saw nothing from the "right" but comments like these: Oh well, the gene pool continues to improve daily. good riddance. the gene pool just got a nice dose of chlorine Damned, just one? bye bye commie rats! sad, yes, but it figures - home to much of the leftcoast anti-America drugged-out, body-pierced, homosexual grunge "music" crowd. Another member of the hairy armpit brigade gets squished. My heart bleeds. Now her name is Rachel Gorey. Any video? hehehe Natural Selection! Before this is over, Old Man Darwin will do a lot of weeding out re the human gene pool. Another member of the shallow end group has been removed. Nothing runs like a dere!!!! lol lol Okay, now I'm ready to give the bulldozer driver a medal. I hope this remains IDF policy: run over commies. Every quote above is taken verbatim from a very popular right-wing message board whose oxymoronic name is well known to most online politics junkies - and whose intimidation tactics are, unfortunately, not restricted to the projectile vomiting of their poison. (I won't provide links - not because I have any desire to protect these shameless hate hounds, but because I would rather plug a Billy Graham fan site than provide a live link to the abominable dives some of you right-wingers call home.) I know not all you right-wingers are this way. I'm just sickened by a great number of your compatriates; and, unfortunately, the most vocal among you are among the sickest. Those of you who are as revolted as I am (and embarrassed, as you should be, to share their politics) might think about trying to drum some sense into their heads. They certainly aren't winning any hearts and minds for the Republican party, are they? And they're not making it easy for people like me to resist a similarly sickening satisfaction in the loss of one of "yours". Could I "mourn" the death of a Coulter, or a Limbaugh? I don't know if my humanity can stretch that far. But I will try - if only because the right-wing brand of hatred sets an example for me of what I must never succumb to. And I will try, because I understand to some degree why they take such joy in the thinning of the liberal herd - and I do not want to understand it to any degree. While I am now incapable of experiencing anything remotely resembling "joy" at the death of a hard-core right-winger, my supreme wish is that any hint of satisfaction becomes so foreign a concept to me that I become incapable of even understanding it at all. Vets: If you won't tell, how will they know? posted Fri, 4 Apr 2003 23:08:59 -0800 I've corresponded with a number of Vietnam vets lately, the overwhelming majority of whom are positively sickened by the fireworks show in the streets of Baghdad. Each vet, of course, has a different tale to tell. But, invariably, to a one, they all cut their stories short - just short of detail, that is - explaining that the action they saw in the jungles is not something they want to rehash. And who can blame them? I'm sure their reticence is out of protection of their own battered psyches than any worry of shocking an audience. Nevertheless, the vets who are against the current action in Iraq - those who have "been there, done that" - could greatly enhance their peace efforts by simply talking openly about their experiences. Again, I don't blame them for not wanting to dredge up the kind of nightmares most of us could never imagine - but I honestly believe that those who can force themselves to reveal the (literally) gory details should do just that. I can't tell you how many times I've read or heard one of the current crop of fresh-faced soldiers express (pre-deployment) expectations that battle would indeed resemble a video game. Maybe it will always seem that way to those who control drone planes or launch missiles from the relative safety of a hundred miles away from their targets, or to the pilots who never see the faces of the humans they're bombing below. Street fighting, however, will not feel at all like a video game. Nor will it even be as clean or quick as the last few scenes of Saving Private Ryan. This is not a video game. This is not a movie. But how do you make people truly understand that, unless you're willing to force the very real pictures of war into their blissfully ignorant brains? Only our front-line veterans can do that. Listen, you vets - and I'm speaking directly to you now - I'm not faulting you for anything. There have been many lesser experiences in my life, which pale in comparison to anything you've gone through, that I quickly shove to the darkest recesses of my own consciousness when their memories threaten to emerge. But when there's a good reason to draw those memories forward deliberately... See, guys, it's like this: Now, I've never been raped, but I've been closer to rape (and abuse, and other battering) in ways I don't care (or need) to go into at the moment. And I can tell you that a woman who's been raped has no natural desire to rehash the details, either. And yet those who can bring themselves to speak openly (and yes, graphically) about the way their bodies, minds, and emotions have been violated do the most good - for other victims, and for society at large. They believe, as do I, that frankness about things most people would rather sweep under the rug is the first step in preventing such horrors in the future. A rape victim who has, by her candor and courage, evolved from victim to survivor, will never singlehandedly stop all future acts of sexual violence. But she may very well stop a single rape, without ever knowing it - simply by raising the consciousness of one person at a time. So delving into your worst nightmares isn't going to stop this "war." But it might stop the next one. Or the next. Maybe the results of your efforts won't occur until after you are long dead. But if you share much of the base philosophy as most peace lovers, it will be okay with you if you never live to see your efforts pay off. Because it's not instant gratification we're after - it's something much larger and greater. Isn't it? With all that said, I want to encourage you to relate your worst war stories to those who will never experience combat themselves - and those who still think it's all a video game. Believe me, guys, it's not a matter of morbid curiosity for me - I read and listen to your stories whenever I find one of you willing to talk, because even as a peace lover myself, I don't ever want to allow my own consciousness of the horrors of war to lapse. It would be all too easy for someone like me, sitting here on my comfortable couch, keyboard on my lap and wine glass at my side, to shut it all out. But there are many millions who do shut it out - either deliberately, or simply because no one's ever bothered to try to make them understand. Are there any vets listening to me right now? Could you do what I'm asking? Am I being insensitive by way of my inability to really know what you've been through? Or maybe you can forgive any blindness on my part, and understand what I'm really asking - that you make one more terrible sacrifice for your country, and bare your soul so that perhaps, one day, no one else will have to do the same. What got me thinking about this was something I ran across recently - My World War Two, a site devoted to an 816-page (!) book by David J. Powis, a British WWII veteran who survived combat in Malta, Italy, and France. Mr. Powis writes: Sadly those of us, of all nationalities, who have no interest in regimental exhibitionism, but saw excessive front line action, are often sidelined, misinterpreted or ignored. The mass media continue to promote the medal clad, flag saluting jingoist image, as if such people represent all veterans - in reality they don _ t... Since the war I have been appalled by media misinterpretation and glorification of hostility. This has resulted in giving many, who have never experienced front line action, a very distorted and simplistic view... If people knew the true horrors of the battlefield, it's doubtful any sane person would advocate war as a serious proposition. There are many essays and excerpts on the site, all of which are well worth reading - and all of which will alter your idea of "war," no matter which side you're on. Why? Would his brain have exploded? posted Fri, 4 Apr 2003 22:16:44 -0800 Bush reportedly shielded from dire forecast WASHINGTON - President Bush's aides did not forcefully present him with dissenting views from CIA and State and Defense Department officials who warned that U.S.-led forces could face stiff resistance in Iraq, according to three senior administration officials. Instead, Bush embraced predictions of top administration hawks, beginning with Vice President Dick Cheney, who predicted Iraqis would joyously greet coalition troops as liberators and that the entire conflict might be over in a matter of weeks, the officials said. Dissenting views "were not fully or energetically communicated to the president," said one top official, who, like the others, requested anonymity. "As a result, almost every assumption the plan's based on looks to be wrong." Knight Ridder News Service, March 29, 2003 Boy, that last sentence is reassuring, isn't it? Sounds to me like the White House is spinning this SNAFU every which-way in order to cover Georgie's soft little bottom. Or is Georgie just wishing he could have it both ways - like Poppy? I was out of the loop. -- George H.W. Bush May, 1988 I'm in on everything. If our policies aren't working, I can't say, "Wait a minute, I'm not to blame," because I'm a full partner. -- George H.W. Bush August, 1988 About that Private Lynch... posted Fri, 4 Apr 2003 02:12:57 -0800 Just watch the evolving (and subsequently devolving) news story: She [Pfc. Jessica Lynch] was said to be doing well, but CNN reported that Lynch had suffered had suffered multiple gunshot wounds at some point during her ordeal in Iraq that made it hard to move her. Reuters April 1, 2003 MSNBC also is reporting that the gunshot wounds occurred during Jessica's rescue, and that she had been held in the hospital since March 23 when she disappeared. TalkLeft April 1, 2003 Her condition was not disclosed, but U.S. officials in Kuwait said she was believed to have broken legs, a broken arm and at least one gunshot wound. Associated Press April 2, 2003 Lynch, a 19-year-old supply clerk, continued firing at the Iraqis even after she suffered gunshot wounds and watched other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting 11 days ago, one official said. Lynch also was stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position, the official said, noting that initial intelligence reports indicated she had been stabbed to death. No official gave any indication Wednesday, however, that Lynch's wounds had been life-threatening. Tampa Tribune April 3, 2003 In the gun battle that preceded her capture Lynch was prepared to fight to the death, The Washington Post reported. She "continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting on March 23," the Post said, citing a US official. Dispatch April 4, 2003 A U.S. commando team whose name remains secret rescued Lynch early Wednesday. She underwent surgery at a military hospital in Germany and was scheduled for more, her parents said yesterday. Her father said doctors had found no evidence of gunshot or stab wounds. Knight-Ridder News Service April 4, 2003 The 19-year-old Army supply clerk was undergoing surgery yesterday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for a fractured disc, two broken legs and a broken arm. New York Post April 4, 2003 Since her rescue, Lynch has been flown to U.S. Ramstein air base in Germany and has undergone back surgery. Her parents in West Virginia said she has two broken legs and a broken right forearm. Washington Post April 4, 2003 Pfc. Jessica Lynch shifted overnight from victim to teenage Rambo: all the cable news shows ran with a report from The Washington Post that the 19-year-old P.O.W. had been shot and stabbed yet still kept firing at enemy soldiers. In the hands of television, the story had instantly gelled into a heroic made-for-TV war movie, "Saving Meg Ryan." Later yesterday, her father said she had not been shot or stabbed in the ambush of her unit. New York Times April 4, 2003 And speaking of the "wrong turn" that got Lynch's unit into this mess in the first place: ...convoy that was ambushed by Iraqi soldiers after his unit took a wrong turn on the way to Baghdad... Detroit Now/WXYZ-TV March 26, 2003 US officials say a convoy of vehicles from the 507th took a wrong turn Sunday... Associated Press March 26, 2003 "The unit just took a wrong turn. They took a turn that led them into territory not protected, and they were separated from their unit," said [Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.]. Arizona Republic March 27, 2003 The soldier, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, of Palestine, W.Va., was part of the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company ambushed in Nasiriya on March 23 after the military convoy she was in took a wrong turn in the dark off a highway en route to an antiaircraft battery in southern Iraq. New York Times April 1, 2003 Soldiers with the 507th Maintenance Company from Fort Bliss did not take a wrong turn in the early morning of March 23 when their convoy was ambushed by Iraqi soldiers near Nasiriyah, U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Thursday. Reyes, who spoke to three wounded soldiers, including two staff sergeants, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, said they told him they were ambushed on a bridge as they were attempting to catch up to a huge convoy of tanks and troops moving north to Baghdad. They had fallen behind because they had to repair several stalled vehicles. El Paso Times April 4, 2003 Wow. posted Thu, 3 Apr 2003 19:59:21 -0800 Words fail me. Just click it: ericblumrich.com Takes a moment to load on dial-up, but worth the short wait. Mindy Kleinberg, American Hero posted Thu, 3 Apr 2003 13:04:32 -0800 Let's take a break from war talk for a moment and pay attention to something just as important. (Yes, such a thing exists.) I'm reprinting this in full, partly because I can (it's a public document, so I own it just as does every other American), but mostly because I want to make sure you and I both read it, just in case it's scrubbed. (No tin-foil here; "official" documents of record are scrubbed from .gov sites all the time - and with executive orders to re-classify once-public documents shooting out of the Oval Office like so many rounds from an M-16, there's no guatantee this will always be available for our perusal.) The text is verbatim as it was published on the 9-11 Commission site (misspellings, punctuation goofs and all), at: http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/witness_kleinberg.htm Highlighting of points of particular interest, however, is mine. First public hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Statement of Mindy Kleinberg to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States March 31, 2003 My name is Mindy Kleinberg. My husband Alan Kleinberg, 39 yrs old, was killed in the WTC on September 11, 2001. As I testify here today about the 9/11 attacks, I will begin by saying that my thoughts are very much with the men and women who are involved in armed conflict overseas and their families who wait patiently for them to return. This war is being fought on two fronts, overseas as well as here on our shores; this means that we are all soldiers in this fight against terrorism. As the threat of terrorism mounts here in the United States, the need to address the failures of September 11 is more important than ever. It is an essential part of "lessons learned". As such, this commission has an extremely important task before it. I am here today to ask you, the commissioners, to help us understand how this could have happened; help us understand where the breakdown was in our nation's defense capabilities. Where were we on the morning of September 11th? On the morning of September 11th my three-year-old son, Sam, and I walked Jacob 10, and Lauren, 7 to the bus stop at about 8:40 a.m. It was the fourth day of a new school year and you could still feel everyone's excitement. It was such a beautiful day that Sam and I literally skipped home oblivious to what was happening in NYC. At around 8:55 I was confirming play date plans for Sam with a friend when she said, "I can't believe what I am watching on TV, a plane has just hit the World Trade Center." For some reason it did not register with me until a few minutes later when I calmly asked, "what building did you say?" "Oh that's Alan's building I have to call you back." There was no answer when I tried to reach him at the office. By now my house started filling with people--his mother, my parents, our sisters and friends. The seriousness of the situation was beginning to register. We spent the rest of the day calling hospitals, and the Red Cross and any place else we could think of to see if we could find him. I'll never forget thinking all day long, "how am I going to tell Jacob and Lauren that their father was missing?" They came home to a house filled with people but no Daddy. How were they going to be able to wait calmly for his return? What if he was really hurt? This was their hero, their king their best friend, their father. The thoughts of that day replay over and over in our heads always wishing for a different outcome. We are trying to learn to live with the pain. We will never forget where we were or how we felt on September 11th. But where was our government, its agencies, and institutions prior to and on the morning of September 11th? The Theory of Luck With regard to the 9/11 attacks, it has been said that the intelligence agencies have to be right 100% of the time and the terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong in its value. Because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once: they were lucky over and over again. Allow me to illustrate. The SEC The terrorist's lucky streak began the week before September 11th with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. The SEC, in concert with the United States intelligence agencies, has sophisticated software programs that are used in "real-time" to watch both domestic and overseas markets to seek out trends that may indicate a present or future crime. In the week prior to September 11th both the SEC and U.S. intelligence agencies ignored one major stock market indicator, one that could have yielded valuable information with regard to the September 11th attacks. On the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the week before September 11th, put options were purchased on American and United Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. The investors who placed these orders were gambling that in the short term the stock prices of both Airlines would plummet. Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11th attacks. Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account. Why these aberrant trades were not discovered prior to 9/11? Who were the individuals who placed these trades? Have they been investigated? Who was responsible for monitoring these activities? Have those individuals been held responsible for their inaction? The INS Prior to 9/11, our US intelligence agencies should have stopped the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence reasons, alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS. With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual times, because 15 of the 19 hijackers' visas should have been unquestionably denied. Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and un-employed males. They were, in short, the "classic over-stay candidates". A seasoned former Consular officer stated in National Review magazine, "Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances." Yet these 19 young single, unemployed, "classic overstay candidates still received their visas." I am holding in my hand the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these forms are incomplete and incorrect. Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply "student" failing to then list the name and address of any school or institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for their stay in the US wrote "myself" and provided no further documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination in the US as simply "hotel" or "California" or "New York". One even listed his destination as "no". Had the INS or State Department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the United States on September 11th, 2001. Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times. How many more lucky terrorists gained unfettered access into this country? With no one being held accountable, how do know this still isn't happening? Airline and Airport Security On the morning of September 11th, the terrorists' luck commenced with airline and airport security. When the 19 hijackers went to purchase their tickets (with cash and/or credit cards) and to receive their boarding passes, nine were singled out and questioned through a screening process. Luckily for those nine terrorists, they passed the screening process and were allowed to continue on with their mission. But, the terrorist's luck didn't end at the ticket counter; it also accompanied them through airport security, as well. Because how else would the hijackers get specifically contraband items such as box-cutters, pepper spray or, according to one FAA executive summary, a gun on those planes? Finally, sadly for us, years of GAO recommendations to secure cockpit doors were ignored making it all too easy for the hijackers to gain access to the flight controls and carryout their suicide mission. FAA and NORAD Prior to 9/11, FAA and Department of Defense Manuals gave clear, comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor emergencies to full blown hijackings. These "protocols" were in place and were practiced regularly for a good reason--with heavily trafficked air space; airliners without radio and transponder contact are collisions and/or calamities waiting to happen. Those protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, i TRUNCATED Waiting for the other shoe to drop? posted Wed, 2 Apr 2003 12:13:19 -0800 Leave it to the DUers to pinpoint what I'm feeling before it emerges from my subconscious and manifests itself in the written word. There's a forum thread about a common sense of foreboding... not the usual gloom-and-doom, the-world-is-screwed kind of feeling, but the sense that something is "up." It's unidentifiable, but you can feel it. And you can't shake it. It's like shooing a fly off your arm, but not being fast enough to swat it before it lands somewhere else on your skin. This is what I've been feeling since the weekend. Maybe it was the momentary "pause" on the battlefield that started me wondering if the troops were going to pull back completely, so the U.S. could finish the job with something a lot bigger and more deadly than a measly MOAB. But that "pause" is over. So why do I feel like we're all in this great, big bus, teetering on the edge of a cliff... and there's no driver? Is it just me? Or is anyone else feeling this weird sense that something none of us - peacenik or war-lover - could ever possibly expect or predict? Is it just domestic "battle fatigue"? Damn your blindness posted Wed, 2 Apr 2003 09:11:17 -0800 Here, war supporters - a story just for you: 'I saw the heads of my two little girls come off' An Iraqi mother in a van fired on by US soldiers says she saw her two young daughters decapitated in the incident that also killed her son and eight other members of her family... Bakhat Hassan - who lost his daughters, aged two and five, his three-year-old son, his parents, two older brothers, their wives and two nieces aged 12 and 15, in the incident - said US soldiers at an earlier checkpoint had waved them through. As they approached another checkpoint 40km south of Karbala, they waved again at the American soldiers. "We were thinking these Americans want us to be safe," Hassan said through an Army translator at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital set up at a vast Army support camp near Najaf. The soldiers didn't wave back. They fired. "I saw the heads of my two little girls come off," Hassan's heavily pregnant wife, Lamea, 36, said numbly... Hassan's father died at the Army hospital later. ... Details emerging from interviews with survivors of yesterday's incident tell a distressing tale of a family fleeing towards what they thought would be safety, tragically misunderstanding instructions... Hassan's father, in his 60s, wore his best clothes for the trip through the American lines: a pinstriped suit. "To look American," Hassan said. An Army report written last night cited "a miscommunication with civilians" as the cause of the incident. ... They were fleeing their farm town southeast of Karbala, where US attack helicopters had fired missiles and rockets the day before. Helicopters also had dropped leaflets on the town: a drawing of a family sitting at a table eating and smiling with a message written in Arabic. Sergeant 1st Class Stephen Furbush, an Army intelligence analyst, said the message read: "To be safe, stay put." But Hassan said he and his father thought it just said: "Be safe." To them, that meant getting away from the helicopters firing rockets and missiles. His father drove. They planned to go to Karbala. They stopped at an Army checkpoint on the northbound road near Sahara, about 40km south of Karbala, and were told to go on, Hassan said. But "the Iraqi family misunderstood" what the soldiers were saying, Furbush said. A few kilometres later, a Bradley Fighting Vehicle came into view. The family waved as it came closer. The soldiers opened fire. Hassan remembers an Army medic at the scene of the killings speaking Arabic. "He told us it was a mistake and the soldiers were sorry," Hassan said... Today, Hassan and his wife remain at the unit. He has staples in his head. She has a mangled hand and shrapnel in her face and shoulder... "We had hope," he said. "But then you Americans came to bring us democracy and our hope ended." Lamea is nine months pregnant. "It would be better not to have the baby," she said. "Our lives are over." Sydney Morning Herald April 2, 2003 To the war supporters: Damn your blindness! Damn your refusal to see. It's as if you've gouged out your own eyes - and then buried your head in the sand, just to make sure thine eye will never offend thee. Damn your blindness. You are supporting a military action that will not "free" anyone, nor make the world "safe" for anyone, nor "protect" you and your precious way of life from anyone. You are supporting the wholesale slaughter of warmblooded human beings - Iraqis and U.S. servicemen and women alike - suckered into that picture of a happy "family sitting at a table eating and smiling" - be that family in Karbala, Iraq, or Sioux City, Iowa. What is it going to take for you to understand that the Hassans were not killed by bullets, but by their trust in a promise now as hollow as the skulls of Bakhat Hassan's daughters? What is it going to take for you to see that you are victims of the American propaganda machine - just like the Hassans? Don't roll your eyes at me. Deep in your gut, you know something is very wrong when the sudden, violent deaths of nine family members halfway across the world are somehow deemed unfortunate but inevitable "collateral damage," justified by some unfathomably perverted reasoning that total strangers must die so that you can preserve your "American way of life." Worse, you know that something is very wrong inside yourself to advocate such senseless violence in your name. And yet, you're like cheerleaders at the Colisseum - but you're not cheering on a pair of evenly-matched gladiators locked in mortal combat; you're cheering the lions as they devour the Christians. And for what? How can you be so willing to believe each new lie invented to justify each new atrocity? You wouldn't for a minute accept this kind of lying - the half-truths, the convenient omissions, the abortions of logic, the backpeddling, the blame-everyone-else-but-me game - from your spouse, your lover, your child, or your best friend. How can you not only accept but condone this kind of behavior from the people who hold your future in their hands - the same people who are sending your sons and brothers to kill in your name? God help the soldier who makes a fatal mistake to forgive himself, for it will forever weigh far more heavily on his conscience than it ever will on yours. Yet you own the responsibility for the deaths of the Hassans more than that soldier does, because you sent him there. You put that rifle in his hands. You gave the order to shoot. You cheered on the lions. You "support this war." Let's speak the truth here: You don't support this war. You support war. You support killing. And you support the murder of American troops. Spare me your umbrage. How can that statement be wrong? If you have ever uttered that pre-programmed, meaningless swill about never wanting to see any soldier "die in vain," then you accept the fact that the deaths of American soldiers in combat are unavoidable, and thus necessary to "preserve" your "freedom." So, "support the troops" all you want. I do - at least the ones who recognize and accept the consequences of their actions. But "support the war," and you are supporting something very different indeed. Something dark, destructive, and plainly wrong, disguised as "liberty" and wrapped tightly in the American flag to perfect the illusion. Whatever your personal justification may be for "supporting the war" is anyone's guess - but you're the only one fooled by your belief that it has anything to do with either "democracy" or "freedom." You simply refuse to see it. Damn your blindness. Red-Hot Reads posted Tue, 1 Apr 2003 23:50:45 -0800 Single-sentence excerpts from the sharpest op/eds I've read lately - and which truly deserve your rapt attention. Click any or all - satisfaction is guaranteed. Once Saddam is killed, this latest reasoning goes, the Iraqi people will begin celebrating like some Mideast version of the flying monkeys in _ The Wizard of Oz, _ who were transformed into happy creatures once the Wicked Witch of the West was dead. -- Robert Parry Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down Consortium News March 30, 2003 I know our hawks avoided serving in Vietnam, but didn't they, like, read about it? -- Maureen Dowd It's hard to avoid a few acid flashbacks to Vietnam at warp speed New York Times News Service March 31, 2003 It would be comical if the good old USA lost a war to a bunch of ridiculously ordinary people many Americans disparagingly call ragheads - comical in the eyes of God, comical in the eyes of a world which has seen America go berserk with power and give its soul away to men who have no idea what a soul is. -- John Kaminski Alas, Babylon Online Journal March 29, 2003 Are the people who are caught up in a mass delusion ever aware that they are living in a malignant fantasyland? -- Ernest Partridge The View from Wonderland The Online Gadfly March, 2003 America right now is like a family that has been repeatedly brutalized by a drunk. -- Alan Bisbort America the Abused American Politics Journal March 29, 2003 Instead of the omnipotent, omniscient colossus striding over the recumbent but grateful Iraq to lead the world into the 21st century, the neocon Moses stepped on the global stage, tripped on its own shoelaces, and fell flat on its face. -- Peter Lee How to Lose a War in a Week The Smirking Chimp March 31, 2003 The source of the freedoms we enjoy, value, cherish, live and die for, is not the military, nor the administration, but ourselves. -- Andrew Reed Our freedom is a legacy from ancestors who had the guts to protest Citizen-Times.com March 26, 2003 The Cold War has three lessons to teach Americans who are willing to learn. -- Tim Francis-Wright Three Lessons for America Bear Left! March 31, 2003 I've spent the past few days at country crossroads, in small towns and in big cities across the upper Midwest and I have heard intense discussions about this war's unexpected and troubling turns, about whether the Bush administration and its neo-conservative cheerleaders presented an "unrealistic" picture of what was coming, and about whether the best way to support the troops might be to bring them home. -- John Nichols Preaching the Party Line The Nation March 31, 2003 The US will almost certainly then have engineered the improbable chimera it claims to be chasing: the marriage of Saddam's well-armed secular brutality and al-Qaida's global insurrection. -- George Monbiot It will end in disaster The Guardian April 1, 2003 Immediately after September 11, according to Bob Woodward's book Bush at War, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz tried to convince President Bush to attack Iraq rather than Afghanistan, maintaining that Hussein's government was a brittle regime that could crumble easily, that Iraq was a pushover and Afghanistan was not... -- David Corn The Hubris of the Neocons The Nation March 31, 2003 Our number one job in the U.S. today is to not be good Germans. -- Toby Sackton The Good Germans and the War at Home Toby's Political Diary March 31, 2003 Any "tougher," and they'll have to start raping and pillaging posted Tue, 1 Apr 2003 21:21:04 -0800 U.S. Troops Told to Use Tougher Tactics Washington Post, April 1, 2003 Girding against Iraqi attackers who have blurred the line between what's military and what's civilian, U.S. commanders have instructed troops to assume the worst and employ a range of tougher tactics aimed at weeding out and hunting down Iraqi militia, defense officials said yesterday. Okay, stop right there. Before anybody starts screaming about the "rules of engagement" again, let me remind you (or appraise you for the first time) of a couple of things. First, the warmongers are going to breeze right by the fact that the invasion of Iraq is an illegal war; hence the "rules" don't apply. So we'll just skip right over that. Second, the CIA is doing the same damned thing the U.S. is bitching about the Iraqis doing: Our spooks are in Iraq right now, engaging in what's being called a largely invisible war: "The covert teams, from the CIA's paramilitary division and the military _ s special operations group, include snipers and demolition experts schooled in setting house and car bombs. They have reportedly killed more than a handful of individuals, according to one knowledgeable source. They have been in operation for at least one week... CIA units and special operations teams are also involved in organizing tribal groups to fight the Iraqi government from the north. They are secretly hunting for weapons of mass destruction and missiles sites, and are looking to interrogate Iraqi defectors and prisoners of war. The CIA, the National Security Agency and foreign intelligence services cooperating with the agency are helping to identify 'leadership' targets; the homes, offices and other sites inhabited by the officials who make up the government _ s infrastructure." Which in essence means that undercover snipers and car bombers are perfectly justified as long as their paychecks are signed by George Tenet - but it's terrorism when Iraqis use every dirty trick in their own limited repertoire to to gain what little advantage they can against a technologically-superior invading army. That's going to be a tough one for the war-lovers to wrap their brains around, and an even tougher one for Karl Rove to spin. Drivers and passengers at checkpoints will be ordered out of vehicles with their hands raised and will be searched. Cars and trucks will no longer be permitted to cross through U.S. and British convoys. Any vehicle blocking traffic will be rolled over. I sure hope none of these soldiers have any post-war plans of becoming New York City traffic cops. And if civilians with hands in their pockets approach troops and fail to respond, first to a shouted command and then to a warning shot, they will be killed, the officials said. Gee, and all the nuns did when we left our hands in our pockets was to slap us. Seriously, people - kill a civilian because his hands are in his pockets? How many excuses are we going to hear about civilians failing to obey warnings - shouted by nervous 19-year-olds who don't speak the language, relying on prototype phrase-o-lators most of them don't even have yet (and which work right only half the time)? No, I didn't miss the part about firing a warning shot first. What I want to know is how many times we're going to hear the excuse that some dead Iraqi failed to heed the warning shot there was no damned warning shot in the first place. Or after a soldier has "just f--king killed a family because [he] didn't fire a warning shot soon enough." Talk about going off half-cocked. Drawing on lessons from the British experience in Northern Ireland and the American experience in Vietnam, U.S. forces also have begun house-to-house searches for paramilitary hideouts and are conducting commando raids and airstrikes to pick off senior military and political leaders... Bingo! The V Word! You notice how you're hearing more and more about Vietnam lately? There's a reason for that, cats-'n'-jammers. "Everyone is now seen as a combatant until proven otherwise," a Pentagon official said, detailing some of the new measures. Oh, boy. This is not what I wanted to hear. Not what I wanted to hear at all. The Pentagon has not issued new "rules of engagement" to cover this increasingly aggressive behavior by U.S. troops, according to several senior officials. Rather, the moves appear to reflect what one official called a "tightening" of existing rules by commanders who had applied them "pretty flexibly" at the outset of the war. What in bloody hell is that supposed to mean? While I mull it over, I suppose I should be grateful that the usually right-wing Post is at least calling a spade a spade: "increasingly aggressive behavior." God, these boys are going to be screwed up when they get home. Officials acknowledged that the shift in tactics runs the risk of alienating and even killing greater numbers of Iraqi civilians. Well, nice of you to admit it. But all those little pre-adolescent body parts scattered around town are just "collateral damage," right? So, hey, what's a few more dead babies? I mean, it's not like any of them might have grown up to be a football player, or the next Tiger Woods, or anything important like that, right? Besides, more dead Iraqis means less food you guys are going to have to hand out. It must get so depressing looking at all those gaunt, bony locals. Man, if only your girlfriend back home had it so easy dieting, she wouldn't be such a bitch every time she gained five ounces, would she? It also could slow plans by civil affairs teams to reach out to Iraqis - part of the U.S. campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people - and could risk further inflaming anti-American sentiment elsewhere in the Arab world. Hot damn, you mean you came up with this all by yourself? Watch it, buddy-boy, or pretty soon people might start wondering if there's somebody in Washington who's actually bothered to consider the global consequences of this fiasco - i.e., has a working brain. "You'll see acts of kindness, medical care and the like, but the large-scale aid effort will have to wait," one defense official said. Yeah, we'll see all that "and the like" if you people can possibly manage to get your own damned supply convoys through, instead of losing the drivers to POW camps. And if the troops are thinking about humanitarian aid at all, they probably can't even hear their own thoughts over the sound of their rumbling bellies. Some of them are on less than half-rations - except for those lucky enough to be near Rafit, where the Iraqis are feeding the Marines, instead of the other way around. (Well, at least they finally found a handful of "grateful" Iraqis!) And what little food the troops are handing out to the locals is being snatched up by the strongest and the fastest - and seldom distributed to those who need it the most. U.S. commanders have admitted confronting stiffer-than-expected resistance from Saddam's Fedayeen, Baath Party enforcers and other militants outside the regular army who have killed, wounded and captured U.S. troops. Well, duh!, you morons. I could have told you to expect that. No, wait - I've been telling you to expect that. In fact, a lot of people have been telling you to expect that. The Pentagon has been telling Rummy that for a long time, but the sour old coot just refuses to listen. Now, as to why Tommy Franks didn't get that message across to you poor bastards in the field is anybody's guess. Probably has something to do with not wanting to "demoralize" you by letting you in on the fact that Rummy thought he knew better than the real hawks, and refused to send enough troops and gear to help you guys out. But you should have expected that, too; after all, you know better than anyone that your Secretary of War knows nothing about combat. While Rummy spent more time in uniform than Dubya, any vet worth his stripes will tell you that the difference between wartime service and peacetime service is like night and day. In fact, precious few of those sending you all to your death in the desert - with the most notable exception of Colin "What, My Doctrine?" Powell - served any time at all in the TRUNCATED Enough April-Fooling Around posted Tue, 1 Apr 2003 20:50:34 -0800 Well, April Fool's Day is just about over - thank God. I waited all day long to see what the reaction would be to my last entry - and really hoped to catch hell in the comments section - but I guess the majority of those who fell for it won't admit it. LOL Enough waiting. There's a bunch of different meaty subjects I can't wait to bite into - so, let's go! Oh, but first - here's one of the best April 1st headlines I've seen all day: Bush gives in to protests, calls for end to Iraq war Best of all, it's a hoax that will carry on indefinitely, as it's already been indexed by Google News. That's where I found it, when I was looking for something else entirely. Cruel prank? Nah! It's a nicely-written little fantasy piece that should make you smile. Well, if you're a peace-lover, anyway. Epiphany posted Tue, 1 Apr 2003 13:01:53 -0800 I had an epiphany last night. I was lying in bed meditating, when suddenly it all became clear: I now understand the logic of Iraqi liberation, the futility of trying to herd a large group of supporters into accepting the fact that you and you alone are right - and thus Mr. Bush's initial determination in going it alone if need be, critics and naysayers be damned. And so I got out of bed, sat down in front of the computer, and began to write - as if possessed. I hope you'll forgive any stiltedness in this entry - but it was very late at night, and this is exactly how it came to me. And I feel the need to share it with you, without so much editing that the meaning is diluted. Please do me the kindness of reading every word, right through to the end. I promise, it will be worth your time. I sincerely hope the anti-war protesters will see the light, as I did: The tragic reason why it so often happens that the pursuit of one definite task is not left to one association alone is as follows: Generally speaking, every action carried out on the grand style in this world is the expression of a desire that has already existed for a long time in millions of human hearts, a longing which may have been nourished in silence. Yes, it may happen that throughout centuries men may have been yearning for the solution of a definite problem, because they have been suffering under an unendurable order of affairs, without seeing on the far horizon the coming fulfilment of the universal longing. Nations which are no longer capable of finding an heroic deliverance from such a sorrowful fate may be looked upon as effete. But, on the other hand, nothing gives better proof of the vital forces of a people and the consequent guarantee of its right to exist than that one day, through a happy decree of Destiny, a man arises who is capable of liberating his people from some great oppression, or of wiping out some bitter distress, or of calming the national soul which had been tormented through its sense of insecurity, and thus fulfilling what had long been the universal yearning of the people. It is certain that the natural law will take its course, inasmuch as the strongest will be destined to fulfil the great mission. But usually the others are slow to acknowledge that only one man is called. On the contrary, they all believe that they have an equal right to engage in the solution of the difficulties in question and that they are equally called to that task. Their contemporary world is generally quite unable to decide which of all these possesses the highest gifts and accordingly merits the support of all. The populace nourishes vague desires and has only general opinions, without having any precise notion of their own ideals and desires or of the question whether and how it is impossible for these ideals and desires to be fulfilled. The tragedy lies in the fact that many men struggle to reach the same objective by different roads, each one genuinely believing in his own mission and holding himself in duty bound to follow his own road without any regard for the others. These movements, parties, religious groups, etc., originate entirely independently of one another out of the general urge of the time, and all with a view to working towards the same goal. It may seem a tragic thing, at least at first sight, that this should be so, because people are too often inclined to think that forces which are dispersed in different directions would attain their ends far more quickly and more surely if they were united in one common effort. But that is not so. For Nature herself decides according to the rules of her inexorable logic. She leaves these diverse groups to compete with one another and dispute the palm of victory and thus she chooses the clearest, shortest and surest way along which she leads the movement to its final goal. Hence, though diverse groups march along different routes towards the same objective, as soon as they come to know that analogous efforts are being made around them, they will have to study all the more carefully whether they have chosen the best way and whether a shorter way may not be found and how their efforts can best be employed to reach the objective more quickly. Through this rivalry each individual protagonist develops his faculties to a still higher pitch of perfection and the human race has frequently owed its progress to the lessons learned from the misfortunes of former attempts which have come to grief. Therefore we may conclude that we come to know the better ways of reaching final results through a state of things which at first sight appeared tragic; namely, the initial dispersion of individual efforts, wherein each group was unconsciously responsible for such dispersion. Anybody who is not so blinded by partisan politics as to deny this truth will have to agree that the so-called wisdom of men would never have come to the same wise decision as the wisdom of Life itself, that is to say, the free play of forces, finally brought to realization. And that will always be so. Therefore it is not to be regretted if different men set out to attain the same objective. In this way the strongest and swiftest becomes recognized and turns out to be the victor. The moment a man arises who profoundly understands the distress of his people and, having diagnosed the evil with perfect accuracy, takes measures to cure it. It is a mistake to believe that a factor of strength will result from the coalition of weak groups; because experience shows that under all forms and all conditions the majority represents the duffers and poltroons. Hence a multiplicity of associations, under a directorate of many heads, elected by these same associations, is abandoned to the control of poltroons and weaklings. Through such a coalition the free play of forces is paralysed, the struggle for the selection of the best is abolished and therewith the necessary and final victory of the healthier and stronger is impeded. Coalitions of that kind are inimical to the process of natural development, because for the most part they hinder rather than advance the solution of the problem which is being fought for. It may happen that, from considerations of a purely tactical kind, the supreme command of a movement whose goal is set in the future will enter into a coalition with such associations for the treatment of special questions and may also stand on a common platform with them, but this can be only for a short and limited period. Such a coalition must not be permanent, if the movement does not wish to renounce its liberating mission. Because if it should become indissolubly tied up in such a combination it would lose the capacity and the right to allow its own forces to work freely in following out a natural development, so as to overcome rivals and attain its own objective triumphantly. It must never be forgotten that nothing really great in this world has ever been achieved through coalitions, but that such achievements have always been due to the triumph of the individual. Successes achieved through coalitions, owing to the very nature of their source, carry the germs of future disintegration in them from the very start; so much so that they have already forfeited what has been achieved. The great revolutions which have taken place in human thought and have veritably transformed the aspect of the world would have been inconceivable and impossible to carry out except through titanic struggles waged between individual natures, but never as the enterprises of coalitions. And, above all things, the goal will never be achieved by the desire for compromise inherent in a patriotic coalition, but only by the iron will of a single movement which has successfully come through in the struggle with all the others. If you have read this far, and you actually believe A) that I have succumbed to the kind of twisted reasoning that has duped the warmongers into supporting the Iraq invasion, and/or B) that I even wrote this piece of tunnel-visioned megalomania myself, then I have only one more thing to say to you: April Fool! Strong stuff, isn't it? Scary, too, as it pretty well describes the thinking behind unilateralism and certain "divine" missions of a single victor motivated by an unshakable "vision," and who wins by sheer force - as well as the justification of using coalitions for whatever temporary benefit the "weaker" members may afford, while simultaneously branding coalitions as nothing more than a hindrance to one's unwavering goal. So who did write it? None other than Adolf Hitler, in Volume Two, Chapter VIII of Mein Kampf. All I did was excerpt the most readable sections (that guy was hella longwinded and obtuse!), delete any reference to Germany and the Reich, and replace the telling phrase "the People's State will never be created" with "the goal will never be achieved." Oh, and I bolded a few pertinent phrases, partly to draw your attention to them, and partly to keep you awake. Other clues: I didn't "Americanize" the spelling (and while I may commit a lot of grammatical offenses out of sheer laziness, I NEVER use such the phrase "the reason why" - it grates on me like fingernails on a blackboard). And if you re-read my preface at the top of the entry, you'll see I never once said I wrote it. For the right-wingers who thought I had finally "seen the light," I hope this has been an interesting lesson. Now, go read 1984, and really learn something. To everybody el TRUNCATED WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE LINKS posted Mon, 31 Mar 2003 22:07:09 -0800 WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE LINKS After much soul-searching (and welcome input from others), I have decided to publish links to photographs whose circulation is either limited solely to news sources outside the U.S., or have received extremely limited circulation within the U.S. These are not pictures you will see on CNN. These images will illustrate, better than any words can, the true cost of war. They are graphic. They are disturbing. They are horrifying. They should not be viewed by anyone of a sensitive nature - and if you have children of your own, you will want to make sure the kids are far away if you decide to click any of these links. If you are a combat veteran, I strongly urge you NOT to view these images. Again: These are images of dead and injured human beings. The reason I am providing these links is to drive home the point that this brutal attack is not a game. Lives are lost. Bodies are shredded. It is ugly. It is nearly incomprehensible in its cruelty. Of course, those of us who oppose this attack have no need to be further shocked. But many peace-seekers are actively searching for such images, for a variety of reasons - for linking from anti-war Web sites, for use on protest signs and flyers, or simply for archive purposes, in case these images suddenly disappear from public access. The warmongers (or, as I like to call them, anti-peace brigades) need to be shown exactly what they are supporting: senseless carnage. Bear in mind that any or all of these links may stop working at any moment. So if you think you will have a need for these images in the future, you should think about archiving them (and, by all rights, to inquire about archival and/or reprint rights from individual copyright owners). To click or not is up to you. Don't say I didn't warn you. Description: [An] Iraqi girl wounded in a recent air strike, lies in a hospital bed in Baghdad March 20, 2003. U.S. bombs and cruise missiles hit Baghdad at dawn on Thursday as the United States launched a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Source: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic Link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&;u=/030320/170/3kkds.html Description: An Iraqi child who reportedly suffered burns during the overnight bombing raid over Baghdad, cries as he is picked up by his mother outside the emergency room of a local Baghdad hospital. Source: AP, March 22, 2003 Link: http://www.boston.com/news/packages/iraq/galleries/032203/06.htm Description: An unidentified Iraqi man holds an unidentified girl wounded after U.S.-led coalition air strikes over the southern Iraqi city of Basra, Saturday March 22, 2003. Source: AP/Nabil Link: http://news.lycos.com/news/photo.asp?section=BreakingPhotos&;photoId=293509 Description: Two dead Iraqis are seen south of the city of Najaf in central Iraq (news - web sites), March 23, 2003. Iraq's information minister said on March 24 that 62 Iraqis had been killed by U.S.-led forces in the previous 24 hours and more than 400 had been wounded. Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf gave the figures at a news conference, breaking them down by city. In Baghdad, 194 people had been wounded in bombing but none had been killed. The most deaths were 30 in Babel, south of Baghdad, and 14 in Basra. Source: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters Link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&;u=/030324/161/3luai.html Description: [Same image as above, slightly different angle.] The bodies of two dead Iraqis are seen south of the city of Najaf in central Iraq, March 23, 2003. Burned-out vehicles and incinerated bodies littered a plain in central Iraq on Sunday after U.S. forces overwhelmed Iraqi militia fighters in a battle south of Najaf. U.S. armored infantry and tanks took control of the plain in the early hours of Sunday after a battle of more than seven hours against Iraqi forces who were armed with machineguns mounted on the back of Japanese pick-up trucks. Source: Uncredited Link: http://news.lycos.com/news/photo.asp?section=BreakingPhotos&;photoId=293507 Description: Collection of images. At top of page is extremely graphic closeup of child with head destroyed. Third photo down appears to human carnage, but is unidentifiable. Source: Al-Jazeera, March 23, 2003 Link: http://www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2003/3/3-23-5.htm To translate this page to English, enter the above URL here: http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1 Description: Same photo as above, archived by Los Angeles Independent Media Center, with additional commentary and links. Source: Al-Jazeera, March 23, 2003 Link: http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/39502.php Description: Collection of images. Third image down appears to be same child seen in photo described above, from front angle. Source: Al-Jazeera, March 23, 2003 Link: http://www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2003/3/3-23-10.htm To translate this page to English, enter the above URL here: http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1 Description: Collection of images. Same child described above, from three different angles; five images of dead soldiers (one in body bag); four hospital pictures. Source: Al-Jazeera, March 23, 2003 Link: http://www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2003/3/3-22-26.htm To translate this page to English, enter the above URL here: http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1 Description: Collection of 30+ images, including screen captures from Al-Jazeera TV. Source: Various Link: http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20Photos/Photos%20of%20Iraq%20war%20victims.htm Description: Small collection of images seen elsewhere, with biting commentary. At last check, half the images were broken. Source: Various Link: http://shockingelk.com/pictures/liberated_iraqis/ Not graphic; merely heartbreaking: Description: Doha Siel, 5, lies in a Baghdad hospital bed with a piece of shrapnel embedded in her spine after being injured Thursday, March 20 2003 in the first wave of bombing by American forces. Nine people were in serious but stable condition with shrapnel injuries at Baghdad's Al-Yarmouk Hospital, Dr. Jamal Abed Hassan said. They included six members of one family that was having breakfast when their town 20 miles west of Baghdad was attacked, the doctor said. Source: AP/Jerome Delay Link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&;u=/030320/168/3klk7.html Description: An Iraq woman stands near an Iraqi child laying in Al-Numan hospital after they were wounded when a missile landed in a residential neighborhood of Baghdad Monday March 24, 2003. killing three and wounding 23. Source: AP/Jerome Delay Link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&;u=/030324/168/3lxbk.html Also: Description: The Unseen Gulf War. Peter Turnley's portfolio of unflinching photographs from Gulf War I (1991), with commentary. Graphic, disturbing, but highly recommended. Source: Peter Turnley Link: http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_intro.html As I run across more images, I'll just add them to this entry, and post notices of updates. Quick Takes posted Mon, 31 Mar 2003 15:29:36 -0800 Best cartoon of the day Cagle Did I say it, or did I say it? 'US may face Soviet type Afghan misadventure in Iraq' US-led coalition troops may get bogged down in Iraq and face a bloody guerrilla war, similar to the Soviet Union's 10-year misadventure in Afghanistan, Pakistani military experts say. Agence France-Presse March 30, 2003 Yeah, I did say it. Okay, maybe this is the best cartoon of the day Benson Couldn't happen to a nicer smarmier network: Reuters TV forced to pull plug on CNN Reuters has barred CNN from using its Baghdad video feed after the Iraqi authorities ordered the news agency not to supply the US network with pictures. Although CNN can use Reuters' audio material, pictures being sent around the world by the agency are marked "NO ACCESS CNN". The agency's reluctant decision to prevent CNN using its TV footage comes after the rolling news network was expelled from Baghdad. The Iraqis accused CNN of being a "propaganda tool" for the US army... Guardian Unlimited, March 31, 2003 Wait, wait, wait, this is the best cartoon of the day: Nicholson God to Earth: Can you hear me now? February 27: Gov. Jeb Bush's plane was struck by a bolt of lightning today that was powerful enough to leave a hole in one of the wings. Tallahassee Democrat, February 27, 2003 March 26: Tony Blair has arrived in the US for key talks with George W Bush... About 20 minutes before landing the 777 jet was struck by a small lightning bolt while flying at about 10,000 feet. The lightning struck the left-hand wing but did not cause it to change course or descend. Ananova, March 26, 2003 No, hang on - this is even better than the last cartoon: Deadderdz Why does "Down come the walls of Jericho" keep running through my head? Advisers Split as War Unfolds The first 11 days of the war have brought back with a vengeance the deep splits that have long existed within the Bush administration and the Republican Party over policy toward Iraq. Already there is a behind-the-scenes effort by former senior Republican government officials and party leaders to convince President Bush that the advice he has received from Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz - a powerful triumvirate frequently at odds with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell - has been wrong and even dangerous to long-term U.S. national interests... Washington Post March 31, 2003 I give up - they're all the best cartoons of the day: Molina A Must-Read posted Mon, 31 Mar 2003 14:55:58 -0800 Powerful prose by the inimitable Jimmy Breslin: Blood Remains On the Hands Believe me, quoting a single sentence wouldn't do it justice. It's just something you have to read, in full. Gutless Wonders posted Mon, 31 Mar 2003 14:17:21 -0800 The most stupid boast in the history of present-day journalism is that of the writer who says, "I have never been given orders; I am free to do as I like." -- George Seldes, 1938 Dear NBC, MSNBC, and National Geographic: So you fired Peter Arnett for giving an "unauthorized" interview to Iraqi TV. Don't give me that crap. You fired him because he was critical of the stupendously half-assed way the U.S. is waging this "war." If he had represented himself as one of the nation's biggest butt-kissers to Mr. Bush's Coalition of the Unwitting, he'd still have a job. And don't give me that business about how reporters should never become part of the story they're reporting. Every last "embedded" reporter in Iraq is the story. Only a moron would believe Arnett's opinion could impact our unstoppable conquest of their nation. What, you think the Iraqi people haven't already heard everything he's said - and more? Arnett's remarks were mild compared to what I read every day in the British press (the U.K. is on "our side," remember, and yet its media hasn't been whipped into submission) - and barely noteworthy next to the unvarnished text and images coming from Al-Jazeera. My, my, it must be cozy in that cocoon you're living in. I wouldn't doubt that somebody got his manhood all bent out of shape and made a very pointed phone call to you at the National Bendoverbackwards Corporation to get Arnett canned. Admit it, you wimps: You backpeddled! Your own damned statement says it: "NBC initially backed Arnett _ s interview. 'His impromptu interview with Iraqi TV was done as a professional courtesy and was similar to other interviews he has done with media outlets from around the world,' NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust said. 'His remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more. His outstanding reporting on the war speaks for itself.'" And then you turn around and decide Arnett shouldn't have done it after all? Oh, please. Mr. Magoo could see through you and your gossamer-thin reasoning. Especially when Gollust's statement is followed immediately by the note that "the first Bush administration was unhappy with [Arnett's] reporting, suggesting that he had become a conveyor of propaganda" during Gulf War I. Of course Bush I was "unhappy" - because Arnett told the truth then, and he's telling the truth now. And the powers that be won't rest until every network in the country is brought into lockstep with those clown factories called Fox and CNN (or - as they're referred to by those of us who decline our news pre-chewed and digested for us - Faux News and the Conservative News Network). And apparently, you are falling into lockstep, chop-chop - following in the footsteps of Arnett's previous employer, CNN, which canned him after 18 years and a Pulitzer Prize for his Tailwind report. That's gratitude for you. In any case, you - and whoever really made the decision to give Arnett the kiss of death - count on the fact that the U.S. is a nation of Mr. Magoos. Well, guess what? Not all of us are that blind - or that stupid. We might have given you the benefit of the doubt if this action had been out of character for you. But it's not. You are owned, lock, stock, and barrel by the GE corporation, and your long history of slanting the news to serve your master's interests is common knowledge (at least, to those of us who can both read and think for ourselves.) What's good for General Bullmoose is good for GE - and thus, NBC. And what's good for General Bullmoose is a hard clamp-down (that began in earnest immediately after 9-11) on any view even remotely contrary to the official spew. Few of us were all that surprised when you, MSNBC, canceled your highest-rated show, "Donahue" - the only liberal voice on the talk-show circuit - and replaced Phil with rabidly racist liar Michael Savage. But I'm not going to stick around long enough to watch you dissolve completely into the spin factory CNN has become. Goodbye, Tom Brokaw. Goodbye, Brian Williams. You were pleasant guests in my home, but I'm sticking with PBS and Jim Lehrer - and when that damned dinosaur comes on, switching to Jennings, Koppel, and "World News Tonight." ABC isn't perfect, but with a Canadian anchor and international feeds direct from the BBC (and Barry Miller every Friday at precisely 3:30 a.m.), it's the best those of us without cable are going to get. (Yes, in case you were wondering, CBS' Dan Rather is a media whore too - and among the worst, since he'll confess the truth about American media whoredom to the foreign press, but lacks the testicular fortitude (and is just too attached to his own fat paycheck) to try to rectify the situation.) And I thought reporters got fired for getting the facts wrong. Now I see they get fired for getting the facts right. Despite the long history of shameless whitewashing by the American media, I thank God gutless wonders like you weren't in power during the Walter Cronkite era. Very truly, An Ex-Viewer More sources of pride for Penfield and Schrumpf posted Sun, 30 Mar 2003 15:17:30 -0800 The piece of metal is only a foot high, but the numbers on it hold the clue to the latest atrocity in Baghdad. At least 62 civilians had died by yesterday afternoon, and the coding on that hunk of metal contains the identity of the culprit. The Americans and British were doing their best yesterday to suggest that an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile destroyed those dozens of lives, adding that they were "still investigating" the carnage. But the coding is in Western style, not in Arabic... In the Al-Noor hospital yesterday morning, there were appalling scenes of pain and suffering. A two-year-old girl, Saida Jaffar, swaddled in bandages, a tube into her nose, another into her stomach. All I could see of her was her forehead, two small eyes and a chin. Beside her, blood and flies covered a heap of old bandages and swabs. Not far away, lying on a dirty bed, was three-year-old Mohamed Amaid, his face, stomach, hands and feet all tied tightly in bandages. A great black mass of congealed blood lay at the bottom of his bed. ... The missile sprayed hunks of metal through the crowds _ mainly women and children _ and through the cheap brick walls of local homes, amputating limbs and heads. Three brothers, the eldest 21 and the youngest 12, for example, were cut down inside the living room of their brick hut on the main road opposite the market. Two doors away, two sisters were killed in an identical manner. "We have never seen anything like these wounds before," Dr Ahmed, an anaesthetist at the Al-Noor hospital told me later. "These people have been punctured by dozens of bits of metal." He was right. One old man I visited in a hospital ward had 24 holes in the back of his legs and buttocks, some as big as pound coins. An X-ray photograph handed to me by one of his doctors clearly showed at least 35 slivers of metal still embedded in his body... "This is a crime," a woman muttered at me angrily. "Yes, I know they say they are targeting the military. But can you see soldiers here? Can you see missiles?" "I had five sons and now I have only two _ and how do I know that even they will survive?" a bespectacled middle-aged man said in the bare concrete back room of his home yesterday. "One of my boys was hit in the kidneys and heart. His chest was full of shrapnel; it came right through the windows. Now all I can say is that I am sad that I am alive." ... Hussein Mnati is 52 and just stared at me _ his face pitted with metal fragments _ as bombs blasted the city. A 20-year-old man was sitting up in the next bed, the blood-soaked stump of his left arm plastered over with bandages. Only 12 hours ago, he had a left arm, a left hand, fingers. Now he blankly recorded his memories. "I was in the market and I didn't feel anything," he told me. "The rocket came and I was to the right of it and then an ambulance took me to hospital." In Baghdad, blood and bandages for the innocent The Independent, March 30, 2003 Rasoul Hammed Najeed stood outside his home sobbing uncontrollably for his five-year-old son, who was killed while playing near a busy Baghdad vegetable market when an air raid struck. "After this crime, I wish I could see [US President George Bush] in order to cut him to pieces with my teeth," he cried. Another man, identified as Saad Abd Qasim, stood as if in a trance, unable to speak. Friends said his wife, his child and the wife of his son had been among the 50 to 60 people Iraqis say were killed in the raid... The raid took place in the run-down, working-class district of Shula in north-west Baghdad, inhabited mostly by Shi'ite Muslims. Most of the one-storey shops in the immediate area were demolished. The ground was covered with blood and broken glass. Reporter Hassan Hafidh said he saw 10 corpses... "Is this the humanity that Bush is talking about? He has no mercy at all. May God make him fail," said Ali Kadhin, whose three-year-old son was badly injured in the attack... Dr Sakhari said he had counted 15 children among the dead - one had died in his arms. "I ask Bush and Blair to imagine how they would feel if their child died in their arms," he said. I would cut Bush to pieces with my teeth Sydney Morning Herald, March 30, 2003 "We had a great day... We killed a lot of people" posted Sun, 30 Mar 2003 14:38:18 -0800 US pilots "bask in glory" of bombing Baghdad ABOARD USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, March 28 (Reuters) - American pilots who bombed Baghdad on Friday spoke of the thrill of a successful attack in the teeth of fierce anti-aircraft fire. "It was exhilarating," Commander Jeff Penfield said after landing his F/A-18E Super Hornet back on the Abraham Lincoln, which is supporting the U.S.-led invasion force from the Gulf. "It was all nice and calm in the city," he said. "Once those bombs hit all hell broke loose. I bet we saw 15 SAMs (surface-to-air missiles), about three or four up our way so we had to defend a couple of times. "What I felt more than anything was exhilaration." ... Up in the skies over the Iraqi capital, Penfield led a "strike package" of three planes that dropped 1,000-pound laser-guided bombs on mobile targets near the city. "...[Y]ou get an element of excitement because that's where the best targets still are and those targets have to go away so the ground forces can go in." ... "I can't sleep yet," said Penfield. "I'll go down and get something to eat, unwind, bask in the glory a little bit." Reuters, March 29, 2003 At the base camp of the Fifth Marine Regiment here, two sharpshooters, Sgt. Eric Schrumpf, 28, and Cpl. Mikael McIntosh, 20, sat on a sand berm and swapped combat tales while their column stood at a halt on the road toward Baghdad. For five days this week, the two men rode atop armored personnel carriers, barreling up Highway 1. They said Iraqi fighters had often mixed in with civilians from nearby villages, jumping out of houses and cars to shoot at them, and then often running away. The marines said they had little trouble dispatching their foes, most of whom they characterized as ill trained and cowardly. "We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people... We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?" To illustrate, the sergeant offered a pair of examples from earlier in the week. "There was one Iraqi soldier, and 25 women and children," he said, "I didn't take the shot." But more than once, Sergeant Schrumpf said, he faced a different choice: one Iraqi soldier standing among two or three civilians. He recalled one such incident, in which he and other men in his unit opened fire. He recalled watching one of the women standing near the Iraqi soldier go down. "I'm sorry," the sergeant said. "But the chick was in the way." Either Take a Shot or Take a Chance New York Times, March 29, 2003 Regardless of whether or not I condone their actions, I have no illusions: I fully expect my country's servicemen and women to take pride in their jobs. I expect them to feel proud they have performed to their highest degree of skill. But that a human being could be so devoid of emotion, so deep in denial about the consequences of that job, that he rejoices in the "exhilaration" of being the one responsible for "hell breaking loose" in a city that moments before was "all nice and calm" frankly sickens me. When a man's idea of "a great day" is killing "a lot of people," my compassion for that man and my "support" for him ends. I have no doubt this kind of brain-dead, barbaric gung-hoism is limited to a small minority of troops. At least, I hope so. I pray Commander Penfield and Sergeant Schrumpf are the last of a dying breed. But I know they are are not. With visions of William Calley in my head, it sometimes takes extra effort to "forgive them for they know not what they do." Penfield and Schrumpf do not make the task any easier. And I don't know if I can ever forgive them. Even we bleeding-heart liberal pacifists have our limits. And those, like Penfield and Schrumpf, who revel in this sort of perverted, inhuman bloodlust push me far beyond my limit. "The chick was in the way" - ? My disgust for these individuals defies words. "Support the Troops" Take from a Grenada Vet posted Sat, 29 Mar 2003 15:20:27 -0800 Lengthy disclaimer first: I normally avoid recommending or otherwise risk associating myself with anyone or anything labeled "socialist," simply because I don't relish the prospect of having to explain, repeatedly, that I am not a socialist, nor do I believe in socialism as a viable form of government - although I do indeed believe strongly that we need to further investigate the concept of "socialized medicine," which can be a very fine thing in practice, but which serves as a flashpoint for right-wingers eager to scream "anti-Americanism!". (This is because most people can't even define socialism, yet somehow manage to equate it with any number of anti-American "isms.") For your information, I'm a democrat - with a small D - which means I am dedicated to Jeffersonian democracy. Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and James Madison are among my heroes. Call me a bleeding-heart liberal if you like (and many do), but I am not a socialist. That does not mean, however, that I insulate myself from schools of thought quite different from my own. I read and absorb viewpoints from all over the spectrum, from Marxism to Christian Reconstructionism. I can knowledgeably discuss Mein Kampf, A Charge to Keep, Slander, Blinded by the Right, Soul on Ice, The Rights of Man, the Bible, the Quran, the Vedas, and countless other tomes most people have heard of, but draw a complete blank on. (Pardon the atrocious grammar there, will you?) How else could I stand by my own convictions with confidence (and in good conscience) if I were to read and listen only to those who agreed with me? If I am going to call Jerry Falwell a "false prophet" (which I do), I'd better know exactly what I'm talking about (which I do), and I'd better be able to back up my accusation (which I can). That said, I direct your attention to a thought-provoking essay that has nothing whatsoever to do with socialism - but comes from a socialist site. I also warn you that the writer advocates civil disobedience (which I do NOT), and comes dangerously close at times to suggesting something more than mere "disobedience." I am dead-set against any action other than peaceful protest, and following the last letter of the law. And I neither endorse the site below, nor socialism itself. Now, if you can keep all that in mind (and refrain from slapping the undeserved "socialist" label on me for having directed you to the site below), then I encourage you to click the link, read the entire piece, and take in a fascinating perspective on "supporting the troops," from an anti-war veteran of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, who can tell you firsthand what your "support" (or lack thereof) meant to him: In 1983, I took part in the invasion of Grenada. Aside from being an incompetent operation, it was also one that no one in the United States even knew about until it was pretty much over... When America was informed that its treasure and youth were being risked to secure the global nutmeg supply, over 99 percent of the country couldn't tell you where Grenada was. We who conducted the operation had committed it to memory less than 40 hours earlier... The first hour of the operation was an old-fashioned country ass-whuppin'. We were on the receiving end. We were forced to defend ourselves. But we didn't have the "support" spirit of the American people, because as far as they knew, we were all still home, cheating on our spouses in Fayetteville, North Carolina. America woke up scratching its head, trying to figure out why Ronald Reagan had just invaded a Spanish city named after a Ford compact... In all this mayhem and confusion, while we (the Army's most elite, whitest forces) were being spanked by skinny Black folk from Grenada and equally dark Cuban construction workers, I can honestly say that I didn't give a flying f--k about what anyone in the United States might be thinking, or how much supportive spirit they might be psychically channeling my way to cuddle up against. I didn't stop to consider that many of my countrymen and countrywomen made jokes about our commander-in-chief once co-starring with a chimpanzee, or how that might seem... unsupportive... Nothing I did would have changed one iota, even had the entire population of the United States gathered naked at Stonehenge to chant supportive mantras out to our precise geographic coordinates. Nothing we do or don't do here will have any impact on what the troops do in Iraq in the coming days either. The support the troops thing is a mystifying old red herring. What our new fascists really want us to do is shut the f--k up. What we really want is for the troops to come home. And shutting up is exactly what I'm not going to do. ...The best thing we can do for our sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and spouses and sweethearts... is to tell the damn truth... I will not be a chauvinist who advocates victory in an illegal war where our people and the people of Iraq are the cannon fodder and the victims. I do not want our children to die. And I do not want them to kill other people's children. This is not a f--king football game. ...Many [soldiers and their families] are beginning to suspect they've been had, and that behind all this high-flown mendacity coming out of the White House briefing room is a gangster's errand of plunder with our children as its unwitting tools. If we want to support the real troops, the real people, instead of the abstraction, we'll keep connecting the dots for them, as this column attempts to do, and as the anti-war movement needs to do... -- Stan Goff Supporting the Troops Military Matters #13 You say Slovenia, and I say Slovenia-- uh, waitasec... posted Fri, 28 Mar 2003 19:43:55 -0800 The only thing I know about Slovakia is what I learned first-hand from your foreign minister, who came to Texas. -- George W. Bush to a Slovak journalist, after meeting with Janez Drnovsek, Prime Minister of Slovenia. Knight-Ridder News Service, June 22, 1999 This just in from Ljubljana! Hundreds of Slovenians hit the streets Wednesday to protest their country's inclusion in President Bush's $75 billion Iraq war budget as a partner in the war against Iraq. The White House asked for $4.5 million for Slovenia as part of the grants to members of the vast "coalition of the willing." Small problem: The lovely Alpine nation isn't a member. "When we asked for an explanation, the State Department told us we were named in the document by mistake," Prime Minister Anton Rop said at what Reuters called "a hastily arranged news conference." This of course would not be the first time someone confused Slovenia and Slovakia... They Got the 'Slov' Part Right Washington Post, March 28, 2003 Quick Takes posted Fri, 28 Mar 2003 14:24:52 -0800 The war against Iraq was going extremely well, Prime Minister John Howard said today... "I believe in all the circumstances (it is) going extremely well," he told reporters. "To those who are suggesting that because it hasn't in effect resulted in complete victory in the space of a week, I suggest they take a reality check and understand a number of things." War is going 'extremely well', says Howard Sydney Morning Herald, March 28, 2003 "Complete victory"? Those boys rationed down to a single bottle of water per day would probably settle for one lousy supply convoy getting to its destination. Or do you mean it's going "extremely well" because the only Australian casualty so far has been a news cameraman? Bush has said he believes, as commander-in-chief, that he should be the last person in the chain of command to express doubts or worries about what his administration is doing, fearing that would quickly demoralize his team. CEO Bush No Longer Delegates Message Washington Post, March 27, 2003 So, Georgie, you're afraid to hurt somebody's feelings by questioning the massive screw-ups in Iraq? Or were you ever in the driver's seat at all? Well, at least we know who's not in charge. Call to tell us who's really calling the shots? Rove, Cheney, Rummy, Perle? Or all of the above? Oh, wait a minute! If Georgie isn't really running the show, that's what John Howard must have meant by things going "extremely well." US-led forces have yet to get their hands on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but they may have hit him where it hurts - sinking his luxurious yacht, a British commander said. Allies sink Saddam's yacht: report News.com.au, March 28, 2003 And I was worried that we weren't making any progress. Now, let's blow up his SUV - that'll really hurt! Despite official statements that everything is fine on America's southern border, the Bush administration seems to be giving cold treatment to Mexican President Vicente Fox after Mexico's decision not to back the U.S. stand on Iraq in the U.N. Security Council. In sharp contrast to their much-publicized friendship two years ago, when they bragged about being on the phone constantly to consult on major issues, President Bush waited four days before returning a call from the Mexican president, senior U.S. officials told me. "Fox wanted to test the waters, to see how the relationship was," says one U.S. official familiar with the conversation. "He should realize that the relationship has been affected." Bush putting Mexican president on hold Miami Herald, March 27, 2003 That's right, Georgie, piss off both our nearest neighbors. At least Fox has the class not to stay mad about Javier Medina. Felicitaciones, Señor Presidente, para tener los cojones para hacer el primer gesto de amistad. Me disculpo por el "hissy fit" de Señor Bush. Despite the desert conditions of the Iraqi campaign, many American soldiers are sporting deep-green combat fatigues. Why are some troops donning woodland camouflage? According to published reports, the Pentagon simply goofed by not anticipating the demand for sand-colored desert fatigues, formally known as battle-dress uniforms. When Army and Marine units were preparing for deployment, several discovered that they lacked enough desert BDUs to outfit each soldier with the requisite three outfits. The UPI reports that the Army's 4th Infantry Division, headquartered at Fort Hood, Texas, chose to dress all its troops in the more traditional green fatigues - commonly referred to as woodland BDUs - rather than have only some don desert dress. Homogeneity is generally preferred among military commanders... Oh, heavens, that makes all the sense in the world! Mixing dark-green camouflage and desert-sand would be like wearing white after Labor Day! We simply can't sacrifice good fashion sense for a little safety, can we? Military leaders insist that the shortage of desert BDUs will not affect the safety of American soldiers. They point out that Iraq's terrain is not entirely Sahara-like, and that green camouflage may actually work better near the banks of the Euphrates River, where vegetation and mud are present. What a relief. Now we just have to hold our collective breath until they make it to the river. But considering their progress so far... Why Are U.S. Troops Wearing Dark-Green Camouflage? Slate, March 26, 2003 Ignoring a presidential ban, Afghanistan's farmers are growing more opium poppies than ever throughout the country, including areas previously free of the crop, officials said Thursday... The production of opium, from which heroin is refined, was wiped out under the hard-line Taliban regime, but farmers began planting it again when the religious militia was deposed in 2001 during the U.S.-led war on terror. Some farmers ripped up their wheat fields to plant the lucrative drug-producing plant, which brings in hundreds of times the revenue. Afghanistan's Farmers Growing More Opium Newsday, March 27, 2003 Oh, so that's what we "liberated" Afghanistan for! Or is there some sort of dirty deal in the works? April, 1978: Soviet-backed coup in Afghanistan sets stage for explosive growth in Southwest Asian heroin trade. New Marxist regime undertakes vigorous anti-narcotics campaign aimed at suppressing poppy production, triggering a revolt by semi-autonomous tribal groups that traditionally raised opium for export. The CIA-supported rebel Mujahedeen begins expanding production to finance their insurgency. Between 1982 and 1989, during which time the CIA ships billions of dollars in weapons and other aid to guerrilla forces, annual opium production in Afghanistan increases to about 800 tons from 250 tons. By 1986, the State Department admits that Afghanistan is 'probably the world's largest producer of opium for export' and 'the poppy source for a majority of the Southwest Asian heroin found in the United States.' U.S. officials, however, fail to take action to curb production. Their silence not only serves to maintain public support for the Mujahedeen, it also smooths relations with Pakistan, whose leaders, deeply implicated in the heroin trade, help channel CIA support to the Afghan rebels. A Tangled Web: A History of CIA Complicity in Drug International Trafficking Federation of American Scientists Tommy Franks "reveals" something we already knew posted Fri, 28 Mar 2003 12:45:50 -0800 How long has war been in the cards? Time magazine reports that the president poked his head into the office of Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, in March 2002 and told three senators sitting there: "[Expletive deleted] Saddam. We _ re taking him out." MSNBC, March 27, 2003 Now, that's just wrong. Georgie would never say "expletive deleted." Heck, he probably couldn't even pronounce the word "expletive." What he really said was, "F--k Saddam. We _ re taking him out." That word, he can pronounce. Just ask Al Hunt. In fact, you'd be surprised at some of the two-syllable words Georgie can pronounce, with very little effort. What do you mean, I missed the point of the article? As they say in Texas, not hardly. You think the idea of invading Iraq - inspections be damned - just popped into Little Georgie's head in March of 2002? Haven't you been listening? The plans have been in the works for ages; Wolfowitz's people finally put it on paper in early 1992, and the newly-formed PNAC presented the plan to Bill Clinton in 1998. Hey, don't get on Bill's case - King George I had plenty of opportunity to take out Saddam, and declined. The momentum from the "win" in Kuwait would have been enough to garner support both at home and abroad - and might have even won Poppy another four years in office. (Come to think of it, if we'd known all along Iraq was such a threat, why didn't Little George make it a major talking point of Campaign 2000?) And don't give me that tired old excuse that congressional Democrats wouldn't let George I act on his own. The CIA director-cum-Veep and his ex-boss waged unconscionable war, trained, funded, and armed terrorists (hint: initials include OBL and SH), and installed puppet dictators throughout the Mideast and Latin America without so much as a "screw you" to Congress or the American people, for far less legal or ethical reasons (and with far more disastrous results) than Poppy could have armed himself with. (And they accuse peaceniks of "aiding and comforting the enemy"?) So don't try to feed me that old line about Bush I being "prevented" from doing any damned thing he wanted. What Poppy did do was miss his window of opportunity - and the neo-cons had to wait for Junior to hit the trifecta. So, the big, whoop-de-doo Franks "revelation" is old news - at least to those of us who have been paying attention. Still, one wonders if Georgie Boy has fingers enough to plug any more leaks. Oh, THANK YOU, William R. Schaffer of Tacoma, Washington! posted Fri, 28 Mar 2003 12:19:20 -0800 ...who wrote a letter to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, whining about "left-wing" media, calling us peaceniks "America bashers" who "spend their nights burning flags" (oh, yeah, right, can't walk through my living room for all the ashes!) and "starting fights with those who oppose their views" (sure - and you oughta see the other guy!), yada yada yada ad nauseum - the same paranoid crap I've heard a thousand times... but for one difference: Today, I salute YOU, Mr. William R. Schaffer, for giving me the opportunity to say something I have longed to say, all my life, to an ignorant, brainwashed, hysterical, reactionary, hypocritical, First-Amendment-usurping, robotic, Limbaugh-parroting, garden-variety extremist warmonger who has never entertained an original thought in his life. You wrote: I'm ashamed to be living here and ashamed to be part of the fighting force protecting their rights. And I reply: Mr. Schaffer... Love it or leave it! Damn, that felt good! 11:43:03 AM    comment []