I know you support the troops. I saw your bumper sticker.
But how many know the number of dead, the number wounded. The Pentagon puts wounded at under three thousand. Of course, that doesn't count the mentally wounded, the suicides, the friendly-fire fatalities, those who died in smashed vehicles, et al. Which probably helps to explains why the Army's numbers are much higher. But you have to wonder... Andrews Airforce has received over 11,000 wounded in the past months. From where do they come? Sadly, it's no mystery.
The official policy of our blessed America is misinformation. It's for our own good. Otherwise, we might second guess our "God-given" right of war...
Old news, yeah. Of course, its easy to be glum when you have all your limbs. It's easy to be glum, when the evening news doesn't show thousands one-legged soldiers hobbling around a crowded hospital.
Dedicated to my cousin, if he doesn't mind.
26.2.04
20.2.04
Bush Floats Yet Another Genius Idea: Bush Economic Report asks whether the fast food industry should be moved to the "manufactoring sector. Afterall, what is the difference between assembling lettuce, ketchup, and "beef" and say slapping together a bunch of parts and tires onto a steel frame.
While the question is asked no amswer is given.
As the Report points out, such a transfer would bolster the numbers of the "declining manufactoring sector."
See? Everything is going to be all right.
While the question is asked no amswer is given.
As the Report points out, such a transfer would bolster the numbers of the "declining manufactoring sector."
See? Everything is going to be all right.
18.2.04
Sometimes I like Pat Buchanan
Sometimes. I usually don't always agree with him, but in my opinion he is the most succinct, logical, articulate critic of the Republican Party and G.W. Bush. He serves as eloquent evidence that the two-part paradigm falls short in understanding the American politic, even if he is a die-hard Republican.
This is his 2-16-4 column from World Net Daily:
George W. Bush "betrayed us," howled Al Gore.
"He played on our fear. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure, dangerous to our troops, an adventure that was preordained and planned before 9-11 ever happened."
Hearing it, Gore's rant seemed slanderous and demagogic. For though U.S. policy since Clinton had called for regime change in Iraq, there is no evidence, none, that Bush planned to invade prior to 9-11.
Yet, the president has a grave problem, and it is this: Burrowed inside his foreign-policy team are men guilty of exactly what Gore accuses Bush of, men who did exploit our fears to stampede us into a war they had plotted for years. Consider:
In 1996, in a strategy paper crafted for Israel's Bibi Netanyahu, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser urged him to "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power" as an "Israeli strategic objective." Perle, Feith, Wurmser were all on Bush's foreign policy team on 9-11.
In 1998, eight members of Bush's future team, including Perle, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, wrote Clinton urging upon him a strategy that "should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein."
On Jan. 1, 2001, nine months before 9-11, Wurmser called for U.S.-Israeli attacks "to broaden the [Middle East] conflict to strike fatally ... the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Teheran and Gaza ... to establish the recognition that fighting with either the United States or Israel is suicidal."
"Crises can be opportunities," added Wurmser.
On Sept. 11, opportunity struck.
On Sept. 15, according to author Bob Woodward, Paul Wolfowitz spoke up in the War Cabinet to urge that Afghanistan be put on a back burner and an attack be mounted at once on Iraq, though Iraq had had nothing to do with 9-11. Why Iraq? Said Wolfowitz, because it is "doable."
On Sept. 20, 40 neoconservatives in an open letter demanded that Bush remove Saddam from power, "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9-11] attack." Failure to do so, they warned the president, "would constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."
While Bush had taken office as a traditional conservative skeptical of "nation-building" and calling for a more "humble" foreign policy, after 9-11, he was captured by the neocons and converted to an agenda they had worked up years before. Suddenly, he sounded just like them, threatening wars on "axis-of-evil" nations that had nothing to do with 9-11.
And here is where Bush's present crisis was created.
Though he had internalized the neoconservative agenda for war, he had no rationale, no justification, no casus belli. Iraq had not threatened or attacked us.
Enter the WMD. Neoconservatives pressed on Bush the idea that Iraq must still have weapons of mass destruction and must be working on nuclear weapons. And as Saddam was a figure of such irrationality – i.e., a madman – he would readily give an atom bomb to al-Qaida. An American city could be incinerated.
Therefore, Saddam had to be destroyed. Bush bought it.
The problem, however, was this: While there is much evidence Saddam is evil, there is no evidence he was insane. He had not used his WMD in 1991, when he had them. For he was not a fool. He knew that would mean his end. Why would he then build a horror weapon now, give it to a terrorist and risk the annihilation of his regime, family, legacy and himself, a fate he had narrowly escaped in 1991?
Made no sense – and there was no hard evidence on the WMD.
Thus, when the CIA was unable to come up with hard evidence that Saddam still had WMD, or was building nuclear weapons, neocon insiders sifted the intelligence, cherry-picked it, presented tidbits to the media as unvarnished truth, and persuaded Powell and the president to rely on it to make the case to Congress, the country and the world. Powell and the president did.
Now the WMD case has fallen apart. Powell has egg on his face. And the president must persuade Tim Russert and the nation that Iraq was a "war of necessity" because we "had no choice when we looked at the intelligence I looked at."
But, sir, the intelligence you "looked at" was flawed. Who gave it to you?
To its neocon architects, Iraq was always about empire, hegemony, Pax Americana, global democracy – about getting hold of America's power to make the Middle East safe for Sharon and themselves glorious and famous.
But now they have led a president who came to office with good intentions and a good heart to the precipice of ruin. One wonders if Bush knows how badly he has been had. And if he does, why he has not summarily dealt with those who misled him?
Sometimes. I usually don't always agree with him, but in my opinion he is the most succinct, logical, articulate critic of the Republican Party and G.W. Bush. He serves as eloquent evidence that the two-part paradigm falls short in understanding the American politic, even if he is a die-hard Republican.
This is his 2-16-4 column from World Net Daily:
George W. Bush "betrayed us," howled Al Gore.
"He played on our fear. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure, dangerous to our troops, an adventure that was preordained and planned before 9-11 ever happened."
Hearing it, Gore's rant seemed slanderous and demagogic. For though U.S. policy since Clinton had called for regime change in Iraq, there is no evidence, none, that Bush planned to invade prior to 9-11.
Yet, the president has a grave problem, and it is this: Burrowed inside his foreign-policy team are men guilty of exactly what Gore accuses Bush of, men who did exploit our fears to stampede us into a war they had plotted for years. Consider:
In 1996, in a strategy paper crafted for Israel's Bibi Netanyahu, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser urged him to "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power" as an "Israeli strategic objective." Perle, Feith, Wurmser were all on Bush's foreign policy team on 9-11.
In 1998, eight members of Bush's future team, including Perle, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, wrote Clinton urging upon him a strategy that "should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein."
On Jan. 1, 2001, nine months before 9-11, Wurmser called for U.S.-Israeli attacks "to broaden the [Middle East] conflict to strike fatally ... the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Teheran and Gaza ... to establish the recognition that fighting with either the United States or Israel is suicidal."
"Crises can be opportunities," added Wurmser.
On Sept. 11, opportunity struck.
On Sept. 15, according to author Bob Woodward, Paul Wolfowitz spoke up in the War Cabinet to urge that Afghanistan be put on a back burner and an attack be mounted at once on Iraq, though Iraq had had nothing to do with 9-11. Why Iraq? Said Wolfowitz, because it is "doable."
On Sept. 20, 40 neoconservatives in an open letter demanded that Bush remove Saddam from power, "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9-11] attack." Failure to do so, they warned the president, "would constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."
While Bush had taken office as a traditional conservative skeptical of "nation-building" and calling for a more "humble" foreign policy, after 9-11, he was captured by the neocons and converted to an agenda they had worked up years before. Suddenly, he sounded just like them, threatening wars on "axis-of-evil" nations that had nothing to do with 9-11.
And here is where Bush's present crisis was created.
Though he had internalized the neoconservative agenda for war, he had no rationale, no justification, no casus belli. Iraq had not threatened or attacked us.
Enter the WMD. Neoconservatives pressed on Bush the idea that Iraq must still have weapons of mass destruction and must be working on nuclear weapons. And as Saddam was a figure of such irrationality – i.e., a madman – he would readily give an atom bomb to al-Qaida. An American city could be incinerated.
Therefore, Saddam had to be destroyed. Bush bought it.
The problem, however, was this: While there is much evidence Saddam is evil, there is no evidence he was insane. He had not used his WMD in 1991, when he had them. For he was not a fool. He knew that would mean his end. Why would he then build a horror weapon now, give it to a terrorist and risk the annihilation of his regime, family, legacy and himself, a fate he had narrowly escaped in 1991?
Made no sense – and there was no hard evidence on the WMD.
Thus, when the CIA was unable to come up with hard evidence that Saddam still had WMD, or was building nuclear weapons, neocon insiders sifted the intelligence, cherry-picked it, presented tidbits to the media as unvarnished truth, and persuaded Powell and the president to rely on it to make the case to Congress, the country and the world. Powell and the president did.
Now the WMD case has fallen apart. Powell has egg on his face. And the president must persuade Tim Russert and the nation that Iraq was a "war of necessity" because we "had no choice when we looked at the intelligence I looked at."
But, sir, the intelligence you "looked at" was flawed. Who gave it to you?
To its neocon architects, Iraq was always about empire, hegemony, Pax Americana, global democracy – about getting hold of America's power to make the Middle East safe for Sharon and themselves glorious and famous.
But now they have led a president who came to office with good intentions and a good heart to the precipice of ruin. One wonders if Bush knows how badly he has been had. And if he does, why he has not summarily dealt with those who misled him?
I finally understand exactly what happened to Clark.
When I heard Clark speak before he had entered the presidential race he seemed so sharp and articulate, rhapsodizing on our liberal democracy and our founding father’s love for rationale thought in spite of their religious underpinnings and overtones, and so on.
Yet, from the moment he first opened his mouth in that first debate he sounded like one more fool spewing d.c.p.r.b.s. The process of entering politics just seemed to somehow alter his genetic makeup.
Well, now I am watching the Charlie Rose show, who tonight is hosting Clark. Clark was tip-toeing around a certain question, until finally Rose asked Clark why a military man was being so coy.
Clark went on to explain that he has learned to “dance the dance”; he had some ‘good teachers” who taught him how to speak as a politician. “There was no quicker way to get into trouble than to say what you mean”, he said.
As he went on it dawned on me: It hadn’t been my imagination. He was not the same man I had heard challenging the establishment back when his “campaign” was nothing more than an internet draft movement. By the time he made it to a lecturn, he had already become just another tepid soul peddling his wares to the media and public.
When I heard Clark speak before he had entered the presidential race he seemed so sharp and articulate, rhapsodizing on our liberal democracy and our founding father’s love for rationale thought in spite of their religious underpinnings and overtones, and so on.
Yet, from the moment he first opened his mouth in that first debate he sounded like one more fool spewing d.c.p.r.b.s. The process of entering politics just seemed to somehow alter his genetic makeup.
Well, now I am watching the Charlie Rose show, who tonight is hosting Clark. Clark was tip-toeing around a certain question, until finally Rose asked Clark why a military man was being so coy.
Clark went on to explain that he has learned to “dance the dance”; he had some ‘good teachers” who taught him how to speak as a politician. “There was no quicker way to get into trouble than to say what you mean”, he said.
As he went on it dawned on me: It hadn’t been my imagination. He was not the same man I had heard challenging the establishment back when his “campaign” was nothing more than an internet draft movement. By the time he made it to a lecturn, he had already become just another tepid soul peddling his wares to the media and public.
I look forward to co-operating with any appropriate inquiry."
-Clinton on the Rich-pardon investigation
"I look forward to a most vigorous hearing, and the continuation and expansion of a most vigorous investigation."
-Arthur Anderson personnel before congress
"I look forward to that debate."
-Bush on investigation on the intelligence "failures" leading uo to Operation Iraqii Liberation
-Clinton on the Rich-pardon investigation
"I look forward to a most vigorous hearing, and the continuation and expansion of a most vigorous investigation."
-Arthur Anderson personnel before congress
"I look forward to that debate."
-Bush on investigation on the intelligence "failures" leading uo to Operation Iraqii Liberation
If we accept the premise that marriage promotes family, and that family's most vital for steering and stabilizing humanbeings as they work their way through a crazy thing called childhood, then how can we deprive children the comfort of eternally commited parents just because their parents are of the same sex.
I know most people who oppose gay marriage, also oppose gay couples adapting children, so there is not a disconnect in this sense. However, there is naturally a disconnect in that our opinions do not reality make. We live in a world in which we have decided that gay couples adapting children is preferable to children spiraling through a system in which there are too few adults willing to adapt them, willing to love them. Our moral opinions do not change the reality that there're children with families in which they are deprived the promise and stability marriage provides, because we think its our culture "slouching towards Gommorra."
We are not depriving gay couples of familyhood, we are depriving families of marriage.
I know most people who oppose gay marriage, also oppose gay couples adapting children, so there is not a disconnect in this sense. However, there is naturally a disconnect in that our opinions do not reality make. We live in a world in which we have decided that gay couples adapting children is preferable to children spiraling through a system in which there are too few adults willing to adapt them, willing to love them. Our moral opinions do not change the reality that there're children with families in which they are deprived the promise and stability marriage provides, because we think its our culture "slouching towards Gommorra."
We are not depriving gay couples of familyhood, we are depriving families of marriage.
14.2.04
More evidence that the Right is more concerned with cultural warfare than "murdered babies
If political foes of choice really wanted to stop abortions, they'd push for making the morning-after pill available for over-the-counter puchase. Unlike the "abortion pill", the morning-after pill actually prevents unwanted pregnancy, rendering the egg impenetrable by sperm. This would give women in all sorts of situations a choice besides abortion and unwanted babies.
If the Right truly believes life, holy life, begins when the sperm and egg dance that first two-celled tango, preventing this merger would seem to be the most common sense method of lowering the number of abortions in this country. Instead what we have are the idealogues preaching self-responsibility while holding up the FDA's approval of OTC staus of the drug. These are the same people who didn't want it to be legal to purchase this drug in America period.
Even if all thier hand-wringing were true, is the abdication of responsibilty a greater wrong than "killing babies." No doubt, the pill would be abused by some, but what is that compared to stopping the "murder of innocents." Why is the Right is more concerned with fighting its cultural wars than "saving babies?"
It might have something to do with the fact preventing abortions is just boring TV. Long ago, this abortion debate morphed from a debate on the sanctity of life to a means to energize the "base", just something to get the fundamentalist lapdogs something to snarl and slobber about.
As Karl Rove said in the Book of St. John, "You are my sheep." No wait that was Christ, right?
If political foes of choice really wanted to stop abortions, they'd push for making the morning-after pill available for over-the-counter puchase. Unlike the "abortion pill", the morning-after pill actually prevents unwanted pregnancy, rendering the egg impenetrable by sperm. This would give women in all sorts of situations a choice besides abortion and unwanted babies.
If the Right truly believes life, holy life, begins when the sperm and egg dance that first two-celled tango, preventing this merger would seem to be the most common sense method of lowering the number of abortions in this country. Instead what we have are the idealogues preaching self-responsibility while holding up the FDA's approval of OTC staus of the drug. These are the same people who didn't want it to be legal to purchase this drug in America period.
Even if all thier hand-wringing were true, is the abdication of responsibilty a greater wrong than "killing babies." No doubt, the pill would be abused by some, but what is that compared to stopping the "murder of innocents." Why is the Right is more concerned with fighting its cultural wars than "saving babies?"
It might have something to do with the fact preventing abortions is just boring TV. Long ago, this abortion debate morphed from a debate on the sanctity of life to a means to energize the "base", just something to get the fundamentalist lapdogs something to snarl and slobber about.
As Karl Rove said in the Book of St. John, "You are my sheep." No wait that was Christ, right?
Enough with the media's righteous indignation
Is anyone else weary of the media's puritainical outrage concerning the infamous "wardrobe malfunction?" Perhaps some of you good-hearted people know nothing of America's Pop Culture, and I can excuse your righteous indignation, but as for the well-learned men and women gasping at that sad display of blah, blah, blah...
This wasn't the first time a pasty-clad tata has aired during prime time folks.
While MTV has distanced itself from the breast-baring extravaganza, it is par for its course.
Does nobody recall the awards show in which Lil Kim wore an outfit that cut up over one shoulder leaving one breast fully exposed save a green pasty that tastefully matched her half-a-bodysuit. Cut from the same cloth. And this wasn't just a flash of crass. She bounced onto stage to present an award with Diana Ross who playfully groped Lil Kim's breast. This incident did not furl the media's brow in the least. Indeed, snapshots of the episode ran on the covers of grocery store magazines, and is still featured in full frame in MTV's "Top 100 Craziest Moments In T.V.", or whatever they're doing this week. Then it breaks to commercial to hawk zit cream.
Every second of every day there must be a "Girls Gone Wild" commercial airing somewhere in which young women are baring there breasts with nothing more than a small virtual pasty that reads the words "censored."
There used to be a time when cartoons greeted children coming home from school. Now we have a buffet of debauchery. From men french kissing donkeys, throwing up on old women for sexual gratification, and women baring it all for a string of "Jerry Beads".
This trash isn't limited to talk shows. Even shows that are explicity marketed to children have refernces to penis-size and pornography, and that was just one episode I happened to watch. And just yesterday, the daytime "family sitcom", The Hughley's, centered on father getting into trouble for buying his wife a dildo. The dildo remained a prop throughout the half hour episode, being borrwed by the neighbors, et al.
No doubt, some Americans hadn't realized where we were as a culture. But this cannot be said for the media types gracing our air waves, expessing the how-could-she outrage. Sex sells. And so does righteous indignation. That is probably the heart of America's culture.
Is anyone else weary of the media's puritainical outrage concerning the infamous "wardrobe malfunction?" Perhaps some of you good-hearted people know nothing of America's Pop Culture, and I can excuse your righteous indignation, but as for the well-learned men and women gasping at that sad display of blah, blah, blah...
This wasn't the first time a pasty-clad tata has aired during prime time folks.
While MTV has distanced itself from the breast-baring extravaganza, it is par for its course.
Does nobody recall the awards show in which Lil Kim wore an outfit that cut up over one shoulder leaving one breast fully exposed save a green pasty that tastefully matched her half-a-bodysuit. Cut from the same cloth. And this wasn't just a flash of crass. She bounced onto stage to present an award with Diana Ross who playfully groped Lil Kim's breast. This incident did not furl the media's brow in the least. Indeed, snapshots of the episode ran on the covers of grocery store magazines, and is still featured in full frame in MTV's "Top 100 Craziest Moments In T.V.", or whatever they're doing this week. Then it breaks to commercial to hawk zit cream.
Every second of every day there must be a "Girls Gone Wild" commercial airing somewhere in which young women are baring there breasts with nothing more than a small virtual pasty that reads the words "censored."
There used to be a time when cartoons greeted children coming home from school. Now we have a buffet of debauchery. From men french kissing donkeys, throwing up on old women for sexual gratification, and women baring it all for a string of "Jerry Beads".
This trash isn't limited to talk shows. Even shows that are explicity marketed to children have refernces to penis-size and pornography, and that was just one episode I happened to watch. And just yesterday, the daytime "family sitcom", The Hughley's, centered on father getting into trouble for buying his wife a dildo. The dildo remained a prop throughout the half hour episode, being borrwed by the neighbors, et al.
No doubt, some Americans hadn't realized where we were as a culture. But this cannot be said for the media types gracing our air waves, expessing the how-could-she outrage. Sex sells. And so does righteous indignation. That is probably the heart of America's culture.
The Straight Shooter
White Press secretary refuses to deny that Bush took time out of Guard Duty for crime related community service.
White Press secretary refuses to deny that Bush took time out of Guard Duty for crime related community service.
12.2.04
Oops, did we say that aloud
Ah yes, remember those plans Bush said they had found in Afgannistan. Plans of Nuclear plants and water facilities, ect.
"The madness of the destruction they design, " Bush warned us in the drumbeat to war.
Now the White House says there no plans found. Who'd figure.
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Clinton's lies.
Ah yes, remember those plans Bush said they had found in Afgannistan. Plans of Nuclear plants and water facilities, ect.
"The madness of the destruction they design, " Bush warned us in the drumbeat to war.
Now the White House says there no plans found. Who'd figure.
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Clinton's lies.
Bush digitally removes speech impediments
Bush posted digitally-enhanced clips of his Russert interview. Finally removes them after incurring the wrath of NBC, even though "no laws were broken".
Bush posted digitally-enhanced clips of his Russert interview. Finally removes them after incurring the wrath of NBC, even though "no laws were broken".
My god, this should be required reading for every American
It speaks of the hamstringing of the 9-11 commission, the various agencies' failings.
According to evidence presented at the commission's hearing's:
American Airlines knew the names, addresses, credit card numbers, and seat numbers of 5 hijackers20 minutes before the first plane struck the WTC. The president was told of the crash 14 minutes after it occured, at which point he commented "That's some bad pilot", still unware of the terrorist threat.
This is evidence as presented last week to the 9.11 commission. The evidence had been withheld by the commission's Chief of Staff, Philip Zelikow. Zelikow decides what evidence the commission sees and doesn't see.
Zelikow served as an advisor to Bush pre-9-11.
There are atleast five more wonderful tidbits, but instead of ripping off the leg-work of a real journalist, I'll just hope you go and read the article yourself. We have to keep our eyes on the ball.
Kudos to Gail Sheehy of the New York Observer.
It speaks of the hamstringing of the 9-11 commission, the various agencies' failings.
According to evidence presented at the commission's hearing's:
American Airlines knew the names, addresses, credit card numbers, and seat numbers of 5 hijackers20 minutes before the first plane struck the WTC. The president was told of the crash 14 minutes after it occured, at which point he commented "That's some bad pilot", still unware of the terrorist threat.
This is evidence as presented last week to the 9.11 commission. The evidence had been withheld by the commission's Chief of Staff, Philip Zelikow. Zelikow decides what evidence the commission sees and doesn't see.
Zelikow served as an advisor to Bush pre-9-11.
There are atleast five more wonderful tidbits, but instead of ripping off the leg-work of a real journalist, I'll just hope you go and read the article yourself. We have to keep our eyes on the ball.
Kudos to Gail Sheehy of the New York Observer.
Eschaton: "In Secretary of State Colin Powell's autobiography, My American Journey, he says, 'I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed managed to wangle slots in the Army Reserve and National Guard units... Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.'"
"Former Texas Lt. Gov. Testifies under oath that he pulled strings to get Bush out of Vietnam
This is from Former Guardian Journalist Grag Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, winner of California State University's Project Censored Award)... "
This is from Former Guardian Journalist Grag Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, winner of California State University's Project Censored Award)... "
10.2.04
Boston.com / News / Politics / Presidential candidates / George W. Bush / 1-year gap in Bush's guard duty: "'Report for this period not available for administrative reasons.'"
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