Iranian officials on a visit to Belgium have upset their hosts by trying to ban alcohol from the lunch table and refusing to shake women's hands.
Belgium's parliament speaker, Herman De Croo, decided to cancel a lunch rather than hosting a meal with no wine.
Strict Islamic teaching instructs Muslims to avoid looking at alcohol, as well as to avoid drinking it.
Belgian Senate president Anne-Marie Lizin later cancelled talks with the visitors over the handshake issue.
"We tried to find a solution, but they held fast to their position of not wanting to shake her hand," spokesman Patrick Peremans said.
The Senate said the meeting with the 12-strong delegation had been called off because of the "continued refusal" of Ms Lizin's counterpart to shake her hand.
So, did they think they were in Tehran?
Well, what do expect from fundies. They all want to tell you how to live.
Despite the t-shirt, high explosives do not solve all your problems
I got this e-mail, and dashed off an answer, but I want to discuss this at some length.
First, the day the right denounces Karl Rove for attacking American soldiers in combat, instead of a blind defense, then there might be something to talk about.
However, I think Ms. Jackson thinks we're murder defenders or something and I want to get into this a bit.
Churchill: "For those of you who do, as a matter of principle, oppose war in any form, the idea of supporting a conscientious objector who's already been inducted in his combat service in Iraq might have a certain appeal. But let me ask you this: Would you render the same level of support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit?"
"...Conscientious objection removes a given piece of cannon fodder from the fray. Fragging an officer has a much more impactful effect."
Here's what I sent back.
Too bad he's an idiot.
In the majority of Vietnam-era cases, crime or petty revenge motivated fragging, not bad leadership. He should look at the court-martial records sometimes
Look, Ward Churchill is as much a loon as Randall Terry. No sane person would advocate murder as a political solution.
First, when the officer dies, the senior sergeant takes over, then they get a replacement. It might stop a patrol or two, but the Army expects their officers to be wounded and killed.
Second, fragging has been romantized by people, when in most of the Vietnam-era cases, it was about money, women, drugs, race or some other beef. Rarely did it happen in combat units. When it did, the NCO or officer had plenty of warning. It was not subtle, as first a yellow, then a red grenade was tossed under the target's bunk. It was rare to have it go to a live frag. In 1969, in an Army of 500,000 men in Vietnam, 209 cases were charged. While widespread across the Army, it was relatively rare in actual practice
The most celebrated case of attempted fragging was with Lt. Col Weldon Honeycutt, a battalion commander in the 101st ABN. His men blamed him for their heavy losses during the assault and withdrawal and they tried to kill him seven times, but failed.
What Prof. Churchill, and Mr. Jackson, miss, is that fragging is a very bad thing and no one who cares about soldiers want to see happen. Churchill should understand that when you have an army turn on its officers, more people are likely to die because of the lack of discipline. Once killing officers and NCO's are part of the equasion, the unit is likely to be attacked with far more success than in the past, and more people hurt. There are other ways to resist bad leadership, and this was widespread in Vietnam: combat refusals. Units would just refuse to do certain things. Go on patrols, do guard duty. That's a lot more effective than the random murder of a bad officer.
Mr. Jackson seems to have confused Democrats with hairbrained college radicals. Churchill would be lucky to have a ad agency job if he wasn't an academic. I doubt anyone, especially the veterans who post here, are pro-murder.
I am certainly for a withdrawl from Iraq, but an army which is fragging it's officers is useless, useless in Afghanistan, where we have real enemies, useless in Korea, useless in humanitarian relief.
The inter-Army violence didn't end in Vietnam, either. There was a massive riot at the Manheim Stockade in 1972, there was a riot at Mare Island in 1969. There was a violent racial confrontation on the USS Kitty Hawk in 1975.
This is the kind of thing which is poison in the military, and only a moron who had not read history would encourage it.
Time magazine said today that it would provide documents concerning the confidential sources of one of its reporters to a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. agent, Valerie Plame. In a statement, Norman Pearlstine, Time Inc.'s editor in chief, said: "The same Constitution that protects the freedom of the press requires obedience to final decisions of the courts and respect for their rulings and judgments. That Time Inc. strongly disagrees with the courts provides no immunity. The innumerable Supreme Court decisions in which even presidents have followed orders with which they strongly disagreed evidences that our nation lives by the rule of law and that none of us is above it."
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down appeals from the magazine, one of its reporters, Matthew Cooper, and a reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller.
On Wednesday, Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Federal District Court in Washington said he would order the reporters jailed for up to 120 days if they do not agree to testify before the grand jury in the meantime. He also said that he would impose substantial fines on the magazine.
The decision by a major news organization to disclose the identities of its confidential sources appears to be without precedent in living memory.
In an interview on CNN, Mr. Pearlstine said the threat of fines played no role in the magazine's thinking. "We are not above the law," he said.
The magazine made its decision over the objections of its reporter, Mr. Cooper.
The documents to be turned over include Mr. Cooper's notes. Mr. Pearlstine said that the magazine's move should make moot the threat of jail time for Mr. Cooper.
I guess we live in an age of cowards now. But then, Matt Cooper is a nice guy, so he shouldn't go to jail.
Bye, Judy.
But the upside: oh Scooter, I guess you better get that bid in for a Presidential pardon early.
By Darryl Fears Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 30, 2005; Page A01
The Mexican government issued a series of stamps yesterday depicting a dark-skinned Jim Crow-era cartoon character with greatly exaggerated eyes and lips, infuriating black and Hispanic civil rights leaders for the second time in weeks.
Mexican postal officials said the five-stamp series features Memin Pinguin, a character from a comic book created in the 1940s, because he is beloved in Mexico. A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy described the depiction as a cultural image that has no meaning and is not intended to offend.
"Just as Speedy Gonzalez has never been interpreted in a racial manner by the people in Mexico," embassy spokesman Rafael Laveaga said. ". . . He is a cartoon character. I am certain that this commemorative postage stamp is not intended to be interpreted on a racial basis in Mexico or anywhere else."
But the leaders of the NAACP, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the National Council of La Raza and the National Urban League denounced the image in strong terms, calling it the worst kind of black stereotype. The curator of a Michigan museum that collects Jim Crow memorabilia said the Memin Pinguin caricature is a classic "pickaninny" -- a black child, oafish and with apelike features.
"It is offensive," said the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, who like other leaders called on Mexican President Vicente Fox to apologize and stop circulation of the stamps. Jackson vowed to lead a demonstration at Mexican consulates if Fox does not do so.
.................................. Marc H. Morial, executive director of the National Urban League, joined Jackson in calling on President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to denounce the stamps. "It's outrageous, it's offensive, and it really raises the question of whether President Fox's apology was sincere and meaningful,"
This is the reason Disney has cartoons which are not shown today. These same images.
Also, degrading images of blacks are not unknown in Latin America.
Charles Moskos, a sociology professor and expert on military personnel issues at Northwestern University, has said the Army's recruiting woes are likely to persist until the children of upper-class America begin to enlist more readily. He also sees a possibility of the services relying more on non-Americans to sign up.
Moskos said in an interview Wednesday that of the 750 males in his graduating class at Princeton University in 1956, more than 400 went on to serve in the military. Of the 1,100 males and females in last year's Princeton class, eight joined.
"That's the difference," he said.
Professor, they joined because of the draft. They HAD NO CHOICE. Even the, the numbers were about 60 percent. I wonder if only 60 percent of New Brunswick's high school males joined the military.
Moskos, who is an expert on the draft, is apparently NOT an expert on modern American life. Because he's the guy who said the social cast of the military has been the same for 200 years, working class and poor enlisted men, led by lower middle class officers. Where do the upper class enter into this? They didn't even fight in the Civil War. They sought the Air Corps and ASTP programs in WWII. Yet, he thinks the class of Princeton is going to join the Army to be crippled in Iraq. I mean, he has to be joking or in need of medication.
We all know how the Howard Deans of the world had verifiable medical records when they entered the draft board. Not that he tried to dodge the draft, but that he had the medical records to get exempted. How many poor kids will have that option? Go to every emergency room in Brooklyn to round up their records?
This upper class aversion to military service is nothing new. When Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain enlisted in the Union Army, he had to lie to his collegues at Bowdoin College and say he was going to Europe. His actions on Little Round Top saved the Union Army at Gettysburg from being routed. Yet, his collegues wanted someone else to serve.
Moskos must live in an alternate reality where military service is somehow encouraged by the upper classes and their sons vie for West Point slots. He knows the history of the Army. He knows the number of rich cadets can be summed up as Robert E. Lee and George Patton. So why in the fuck, shy of a draft, does he think the canned veal kids of Princeton are going to be serving in the US Army this century?
Moskos also believes in national service where recruits can be trained to be MP's or infantry.
And exactly who wants their kids drafted? They are threatening to kill recruiters. I mean, Americans have accepted that shopping and chickenhawking is the same as fighting in Iraq. They dispose of their duties with a metal ribbon of support the troops. Not raise taxes to pay for the war, not enlist, but "support the troops"
Immigrants? From where? A place without newspapers? Those car bombs are just as loud on Mexican TV as they are in the US. Maybe we can have a general amnesty and induct MS 13 members into the Army. With their gang training and firearms handling, that should work out.
The Army already has a lot of green card soldiers and has since the 1950's. Don't think some parent in Manila wants their kid to die in Iraq for a green card any more than the Valdez family wanted their daughter to die in Iraq. In fact, the war is extremely unpopular in most of the target countries for such recruitment. What? Only Americans have newspapers? You want more soldiers, stop fighting in Iraq.
At its essence, [the media exemption] allows a media corporation, through certain of its employees -- reporters, editorial writers, and cartoonists -- to spend an unlimited amount of corporate money communicating with candidates, asking them anything about their campaigns, with no question relating to money or strategy off limits, activities, in short, that would be considered "coordination" if the person doing the asking were not considered media.
This exemption is so broad that, aside from the various journalists' codes of ethics, there is absolutely nothing to stop the reporters from becoming partisan advocates of a candidate - what reporters derisively call "getting in the tank" with the candidate.
The media exemption, however, allows them this leeway, because to do otherwise would interfere with their rights as journalists. And all members of the press are entitled to this exemption: the good, the bad, the hacks, the partisans, and the crazies. Everyone from The New York Times to the National Inquirer to the independent journalist working in his basement distributing his work around the neighborhood on a mimeographed sheet is protected by the media exemption.
This broad treatment is in keeping with the legislative history, and is consistent with the FEC's previous advisory opinions. Given these precedents, I expect that the members of the Commission will grant the exemption widely to bloggers, or you will send it back to Congress and they will specifically include bloggers.
But this broadly granted media exception contains within it an absolutely unavoidable consequence. And that is, there is no way to keep big money out of this picture.
My concern is not with the average citizen who chooses to publish a blog and share his or her viewpoints on the Internet, but with large corporations and unions who seek to unfairly influence campaigns by spending huge amounts of money under the guise of being a blog [...]
That is what I fear about the widely granted media exemption. Not that the old media will lose it power. They can take care of themselves. What I fear is that our fragile, very flawed system of campaign finance regulation will completely destroyed
Darr, like a lot of people, have confused the tool for the person.
No matter what you call it, online publishing is here to stay.
Website, message board, blog, they're all just tools to communcate, content management systems.
When Darr talks about the privledges of journalists, she misses the point. A blog is what its owner is. If they are journalists, and that's what goes into the blog, then it's journalism. There is no special catagory of writer called a "blogger". They are a blogger in the way that a cameraman is a cameraman, defined by their tool. However, the cameraman for CNN is a journalist, and the cameraman shooting a Tarantino film is an artist. Same basic tool, different job.
As long as people like Darr try to define blogging by the use of a tool, they will miss the point.
Salon's doing a series on the space religion and deserve a great deal of credit.
For anyone interested in the Church of Scientology, the May 6, 1991, issue of Time magazine remains a milestone in news coverage. For those who back the church, it ran an outrageously biased account that eventually led to a libel suit by the church -- later dismissed -- and prompted Scientology leaders to launch a counterspin that continues today.
But for many who have long questioned the church, founded by the late L. Ron Hubbard and embraced by a string of Hollywood stars, that article represents one of the genuinely aggressive reports on the organization. And their concern is that what subsequently happened to Time -- and to other publications that tried to peek behind the church's cheerful exterior -- explains why few investigative reports on the church have followed.
The Time cover story, written by Richard Behar and headlined "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power," called the church "a hugely profitable global racket" and described its intimidation methods as "Mafia-like." The story was one of several by major news operations who took on the church with in-depth reports in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Los Angeles Times launched a series that focused on Hubbard's rise to power and the myths and distortions about his life -- including bogus military claims and a dysfunctional relationship with his son. The series also looked at church marketing techniques and high-pressure tactics against members; accounts of former Scientologists about life in the church, which included the micromanagement of everything from careers to the preparation of baby food; and its counterattacks against critics, including the press and the IRS.
It is interesting that a man who may be the highest-profile celebrity of our time has managed to stay out of the tabloids for so many decades because he actually leads a clean life. People want to know how Tom Cruise does it, and it would be wrong for him to keep his religion from the masses who want to know how he navigated the surly world of Top Celebrity. So he shares how he has managed to keep his life on track and offers help to anyone out there who wants it and the hacks go absolutely wild.
I actually can't get enough of the new Tom Cruise and love watching him come alive for the rest of us instead of living a sheltered life that none of us get to see. As for Scientology, you mention that he helped the firefighters at ground zero, can help people get off drugs, learn to read and stop being criminal. This is the man the press is attacking? I would bet money that his attack of psychiatry and its multibillion-dollar industry is what is stirring all of this up. A reward should be offered for the first patient of a psychiatrist who can offer up their lab work showing a chemical imbalance in the brain. Hate to say it, but I don't think people have Ritalin or Paxil deficiencies. You can't even get an insulin shot without proof of your blood sugar levels from a test. But psychiatry just looks at you and says, yep, your chemicals are out of whack, take this drug that will essentially damage your brain and you'll feel better after a while.
Maybe Tom just decided that saving humanity from this fraud was worth any amount of stone throwing. There have been a few throughout history who have had to stand up to the wrongheaded mobs of their day and try and put things right. Go, Tom, go!
-- Mary Panton
This is the general tenor of the letters to Salon.
While the series has been mild, any coverage risks a brutally aggressive response from the space religion. So let's give Salon credit for taking a risk
The darkness at ground zero just got a little darker. If there are people still clinging to the expectation that the Freedom Tower will become a monument to the highest American ideals, the current design should finally shake them out of that delusion. Somber, oppressive and clumsily conceived, the project suggests a monument to a society that has turned its back on any notion of cultural openness. It is exactly the kind of nightmare that government officials repeatedly asserted would never happen here: an impregnable tower braced against the outside world.
The new design by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is a response to the obvious security issues raised by the New York Police Department, specifically the tower's resistance to car and truck bombs. The earlier twisted-glass form, a pastiche of architectural visions cobbled together from Daniel Libeskind's master plan and various Skidmore designs, lacked grace or fresh ideas. The new obelisk-shaped tower, which stands on an enormous 20-story concrete pedestal, evokes a gigantic glass paperweight with a toothpick stuck on top. (The toothpicklike spire was added so that the tower would reach its required height of 1,776 feet.)
The temptation is to dismiss it as a joke. And it is hard not to pity Mr. Childs, who was forced to redesign the tower on the fly to meet the rigid deadline of Gov. George E. Pataki. Unfortunately, the tower is too loaded with meaning to dismiss. For better or worse, it will be seen by the world as a chilling expression of how we are reshaping our identity in a post-Sept. 11 context.
The most radical design change is the creation of the base, which will house the building's lobby and some mechanical systems. Designed to withstand a major bomb blast, the base will be virtually windowless. In an effort to animate its exterior, the architects say they intend to decorate it in a grid of shimmering metal panels. A few narrow slots will be cut into the concrete to allow slivers of natural light into the lobby.
The effort fails on almost every level. As an urban object, the tower's static form and square base finally brush aside the last remnants of Mr. Libeskind's master plan, whose only real strength was the potential tension it created among the site's structures. In the tower's earlier incarnation, for example, its eastern wall formed part of a pedestrian alley that became a significant entry to the memorial site, leading directly between the proposed International Freedom Center and the memorial's north pool. The alley, flanked on its other side by a performing arts center to be designed by Frank Gehry, was fraught with tension; it is now a formless park littered with trees.
WASHINGTON, June 29 - With mounting frustration and a hint of anger, a federal judge said at a hearing Wednesday that he would send two reporters to jail in one week if they did not agree to testify before a grand jury about their confidential sources in the meantime.
Lawyers for the reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, said their clients would accept jail time rather than testify.
The judge, Thomas F. Hogan of Federal District Court here, added that he would also impose very large fines against Time Inc., in an effort to force the company to obey a court order directing it to turn over documents in the investigation.
A lawyer for Time Inc., Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., told Judge Hogan the company was still considering whether to comply with the order.
"We are grappling with those issues," Mr. Boutrous said. "Time is part of a public company and has a deliberative process to work through these issues."
The grand jury is looking into the possibly unlawful disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame.
Judge Hogan expressed surprise that a public company like Time Warner, Time Inc.'s parent, would even consider violating a final court order. The Supreme Court turned down appeals in the case on Monday.
"The only way we operate in this society, in a democratic society, is by the rule of law and to have people obey court orders," Judge Hogan said.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the case, said Time has no choice but to comply with the order.
"I don't understand what Time can deliberate about," he said. "They don't have a right to break the law. We shouldn't allow people to think that court orders are sort of optional."
.........................
In court on Wednesday, Mr. Fitzgerald said that Time has a moral and legal obligation to assist in the investigation.
"This case is not about a whistleblower," he said. "This case is about a potential retaliation against a whistle-blower."
Judge Hogan directed the reporters and Time to file papers by Friday about where the reporters should be jailed and the size of the fine. He said the fine, which had been $1,000 a day but was suspended pending appeals, may be made retroactive and is likely to increase to "a very large sum."
Morning announcements at the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester generally tread predictable terrain: schedule changes, meeting times, athletic events. But one item exasperated some teens last school year.
At several upcoming social events ? a coffeehouse, the Junior Ball ? upper-school students would not be permitted to bring non-Jewish dates, it was announced.
Upon hearing the policy, Karla Bertrand, a Schechter student whose father was Catholic when her parents married and whose boyfriend at the time was not Jewish, headed to the principal?s office to beg the administration to reconsider the dictate.
While the school saw the directive as a way to stave off interfaith dating, Bertrand and other students at the Hartsdale school said it encouraged creating a ?self-imposed ghetto? that could generate resentment and even stoke the flames of anti-Semitism.
?It was intended to promote Jewish continuity, but instead it insults non-Jews, it insults Solomon Schechter students, and it doesn?t reflect well on the school,? Bertrand said of the Jewish-only prom policy, which remains in place today.
Worse, she said, the decree might inadvertently prove racist
.................................
In a 2004 editorial published in the Westchester Schechter?s school newspaper, she wrote: ?[The policy] shows a lack of respect for our friends as well as for non-Jewish faculty. It is insulting that after one, two, three or even 12 years of religious education, the school doesn?t feel that it has instilled in us the values to be discerning in our choice of company. It is insulting that after nurturing such a long and close relationship with us, the administration feels morally justified in excluding our friends.?
She also argued that Judaism demands that Jews consider marit ayin, or how their actions appear to others. The policy is not intended as bigoted or derogatory, though non-Jews likely would perceive it as such, she said.
Jeffrey Jablansky, another Schechter student, rejected the notion that the school?s policy was ?segregationist? or ?exclusionist? in a newspaper editorial that ran opposite the Bertrand piece.
?Face the facts or abdicate from them: We are the next generation of Jews and we cannot afford a diluted Judaism in times of mixed marriages and anti-Semitic sentiment all over the world,? he wrote. ?How will we, the next generation of Jewish adults, make decisions rooted in Jewish faith without the proper guidance during high school??
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Gilly--As a blonde, blue-eyed, HAM-and-blood-sausage-eating Jew whose family nickname among my (very dark in many cases) cousins was \"Snow White,\" you can imagine how I feel about this policy.
What a bunch of morons. My personal feeling is that if Jews DIDN\'T intermarry, we\'d be a tiny little tribe in the Jordanian dessert, and National Geographic would parachute in once a year to do \"The Old Testament Hebrews of the Bible\" photo spread around Easter.
Are they fucking kidding? Most Jewish guys I know chase non-Jewish women and the last couple of women I've dated weren't only Jewish, but Orthodox. This kind of thing is pathetic, because it doesn't work and sends a very bad message about tolerance. This is America, people date whom they choose.
OK, this is the first in a series of articles on summer foods.
For people who don't drink anything more than piss Coors Light, let's start with the basics, beer is food. It isn't soda, or liquor, but food. Which means it, like wine, comes in a bewildering array of varieties, some more suitable for different foods and seasons than others. It's a bit much to chug down Guinness in a New York summer.
Pale Ale is an amber or light brown colored beer. The most popular version is Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale, which is sold on tap and in bottles in many bars.
Now, I have no problem with a cold Bud, but once you try to eat anything with it, it kind of loses its limited flavor.
Personally, I tend to like Porter over both Stout and Pale Ale, but in the summer, Porter is a bit much. And there are other summer beers like Weisse , but for most people, a Pale Ale is going to be the easiest to buy and enjoy.
One thing, most beers beyond the pale lagers of Bud and Miller, tend to taste slightly heavier on the palate than they do. A good beer should be savored like any good liquid, from lemonade to single-malt scotch.
ON a hot summer night, a beer need only be cold and wet to satisfy. But consider if the standard were set a little higher. Imagine a beer that offered more than the internal equivalent of holding a cold, glistening bottle against a flushed and sweaty forehead. What if that beer did not merely satisfy, but inspired?
That leap from satisfaction to inspiration spans the gulf between the proverbial six-pack of suds in the American refrigerator and a good American pale ale. With the suds, you quench a thirst. It's a quick and specific act, the way an animal laps from a water hole. But with a pale ale, you can discover a host of aromas and flavors - more complex than a lager's - that can fascinate as well as quench. The physical sensation in each swallow is not simply of cold and wet. It's paradoxically dry and bitter and brisk and refreshing. It stimulates the palate rather than numbing it.
............................
Two of the earliest and most successful of these craft brewers were the Anchor Brewing Company and the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company.
Both Anchor's Liberty Ale and Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale were American versions of English pale ale, a pure, mineral-y style with a dry, cleansing bitterness that is very refreshing. The English ales tend to be subtle, earthy and understated, reflecting the characters of the hops, that mysterious ingredient derived from the cones of flowering plants related to the nettle. Hops play no role in the fermentation, which is the province of water, grain and yeast. Instead, the hops, which are added at varying times in the brewing process, infuse the beer with bitterness and aromatics. There are innumerable varieties of hops, each with different qualities to contribute.
........................................
In a sampling of 24 American pale ales, the Dining section's tasting panel found an unexpectedly wide range of styles. Some were relatively sedate in the British manner, though the aromatics were American. Others showed the American tendency to want to make things bigger, louder, faster and more extreme: souped-up pale ales. Yet they stopped short of crossing over into another style, that of India pale ale, characterized by alcohol levels beyond the 4.5 to 6.5 percent of these ales and by even more pronounced hop bitterness.
London, Jun. 29 ? Iran Focus has obtained a photograph of Iran?s newly-elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, holding the arm of a blindfolded American hostage on the premises of the United States embassy in Tehran in 1979.
Prior to the first round of the presidential elections on June 17, Iran Focus was the first news service to reveal Ahmadinejad?s role in the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
The photograph was given to Iran Focus by a source in Tehran, whose identity cannot be revealed for fear of persecution. Iran Focus does not know who took the photograph or the exact date it was taken but it has learnt that it was taken in November or December 1979 in the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran.
Soon after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Ahmadinejad, who was studying in Tehran?s University of Science and Technology, became a member of the central council of the Office for Strengthening of Unity Between Universities and Theological Seminaries, the main pro-Khomeini student body.
The OSU played a central role in the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Members of the OSU central council, who included Ahmadinejad as well as Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, Mohsen Mirdamadi, Mohsen Kadivar, Hashem Aghajari, and Abbas Abdi, were regularly received by Khomeini himself.
I guess that Iran's new president won't be looking to negotiate with the Americans.
So who do we thank for this? Michael Ledeen, handmaiden of the Pahlevis? Bush's increasingly provocative talk about Iran? Ariel Sharon? Who do we thank for placing the H. Rap Brown of Iranian politics as president of that country.
So how much help will SCIRI and Sadr get from Iran now? I think more than none is the right answer.
See the cop on the left? The person who will do his job one day will start at $25K, among the lowest in the United States
Some of rightwingers claim that to support the police, you don't have to join them. Well, in New York, you don't have to pay them a living wage either.
An arbitrator awarded the city's approximately 22,500 patrol officers each a retroactive raise of about $13,800 covering the two years ending in the summer of 2004.
But future cops, "the unborns" as other officers call them, will see starting salaries almost $10,000 lower than they are now.
Under the binding decision rendered Tuesday, new officers will be paid at an annual rate of $25,100 while they're in the academy. The salary jumps to $32,700 upon completion of the six months of training. Combined, first-year cops now will be paid a base of $28,900.
At the other end of the scale, the maximum salary for a patrol officer will increase by almost $5,500, to $59,588, meaning officers hired now would make about $64,000 more over a 20-year career than under the previous pay scale.
According to the Web site policepay.com, which tracks police compensation, the new starting salary would place the starting salaries of New York City cops 185th lowest out of 196 police departments listed. Prior, with a starting salary at $34,515, the NYPD had ranked 151th on the list.
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With the current contract having expired a year ago, Schmertz noted he was "distressed" at the "confrontational relationship" between the mayor's office and the police and fire unions.
"Bluntly, it is too antagonistic, too angry and too reciprocally suspicious," he wrote in urging the city's administration and public safety unions to work out a long-term contract and avoid future arbitration.
Just another way to support our first responders. Argue for years about their salary, then lower their starting pay to less than what a clerk makes in any city agency. Not that the teachers will go along.
The teachers' union head Tuesday scrapped any notion of taking a page from the new police contract by agreeing to lower pay for teaching rookies.
"We will not consider a reduction to starting salaries," said Randi Weingarten, after it became known that police rookies would get lower salaries so the city can pay a retroactive, 10.25 percent raise over two years for the rest of the force.
City officials have not suggested anything similar for the teachers, but the tactic probably wouldn't work anyway.
Unlike recruiting for police, the city has had long-standing problems hiring teachers, especially in areas such as science and special education. Recruitment has taken the city far afield, from Great Britain to the Philippines. ...........................
Accusing Mayor Michael Bloomberg of "wage suppression," Weingarten said city officials are trying to hold teachers to the pay raise for other civilian unions instead of taking into account what teachers earn in the region.
"You have to negotiate with teachers based on who they are and what they do," she said.
Weingarten Tuesday said teachers are leaving at the highest rate ever due to pay, morale and other issues.
Yeah, despite stiffing the city's most critical employees with a surplus, Bloomberg isn't that bad, right? Remember, there are no unions in his company.
News comes of the death of Wal-Mart family heir John Walton, whose ultra-light plane crashed near his home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. A Vietnam vet who earned the Silver Star for valor, Walton was said to be worth in the vicinity of $16, which certainly qualifies him as one of the former super-rich.
"The airplane," Ferdinand Lundberg wrote in The Rich and the Super-Rich, a mammoth study published in 1968 which is still a vault of valuable history and analysis, "is a special hazard of the rich and affluent. Few plane crashes, unless upon buildings, ever involve lower-class citizens [a pre-9/11 statement, obviously]; many tycoons have already met their end in the skies." The bored rich, he goes on to say, are keen on flying everywhere--not only, I suspect, because they wish to save time and jet off on their own schedules (or on impulse), but because flying in private, pampered personalized luxury like Elvis in the Lisa Marie or piloting their own planes frees them from associating with the rabble and makes them feel more like lords of all they survey, commanders of destiny.
To those who resent the whims and dictates of their masters, all of this flying-about offers a gleam of macabre hope. Craig Nettles, former 3rd baseman for the NY Yankees, once wiseguyed there was an upside to Yankee owner George Steinbrenner's peripatetic meddling.
"The more we lose, the more Steinbrenner will fly in. And the more he flies, the better the chance there will be a plane crash."
There were a lot of dark wits during those Steinbrenner-Reggie Jackson-Billy Martin years. None today, I note, which makes the current Yankees less equipped to indulge in gallows humor.
According to Lisa Olson in the NY Daily News, Steinbrenner's PR guy let it be know that The Boss issued his latest edict on the Yankees' drag-butt season while pumping iron, an almost transparently poignant bit of off-stage theater intended to project "strength" from a 75-year-old year old man whose most recent TV interview--on the YES network--revealed the once fearsome Steinbrenner a wan, spent force.
Steinbrenner and Bush are beginning to remind me of each other. Bush still looks confident and walks toward the camera with gunslinger virility but his constant reiterations of "strength" and "resolve" have a hollow echo. Tonight he's going to surround himself with members of The Finest Military the World Has Seen as he delivers an address everyone is saying is intended to "rally support" for standing firm in Iraq. I really think he would have been better off making a briefer, more sombre and straighforward speech from the Oval Office where he leveled with the American people, but he needs constant pumping up these days, even if it's the artificial pumping of doing a dumbo Social Security event with Ben Stein of all people.
But rest assured that tomorrow David Frum and Cliff May will report into NRO that not since Reagan stood tall against communism has there been a more inspiring spire of democratic poetry...
Jim, I would only point out two things: Steinbrenner has actually suceeded in life without his daddy smoothing over every step. He has brought winning teams to Satan's portal in the Bronx.
Also, evil Yankee catcher Thurman Munson died in a plane crash.
In interviews, more than a dozen conventiongoers explained why it is important that they stay on campus while other, less fortunate people their age wage a bloody war in Iraq. They strongly support the war, they told me, but they also want to enjoy college life and pursue interesting careers. Being a College Republican allows them to do both. It is warfare by other, much safer means. ...........................
I chatted for a while with Collin Kelley, a senior at Washington State with a vague resemblance to the studly actor Orlando Bloom. Kelley told me he's "sick and tired of people saying our troops are dying in vain" and added, "This isn't an invasion of Iraq, it's a liberation--as David Horowitz said." When I asked him why he was staying on campus rather than fighting the good fight, he rubbed his shoulder and described a nagging football injury from high school. Plus, his parents didn't want him to go. "They're old hippies," Kelley said.
Munching on a chicken quesadilla at a table nearby was Edward Hauser, a senior at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas--a liberal school in a liberal town in the ultimate red state of Texas. "Austin is ninety square miles insulated from reality," Hauser said. When I broached the issue of Iraq, he replied, "I support our country. I support our troops." So why isn't he there?
"I know that I'm going to be better staying here and working to convince people why we're there [in Iraq]," Hauser explained, pausing in thought. "I'm a fighter, but with words."
At a table by the buffet was Justin Palmer, vice chairman of the Georgia Association of College Republicans, America's largest chapter of College Republicans. In 1984 the group gained prominence in conservative circles when its chairman, Ralph Reed, formed a political action committee credited with helping to re-elect Senator Jesse Helms. Palmer's future as a right-wing operative looked bright; he batted away my question about his decision to avoid fighting the war he supported with the closest thing I heard to a talking point all afternoon. "The country is like a body," Palmer explained, "and each part of the body has a different function. Certain people do certain things better than others." He said his "function" was planning a "Support Our Troops" day on campus this year in which students honored military recruiters from all four branches of the service.
Standing by Palmer's side and sipping a glass of rose wine, University of Georgia Republican member Kiera Ranke said she played her part as well. She and her sorority sisters sent care packages to troops in Iraq along with letters and pictures of themselves. "They wrote back and told us we boosted their morale," she said.
By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. "The people opposed to the war aren't putting their asses on the line," Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? "I'm not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country," he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, "and I wasn't going to pass that up."
You know, normally, I'd be inclined to humor these selfish fucks, but between seeing Bush's audience last night and reading the Daily News this morning, I'm just not in the fucking mood.
Ramona Valdez was 20 years old and she died as a Marine, in combat. Her family had none of the advantages of these people, her age, have had. And they do not even comprehend that the world is not just about words. Valdez's husband desperately wants to go back to Iraq, I guess to avenge his wife's death. Everything good about her is now just a memory.
She could have gone to school, she could have been drinking beer in a hotel. But instead she joined the Marines, just like thousands of other ambitious, but poor kids.
I'm tired of their excuses and their selfishness. I don't think anything but ill comes from Iraq. I wouldn't recommend anyone enlist to fight there. But these kids are utter and contemptible cowards. They think they can win a war by cheerleading and no one disabuses them of this notion. They are being coddled into thinking that a good speech is the same as going to Scout/Sniper school or being an MP and it isn't even close.
Their excuses are so palid, so insulting, so vile that it makes me ill. They want someone else to win a war they cheerlead. They think that all it takes is a good speech.
Part of me is revolted by this, but another part of me is heartened. Because if these people relyh only on words, their are as doomed as the New Left was. These kids are being pumped fujll of the same shit which killed the left. Make a good speech, say the right things, people will like you and you never have to actually deliver as long as everyone feels good.
They should have called this a generation of Bushes and Cheneys
Update: Greg Beato at Wonkette has the following snark:
Reporting from the frontlines of the College Republican National Convention, Max Blumenthal profiles young conservative patriots who are making the ultimate sacrifice for their country during wartime, forsaking a chance at adventure and glory in Iraq to do the tough work on the ground here at home:
By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. "The people opposed to the war aren't putting their asses on the line," Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? "I'm not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country," he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, "and I wasn't going to pass that up."
And besides, being a College Republican is so much more fun than counterinsurgency warfare. Bray recounted the pride he and his buddies had felt walking through the center of campus last fall waving a giant American flag, wearing cowboy boots and hats with the letters B-U-S-H painted on their bare chests. "We're the big guys," he said. "We're the ones who stand up for what we believe in. The College Democrats just sit around talking about how much they hate Bush. We actually do shit."
Such as? Such as selling "Bush Country" tshirts in bulk. And putting his ass on the line against Saddam, Osama, and John Kerry via this crappy web game he developed. Or, as this excerpt from an August 2004 piece in Philadelphia Weekly suggests, eating a lot of meat:
A big Texan, he's wearing a weathered Houston Astros baseball cap and a Bush/Cheney T-shirt. He has seven--one for each day of the week. Bray chugs his beers and brags of the large amounts of meat he can eat.
President in, oh, 2036? That's our guess. ? GREG BEATO
You know, one day, one of these little punks will talk about how great this colonial war is and a Guardman or Reservist home from Iraq will get in their faces and let them know exactly how full of shit they are.
The Marines initially had trouble finding Valdez's family, which moved from the Bronx to Reading, Pa., in March.
"Our [former] neighbors called and they said, 'There are some Marines looking for you,'" said her heartbroken sister, Fiorela Valdez.
The uniformed officers arrived at the family's new home Friday morning to report that Valdez had been involved in an incident and that her status was unknown, the sister said.
"As soon as my mother saw them, she just collapsed," Fiorela Valdez said.
Two days later, the Marines returned to deliver the terrible news that Ramona Valdez was dead.
Daily News columnist Michael Daly interviewed her former coworkers at Liberty Island, where she worked before joining the Marines
"Very alive, upbeat," Johnson said. "Always positive. Even when she was frustrated, she smiled. A beautiful person."
Valdez had been a student at Jane Addams High School when she started her first job, on the front line at the Statue of Liberty food concession in 2000. She worked weekends during the school year, full time in the summer and after she graduated. She put in 40-hour weeks, four 10-hour shifts, adding what she earned to her mother's wages as a home attendant.
Like her co-workers, Valdez wore a green visor, green-and-white striped shirt and gray pants. She made this the uniform of an ambassador who inspired goodwill in visitors from around the globe.
"They come from all parts of the world and they're not used to New York," Johnson said. "They're very closed. We have to change their mind, get them to smile, open up a bit."
A tourist who asked Valdez for a hot dog or ice cream would get a smile and maybe a little joke as well. Any number of visitors returned home thinking a little better of New York and America
A year after taking the formal reins of government, the Iraqis are far from having a sense of control over their own destiny.
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
Sovereignty also means having the legal power to use armed forces or to jail and prosecute lawbreakers. But significant stretches of Iraq remain beyond the control of the government.
The Iraqi government, militias, the U.S. military and even insurgent groups all claim the right to use arms. The U.S. military holds thousands of Iraqi prisoners. Even foreign-influenced insurgent groups hold their own trials, using what they say is Islamic law and procedures, on Iraqi soil to punish alleged collaborators.
Western security contractors, like private armies, operate in a quasi-legal world that has drawn the concern of U.S. military commanders as well as the Iraqi government. Inside well-guarded compounds of security firms such as Sandi Group, founded by a wealthy Iraqi American, hundreds of uniformed young Iraqi recruits train in a warehouse amid crates full of machine guns, as if preparing to take over the world in a James Bond movie.
........................
The sense that Iraqis, even after braving bombs and explosions to cast votes, still don't control their destiny wounds national pride and ultimately may play into the hands of the insurgents, who contend that the Americans actually are intent on imperial expansion.
"What does sovereignty mean to me if I can be shot at by any soldier on the street for any traffic violation without any responsibility on the American soldier?" said Ali Nejam, 37, a Baghdad merchant.
People need to understand something. There two Iraqi Armies, one which fights with us, one fighting against us.
Now, if you were a young officer, where would you rather serve?
In an Army run by foreigners, who openly insult you, call you racist names and do not trust you.
Or one where you can handpick your men, train them how you want, use whatever tactics you want and can say you're fighting an alien occupier.
Let me put it bluntly, without a strong government, widely supported, only hacks would sign up to be auxilliaries to a colonial power. The combat ineffectiveness of the Iraqi Army isn't just a matter of training or equipment, but they hurt. It is very simple, the best and brightest Iraqis are fighting us. Some of the resitance is B'aathist, but I think there is a FAR stronger nationalist component than people want to admit.
When the large numbers of Algerians returned from Vietnam, the best and brightest tired of fighting for France and decided to fight for Algeria. It is likely the same process hjas occured here. The people who were frustrated by the politics of the old Iraqi Army have been liberated to be soldiers. Which is why the resistance is so resilliant. Operation Viagra, Operation Levitra, Operation Cialis have all failed and failed badly to do anything to actually cripple the resistance.
Those not fighting with the resistance are working for mercenaries.
So the government is left with the eager. the young and the dregs. And they cannot fight.
The question is which day do they finally turn on us and attack. Because the resistance clearly must have that as a goal. They've intimidated soldiers and police. What day do they turn on us. As Bush keeps talking up the "training" of the Iraqi forces, the resistance will need to prove him a liar at some point.
NEW YORK When Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times return late Wednesday afternoon to face the federal judge who ordered them to jail last fall for refusing to reveal confidential sources, two different outcomes may emerge.
While New York Times officials have maintained that Miller will not reveal the source who leaked to her the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, a source close to Time Inc. told E&P that the company is considering handing over documents that would reveal the source.
Cooper declined to comment. ........................
In addition to ordering the reporters to jail, Hogan also ordered Time to pay a $1,000-per-day fine for each day that the source's identity is withheld. The Times was not hit with such a fine.
I'm of two minds on this.
One, betraying a source is despicable. One of the things that a journalist is taught in college is that protecting a source is paramount, worth jail time. 49 states have shield laws.. On the principles, this is a vile, vile thing they're doing.
Two, the person who leaked this is a traitor to this country and needs to be exposed for what he or she is. I will lose no sleep if this person is exposed and prosecuted.
But if Time was going to rat, like Novak and Timmah did, they could have done this months ago.
If we boo, we lose our pensions. So we'll just work for Blackwater instead
George Bush's speech before America's professional warrior class went over like a fart.
It was recieved so coldly that the White House advance team had to start the clapping. The attendees were ordered to be polite tonight. But considering the audience was filled with various variety of paratrooper, 82nd ABN, Special Forces and Delta, that's an astonishing thing.
The majority of the men there were people who chose to be warriors. They chose airborne school, some chose Special Forces, some were picked for Delta Force. In short, these were men who were willing to serve their country in the most dangerous situations possible.
What did the President tell them?
Everything's fine.
They KNOW everything isn't fine. Some of the NCO's have masters degrees in international relations, some of the officers, doctorates. Most have been to both Iraq and Afghanistan. They know how fucked it is because they work hand in glove with the CIA or as it's called in the field, OGA (Other Government Agency). They are the people who send the intelligence to the president.
All the White House wanted was a serious military audience. The problem is that it's also a smart military audience, with real-world experience. So they were respectful to Bush, but the audience was icy cold, smirks and tepid applause. And that was from an audience which wanted to listen to him, along with the families of the dead. By the end of it, only the Sergeant Majors were left to shake his hand. Men who have seen more combat than most other humans outside the Congo. And they knew he was full of shit. They talk to generals. It's part of their job. They know Bush lied to them.
And that plea for military service dripped with cowardice.
But it was a gift from God.
Why? Because we can now ask if the twins have ever considered military service. Or any other members of the Bush family, since it's so fucking noble.
If we lived in a country with shame, Bush should feel some while lying before some of America's bravest soldiers. Butr we knew he wouldn't before he opened his mouth.
But unless they were a freeper, they knew they had just sat through a bit of delusion which rivaled calls for Army Group Steiner to save Berlin./
As mentioned earlier, this weekend in DC was marred by the presence of the College Republican National Convention. Now, I had hoped to find a partner in crime who would be willing to videotape as I tried to get conventioneers to enlist in the army. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a camera for Thursday night. Friday, I had a soccer game, and Saturday I had tickets to the Nationals game, so I thought my weekend would be College Republican-free.
Luckily for me - unlucky for the College Republicans - I ran into a group of about 15 of them at the bar following the Nationals game. What ensued was a classic example of why people are always surprised I've only gotten punched in the face once in my life.
There was nothing about the group that immediately screamed "College Republican." They were dressed like your typical young-20-ish person (minus the one I noticed later on wearing the "Kick a Commie for Ronnie" t-shirt). They looked uniformly white, dorky, and puffy, but I was on the Hill, and that's how most Hill kids look. But there was something special I detected about these kids, and as soon as they walked in, I had decided to hate them. When they got their beers and became way too excited about playing drinking games, I realized the problem.
"Hey, are you guys College Republicans"
"Yeah, man"
"Nice job on the Iraq war. That's going really well for you guys, huh"
(nervous laughter)
"Seriously, go fuck yourselves"
(hearty laughter...from my table)
They then resumed their festivities. But soon one of their members stood up to toast what a success the war in Iraq continues to be.
"Dude, if you like the Iraq war so much, why don't you enlist. The Army keeps failing to hit its recruiting goals...they could use some new cannon fodder."
"Hey man, my dad was in the Marines."
"I'm sure he'd be proud if he could see you now."
Again, each table turned back to its prior interests. Theirs, drinking away the pain of their wedgie-filled childhoods. Me, returning my focus on the San Jose/LA Galaxy game (where Landon got his deserved comeuppance). But then, I was disturbed by yet another toast from the spawns of Coulter.
Them: "One more year! One more year!"
I had no idea what this chant was supposed to mean. But it didn't stop me from retorting: "My God, their toasting their virginity!"
I actually started to feel I was taking it too far at that point. So I kept to myself. But I could only contain myself for so long. When I saw two of the mouth-breathers asking our waitress where on their list they should next take their geek-parade, I pounced:
"Hey man, let me see your list. I'll let you know where to go. Hmmm, let me see. Well, these places in Georgetown are a pain in the ass to get to from here, unless you have a car."
"Well, we rented a limo, so that's no problem."
"Of course you did. Well, they all suck anyways. If I were you, I'd head to 17th and P. It's a much younger scene and there are lots of cool bars around there."
Hopefully he heeded my advice, and left DC with a whole new appreciation for the term Santorum.
Meanwhile, over at CampusProgress.org, two young lefties suppressed their gag reflexes, went undercover, and actually attended the events. Their full reports (highly entertaining) can be read here. But it was this exerpt that really caught my eye:
But really, what disturbs me the most is the utter disrespect and scathing cold-heartedness these students display for anything to the left of Tom DeLay. During the Leadership Institue session a presenter asked the crowd, "What makes you angry?" The answers: 1. Liberals 2. Hippies 3. Gays 4. Democrats
Eek. Now, if these answers had been "tax hikes" and "abortion", I'd understand because those are policies, but instead, these are people. The students' anger and passion are driven towards negative stereotypes and blatant hatred for various groups of people. And they're enthusiastically encouraged by their leaders.
Which is why I have no problem mocking these scumbags.
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, vehicle commander, 617th Military Police Company, Richmond, Ky. , stands at attention before receiving the Silver Star at an awards ceremony at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, June 16, 2005
I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces. We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our Nation's uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom.
So, Mr. President, I assume this means your daughters are considering a military career and are planning to enlist, as are most of the Bush clan's younger members. And that thousands of youig Republicans will join the colors as well.
It's now official. Florida is certifiably insane. (If there are any Floridians reading this, I urge you to explain just what's going on down there. Please. Add your comments. I (we) need to know.)
Yesterday afternoon, I wrote what one commenter called an "intimate and positive" post on Toronto's extraordinary Pride festivities, a fantastic week-long celebration that culminated in Saturday's Dyke March and Sunday's Pride Parade. If I may put it this way, Toronto Pride makes me proud to be a Torontonian. And proud to be a Canadian -- a same-sex marriage bill will soon be passed in the House of Commons.
But now, thanks to that same commenter, I've learned of the utterly stupid actions of the Hillsborough County Commission in Florida (the Tampa area):
The Hillsborough County Commission has enacted a policy banning county agencies from acknowledging gay pride events, despite several impassioned pleas from gay rights advocates. Civil rights groups threatened to sue and called for a town hall meeting on the ban, which requires the Hillsborough County government "to abstain from acknowledging, promoting or participating in gay pride recognition and events." The board passed the proposal 5-1 on Wednesday.
Hillsborough Commissioner Ronda Storms, who recommended the policy, followed up with a second proposal, that commissioners can only repeal the policy on a 5-2 super majority vote that follows a public hearing.
Angry yet? Here's more:
The vote comes a week after a book display recognizing Gay and Lesbian Pride Month was taken down at West Gate Regional Library after some library patrons complained. Library officials have said the exhibit at West Gate was removed due to a misunderstanding and was later moved to a less prominent area in the fiction part of the library. Details of the ban, such as whether any display about gay issues would be banned at libraries, were unclear. After the vote, Storms would only say that she feels the language is clear.
But when asked about whether gay student groups would be allowed to meet at a county library or another meeting space, Storms said they would.
"We're not saying that because of your sexual orientation you can't come into the library," she said.
Thanks for the clarification, Ms. Storms. But let me ask you a few questions: Do you just hate gays and lesbians in theory, or is it personal? What is it about them that worries you so? What's so wrong with "gay pride" that your government -- you know, the one that allegedly represents the people (all the people) of Hillsborough County -- shouldn't be allowed to have anything to do with it? And would you be happier if they had their own libraries? You know, separate but equal, or something like that? Is that next?
I'd like some answers, because, try as I might, I just can't figure out where the hell you're coming from -- unless it's just a simple matter of bigotry.
Of course it's simple bigotry. It's Florida. They took black people's tax money and wouldn't let them use the libraries or pools. Now, it's gays.
Ray McGovern, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, sums up the essence of what the US public is going to hear about Iraq tonight from Mr. Bush in his primetime fireside chat:
Forget the documentary evidence (the Downing Street minutes) that the war on Iraq was fraudulent from the outset. Forget that the United States and Britain started pulverizing Iraq with stepped-up bombing months before the president or prime minister breathed a word to Congress or Parliament. Forget that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his merry men, his co-opted military brass, have no clue regarding what U.S. forces are up against in Iraq. Get ready to hear President George W. Bush tell us this evening that we "have to stay the course."
As was the case in Vietnam, the Iraq war is being run by civilians innocent of military experience and disdainful of advice from the colonels and majors who know which end is up. Aping the president's practice of surrounding himself with sycophants, Rumsfeld has promoted a coterie of yes-men to top military ranks, men who "kiss up and kick down," in the words of former Assistant Secretary of State Carl Ford, describing U.N. nominee John Bolton's modus operandi at the State Department.
The insanity of Bush's stubborn attitude in the face of the bloodiest days in Iraq and the downward slope of approval ratings is obvious. I only hope the US people won't embrace the war now that the president has decided finally to address its pitfalls. Every time he speaks, his down-home mannerisms seem to win out over his destructive agenda. It is as if his words inspire the average American to wait-out an increasingly intractable enterprise despite all evidence to the contrary.
Now, I do have a question for you -- you being a cooking buff. Now, as a guy trying to save money for my own place when the bubble pops, I've quit eating out. I have a crock pot and a wok. I tend not to like the wok as much, because I find it creates a mess -- although I can cook in it. Crock pots are much better.
My question is, do you know of a good cook book for crock pots? I went to borders, and damn, there are like, fifty!
I have no idea. I just figured a cooking guru like yourself would know better. I do fine myself, but am getting more and more ambitious as the weeks go on. Several weeks ago I tried potato soup, which turned out to be a miserable failure. I do fine with informal, simple shit when I cook in it, but seem not be be able to do more complicated stuff.
Any ideas? Thanks for your help, if you have any to offer.
Ah, it's time for Steve's guide to the kitchen, the press of business has delayed me writing this.
First of all, a crock pot is an accessory, not something to be used in mid-summer. Nor is a wok. Which you really need a turkey fryer to get to the kind of wok heat you need to sear the food. But that is,well a bit much. We need a much more basic assesment of your kitchen.
Cookware
First, look around your kitchen. What do you have? Good knives? Decent pots?
If not, you need some basics. An 8" chef's knife, tongs, a cast iron pan, a non-stick frying pan, an a soup pot.
You should have this and a basic set of dishware, which means four matching plates, at least four good glasses.
If you lack this, there is one place which will solve this for you.
Target.
You could go to Bed, Bath and Beyond, but all that will happen is that you will be overwhelmed by the choices. No, Target is where you need to go. It has a nice, basic selection of cookware, and their budgetware line of plates is great for every day eating. Get the dishes, the bowls and use that for your every day eating.
Once you have a basic set of tools, and you can just buy a basic knife set. glassware set, with glasses for booze, and a set of decent dishes for guests.
Once you have that, then we can talk appliances. You should have a microwave. You should get a blender and a food processor if you don't have them.
All together, we're talking $200. A toaster oven is a nice add on. You like Quiznos? I do. With a toaster over, you can make your oven grilled sandwiches and save them cash.
Now, let's talk about the crock pot.
Unless you want to eat a lot of chili, it's summer. Who wants stews and pot roasts now? Set it aside for winter.
Now, get a grill pan. This will be your summer crock pot. Unless you can grill outside, this will make your life easier.
Shopping
How do you shop?
Do you shop?
OK, what I would recommend is that you plan on two shopping trips a week. One on Sunday, one on Wed evening. Why? Because you need to buy small, not big.
On Sunday, I would get the cans, the frozen food, the ice cream, the juice and milk, all the things which will keep for the week. And bread. You can also buy meat, fish.
You should use this day to stock the fridge with the items which will keep. After a couple of weeks, you won't need to buy so much. Your larder will be filled.
On Wed. evening, you would restock fresh fruit, greens, pick up any wine, beer and liquor for the weekend and more bread and milk as needed.
So if you shop twice a week for a while, then once a week once you have a store of goods, you should always have food around.
Cooking
So how many cookbooks do you have? Considering that you probably do not want a diet of stews, you might want to pick up one or two. My personal favorite for the beginning cook is Cooking for Dummies by Bryan Miller, the former Times food reviewer. It is simple and has a range of information and recipies.
My advice on actual meal preperation is this: plan to have a variety of things you can fix quickly. Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals is a great place to start. But I would keep things like a couple of steaks, some frozen salmon, sausages and frozen meatballs. With pasta, canned tomatoes (which can be turned in to a much better sauce than Ragu) and rice, you can get a meal up and running in a few minutes.
One idea for a good, quick meal is this:
Slice two Idaho potatoes into fries. Soak in water overnight (or until you return from work), buy a sirloin steak or other decent cut and have the butcher grind it into ground meat. Get a set of patty makers, they usually come six to a package. They're so people can store hamburgers. Store the meat in these and toss it in the freezer. Take one or two out before you go to work. when you get home, take the grill pan, heat it up. You can fill a medium pot with oil. You should have a thermometer. Drain the potatoes. Dry them. toss them in the oil for a minute or so. pull them out and drain them on paper towels. Put them in again. until they brown. Cook your meat on the grill pan. Add toppings and bread and you have a pub burger and real french fries.
You can do this with steak, chicken or fish.
The idea is that you create a pantry which you can look around in and cook without spending insane time over the stove after work. Kielbasa heroes and cold beer can brighten up any day.
Also, keeping tacos around with taco sauce and canned salsa (available from the Mexican aisle) can turn that ground meat into tacos, empenadas or burritos. Beans can make it a quick chili.
The goal should be to set up your kitchen so that you can come home, cook quickly, and eat. A crock pot is not the solution, planning is.
MISHAHDA, Iraq (AP) ? A U.S. Apache attack helicopter crashed Monday north of Baghdad, killing both pilots, after a witness said he saw the aircraft hit by a rocket that "destroyed it completely in the air." ....................
The AH-64 crashed in Mishahda, 20 miles north of the capital, and witness Mohammed Naji told Associated Press Television News he saw two helicopters flying toward Mishahda when "a rocket hit one of them and destroyed it completely in the air
Ok, so what will Bush say? Things are OK?
Look, you need training to fire an SA-16, on a range. Guerrillas just don't learn it. They can, but my bet is that the Iraqi Army's air defense sections are back in the fight.
But it gets better, Juan Cole says the US wants the Brits to deploy more troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan
A Two-Front War
Tony Blair and the British military are caught between Iraq and a hard place. The Bush administration is putting enormous pressure on the British to send more troops to Afghanistan, where the Taliban are regrouping and launching an Iraq-style guerrilla war. So the British began making noises about reducing the number of their troops in southern Iraq (around 10,000) and shifting them to Afghanistan.
But no. Bush recently told Blair that Iraq is on the brink of disaster, and that the British need to send more troops to that country, in addition to sending new units to fight the Taliban.
' Tony Blair was warned that war-torn Iraq remains on the brink of disaster - more than two years after the removal of Saddam Hussein - during his summit with President Bush in Washington earlier this month. Scotland on Sunday revealed last month that Blair is preparing to rush thousands more British troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stop the country sliding towards civil war, amid warnings the coalition faces a "complete strategic failure" in the effort to rebuild the nation. '
If the Pushtuns turn against the Karzai government in large numbers, rallying around neo-Taliban, the country could fall back into war. This danger was always the hidden cost of Bush going on to Iraq before stabilizing Afghanistan.
I don't think the British public will put up with being dragged into a two-front hot war, and you wonder whether the Blair government might fall over such a development.
The mystery to me is why the Americans think they need more British troops in southern Iraq. Most of that area has fallen into the hands of religious Shiite militias anyway, and I doubt the British get out of their barracks all that much. When they do, they appear to be angering a lot of the Shiites, as in Maysan, the provincial government of which yesterday launched a non-cooperation campaign against the British. Do the Americans want to move the British up to the hot zone in the Sunni heartland? Is the South more unstable than it looks on the outside (e.g. is the Mahdi Army reconstituting itself down there?)
Ironically, even as the Afghanistan venture appears on the verge of collapse, Dick Cheney instanced it in his Wolf Blitzer interview on Sunday as evidence of the undue pessimism of his critics and a reason to be optimistic about Iraq.
I think the Mahdi Army has been training for months myself. When they pop up again, it's all done, because they will seize shit and the local Army and police units will join them.
June 28, 2005 | WASHINGTON -- Bloggers who built their Internet followings with anti-establishment prose are now lobbying the establishment to protect their livelihoods from federal regulations.
Some are even working with lawyers, public-relations consultants and a political action committee to do it.
"I like to think of myself as just a guy with a blog, but it's clear that 'just a guy with a blog' is different today than it was when I started three years ago," said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of the Web log www.DailyKos.com. "One sign of having arrived is when government regulators start wanting to poke their fingers into what you do."
Moulitsas was to testify Tuesday at a hearing on a Federal Election Commission proposal that would extend some campaign finance rules to the Internet, including bloggers.
Moulitsas also is working with a lawyer who volunteered to help bloggers fight new government regulations and whose efforts were promoted in a PR firm press release Monday. He is prepared to lobby Congress himself if necessary, and he is the treasurer of BlogPac, a political action committee formed last year by bloggers.
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Internet advertising is also big business, and it's becoming a standard feature of blogs. Black said a small number of bloggers make a living from advertising revenue, but he added that most, including himself, have other jobs.
Acknowledging the Internet's growth, a federal judge last year ordered the FEC to extend some of the nation's campaign finance and spending limits to political activity on the Web.
Bloggers fear that will mean new, unique limits on their activities, even though several of the commission's six members have indicated they have no desire to go beyond what the judge has ordered them to do.
The problem here is that a lot of people want to protect their vested interests, and try to keep bloggers as some seperate subspecies of journalist and not realize that it's really a content management system, nothing more. People are journalists by their actioins, not their tools.
What I find amusing is the suprise that adults, and we are all adults, would use PR and lawyers to protect our businesses and the right to free speech. Bloggers are not children. Many are journalists and academics. This is Washington. You don't play by their rules, you lose.
BALTIMORE - George Steinbrenner said "enough is enough" the last time the Yankees were here, ripping his $200 million team moments after the Orioles completed an embarrassing sweep of the Bombers. This time, The Boss didn't even wait for the Yanks to play a game, releasing a statement before last night's series opener with the O's that indicated he isn't satisfied with the Bombers' desire.
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But what can the Yankees do? Making a deal at this point in the season (the trade deadline isn't until July 31) is always difficult since teams will be asking higher prices because the market hasn't fully developed. In the Yankees' case, it's made even tougher because every GM in the league knows the Yankees' history - that they frequently trade away young talent for quick-fix solutions - so no one is convinced that the Yanks will stick to their mantra of rookies Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang being unavailable.
At some point, the sentiment goes, Steinbrenner will snap and order Cashman to simply make a deal - regardless of the price. And that's when Cano and Wang can be had.
Simply put, the Yankees have an aging team. They got Guiceambi and Kevin "Blown Arm" Brown and have traded away young talent for veterans for years. Well, years of fear-based management have come to a head. The Yankees have a bunch of names who are being hammered by younger teams, many with Yankee rookies traded so Boss Steinbrenner coulod win now. Well that was yesterday and this is today and the Yankees will have to suffer with their aging players, unless Steinbrenner sells his future for his present once again.
A Kos diary used the Yankees to make a point about a silly WSJ editorial about how bad news, and not high explosive and suicidal 20-somethings are losing the war in Iraq.
The WSJ Editorial has it right. We're losing this war because of negative criticism.
And I was just about to make that same point about the Yankees. A lot of nay sayers want to fault Brian Cashman for assembling a team of decaying 40 year olds. Others say that it's really Steinbrenner who pulled the strings on that one. Some say that Torre only knows how to manage when his team is winning. Some extremely negative types say there are just too many big egos, too many high salaries, and that all the money and hype is getting in the way of good performance. But clearly, there is one reason why the Yankees are a terrible team this year.
The fans.
This amused me to no end, even though it was satire. Because Steinbrenner wants to talk all this football nonsense when his problems are self-created He got aging players and kept juice boy Giambi on his squad, after he lied to them. Why should the Yankees perform?
SACRAMENTO- Three decades after aggressive military spying on Americans created a national furor, California's National Guard has quietly set up a special intelligence unit that has been given ''broad authority'' to monitor, analyze and distribute information on potential terrorist threats, the Mercury News has learned.
Known as the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program, the project is part of an expanding nationwide effort to better integrate military intelligence into global anti-terrorism initiatives.
Although Guard officials said the new unit would not collect information on American citizens, top National Guard officials have already been involved in tracking at least one recent Mother's Day anti-war rally organized by families of slain American soldiers, according to e-mails obtained by the Mercury News.
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That rainy Sunday, the protest organized by Gold Star Families for Peace, Raging Grannies and CodePink, drew about three-dozen supporters.
Guard spokesman Zezotarksi said that the monitoring did not involve anything more than keeping tabs on the protest through the media and that no one went to observe the demonstration.
But he said the military would be ''negligent'' in not tracking such anti-war rallies in the event that they disintegrate into a riot that could prompt the governor to call out troops.
''It's nothing subversive,'' said Zezotarksi. ''Because who knows who could infiltrate that type of group and try to stir something up? After all, we live in the age of terrorism, so who knows?''
Civil libertarians scoffed at such defenses.
''That's ludicrous,'' said Joseph Onek, a former Carter and Clinton administration official who now heads the Liberty and Security Initiative for The Constitution Project at Georgetown University. ''That's not what the American people expect its military to be doing.''
You mean a group of middle aged and elderly women are threat to Califonia? I guess it's rtime for another Kent State. We'll show you aging hippies about the law, you outside agitators
How big is poker? Well, it's on seven days a week on most of the sports channels
When we say poker, we mean No Limit Texas Hold 'Em. Nearly every other poker game has been swept aside. If you like draw poker, you're more likely to be sitting in front of a poker machine than a deck of cards
No Limit started as an outlaw game, with former Texas gangster Benny Binion running from the Texas Rangers and his friends having taken most of the oil men and cattle ranchers of their hard earned money. But truth be told, the boys were tired of being chased and robbed and Vegas ended that. There, they could run their games in peace, and for 30 years, they were obscure as well. But cable is a voracious beast, and poker was both cheap and compelling. So once you could see the cards, with pin camerask, the drama, already high, ramped up.
Combine a simple game, Texas Hold 'Em deals two cards to the players and five community cards. Who ever makes the best hand wins. The tricky part is playing the players, not the cards.
Still a huge deal Poker clubs all the rage, even after two big raids By JIM RICH and MICHAEL O?KEEFFE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
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In the wake of the raids, clubs that weren't hit are doing standing-room-only business, new clubs are opening all over town and invitations to tournaments are flooding the Internet. Two new upscale clubs have opened in recent weeks ? one in Brooklyn, one in SoHo ? while countless taverns and social clubs continue to sponsor poker nights throughout the five boroughs. "If [a player] wants to or has to, he's going to find [poker] somewhere else," the owner of a Manhattan poker club said, referring to underground clubs in the city, New Jersey and Connecticut.
NYPD vice cops seized $100,000 during simultaneous May 26 raids at Union Square's Play Station and the New York Players Club on W. 72nd St. Authorities also arrested 39 employees of the two clubs, and although most face misdemeanor charges, at least five have been slapped with felony raps for promoting gambling and possession of gambling equipment, both punishable by up to four years in prison.
Still, poker club insiders say that's not enough to scare them away from a business that police say generates up to $30,000 a night.
"The money is too good," the owner of a downtown club says.
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The Manhattan club owner says the clubs, which don't sell alcohol and refuse to admit patrons if they appear drunk, are a boon to neighborhood businesses. One employee of a Union Square electronics store said players would often treat themselves to new cell phones or MP3 players with their winnings.
"The city and state are losing a tremendous amount of revenue and jobs," the Manhattan club owner said, "because they are enforcing some archaic, stupid law."
But the poker explosion isn't limited to a few "after hours" clubs and bars. Most poker action takes place online, and when Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker after learning the game online, interest exploded.
AS a rule, companies don't often draw attention to business practices that could land their executives in jail. But for PartyGaming PLC, potential illegalities aren't just a secret hidden in its business plan - they are the centerpiece of its business plan.
A giant in the online gambling business, PartyGaming is an often-overlooked megasurvivor from the dot-com crash of the late 1990's. As hundreds of profitless commercial sites disappeared into the digital ether, PartyGaming's popular gambling sites - like PartyPoker.com - soared, with revenues and profits growing exponentially year after year.
This week, the company will go public in what is expected to be the largest offering in years on the London Stock Exchange, one that will make billionaires out of its ragtag assortment of founders and major stockholders - including a California lawyer who earned her first fortune in online pornography and phone-sex lines. All told, as much as $9 billion is expected to be raised, with all of the cash going to private shareholders selling portions of their stakes.
But there will be no Wall Street investment houses lapping up fees in the giant deal, no victory dances in the offices of American corporate lawyers. That is because PartyGaming, based in Gibraltar, has no assets in the United States, and its officers or directors could risk being served with a civil suit - or an arrest warrant - if they came to the United States on business.
The reason? The Justice Department and numerous state attorneys general maintain that providing the opportunity for online gambling is against the law in the United States - and PartyGaming does it anyway. Indeed, of its $600 million in revenue and $350 million in profit in 2004, almost 90 percent came from the wallets and bank accounts of American gamblers.
To justify this, PartyGaming walks a very thin line. Providing online gambling is not illegal per se in the United States, the company argues - federal prosecutors just say it is. The company has already received an e-mail message from the Louisiana attorney general demanding that it cease providing online gambling in that state; PartyGaming simply ignored the communication and waited for additional action that never came.
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Indeed, among international bodies and foreign governments, the American position on Internet gambling is becoming an object of derision. A 2003 report by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in Britain, for example, found that there was a "growing global market for online gambling where national boundaries" no longer had any meaning.
"Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the U.S.A., where despite the apparent illegality of cross-border gambling more of its citizens gamble online than anywhere else in the world," the report says. "To deny this appears in many ways to fly in the face of the reality of international banking and the inherently international nature of 21st-century telecommunications."
The problem is that the casinos reacted to online gambling like the music industry reacted to Napster, they tried to quash it. But the desire for gambling is so strong that the only thing the casinos did was lose money.
But the real issue is not poker. If it was just poker, it would be legal in the US today. The issue is the sports book. If widespread gambling took place on sports, Congress would be far more likely to act. Which is also why sport books are left to UK companies, where it is legal. If Party Gaming were to expand their business to sports book, which is where the real money is, they would face a lot more opposition. Once the US has companies offering sports betting online , now tightly restricted to Las Vegas, this issue will explode.
In the end, the major US casinos will encourage this as a way to drive business, afterr seeing PartyGaming raking in the money.
The big side effect of this will be an explosion in compulsive gambling. I remember in the 80's when cocaine was seen to be harmless. Then came crack. Poker has the same potential.
BY MICHAEL SAUL and MAGGIE HABERMAN DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Several city Democrats rushed to their phones last week to complain to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean after Mayor Bloomberg held a semisecret meeting with some top Dem money-raisers.
Some of the Democratic mayoral campaigns were angry after word leaked from Bloomberg-friendly quarters that the mayor met with major Democratic donors at a sitdown organized by Bloomberg pal Steve Rattner - who's also married to the DNC finance chairwoman.
Some hoped Dean would make some gesture committing to the race, or put pressure on the Dems who were at the meeting. Late Friday, Dean put out a statement that made zero mention of the Rattner-Bloomberg meeting, saying only that the party will work hard in the fall "to put a Democratic mayor in Gracie Mansion.".......
How about this: blacklisitng anyone who works for Bloomberg.
That's a great idea. If they want to be employed by Republicans, great. But don't look to get hired by Democrats next year. So why is Steve Ratner meeting with Bloomberg? Arms need to be twisted, because there's an odor here, if these folks run from Fields or Ferrer, we won't take long in guessing why.
Howard Dean wants party discipline and support for his work, well, it's a two way street. You can't have Democratic fundraisers working for Bloomberg and be taken seriously.
The pastor of a Staten Island Catholic church is playing holy hardball - kicking hundreds of kids out of religious ed classes because their families aren't showing up at Mass.
The Rev. Michael Cichon, pastor of St. Joseph/St. Thomas in Pleasant Plains, used each family's bar-coded donation envelope to track attendance.
He's tossed about 300 kids from classes and told them not to reapply until next April.
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"It's hurtful," said Joseph LoPizzo, 38, whose 6-year-old son was booted. "I've been a parishioner at that church for 23 years - longer than he's been the reverend."
So what happened? Some of the parents went to the Daily News to complain and make him look like an asshole. That was a hell of a plan. Now, they're REAL pissed and not so likely to attend Mass after this. They should be happy kids are still involved in the church period. They act like they haven't been raping kids or something.
DALLAS (AP) -- Members of the American Gold Star Mothers, an organization for women who have lost children in military conflicts, voted Monday to allow non-citizens to join - after denying a Yonkers woman a month ago.
American Gold Star Mothers, a group of about 1,200 mothers, was criticized after denying membership to a Philippines woman whose son was killed in Afghanistan. Although Ligaya Lagman is a legal resident of Yonkers and her son was a U.S. citizen, the group's charter prevented non-citizen mothers from joining.
Politicians urged the group to change its rules, and some of the organization's past members supported the change.
After their ignorant and racist comments, they were shamed into changing their policy
DON'T SEND MATT COOPER TO PRISON... .............The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is expected to request the two go to jail immediately.
Charles Peters, founding editor of The Washington Monthly, has written this item, which speaks for all of us at the magazine:
Matthew Cooper is threatened with jail for refusing to reveal a source. The special prosecutor does not have to recommend jail, and even if he does recommend it, the judge can ignore it. Although we believe Matt is right in refusing to identify his source, that is not the argument that we make here. Our concern is to keep him out of jail. Matt is not only a fine reporter, he is a caring husband and father, a kind and thoughtful friend, and an all-round good citizen. And he has a marvelous sense of humor. Wait a minute, what relevance does his sense of humor have, you ask. Unlike many who share his comic gift, Matt laughs at himself. He is incapable of the self-righteousness that seeks martyrdom. If the prosecutor and judge can approach this case in the same spirit without self-righteousness, they will see that even if they disagree with Matt, he has good reason for taking his stand. There is a total absence of criminal intent on his part. He should not be put in jail. Criminals belong in jail, not Matthew Cooper. How about house arrest for a month?or, even better, a week? That way, the authorities can be loyal to their principle while respecting Matt's loyalty to his.
Hey, was Cooper asleep in J-school? He knew it could come to this. So why does Vanessa Leggett, who never drew a day's salary at a big newspaper, go to jail like a woman and didn't even think about breaking her word. And a lot of people were eager to claim she wasn't a journalist.
You shouldn't say a fucking word to the judge. If Cooper keeps his mouth shut, he should be proud to go to jail. He should do his time with pride. A week, a month? Fuck that. Six months like anyone else and he should be man enough not to grovel for a favor. If he believes he's doing the right thing, he should march off to jail and keep his mouth shut. Of course, there is the matter of abetting treason, but shit, he's known the score since he first drank beer. Jail is part of the package. All this whining is unseemly.
But Charlie Peters should be ashamed of himself. Judy Miller didn't even write about this. And while a jail sentence will stop her from helping her neocon friends, Miller didn't even file on this. So if anyone deserves less time, it's her, no matter how odious she is. Roxanne pointed this out and she's kinda right about this.
But the fact is that journalism is no shield for abetting treason and that is what is going on here. Valerie Plame was a nuclear proliferation expert in Central Asia. For petty political reasons, her cover was exposed. Miller and Cooper are aiding people who made this country less safe. I understand their reasons. But it seems Charlie Peters would rather protect a friend than deal with what he did.
Mouse You, Buddy! I just finished reading Ed Klein. I guess I won't sue. But maybe someone else should. By Michael Tomasky Web Exclusive: 06.27.05 ...................
Two points. First, as a journalist, I feel compelled to speak in defense only of other journalists. This book leaves Klein's status in that regard quite open to question. Second -- well, let's cut to the chase: Does New York Times v. Sullivan mean that "journalists" should be able to offer sly implications about a public person's sex life on the basis of surmise and rumor?
The problem runs deeper even than Klein. Today, with the explosion of Web sites, all sorts of propagandists and provocateurs who aren't journalists can hide behind the label when it comes to First Amendment protection. Can they write anything they please about public figures, knowing that they can print lies as long as Sullivan is in force?
As I noted, some will think these are heretical words for a journalist to produce. But mark my words: Someday, some pseudo-reporter will cross a line; a fed-up public figure will say, as it were, "Mouse the media! I've had enough!"; a different Supreme Court than the one that rendered the Sullivan decision in 1964 will overturn it.
Really Michael?
So are you planning to hold Robert Novak to that standard? George Will? Eric Alterman? David Corn?
Who exactly are you going to hold to this Sullivanless standard?
Not you, of course. You will be exempt because government will create a special catagory for journalists. Right? Judy Miller and Matt Cooper thought that and well, shit, they're goin' to the bighouse.
There are no psuedo reporters. You can be an absolutely shitty journalist like Jim Guckert, or an excellent one like Anthony Shadid. But the first Amendment and the press are not the preserve of journalists any more than it is of authors or TV anchormen. It belongs to everyone, and anyone can, at any time, choose journalism and become a journalist, like my sister, who now edits a weekly. I'm the one who studied it in college, but if I can blog, she can run a weekly.
Exchange the name Hillary Clinton for Tom Cruise and the answer is obvious. Of course we can. What is odious about Hillary is that Ed Klein wrote a pack of unprove allegations, if not outright lies. But we have read accusations about Cruise which question his sanity.
Tom Cruise has become a top proselytizer for Scientology. Is it because of a new private conviction, or a new public role for the church itself?
June 27, 2005 | In the course of just a few months, Tom Cruise has made an astounding public leap: He has transformed himself from one of the world's biggest movie stars into one of the oddest. It's not just his sudden romance with and engagement to actress Katie Holmes, which has not yet managed to shake the air of improbability. There is also the matter of Cruise's sudden outspokenness about, and even proselytizing for, the controversial Church of Scientology, to which he's belonged for roughly 20 years.
Now, is this fair to Cruise? No. But Salon has every right to run this.
The idea that a lot of journalists are moving towards is creating some special status for them, to seperate them from bloggers. The only problem is that you or George Will or any wacko at the Corner could find themselves sued in a Sullivan-free world. The best thing about American journalism is that anyone can do it. No license, no training. If Rachel Carson wants to write Silent Spring or Ralph Nader Unsafe at Any Speed, they can do that. No one would ask them for their reporter's permit.
You don't get the right to pick and choose rights. If we all have rights, they need to be protected. If we don't, don't expect people to care when your rights are violated.
I would suggest that you speak for the right for everyone to express themselves freely. Ed Klein humiliated himself on Air America and made enough mistakes to get sued, but you forget that he was a Times editor. No court in this country would question his right to call himself a journalist based on his background.
You forget that propagandists and provocateurs have long existed in the pages of America's papers. Stanley Crouch was a collegue of yours I presume. His record of violence is well known. Yet, he is regarded as a journalist. Bob Novak carries water for Bush, yet he is a journalist as well. If you want to cherrypick who is and who is not a journalist, you might not fall where you think.
The reason Sullivan was created was to protect citizens from the malicious intent of others. If you would like to return to a world where racists can claim offense because an allegation was printed in a newspaper, then you might find yourself in court more than one day.
I disdain what Klein wrote. But the marketplace of ideas will discredit him, then he may well face lawsuits for his words. But what you want is the right to punish speech with which you disagree with.
Please remove "Epilogue for 'Stella' author: a messy divorce". You're welcome to link to the article on SFGate.com but you would need to obtain permission to re-print the text and the photo.
Now, my rule is simple: if someone doesn't want me quoting their work, then I'll pull it down. It's not a big deal. But since I have linked to various SF Gate.com stories and phots in the past and have never gotten this request, I think someone didn't like the commentary which came along with it,. about how foolish McMillian was, and her rampant hostility to black men. This is the first request from anyone to do such a thing on either Netslaves or here, bloggers or newspapers. Or maybe Glenn Reynolds got a hair up his ass. Or maybe the open homophobia quoted on Gay Pride Day was, well, not good for someone living in SF.
Either way, well, there's more than one way to Frist a cat. And I think I have the absolute right to not only link, but fair use of the article's words. But instead of argue the point, I will demonstrate the alternative option.
McMillian, 53, claimed in court that her gay husband used her to get a green card. McMillan claimed she was upset by the revelation that her husband liked dick. The fact that she was 42 and he was 20, well, that's obvious to most people
Plummer, 30, claimed that his rich, soon to be ex-wife, went on a fag bashing outrage and now wants him deported, since he is no longer sexually serving her. The fact that this has turned the nonsense of Stella got her groove back into bitter parody, is only one factor. Plummer's lawyer wants him to get some cash from his wealthy. black man hating wife. Of course, now McMillan claims in court papers that he was always greedy and money hungry, despite the fact that he signed a prenup which precluded him getting any money.
McMillan claims that she was always a target because he wanted her money. Too bad she didn't realize it when she was making all that money from her idealized, fictional version of her tadpoling.
Oddly enough, when he married her in 1998, he suddenly lost interest in her, but it took until last december for him to be booted from the house, after his wife found the numerous e-mails and gay online chats. And no sooner than he came out, she started with the tradtional black homophobia came to the surface. He got a restraining order from his much older, now enraged wife. Of course she now claims he embezzled 200K from her and he admits to taking 62K. According to court documents, she wrote him a letter where she referred to him as a fag repeatedly.
McMillan now wants to annul her marriage to get her former husband deported and now claims he merely used her marriage to gain citizenship.
I would say that if any of this is true, this would show how absolutely pathetic McMillan is, and how her desperate need to be validated by men, especially younger men, has led to this tragedy in her life. The fact that Lower Manhattanite recounted his unbearably hostile and mean spirited encounters with her, would indicate that this is a woman capable of great anger. Instead of realzing that her husband was a gigolo, since working men usually can't loiter around beaches, she now turns on him in a fit of legally recorded anger. The fact that she created this situation seems to have gone over her head and it has become easy for her to blame her husband, I doubt she was unaware that he was on the dow low, but it happens.
Update: Andy Ross, a Chron editor, says this was noticed by the web people, and then he claimed that I didn't credit the site.
On the second, he's a bald-faced liar. Unless the story wasn't linked, which it was, then he can claim no credit was given. But if it was, it's source was as clear as with any other story linked to. I don't claim them to be my words, and anyone can hit the link. If I had not linked, then fine. However, since he asked the words and images to be removed, I did so, and would again. That's not a big deal. Just don't lie and say I didn't give any credit to the originating site.
As to the first, unless there was a traffic spike, I doubt his veracity. I don't think he would admit that he was pressured if he was. But he is fully within his rights to ask, just I am fully within my rights to not talk to their reporters or let them use my words on their pages. My copyright is as valid as theirs.
However, I will state the following: I have the right to quote from articles from SF Gate and to link to them. I will continue to do so, using fair use guidelines. To be honest, most of the journalism from the site is so mediocre, I cannot say when this will happen again. It is well known that if one wants good journalism from the Bay Area, one would use the Mercury News.
It would be far better if they developed a policy or permissions system so they can let their words be used and not chase down every blogger, some of whom who don't have my policy of pulling down words, anyone's words, when asked. If they explained their idea of fair use, I would comply with it on the rare occasions I use content from their site.
Stop talking Maggot and join my beloved Marine Corps
You, I want you.
I want to talk to all you fine young Republicans about service in my beloved Marine Corps. I know you think that wrtitng blog posts is the same as Scout Sniper school, hunting down America's enemies, but it ain't.
We need you fine young Americans in uniform, in Iraq.We don't need you behind a keyboard, unless it's a USMC keyboard.
Boys, the Corps is hurting We're not making our numbers. And we need fine young Americans like you to serve. The boys from Wal-Mart have done their part, now it's time for you college boy pukes do the same. You need to buck up and ruck up. Be a part of the Mean Green Fighting Machine. Not sit behind a keyboard like some liberal pussy. We need you men at arms, serving your country in combat.
I can see it. You're saying, do I have the balls to be a Marine? Can I wear that blue uniform, the finest an American fighting man wears, am I man enough?
Sure you are. You've already confronted Islamofascism with words, now it's time for deeds.
After twelve weeks. not eight weeks, like the pussies in the Army, at MCRD San Diego or MCRD Parris Island, a few weeks at AIT at Camp Lejune, and you'll be off to Southwest Asia, ready to confront those Islamofascists with an M-4 in your hands and your personal chickenplate armor on your back. So when you are discharged, you can take your vest right into that nighshift at WaWa or Krystals or 7/11. You won't be sleeping nights for a while, so why let those hours go to waste. Put some cash in your pocket.
So why be a Marine, instead of a soldier?
Son, between you and me, the Army is a bunch of fuckups. The Army couldn't piss it's way out of a paper bag. Sure, if you like a uniform which looks like a fruit salad, go be a soldier. But real men join the Corps, men like Ted Williams and Captain Kangeroo. They were Marines. You don't want to be a pussy soldier. Ted Kennedy was a soldier. Michael Dukakis was a soldier. Be a man, be a Marine.
So maybe now you're thinking "can I survive bootcamp"?
I did, you will too. Boot camp isn't like the movies. We'll get you running and jumping and our rifle range makes shooters.No one will be breaking into your home in your gated community back home, once they get a taste of Marine Corps marksmanship.
So, young Republican, this is the time. The Heritage Foundation can wait, that internship can wait. So can law school. It's time for you to serve your country, and not behind some freaking desk.
Hit this link and start the process of being a Marine
Rose Aguilar interviewed Charles Evers, brother of late Civil Rights leader Medger Evers. His killer, Edgar Ray Killen Byron De La Beckwith has just been sentences to 60 years in jail for manslaughter. was convicted of his brother's murder in 1994 and later died in prison
Evers is a popular figure in Mississippi, and a registered Republican. This is how his party treats him:
When I interview people, I bring up some of these issues, but they don't seem to care. Essentially the facts don't matter. Do you encounter that?
Oh yeah. My thing is, I don't give a damn what people think about me or what I say. To hell with what anybody thinks about me. White, black of polka dot. I'm against the war. I'm against killing. I've lost two brothers on some stupid murder by some crazy racist.
How do the Republicans respond to you when you raise these issues?
They don't really respond. They ignore me, but I'll keep saying it and they know they got one darkie that ain't gonna change. And that's me.
What do you think about the Republicans who say, we're so inclusive now. We have Condoleeza Rice and many high ranking black officials.
Bullshit. That's bullshit. We're not inclusive. The Republican party is not inclusive. The Republican party does not reach out. We're fighting for them to do that. I'll admit that President Bush did appoint Condoleeza Rice. He appointed Powell, but that wasn't enough. What about the local Republicans? Did he go around the country and campaign for blacks who were running for office? No. They're not inclusive. The Democrats aren't either. Don't get me wrong. I'm a Republican and I'm gonna stay a Republican because they need somebody like me to stay in the party and keep hammering away.
You feel like you have your issues and priorities and you want to bring them to the party. Do you ever get a response?
They won't listen to me. Others feel the same way but won't say it. What are you afraid of? I'd rather be dead and in heaven than afraid to do what I think is right. This war is wrong and I'm not afraid to say it. See the picture of me with Bush? His dad and I were very close. I don't think his father wanted him to go to war. The problem is, the Republican party hasn't done anything to make this country better and I speak as a Republican. I think they're creating so much division among the country. Any time the country is split 50/50, the leader is wrong. What about the other 50 percent? We need a change. I hope the next president unifies the country.
How did you feel about the 2004 election and all the mudslinging? It was pretty ugly.
First of all, I knew that a Democrat was not going to win. I knew that. You know why? This is a racist country. Anybody who runs for President in this country and comes out as strong as they were about helping the poor folks and black folks is not going to win. It's that simple. Not in America. Two people will never be President in my lifetime. A woman and a black. They can run Mrs. Clinton if they want to. She'll be beaten. America is still a bigoted country. Mark my words. I guarantee I won't live to see it. I would love to, but it won't happen. I told Colin Powell, don't you be a fool. You want to be embarrassed? Run.
I was watching TV yesterday and they had two negroes on, one who worked for the Republican Senatorial Committee, the other, a well-turned out woman from the Independent (read Republican) Woman's Forum. I was talking to my mother, and said, it's a shame that guy has a shine box in his office for Trent Lott. Whenever Trent needed a shine, rastus would get out the rag and start spitting.
"No, no, no," she said. "They have to take them seriously. Look at them. They don't look like the type to do that."
I just laughed.
"Look, ma, they don't listen to these people. They've just sold their soul to have white people pay them. Any time they come up with an idea, they're ignored. Look at JC Watts, cancelled a project in his district and didn't even tell them."
"Come on, they don't look like that type."
"Of course they do, they work for the Repuiblicans. I hear this story all the time. They work for the GOP, get ignored, because they work for racists and unless they are absolutely craven, will eventually quit in anger."
Charles Evers is hardly alone. A black man working for the GOP is likely to place his dignity or his job on the line at some point.
There's nothing like a gaggle of young reactionaries to help sharpen your aim. They're easy targets, yes, wide-eyed and green, but given what they have in mind for us down the road, they are more than fair game. In fact, they are mandatory game.
For the past few days, these Coulter/Hannity wannabes convened at the College Republican National Convention in Arlington, VA. Some of the activities, as witnessed by a couple of undercover moles, were pretty much what one would expect -- lots of beer chugging, cigar smoking, political networking, and of course extensive liberal baiting. Nothing new there. (One guy was spotted wearing a Rumsfeld t-shirt. A Rumsfeld t-shirt?) But the big topic that these little GOPers either dodged or tried to explain away was their avoidance of active military service. They are prime Army or Marine stock, and since most if not all of them support the occupation of Iraq, you'd think, being solid patriots, they'd finish their weekend blast by immediately enlisting for combat duty.
(Crickets.)
As Steve Gilliard pointsout (he loves shooting chickenhawks), these GOPers have no intention of acting on their professed love of war. Which is no surprise. Most domestic supporters of Bush's war who are capable of military service simply and arrogantly refuse to do so. Steve calls them cowards, which I suspect many are. But in my experience, most of these people are crass elitists. They see themselves as the Smart Folk who must remain alive in order to influence or help shape national policy. Dying in war? That's for the working class and the poor. That's for idiots and losers who could not get into the Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, or CSIS.
As Andrew Sullivan once put it, those sent to kill and die are our "servants," a social category those bright kids at that Arlington conference want no part of. They are into power and money. Let some fucking hick from West Virginia deal with car bombs and snipers. They got deals to make and policy papers to ghost.
Again, nothing new. Back in the day, I hung out with several of these types, most of whom had cut their political teeth at the Dartmouth Review, the infamous reactionary campus paper that gave us the likes of Dinesh D'Souza and Laura Ingraham, among less notable others. None of them had any desire to serve in the military, but they were some of the biggest militarists I'd ever encountered, waxing romantically about the glories of combat and conquering rogue nations. I'd listen, smile, nod my head. Order another drink. Then I'd tell them that I served in the military, and while I never saw combat (different time), I knew all about basic training, how hard it is even if you're in peak condition. Though I was gung-ho going in, I felt little romance once my drill sergeants began barking in my face, telling me to drop and give them 20/30/50 push-ups, depending on my transgression or their moods. I heard no poetry as I crawled through mud under barbed-wire while live M-60 tracer rounds whizzed right over my head (in that summer heat, M-60 bullets provided brief but appreciated breeze). And there was nothing at all sublime about removing my gas mask in a closed hut filled with tear gas, having to endure the intense burning in my eyes, nostrils and mouth until the drill sergeant ordered us out into fresh air, where most of us (me included) fell to our knees, gagged, coughed, vomited on the hillside grass.
There was much more to basic than that. But this was enough to quiet my young reactionary friends, at least when I was around them. And when I'd ask what made them so special that they wouldn't do what I did, they gave pretty much the same answers as the latest batch of GOPers mentioned above: they had their careers to think about.
So while it's fun -- and necessary -- to bash these war-for-thee-but-not-for-me opportunists and future Beltway hustlers, just remember that they come from a long line of pro-war elitists who hold the average soldier and Marine in contempt. For them, "supporting the troops" means letting the lower-orders fight and die alone.
Tony Blair has defended his ID cards plans - and said he is confident that the public back them in principle.
According to the London School of Economics the scheme could cost �18bn - triple government estimates of �6bn.
Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the plans "risk an unnecessary and disproportionate intrusion into individuals' privacy".
But Mr Blair said ID cards would cost less than �30 extra on top of the cost of the new biometric passports.
He argued, the day before the ID Cards Bill has its second reading in the Commons, that they were "an idea whose time had come".
"Some of the figures banded around about cost are absolutely absurd," he said at his monthly news conference.
"No government is going to start introducing something that's going to cost hundreds of pounds to people - that would be ridiculous.
"But there are good reasons for doing this now, because of the change to technology, the fact that we will have to pay for biometric passports and the ID card part of it is a very small additional cost." ............................
Mr Blair said: "All I'm trying to do is the right thing - I didn't come into politics to introduce ID cards."
..............................
The LSE says its "best case scenario" for the cost of the ID card scheme is �10.6bn (about �170 per card and passport). A median figure is �14.5bn, with the worst case being up to �19.2bn.
The government's estimate is �93 per card. ...........................
An almost identical bill was abandoned before the general election. A total of 19 Labour MPs rebelled over that bill.
The Lords is also expected to be a major stumbling block for the bill.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, predicted ID cards would prove to be Tony Blair's poll tax..
While most of the comments were opposed to the idea, this one stood out
I think ID cards would be a really good idea. After visiting the USA last year obviously everyone over there has ID cards and they are very useful wherever you go. They had to produce them all the time and I felt a little stupid having no ID card properly and I had to produce my driving licence!
Heather Minton, Kidsgrove, Staffordshire
NO. Heather, Americans do not have ID cards and the idea is probably unconstitutional. Americans carry drivers licenses. They use them as ID. The same as you did. You can also use a work ID in many cases. Drivers licenses do three things, verify identity visually and with a signature, provide a license number to verify the ID, and allow you to operate a motor vehicle. They do not tie into the government in ANY OTHER WAY. You do not even have to be a citizen to have one.
Americans wouldn't even seriously consider such a plan. Plans to upgrade drivers licenses and limit their issue met with fierce opposition in and out of Congress
Remember, Blair thought he was doing the right thing invading Irsq
A US helicopter has crashed north of Baghdad, the US military has announced. It is not clear if there are survivors.
The Apache attack helicopter went down in a field and burst into flames, the Associated Press reports.
The military said it would investigate the crash of the helicopter, which normally carries a crew of two.
The crash came on Monday morning, a day after US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned it may be years before the insurgency in Iraq is defeated.
So what caused this crash? Pilot error, engine malfunction or MANPAD. Usually flames indicates a violent explosion from a rocket, but let's see how CENTCOM lies.
The Army's problems will not be solved by the draft. All a draft or national service will do is force the poor and unwilling to serve in the military with predictable results. The draft has always been unpopular in the US. Universal Military Service was proposed by Harry Truman in 1948 and rejected out of hand.
The fact is that Bush's War in Iraq is his problem and that of 150,000 families. No one is seeking to join them. They now threaten recruiters.
A draft is overwhelmingly opposed by most Americans, and trying to institute it would be political suicide.
But the Bushies are getting desperate.
Someone will call Bush's bluff on this, Hagel, McCain, Graham, someone. They will ask why a draft isn't needed when the National Guard is being destroyed. And Bush will have to answer.
While people like to call for Bush's daughters to enlist, I would be scared shitless if they actually did, because some kind of conscription would be around the corner. If the twins go, your kids are next.
Within the next few months, if not weeks, Bush will have to face a realistic choice, either call for conscription or leave Iraq. There is no other way to resolve this. And the reaction to conscription would be brutal at best, and violent at worse. Bush has never prepared the country for such a choice, and if he tries on Tuesday, opposition will explode. The draft is political suicide. But remember, Bush has always left other people to clean up his mess. And if the price of that is losing Congress, well, that's the price. Bush won't care.
Rove's antics, and Cheney's attack on Hagel are just the start of their last run to save Iraq.
The US is facing a slow, steady upsurge in resistance forces. We aren't talking 10 or 20,000, but upwards of 30,000 actives and maybe that many part-timers. Enough so that Iraqi commanders can plan to lose entire companies and not sweat it.
At the same time, they are ripping apart the Iraqi auxillary force apart. 30-40 dead in each attack, which makes recruiting difficult. And it does something else: make it easier to turn Iraqi units to the resistance. If a little information sent the car bomb somewhere else, well, that's not your problem. They are breaking the morale of the Iraqi forces with every attack. They kill their leaders, shoot recruits and the US is powerless to stop this.
I'm watching Black Hawk Down, which is set in Somalia, but feels way too much like Iraq, except for one thing. The US can use helicopters there., well until they get blown from the sky. In Iraq, it's all ground movement.
I would expect tommorow into Tuesday to be an especially bloody set of days. Why? Bush's speech. The resistance has turned him into a liar at every turn. And this would be an opportune time to do so again.
The right can pretend that the left is the problem, but that's nonsense. Rove's comments pissed off half the country and made them a lot less likely to support Bush again. What the GOP likes to pretend is that they are the majority, and they are not. To many people, it's like Rove pissed on graves. Now Cheney is going after Chuck Hagel, the Vietnam Vet, about his support for the war. This is going to get ugly, and the Vets are gonna hit right back. Cheney and Rove are bullies, but they are cowards. I think a lot of people on the left don't get the deep offense Rove caused with his comments. The American military takes pride in being politically agnostic. They may have their personal beliefs, and the advanced education helps, but they don't like politicans any more than anybody else. To suggest that people didn't serve their country because of politics is obscene, not just offensive. That one political ideology was superior to another when it came time to fight for your country. The White House may play cute with this, but the next time Bush goes to Walter Reed or one of the ranking generals, somebody's mother is going to raise this.
Part of the reason Bush is in so much trouble about the war is that Americans have never been told how intense the combat is in Iraq. They don't understand that US troops are facing a real, trained enemy. Sure, they can't face the US man to man, but it's no Somali mob. These folks know what they're doing. They know how to set ambushes and they seem to have a plan to restrict US mobility and intelligence which is working.
So while Bush and his cronies pretend one set of facts exist, the resistance are dealing with another.
Watching Black Hawk Down, the violence seems like the missing part of the Iraq War, deadly daily combat, but that's not what we're told. Most Americans have no idea of the pace or scale of combat in Iraq, and if it were fully explained, they would be none too happy. It ain't just car bombs, but snipers and firefights and the folks doing it aren't hopped up on khat and just shooting. They have some training and they are using it. Those that don't learn from those who do. If they knew Black Hawk Down was just another day in Iraq. support for the war would fall even further. The only difference is that only 10 percent of the wounded die.
By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, June 27, 2005; Page A03
The federal government held 70 men as potential grand jury witnesses in terrorism investigations after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but nearly half were never called to testify, according to a new study by two advocacy groups.
The report, released yesterday by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, concluded that the government's use of "material witness" warrants in the months after the attacks was excessive and frequently unlawful because many of the detainees were never questioned by a grand jury or were denied access to attorneys for extended periods of time. Most were never charged with a crime.
The report also said the witnesses "were typically arrested at gunpoint, held round the clock in solitary confinement and subjected to the harsh and degrading . . . conditions" usually reserved for more dangerous criminal suspects. It also said the Justice Department used the special warrants primarily "to buy time to conduct fishing expeditions."
The study focuses on the government's aggressive use of a little-known 1984 statute that governs material witnesses, who may be arrested if they have information important to a criminal investigation and are deemed likely to flee. Such arrest warrants must be approved by a judge, but the threshold for an arrest is lower than it is for criminal suspects, and the rules surrounding such cases are murky.
The Justice Department declined to say whether the study's tally of 70 material witnesses in terrorism investigations was accurate. A Washington Post survey in November 2002 identified at least 44 such cases.
The 101-page study is the latest in a series of reports by advocacy groups and media organizations raising questions about many of the hundreds of people detained by the Justice Department or other law enforcement agencies after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Many detainees were held in secret, and only a few dozen ever faced terrorism-related charges
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ERIC SCHMITT Published: June 27, 2005
MOSUL, Iraq, June 26 - Four suicide bomb attacks struck Iraqi police and an army base in a 16-hour wave of insurgent violence in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday and Sunday, killing 38 people and wounding scores more. One American commander said the violence continued a trend in the past few weeks of insurgent attacks intensely focused on Iraqi security forces.
Iraqis pulled the body of a police officer out of the rubble of a police station in Mosul Sunday after an attack there by a suicide bomber.
The attacks came as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld echoed remarks by his advisers in recent months suggesting that the insurgency could last as long as a dozen years and that Iraq would become more violent before elections later this year.
The rate of insurgent attacks remains steady, but the typical attack has grown more lethal, Mr. Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday." "They're killing a lot more Iraqis," he said.
Bush administration officials have been at odds with military leaders over the strength and resiliency of the insurgency. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, said last week that the insurgency was undiminished, seemingly countering a remark days before by Vice President Dick Cheney, who asserted it was in its "last throes."
With polls showing that support for the war is dropping, President Bush is expected to use a prime-time speech on Tuesday at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., to press his case for a large continued military presence in Iraq and explain why the administration's strategy will eventually work.
The success of Iraqi forces is the linchpin of the United States' exit strategy from Iraq, as many battle commanders contend that the country will slip into a civil war if the United States withdraws large numbers of troops before Iraqi forces are ready to take over.
"There's only one way for the insurgents to win: that's to drive us out before the Iraqis are ready to assume the battle space," General Abizaid said Sunday on the CNN program "Late Edition." "If that's what happens, they could win. But it's very, very clear to me that we're going to stay the course."
The all-volunteer Army is not working. The problem with such an Army is that there are limited numbers of people who will freely choose to participate in an enterprise in which they may well be shot, blown up, burned to death or suffer some other excruciating fate. Skip to next paragraph
The all-volunteer Army is fine in peacetime, and in military routs like the first gulf war. But when the troops are locked in a prolonged war that yields high casualties, and they look over their shoulders to see if reinforcements are coming from the general population, they find -as they're finding now - that no one is there.
Although it has been lowering standards, raising bonuses and all but begging on its knees, the Army hasn't reached its recruitment quota in months. There are always plenty of hawks in America. But the hawks want their wars fought with other people's children.
The problem now is that most Americans have had plenty of time to digest the images of people being blown up in Baghdad and mutilated in Fallujah, and they know that thousands of our troops are coming home in coffins, or without their arms, or without their legs, or paralyzed, or horribly burned.
......................
Now, with the war going badly and the Army chasing potential recruits with a ferocity that is alarming, a backlash is developing that could cripple the nation's ability to wage war without a draft. Even as the ranks of new recruits are dwindling, many parents and public school officials are battling the increasingly heavy-handed tactics being used by military recruiters who are desperately trying to sign up high school kids. .............................
What's not so wonderful is that this war with no end in sight is becoming an ever more divisive issue for Americans. A clear divide is developing between those who want to continue the present course and those who feel it's time to craft an exit strategy.
But with volunteers in extremely short supply, an even more emotional divide is occurring over the ways in which soldiers for this war are selected. Increasing numbers of Americans are recognizing the inherent unfairness of the all-volunteer force in a time of war. That emotional issue will become more heated as the war continues. And it is sure to resonate in the wars to come.
By DAMIEN CAVE JACKSONVILLE, N.C., June 26 - Residents of this sprawling military town on the North Carolina coast are not likely to make a public display of grief over the deaths of local marines in a suicide attack in Iraq. They have adopted a grit-your-teeth defense mechanism to such news; after all, more than 100 marines from the local base, Camp Lejeune, have died in Iraq since the start of the war.
But an attack Thursday on a military convoy in Falluja that killed six American troops and injured 13 others has opened wide fissures of opinion just below the studied calm. Four of those killed and 11 of those injured were women, and across town this weekend, at church services, at cookouts and in diners, families were talking about what the role of women in combat should be.
.......................
"Our command pushes, and we push, to settle things together and not in public," said Sgt. Joseph Calabria, 28, a marine who returned in January from his second tour in Iraq. "That's how we stay strong."
There are those here who make a deliberate effort to keep out bad news related to the war. Several wives of deployed marines, as well as Mr. Sanders, said that they had stopped watching or reading the news because it was too disturbing.
.........................
But some marines here, particularly men, described women in Iraq as a distraction from the mission, citing the immutability of human sexual desire.
They also expressed concern over whether a woman would be able to pull a wounded man from a firefight, or be able to handle torture. Others questioned whether the women who have died deserved special attention.
"It's just an example of why they shouldn't be there in the first place," Cpl. Stephen Koch, 25, a marine infantryman, said outside the commissary at Camp Lejeune. "It's tragic that five women died, but hundreds of males die all the time. Do we see them get front-page news?"
Danielle Powell, 19, the widow of Corporal Powell, who was killed Thursday, said Sunday that every death in Iraq had equal value. "Their sacrifice is the same," she said at a memorial for her husband at a church in Jacksonville. "They deserve the same respect."
Some people nonetheless found it hard to accept that war could now take mothers, not just fathers. "No one can take the place of a mother," said Lily Cantrell, 52, a manager at the Kettle Diner, a local landmark. "A mommy is a mommy."
The Daily Telegraph reports today that Tony Blair's 21-year-old son, Euan (below, with his mother), has snared a prestigious internship in Washington working under Republican Congressman David Dreier, the powerful conservative chairman of the House Rules Committee (and a hypocritical gay closet case who supports the Republicans' homophobic political agenda). And Democrats aren't happy about the internship, engineered by Daddy Blair, calling Dreier an "extremely surprising choice" to train Euan in the intricacies of American politics.
The Telegraph, which says that Euan will be "mentored" by Dreiernotes: "Committee officials say the decision to offer the sought-after position to the Prime Minister's son was taken at a senior level - not by staff ordinarily responsible for sifting internship applications. The offer followed a telephone interview with the committee's staff director. British diplomats in Washington also played a part in the process. A Downing Street spokesman said: 'Given the obvious sensitivities, the Prime Minister asked the British embassy to get involved in the process.'
"...Despite his father's close relationship with President George W Bush, the news that Euan is to work for the Republican-led committee Bush_and_blair has stunned Democrats in Washington. Eric Burns, the communications director for Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, the leading Democrat on the committee, said: 'Working on the Rules Committee will be quite a learning process as it has always been one of the most partisan in the House. It is extremely surprising that the son of a Labour prime minister would intern with the Republican majority staff on the committee.'"
Well, what's so surprising? Tony Blair began his reign by imitating the sell-out triangulations of Bill Clinton and has moved steadily to the right of traditional Labour policies ever since--not just on foreign policy but on economic issues and civil liberties. By getting the British Embassy to snaggle a job with Dreier for his son, it looks like the prime minister wants to make sure young Euan doesn't stray too far from the family right-wing line. In an editorial just before the Brits' recent elections, The Independent growled that Tony Blair "is essentially a con man." So is the two-faced Dreier, who keeps his male lover on the Congressional payroll at a salary equal to that of Karl Rove and the White House chief of staff Andy Card -- but continues to use his power to step on the rights of gays to full equality before the law. Don't drop the soap around Dreier, Euan. (See my article in the L.A. Weekly, "The Outing: David Dreier and his Straight Hypocrisy.") Dreier is not only one of the most powerful men in Congress, but one of the most influential politicians in California -- he's a close advisor of The Governator, whose transition team he headed.
Finding Our Next Army Time to Reconsider the Incentives, the Mission and the Standards
By Charles A. Krohn
Sunday, June 26, 2005; Page B07
The Army's recruiting shortfalls have put the future of the all-volunteer armed forces in jeopardy. Pressure is mounting in the Pentagon -- and perhaps on the Pentagon -- to put a happy face on its failure to achieve the needed enlistments for the Army and, to a lesser extent, the Marine Corps. The Army fell short of April recruiting objectives by 42 percent.
Three questions arise:
� Can the all-volunteer force survive a sustained and unpopular war, regardless of who sits in the White House?
� Will quantity in recruiting become a silent substitute for quality, leading to what is often referred to as a "hollow army?"
� Were serious flaws built into the system more than three decades ago when the Gates Commission (named for its chairman, Thomas Gates) issued its report on creation of an all-volunteer armed forces?
The Gates Commission, in considering the transition from a draft to a volunteer force, optimistically assumed that young Americans would come to the colors if the nation went to war with any country that presented a conventional threat. Unconventional, non-state warfare didn't enter into the commission's calculus. It recommended keeping the selective service mechanism in place for the remote possibility that the draft would be needed to fill out the force if the nation was engaged again in all-out war.
In overseas deployments today we have basically committed most of the Army's active forces (including much of the National Guard), rotating them to the point of exhaustion. If the nation isn't in an all-out war, the Army and Marines are. If more recruits are in the nation's interest, a new commission could examine options and make recommendations without significant political taint. ......................
"Building an Army of excellence is a long-range task," he said then. "Decisions that are made today often have an impact that influences the Army for decades. This is most evident when it comes to recruiting. If we bring in good soldiers now, we reap the benefits of their talents for up to 30 years. On the other hand, if we bring marginal soldiers into the force, we must make allowances for inefficiencies for up to three decades." ..........................
The downward spiral in recruiting calls for positive and forceful action by leadership in the White House and Congress, which must ultimately take their case to the public. If the debate degenerates into political bickering, any chance of reform will collapse. Holding elected and appointed officials responsible for events abroad and outside our control is self-defeating. But holders of high office here should realize the importance of keeping the electorate involved and informed as a condition for holding the country together in the days ahead.
Bush did not tell Americans the truth.
Americans will not send their children to die in Iraq or suffer in Walter Reed.
Now, we are paying for his lies. The question is how much more we will pay
The actors from HBO's "Deadwood" are coming to the scene of their crimes today, and they can expect a hero's welcome when they pose for pictures on Main Street. Some people in the real Deadwood are offended by the series' lurid language and scenes, but the ones who work in the tourist industry recognize a central truth about the Old West: violence sells.
The casino operators here stage shootings on the hour. At 1, 3 and 5 p.m., you can sit inside Saloon No. 10 and watch Wild Bill Hickok gunned down at a card table. At 2, 4 and 6 p.m., there are gunfights in the street. The bodies aren't being fed to hogs yet, as in the television series, perhaps because that would hurt the restaurant business.
Between the murders on "Deadwood" and the massacres on "Into the West," the Steven Spielberg epic that seems to be playing round the clock on TNT, the popular version of the frontier looks scarier than ever. There's nothing like blood on high-def TV to illustrate Hobbes's theory that life before government was nasty, brutish and short.
But if you talk to some historians and economists about Deadwood and the rest of the West, you get a much different picture from what's on television - or what's been taught in history classes.
These revisionists' history, unlike the one now fashionable in academia, is not a grim saga of settlers exploiting one another, annihilating natives and despoiling nature.
Nor is it like the previously fashionable history depicting the settlers as heroic individualists who tamed the frontier by developing the great American virtue of self-reliance.
The Westerners in this history survived by learning to get along, as Terry Anderson and Peter Hill document in their new book, "The Not So Wild, Wild West." These economists, both at the PERC think tank in Montana, argue that their Western ancestors were usually neither heroic enough to make it on their own nor strong enough to take it away from others. ................................
Another Deadwood historian, Bob Lee, said that the best account of the two peak years of the gold rush, 1876 and 1877, lists only 77 violent deaths in all the Black Hills, most outside Deadwood, and most attributed to Indians, who were understandably angry at the invasion of their lands by both miners and troops under George Armstrong Custer.
The Indians saw that Washington's new interest in the Black Hills would be disastrous for them (a topic for a later column). Raiding was no longer costlier than trading for the settlers because they could now let troops do the raiding for them. Hobbes had expected war in the absence of government, but the West didn't really get wild until the feds arrived.
Wolcott commented on this article and Instacracker said "An Armed Society is a Peaceful Society"
First, the everwitless Glenn Reynolds whines about people mocking his sponsorhip of racist t-shirts. If it were me, I'd leave Jim Wolcott alone. Seriously. Because when he gets on your ass he'll have all your collegues laughing AT you worse than they do now. You write a couple of lines. He wrote for the New Yorker and writes for Vainty Fair. You fuck with him at your peril. Just a fair warning.
OK. We all know John Tierney is an idiot, but the problem is that the people writing these books are not historians. And as we have seen, that can lead to problems. What Tierney, who has never read Gunfighter Nation, by Richard Slotkin, the best history of violence in the Old West, misses is this: gun control was common in the old West. Being armed inside city limits was illegal.
Oddly enough, right wing wacko Kim Du Toit has the following stat for Tombstone, AZ:
As with Dodge City, the excitement in the Old West in general has been much overstated. All the big cattle towns of Kansas combined saw a total of 45 murders during the period of 1870-1885. Dodge City alone saw 15 people die violently from 1876?1885?an average of 1.5 per year. Deadwood, South Dakota and Tombstone, Arizona (home of the O.K. Corral), during their worst years of violence saw four and five murders respectively. Vigilante violence appears to not have been much worse
First, more people were lynched in the South in an average year in that period.
Second, that area of South Dakota was an incredibly violent place by old West standards with 77 deaths in two years.
What Tierney ignores is that these were not lawless places. Deadwood's unincorporated status allowed for a relatively high level of violence. But most towns quickly found a sheriff and banned guns within city limits, and took those laws seriously. The image of armed men walking around town is a function of the movies, not real life. Most Western towns had fairly strict gun control and enforced it. Also, most homes had a shotgun as their only weapon. A handgun was fairly expensive, about a couple of hundred bucks, and a lot of people didn't have the money to spare. The people who did were more likely to herd cattle than gun someone down. Many cowboys were Civil War veterans or immigrants (nearly 2/3rd were either or both) and had little desire for gunplay.
Westerners were quick to create local government and law and order. Not slow. Towns elected mayors and sheriffs in short order. Deadwood was the exception, not the rule.
While some on the right thinks this is because of the proliferation of guns, the historical evidence shows the opposite. People rarely used their guns for self-defense, much less murder. The reason cities grew so rapidly was that they were safer and soon had police forces and limits on gun use.
Even in his last sentence, Tierney misconstrues the use of the Army on the frontier. The Army was as much protector as killer. The Army, until the Posse Comitatus Act, worked to protect Indians from settlers stealing their land as much as killed Indians who attacked settlers.
What he doesn't know or care is that the Army of the movies was a fantasy. The real Army on the frontier was a threadbare organization which may have only worn the same blue shirts. Most of the gear was enhanced with private issue, and the yellow stripe of the calvary is the invention of Hollywood costume designers. Yellow was and is the color of the Cavalry, but in most cases, a red scarf was worn, maybe a yellow one. Custer became famous in the Civil War with his red scarves for his division.
It is widely believed that the only uniform soldiers wore was a blue shirt for identification. Hats varied from the Civil War kepi to private issue "cowboy" hats. Pants may have been jeans or private issue gear. There was very little uniformity in how people dressed.
Ususally, soldiers shot 20 rounds in training a year and used the single shot Spingfield carbine, not the Winchester, which was never approved for military use. It took a great deal of effort to get these units moving, much less fighting. The reason Indians could elude US forces was simple, they had better weapons and were usually better trained. They also didn't have desertions.
Once again, Tierney, too lazy to actually talk to real Western historians, gets things wrong to suit his agenda
"'You are all cluttering up the corner with your 8th grade class trip jitteryness. Haven't any of you been on an airplane or stayed in a hotel before? And people are expected to pay good money to hang with a bunch of purile goofballs like y'all? If I wanted to be where it's not happening I'd be hiding under the Cruise/Holmes bedstead. It's so obvious that you hate the whole fundraising gig and Jonah especially is behaving like one of those Trevor/Day snots on the upper west side, so superior in their cocoons. So underpriveledged.'
"Nevermind, Mr. Wolcott--this guy's got your shtick down. This afternoon's posts=Jonah and Kathryn procrastinating while writing and editing. That is what The Corner exists for, isn't it? Posted at 05:01 PM"
I have more than one shtick, my pets. Versatility, some of NRO writers might try it sometime, it does wonders for the complexion. And unlike the Corner's penpals, I am aware of how to spell such challenging words as "jitteriness," "puerile," and "underprivileged." A dictionary is a very useful thing to have around the house.
K'Lo is making cute from Chicago, the lastest whistle stop on the NRO Corner's Shakedown tour, where they invite fans to pay $500 to watch them eat. The trip has gotten off to a bumpy--nay, grumpy-- start. Jonah Goldberg arrived at the less than 4-star hotel accomodating the Cornerites only to discover he was going to have to bunk in the maintenance room with some of his colleagues, much like Cookie and Gerry Fleck in Best in Show after their credit card was rejected. His kvetches were what prompted the illiterate letter K'Lo considered worthy of adorning the blog.
I once shared a hotel room with a Vanity Fair colleague. A suite at the art-decoish Shangri-La in Santa Monica, where the bedrooms were spaced discreetly apart and sunlight exalted the white walls like the blank canvas of a David Hockney painting awaiting his brush. It rather spoiled me, I'm afraid. Were I a part of the Corner crew, I would have booked my own hotel room and made a reservation at Charlie Trotter's and paid for them out of my own pocket rather than undergo the indignity of bunking in the maintenance room and risk setting off a mousetrap with my big toe. Going the cheap route never really pays.
You would think that the clowns at the Corner would leave us alone.
Wolcott? Shit. If I hammer people, he slices them up like a samurai master. There is NO day I want Jim to speak ill of me. But these people do not listen and do not care.
WASHINGTON - Americans overwhelmingly do not want to see the return of the military draft, and a majority also would not encourage their own children to enlist, an AP-Ipsos poll has found.
About a quarter favored reinstating the draft, with men, older Americans and Republicans most likely to say conscription is a good idea.
The survey highlights the problems faced by the military as recruiting is in a slump.
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Despite the recruiting problems, seven in 10 Americans say they oppose reinstatement of the draft, and almost half of those polled strongly oppose that step, the poll found.
The shortfalls in military recruiting have led to speculation that the government might be forced to reinstitute the draft. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ruled it out, saying the all-volunteer force has proved the wisdom of ending the draft in 1973. ``There isn't a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back,'' Rumsfeld told a House hearing Thursday.
Men were more likely than women to favor reinstating the draft and those over age 50 were more likely to favor it than younger adults. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to support the idea. But a majority of each of those groups opposed the draft.
One draft supporter said expanding the size of the armed forces might help move the Iraq campaign along faster.
``If we had more manpower in the Middle East, we could get this over with,'' said James Puma, a retiree from Buffalo, N.Y. ``I'm a Republican, I'm with the president. But things in Iraq are not going good at all.''
However, Jeremy Miller, a sales manager from Denver, said the Iraq war is ``a situation the president has gotten us into and should be able to get us out of'' without bringing back the draft.
Back to the Inferno... (does the use of the word "canto" make anymore sense now???)
So I've done some real quick interviews with some of the young conservatives wandering around here, and I figured it's about time I post some good stuff from that.
First, Patrick Callahan is from UC Santa Barbara, and he's doing some hardcore campaigning for (I don't know his first name) Davidson. There's a pretty crazy race going on between Davidson and Gourley for the CRNC Chairmanship. Lots of money, volunteers, traveling, stumping - Conventionette's gonna do some good stuff on that.
Me: Where do you see College Republicans going in the future?
PC: Well if Davidson wins, I see it going pretty far, but if Gourley wins, I?m guessing it?s probably not gonna really go past where it is right now. I think we need someone like Davidson to go out and basically implement his policies that he has for California on the national scale so that we can get the same results across the country that we got in California. I think that can really change the way College Republicans work and how effective they are in influencing state, local, and national campaigns.
JiaMei Chen is a Chinese Republican from California and a student at American River College (also in CA).
Me: What makes you a Republican?
JC: Well my family is a big influence on it, but also all the different stuff I?ve seen and stuff. You know what, you probably gotta excuse my language when I talk about liberals. I grew up in Shanghai, right, and China's a Communist country, right? When I got over here I saw there?s a two party system, liberals and conservatives, democrats and republicans, right? But all the liberals really stand for is social welfare, support all the laziness, socialists, free this and free that ? tax all the hardworking people, give it away for nothing, you know? People just sit around, just sit on their butt all day and don?t do nothing. They drive a brand new Cadillac and stuff! What about the hard-working-class people? And we get taxed 50% out of our pocket, you know? I mean that?s socialist, right? So, that?s the reason I just think that you know what liberals just don?t make sense. Also probably the religious belief. I won?t vote for a single person that is pro-choice.
Shandra Cipriano is a student at the University of Nevada @ Reno.
Me: What makes you conservative?
SC: I honestly think I just kind of came out that way. My family?s that way, I was raised that way, it?s what I believe. It?s the kind of life I live, the beliefs I have, the way I want my future to be.
Scott Gehring is from Cincinatti. (He's a fast talker, hence the elllipses.)
Me: What makes you conservative?
SG: Really It?s b/c I believe in freedom?the freedom to live your life, really. ?I believe in free market, free enterprise?I think we should have a right to do what we want. Gov?t. should play as little a role as possible.
Me: Where is the campus conservative movement headed?
SG: I think the conservative movement is headed in the RIGHT direction (haha) ?in 3 diff ways. 1) children of the Reagan generation, which ultimately inspires more conservative parenting. 2) I think most ppl believe in the same things I believe in.
George Higgins is the State Chair of the NV College Republicans.
Me: What makes you a conservative?
GH: Well I guess it was because I was born a conservative, raised a conservative ? really I believe in freedom and opportunity. People being able to go out and do what they wanna do. If you?re smart enough to go out and make a million dollars you should be if you?re not then you shouldn?t be. ...The conservative movement of today is very strong. All across America we have thousands of new College Republicans, 1500 College Republican chapters across the country, and everything we do is growing. I imagine we?ll see more of that in the future.
I have some quick reactions, then I must join the election discussion going on in Salon A.
First, Shandra's answer for the source of her conservatism is par for the people I've spoken to. These kids were born conservatives, and it sounds like they've never had to defend their stance their entire lives. Instead, parasites like David Horowitz feed them lies, they buy it, and eventually you get a full-grown Republican. It's too bad.
Second, I can't stop rereading JiaMei's words. While his phrasing of conservative dogma is not what it could be, he's basically drawing on this idea that liberals don't believe in hard work. I gather this is a trend among recent immigrants who fashion themselves as self-reliant individualists.
There's so much more to say, but I should really get inside that room.
Unfortunately, he's also an accomplished grassroots organizer and has had great success in South Dakota on his campus and beyond expanding the CR network, building new groups and making it a stand-out state during the election. Besides the CR, he's also active in Campus Crusade for Christ and student government.
Should be an exciting couple of years coming up... but as long as progressives can stay true to our own values and principles of equality, justice and compassion, I think we'll make it through.
The newly engaged Katie Holmes still has some explaining to do to her friends and family.
There were 16 days in April during which no one seems to know where she was.
Holmes made a public appearance on April 4 at the premiere of "Steel Magnolias" on Broadway.
She came with her publicist, Leslie Sloane Zelnick, and a couple of other friends. They were there to support Rebecca Gayheart, who was making her Broadway debut.
I know this because I spoke to Holmes at length during the play's intermission. She said she had just moved into her New York apartment and was looking forward to seeing the city.
I also know that on April 4, she had not yet made the acquaintance of Tom Cruise. She briefly dated Josh Hartnett after breaking up with actor Chris Klein.
Hartnett, Klein, Cruise: Which of these three is not like the others?
Klein and Hartnett are young and tall. Cruise is middle-aged and height-challenged.
On the other hand, he's the biggest movie star in the world. They are not.
Holmes was busy during that first week in April. On April 7, she was photographed at the Fragrance Foundation's FiFi event.
Four days later, Holmes was still in New York and was photographed at VH1's "Save the Music" concert. She still had not met Cruise.
Sometime that week, her friends say, she flew to Los Angeles for a meeting with Cruise about a role in "Mission: Impossible 3." The meeting took place after April 11.
The next time anyone heard from Holmes was on April 27, when she appeared in public as Cruise's girlfriend and love of his life.
Where was she during those 16 days?
Somewhere during that time, she decided to fire both her manager and agent, each of whom she had been with for years and who were devoted to her.
The manager, John Carrabino, also handles Ren�e Zellweger and is beloved by his clients.
Holmes also acquired a new best friend, Jessica Feshbach, the daughter of Joe Feshbach, a controversial Palo Alto, Calif., bond trader.
The Feshbach family, according to published documents, has donated millions to the Church of Scientology. Jessica's aunt even runs a Scientology center in Florida.
See, this is creepy as is. But given Cruise's insane performance on Today, people are not cutting him slack and this is high level creepy.
I mean, the guy seems unhinged and unlikable, which is no secret in Hollywood, where the word asshole has long followed his name. Whereas Brad Pitt is taking pictures with African kids and a big smile. His soon to be ex-wfie? Who? Jen...whatshername? Whatever.
But Cruise doesn't seem to get where this is leading. No one believes Holmes is in love with him. Everyone is just shy of calling her a beard. They're selling "Free Katie" t-shirts. At some point, someone is going to discuss in detail Tom's alleged bisexuality. This PR nightmare must be making Pat Kingsley cringe. Cruise's association with the space religion and it's wacko beliefs hasn't been such a big deal in the past. But when Weeman Cruise goes after women with post-partum depression and gets a "fiance" who is way too young and frankly, not his type, people wonder.
Now, Holmes is cute, but Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman are sexy. Penelope Cruz doesn't drive me nuts, but she's a woman. Not a woman-child like Holmes. But Kidman? She may play cute, but she's sexy. Holmes is cute, not sexy. She's like the girl you date, but don't marry.
Cruise doesn't seem to get that Kingsley saved his career from his worse impulses. His sister can't and the wackjobs at space religion HQ can't.
Rove speaks on behalf of the president not just on the politics of the moment but also on the administration's policy agenda. He has been at the center of the administration's efforts to restructure Social Security, and he will be deeply involved in the battle to confirm a new Supreme Court justice if there is a vacancy soon, as is widely expected.
So the President thinks these folks are not serving their country?
Update: Seems someone serving in Iraq is ...well, pissed
I'm writing you from [Location Withheld] Iraq, about 35 miles NW of Baghdad.. And I'm too tired to give Karl the verbal beating he deserves for his insults. I'm too tired because we're jsut a bit shorthanded over here, fighting his war for him. A war taht has made nearly every country in the world fear and distrust America, a war fought for a knowing lie dreamed up by Karl and his buddies, none of whom have ever heard a shot fired in anger, or helped pick up the parts of another human being after an IED blast.
I enlisted after the war began and after I'd gotten my degree. I could easily have stayed home and watched the war on TV, and Karl does. I do not support this war in the slightest, but I will not sit at home and lecture others on their insufficient patriotism when the nation is in need. I joined because I believe in giving back some measure of service and devotion to my country.
To hear a man like Karl insinuate that only conservatives are really patriotic is a knife in the back to every man and woman in Iraq who serves here. At least a third of us voted against Bush and pals. The number increases every day that we stay here, forced to make bricks without straw for months on end.
We've been here for 6 months. We're going to be here for at least 6 more. And next week we're moving to a more 'active' sector because the unit there is rotating home and the are is still too hot to entrust to the IA or IP, most of whom are still not fit to guard a traffic light, despite two years of efforts on our part. For some of us, this is our second tour through Iraq. My unit, [Withheld] was the tip of the spear in OIF I. At least half of us are combat veterans of a major battle and liberals. Can any of your gang say that, Karl?
Never insult me and my fellow liberals again, Karl. Watching a fat, hateful thing like you that has never faced any greater danger in your life than a long golf shot denigrate every liberal who has put on a uniform is more demoralizing than ten thousand speeches that uphold America's highest ideals from Sen. Biden or Byrd.
By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 26, 2005; A01
DENVER -- E-mails were flooding in from all over the country. Something strange was going on with the Internet, alarmed computer users wrote. Google, eBay and other big sites had suddenly disappeared. Kyle Haugsness scanned the reports and entered crisis mode.
Part of the Internet was broken. For the 76th time that week.
Haugsness was on duty for the Internet Storm Center, the closest thing to a 911 emergency-response system for the global network. He and a few colleagues began investigating and discovered that a hacker had taken advantage of yet another security hole. As many as 1,000 companies had effectively had their connections "poisoned," so when their employees typed in legitimate addresses they were taken to bogus Web destinations. Haugsness wrote up an alert and a suggested solution, and posted it on the Web.
Then, Haugsness turned back to his inbox. In the few hours he had spent sleuthing that March day, several dozen e-mails detailing other suspected issues had piled up.
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"The problem with the Internet is that anything you do with it now is worth a lot of money. It's not just about science anymore. It's about who gets to reap the rewards to bringing safe technologies to people," said Daniel C. Lynch, 63, who as an engineer at the Stanford Research Institute and at the University of Southern California in the 1970s helped develop the Internet's framework.
As the number of users exploded to more than 429 million in 2000 from 45 million in 1995, Lynch remembered watching in horror as hackers defaced popular Web sites and shady marketers began to bombard people's e-mail inboxes with so much spam that real messages couldn't get through.
When the Internet's founding fathers were designing the network in the 1960s and 1970s, they thought a lot about how the network would survive attacks from the outside -- threats like tornados, hurricanes, even nuclear war. What they didn't spend much time thinking about was internal sabotage. Only several hundred people had access to the first version of the Internet and most knew each other well. "We were all pals," Lynch said. "So we just built it without security. And the darn thing got out of the barn."
Years passed before the Internet's founders realized what they had created.
"All this was an experiment. We were trying to figure out whether this technology would work. We weren't anticipating this would become the telecommunications network of the 21st century," said Vinton G. Cerf, 62, who with fellow scientist Robert T. Kahn, 66, helped draft the blueprints for the network while it was still a Defense Department research project.
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Today, a complicated bureaucracy of groups known by their abbreviations help govern the network: the IETF (the Internet Engineering Task Force, which comes up with the technical standards), ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the naming system for Web sites) and the W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium, which develops technologies for the Web). But their power is limited and their legal standing murky. Some have recently argued that the United Nations should take over some regulatory functions. Firms have set up their own standards groups to suit their own interests.
The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that security must be the priority when it comes to the next generation Internet. Major companies are promoting technology that will give recipients of e-mail "return addresses," or a better way of ensuring that senders are who they say they are, though the companies disagree on whose technology should be used. A group of scientists from the Internet Engineering Task Force, perhaps the most important standards-making body for the network, are working on a way to better collect and share information on computer intrusions.
Internet2, a consortium of mostly academic institutions that has built a screaming-fast network separate from the public Internet, is testing a technology that allows users to identify themselves as belonging to some sort of group. Douglas E. Van Houweling, president of Internet2 and a professor at the University of Michigan, thinks the system could be used to limit access without using passwords to, say, chat rooms for women with children on a certain soccer team, or to subscribers of certain magazines or newspapers.
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One Sunday afternoon this month, Haugsness was at his company's office checking the storm center reports. One person said he had found a new variant of a program that allowed hackers to take over a computer by creating a "back door" through holes in its security system. There were also complaints about a few phishing e-mails that tried to trick people into giving up their personal information. Internet traffic patterns worldwide seemed fine -- only a few sections had congestion that would qualify as serious, or "red."
Nothing "super bad" so far, Haugsness concluded. All in all, only about a half-dozen documented problems. That might have been considered a disaster a decade ago. But it was a pretty good day for the Internet in 2005.
In remarks before the Conservative Party of New York on Wednesday evening, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove made the following remarks:
"But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to... submit a petition."
Democrats responded yesterday by scrambling around Capitol Hill, holding press availabilities, and sending a letter from six Senators to President Bush calling for an apology from Mr. Rove. If not, according to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, they will call for Mr. Rove's resignation.
But these indignant protestations of Senators Reid, Clinton, Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (among others) ring hollow. Not a single one of these Democratic leaders had the courage or fortitude to publicly challenge or even question Senator Dick Durbin for his slanderous remarks comparing the young men and women of our Armed Services to the mass murderers who ran the Nazi death camps, Soviet gulags and the killing fields of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge.
And isn't it telling that Mr. Rove discussed the politics of "liberals," not Democrats. Yet nearly the entire Democrat leadership feels compelled to respond.
At this point you probably will want to re-read Mr. Rove's remarks to figure out just what is untrue about any portion of his statement, much less controversial. In order to gain a clear perspective, let's take a look at some comments from prominent liberals regarding the War on Terror in a Post 9/11 environment.
Mr. Rove accurately references a MoveOn.org petition that was submitted immediately following 9/11-here is an excerpt:
"We, The Undersigned, Citizens And Residents Of The United States Of America ... Appeal To The President Of The United States, George W. Bush ... And To All Leaders Internationally To Use Moderation And Restraint In Responding To The Recent Terrorist Attacks Against The United States."
A few more notable comments to highlight:
Billionaire Extremist George Soros: "War is a false and misleading metaphor in the context of combating terrorism."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH): "Afghanistan may be an incubator of terrorism but it doesn't follow that we bomb Afghanistan."
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH): "One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown."
Rev. Al Sharpton: The Attacks on The World Trade Center are evidence that "America is beginning to reap what it has sown."
Liberal Filmmaker Michael Moore: "Likewise, to bomb Afghanistan - I mean, I've never understood this."
Folks, I could go on and on citing numerous examples of comments from the extreme left in reaction to the terrorist attacks against our homeland. What is most surprising to me is the outrage from certain Democratic leaders about Mr. Rove's remarks.
To gauge this outrage it is important to note the ever increasing closeness between the Democratic Party Leadership and MoveOn.org. An email from the head of MoveOn.org at the end of 2004 asserted, "Now it's our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."
According to FrontPage Magazine, prior to the electing the new Democratic Party Chairman, "MoveOn has set up a campaign urging its followers to warn party officials against electing a centrist. Such a scenario, the e-mail assures, is a political loser."
The election of Howard Dean makes it quite clear that MoveOn.org won the intra-party struggle for the Chairman position. Then they set their sites on Congressional leadership.
Senator Elizabeth Dole noted in her Chairman's report back in March that members of the Senate Democratic Leadership, including Minority Leader Harry Reid and the second ranking Democrat Senator Dick Durbin, participated in a rally with MoveOn.org here in Washington DC. Other members on hand included Senator Kennedy, Senator Boxer, Senator Schumer, and Senator Byrd. For his part, Senator Byrd recently raised over $800,000 in 48 hours from MoveOn.org for his 2006 campaign.
An April article in Roll Call highlighted the increasing coziness between MoveOn.org and the Democratic leadership. A spokesperson for Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi noted, "Pelosi or her staff have calls and meetings 'on a weekly basis' with representatives of MoveOn." Minority Leader Harry Reid's Chief of Staff said MoveOn "effectively represents an important part of our constituency."
And a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee said, "Obviously they [MoveOn] are relaying the Democratic Party message, which is in line with what the DNC is doing and what the Hill is doing as well."
Comments from liberals and radical organizations like MoveOn.org following the 9/11 attacks made it abundantly clear how the left felt about the War on Terror. Since then, the George Soros/Howard Dean/Michael Moore/MoveOn.org element of the Democratic Party has taken an increasingly prominent role in determining the legislative strategy and political rhetoric of the Democrat Leadership in the U.S. House and Senate. That is undeniable and does not appear to be changing anytime soon.
Mainstream Democrats ought to wake up and smell the coffee. Their party has been compromised by the extreme left. The extreme left is supplying much of the money and the grass roots volunteers that feed the Democrat political machine. Republicans need to understand as well because that money and political organization is pointed straight at the mid-term elections in 2006. We need to be ready.
Karl Rove was right and I appreciate him bringing national attention to this important political dynamic.
Sincerely,
Mark Stephens Executive Director National Republican Senatorial Committee
The fact that he had to send out this letter proves this is backfiring. They need to blame the "extreme left" foir this cockup of a comment.
I would only point out that there are a lot of people serving in the military who would disagree. They want to shift the debate to Move On, because they know Rove fucked up, but Bush won't punish him. Don't bite. They insulted men and women in uniform and THAT is the question to be raised. This isn't abnout their boogiemen, but real offense to men and women on active duty.
LONDON - U.S. officials held secret talks in Iraq with the commanders of several Iraqi insurgent groups recently in an attempt to open a dialogue with them, a British newspaper reported Sunday.
The commanders "apparently came face to face" with four American officials during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a summer villa near Balad, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, according to The Sunday Times.
The Sunday Times said neither the Iraqi government nor U.S. officials in Baghdad would confirm its report about the talks.
Military officials in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment on the Times article early Sunday morning.
The story, which quoted unidentified Iraqis whose groups were purportedly involved in the talks, said those at the first meeting included Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Iraq and an attack that killed 22 people in the dining hall of a U.S. base at Mosul last Christmas.
Two others were Jaish Mohammed, or Mohammed's Army, and the Islamic Army in Iraq, which in August reportedly killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, the newspaper said.
One of the Americans at the talks introduced himself as a Pentagon representative and declared himself ready to "find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances," The Sunday Times said.
It said the official indicated that the results of the talks would be relayed to his superiors in Washington.
The U.S. officials tried to gather information about the structure, leadership and operations of the insurgent groups, which irritated some members, who had been told the talks would consider their main demand, a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, the report said.
It's real simple: the war ends when we leave and not before
US intelligence is still so bad that they have to ask the guerrillas for information on their structure
AMERICAN students are quitting Queensland universities in the face of hate attacks by Australians angry at US President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.
One university has launched an investigation into claims an American student returned to the US after suffering six months of abuse at a residential college in Brisbane.
American students have told The Sunday Mail the verbal attacks are unbearable and threatening to escalate into physical violence.
Griffith University student Ian Wanner, 19, from Oregon, said abusive Australian students had repeatedly called him a "sepo" ? short for septic tank. "It is so disrespectful. It's not exactly the most welcoming atmosphere here," he said.
The Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission has described the abuse as "horrible" and says it could be classed as racial vilification.
The abuse problem is so prevalent that US students are being given formal briefings before leaving home on how to cope with abusive Australians.
Mr Wanner said even female Australian students were verbally abusive. He warned the problem could "escalate into a very large brawl".
"There has already been confrontations between people," he said.
A female American student from Griffith, who wished to remain unnamed, said she had met some "exceptional" people in Australia ? but was leaving this month in shock over her treatment.
She said she was desperate to go home after the slurs, which also spilled over at pubs in central Brisbane.
"They basically picked on me," she said. "At first, I thought it was a joke. Then I just had it out with them and told them I came here to be treated respectfully.
"I have had a few incidents in bars. I had a guy and he heard my accent and he said: 'I hate your president. I hate your country.' "
Another Griffith student has already returned to the US after enduring six months of abuse at the university's residential college in Brisbane.
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She said some students suffered culture shock because of the belief that everyone loved Americans. "We are giving them the heads up that it is a bit more heated because of the war in Iraq," Ms Houston said.
FARMINGVILLE, N.Y., June 23 - Among the many tenants crammed into the basement, one slept on a mattress atop a heating oil tank. The front door was blocked by furniture. Garbage piled up outside. Extension cords snaked and dangled everywhere, one draped across a propane tank with a religious candle burning nearby. None of the smoke detectors worked.
Those were just a few of the conditions that investigators say that they found at 33 Woodmont Place, where, Brookhaven town officials said, up to 64 people were living in a 900-square-foot rooming house zoned for one family. There were 44 beds in the home.
But Brookhaven and Suffolk County authorities were not greeted with unanimous praise after arresting the owner and shuttering the squalid house last week. Instead, the crackdown reopened Farmingdale's civic wounds over the influx of thousands of Mexican laborers, many of them illegal immigrants, into this blue-collar Long Island suburb. Often they live in overcrowded houses, and the town said it was investigating 123 other suspected cases.
"This has reignited the whole issue of hatred for immigrants in that community," said the Rev. Allan B. Ramirez, an advocate for illegal immigrants.
On the other side, some longtime homeowners cheered the enforcement as sorely overdue protection of their way of life.
Steve Levy, executive of Suffolk County, said, "We're going to stand up for the people of this county who have been exploited in their neighborhoods." The raid also rescuedt he immigrants from inhumane and a potentially disastrous conditions, he said.
But the Mexicans, who are now homeless, accused Mr. Levy of racism, complaining that he left them with no place to live.
"If he shut down a home with 30 or 40 dogs, would he have put them out on the street," asked Mr. Ramirez, "or would he have found a home for them?"
To protest the raid, the Mexicans planned to march on Sunday afternoon to call for an end to such evictions and to demand a meeting with Mr. Levy. But Mr. Levy has refused to budge. "I will not meet with them on this matter," he said. "It's absurd to even discuss the notion we would keep such a facility open. I'm not one who's going to be intimidated by their antics or marches. Bring it on."
They hate immigrants, but cheat them and hire them and make money from them by crowding them in firetraps.
Libby Rupp of St. Paul, whose 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, has autism, says she is not convinced by studies that say there is no link between autism and childhood vaccines that include mercury
Kristen Ehresmann, a Minnesota Department of Health official, had just told a State Senate hearing that vaccines with microscopic amounts of mercury were safe. Libby Rupp, a mother of a 3-year-old girl with autism, was incredulous.
Dr. Mark Geier and his son David say they traced autism to vaccines.
"How did my daughter get so much mercury in her?" Ms. Rupp asked Ms. Ehresmann after her testimony.
"Fish?" Ms. Ehresmann suggested.
"She never eats it," Ms. Rupp answered.
"Do you drink tap water?"
"It's all filtered."
"Well, do you breathe the air?" Ms. Ehresmann asked, with a resigned smile. Several parents looked angrily at Ms. Ehresmann, who left.
Ms. Rupp remained, shaking with anger. That anyone could defend mercury in vaccines, she said, "makes my blood boil."
Public health officials like Ms. Ehresmann, who herself has a son with autism, have been trying for years to convince parents like Ms. Rupp that there is no link between thimerosal - a mercury-containing preservative once used routinely in vaccines - and autism.
They have failed.
..............................
Parents have filed more than 4,800 lawsuits - 200 from February to April alone - pushed for state and federal legislation banning thimerosal and taken out full-page advertisements in major newspapers. They have also gained the support of politicians, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and Representatives Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, and Dave Weldon, Republican of Florida. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an article in the June 16 issue of Rolling Stone magazine arguing that most studies of the issue are flawed and that public health officials are conspiring with drug makers to cover up the damage caused by thimerosal.
"We're not looking like a fringe group anymore," said Becky Lourey, a Minnesota state senator and a sponsor of a proposed thimerosal ban. Such a ban passed the New York State Legislature this week.
But scientists and public health officials say they are alarmed by the surge of attention to an idea without scientific merit. The anti-thimerosal campaign, they say, is causing some parents to stay away from vaccines, placing their children at risk for illnesses like measles and polio.
"It's really terrifying, the scientific illiteracy that supports these suspicions," said Dr. Marie McCormick, chairwoman of an Institute of Medicine panel that examined the controversy in February 2004.
Experts say they are also concerned about a raft of unproven, costly and potentially harmful treatments - including strict diets, supplements and a detoxifying technique called chelation - that are being sold for tens of thousands of dollars to desperate parents of autistic children as a cure for "mercury poisoning."
In one case, a doctor forced children to sit in a 160-degree sauna, swallow 60 to 70 supplements a day and have so much blood drawn that one child passed out.
Hundreds of doctors list their names on a Web site endorsing chelation to treat autism, even though experts say that no evidence supports its use with that disorder. The treatment carries risks of liver and kidney damage, skin rashes and nutritional deficiencies, they say.
In recent months, the fight over thimerosal has become even more bitter. In response to a barrage of threatening letters and phone calls, the centers for disease control has increased security and instructed employees on safety issues, including how to respond if pies are thrown in their faces. One vaccine expert at the centers wrote in an internal e-mail message that she felt safer working at a malaria field station in Kenya than she did at the agency's offices in Atlanta.
...................
An Alarm Is Sounded
.....................
Dr. Tom Insel, director of the National Institute for Mental Health, said: "Is it cellphones? Ultrasound? Diet sodas? Every parent has a theory. At this point, we just don't know."
In 2000, a group of parents joined together to found SafeMinds, one of several organizations that argue that thimerosal is that environmental culprit. Their cause has been championed by politicians like Mr. Burton.
"My grandson received nine shots in one day, seven of which contained thimerosal, which is 50 percent mercury as you know, and he became autistic a short time later," he said in an interview.
In a series of House hearings held from 2000 through 2004, Mr. Burton called the leading experts who assert that vaccines cause autism to testify. They included a chemistry professor at the University of Kentucky who says that dental fillings cause or exacerbate autism and other diseases and a doctor from Baton Rouge, La., who says that God spoke to her through an 87-year-old priest and told her that vaccines caused autism.
Also testifying were Dr. Mark Geier and his son, David Geier, the experts whose work is most frequently cited by parents.
Trying to Build a Case
Dr. Geier has called the use of thimerosal in vaccines the world's "greatest catastrophe that's ever happened, regardless of cause."
He and his son live and work in a two-story house in suburban Maryland. Past the kitchen and down the stairs is a room with cast-off, unplugged laboratory equipment, wall-to-wall carpeting and faux wood paneling that Dr. Geier calls "a world-class lab - every bit as good as anything at N.I.H."
Dr. Geier has been examining issues of vaccine safety since at least 1971, when he was a lab assistant at the National Institutes of Health, or N.I.H. His r�sum� lists scores of publications, many of which suggest that vaccines cause injury or disease.
He has also testified in more than 90 vaccine cases, he said, although a judge in a vaccine case in 2003 ruled that Dr. Geier was "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience."
In other cases, judges have called Dr. Geier's testimony "intellectually dishonest," "not reliable" and "wholly unqualified."
The six published studies by Dr. Geier and David Geier on the relationship between autism and thimerosal are largely based on complaints sent to the disease control centers by people who suspect that their children were harmed by vaccines.
In the first study, the Geiers compared the number of complaints associated with a thimerosal-containing vaccine, given from 1992 to 2000, with the complaints that resulted from a thimerosal-free version given from 1997 to 2000. The more thimerosal a child received, they concluded, the more likely an autism complaint was filed. Four other studies used similar methods and came to similar conclusions.
Dr. Geier said in an interview that the link between thimerosal and autism was clear.
Public health officials, he said, are " just trying to cover it up."
......................................
Another e-mail message, sent to the C.D.C. on Aug. 20, said, "I'd like to know how you people sleep straight in bed at night knowing all the lies you tell & the lives you know full well you destroy with the poisons you push & protect with your lies." Lynn Redwood of SafeMinds said that such e-mail messages did not represent her organization or other advocacy groups.
...............................
"It doesn't seem to matter what the studies and the data show," said Ms. Ehresmann, the Minnesota immunization official. "And that's really scary for us because if science doesn't count, how do we make decisions? How do we communicate with parents?"
Autism is scary for parents. They want answers to an illness which places their child in a seperate world they cannot penetrate. So studies mean nothing. They want to believe that there is one cause and once that cause is gone, that their kids can be cured.
First, Geiger is a fraud. This has been kicked around on Kos yesterday
From Casewatch:
"Mark R. Geier, M.D., Ph.D., is president of Genetic Centers of America. He has been a consultant and expert witness in many cases presented to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and in civil litigation. In publications and testimony, he suggests that the thimerosal in vaccines is a cause of autism. His son David A, Geier is president of MedCon, a medical-legal consulting firm that helps vaccine injury claimants to try to obtain funds from both the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and through civil litigation."
In 2003, a special master who presided over a case of alleged vaccine injury issued a report that severely criticized Dr. Geier's analysis of a case. The ruling is especially noteworthy because the special master referred to him as "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise, and experience" and listed nine other cases in which Geier's expert testimony was given "no weight."
In short, the guy is a fraud. I read Robert Kennedy's article a week ago and was nearly taken in by it myself and I'm a proud member of the reality-based community. In this time of "instant information", it pays to be vigilant. Evidence, evidence, evidence.
The problem is simple: unqualifed people are doing research in an area they are not trained in. People are making risky decisions based on sketchy evidence by people who do not have the qualifications to make the statements that they do, without peer reviewed research or any standards used in most scientific studies. It is far easier to believe in a conspiracy than to accept that science doesn't have all the answers. That some dark coalition of companies is seeking to poison people for money, than the fact that we have no idea why autism is caused. But you can't fault an autistic child's parents from looking for any and every answer. The courts will dipose of their claims because there is no evidence, money will be wasted, but maybe some parents will accept the verdict of a court
But what frightens me is that parents with healthy children are forgoing vaccinations in fear of this, with no evidence to back it up. We have clear evidence that childhood diseases maim and kill. We know this without question. If your child catches polio, that is a lifetime disability. Measles can kill. This is about risk management. You have to weigh the risks, however remote, of "catching" autism, or of your child getting ill, and infecting others, with a preventable disease. The risk here is much, much higher, and not just for you, relatives, friends, adults, all could be harmed by your decision.
I remember when a VA doctor tried to claim Gulf War Syndrome was psychosomatic. While her conclusions were laughed at in the end, some people thought it was squalone, others DU, but the difference was that there was evidence that DOD's vaccination program was deeply flawed, complete with evidence. There was a reason to think it could be these things
There isn't even a study to show the rates of autism in children who have not been vaccinated. I think the reason we see more cases of autism is simple: we know what it is. I would think that previously, these children were written off as retarded, even when they weren't. So now, people know what it is, so it has a name. But there isn't a cause.
But the problem is that vaccinations prevent really horrible diseases we know about. Polio isn't a guessing game, measles isn't a guessing game. If your kids get sick, they will be sick and they may make others sick as well.
Evidence is critical in science. And I understand the fear of parents. But it's about mamaging risk. What is the greater risk, polio or autism, especially when we know one exists and one is a theory at best. What is more likely, autism or a preventable childhood disease.
If parents knew the numbers, they might understand how to make this decision
What bothers me about this is the stench of fraud. No scientific evidence and the stench of fraudsters taking advantage of people. That's always a noxious combination.
By Michael Powell Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, June 25, 2005; A03
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- The Shinnecock Indians have a grand idea.
They want this wealthiest of Long Island beach towns to give back to the tribe about 3,600 acres, encompassing the posh Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and a few multimillion-dollar waterfront chateaus. Southampton's forefathers long ago obtained this land -- valued at a tidy $1.7 billion today -- from the Shinnecocks under questionable circumstances.
Or, alternatively, Southampton's town leaders could keep their land and allow the Shinnecocks to construct a $20 million casino on sandy bluffs overlooking Peconic Bay.
"We've complained until we are blue in the face -- now we seek justice," said Randy King, the taciturn chairman of the tribe's board of trustees, which earlier this month filed a land-claims lawsuit against Southampton in U.S. District Court. "Think of it as a civics lesson. Think of it as 'Put up or shut up.' "
Several wealthy investors, including Detroit businessman Michael Ilitch -- who owns the Detroit Tigers baseball team -- are financing the tribe's legal battles, in hopes of persuading the town to yield on a casino. ..............................
There were many subsequent land takings by the colonists, culminating in the almost certainly fraudulent Great Dispossession of 1859, when a group of private investors sought to finance a line of the Long Island Rail Road east to Montauk Point. These investors persuaded 20 or so Shinnecocks to sign a petition deeding the land to the investors.
...........................
Six hundred Shinnecocks live on this land, which has a feeling out of time to it. Save by invitation, none but Shinnecocks are allowed. Children of 12 or 13 drive automobiles and motorbikes on the reservation, and horses range across the fields. Many of the Shinnecocks are quite poor, but there are doctors and lawyers as well.
The tribe has held annual elections for the tribal council since 1792, and the results are recorded at Southampton Town Hall. But the Shinnecocks have only recently applied for tribal recognition by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, which would in turn allow them to open a casino. To obtain federal recognition, the Shinnecocks must establish the genealogy of every Indian living on the reservation.
That is no easy matter, not least because some family records are lost in time's mists and because many Shinnecocks long ago intermarried with the black slaves and white indentured servants who labored beside them in the potato fields and cornfields of white owners. What is left is a very American identity spin -- many, although by no means all, of the Shinnecocks appear more African American than stereotypically Indian.
............................... Smith is one of several Shinnecocks who view the tribe's land-claims lawsuit against Southampton as ill-advised. It has inflamed local sentiment, he said, and guaranteed the tribe will face a tough fight for federal recognition. And he is suspicious of the motives of millionaire investors who are underwriting the lawsuits.
"Folks on the reservation have this notion that there's going to be a great influx of money when the casino is built, and that's not real," Smith said.
King, the tribal chairman, gets a little testy talking about the casino and land claims. As he sees it, his tribe should not have to explain anything. But he allows that the tribe has no ambition to construct a beachside version of Foxwoods, the mammoth casino in Connecticut. The Shinnecocks' casino, he says, would be about the size of a supermarket.
"You want to talk traffic? It's all the crazy development that brings traffic," he said. "We have to care for our elderly and pay our bills. What folks have to understand is that this is our land."
OK, a casino in the Hamptons is well, nuts. But they have a right to their land. And since these people are dirt poor, well, they should get paid.
By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 33 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber and gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying female U.S. Marines in Fallujah, killing two Marines and leaving another four American troops presumed dead, the military said Friday. At least one woman was killed and 11 of 13 wounded were female.
The terror group al-Qaida in Iraq claimed it carried out the bombing, one of the single deadliest attacks against the Marines ? and against women ? in this country.
The high number of female casualties spoke to the lack of any real front lines in Iraq, where U.S. troops are battling a raging insurgency and American women soldiers have taken part in more close-quarters combat than in any previous military conflict.
The women were part of a team of Marines who were assigned to various checkpoints around Fallujah. Female Marines are used at the checkpoints to search Muslim women "in order to be respectful of Iraqi cultural sensitivities," a military statement said. It is considered insulting for a male Marine to search a female Muslim.
Current Pentagon policy prohibits women from serving in front line combat roles ? in the infantry, armor or artillery, for example.
"It's hard to stop suicide bombers, and it's hard to stop these people that in many cases are being smuggled into Iraq from outside Iraq,"
President Bush said at a joint White House news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The Marines were returning to their base, Camp Fallujah, when the ambush took place Thursday night near the eastern entrance to the city, 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Fallujah is a former insurgents' fortress that was invaded by U.S. forces at great cost last November; it also the city where an Iraqi mob hung the mutilated bodies of two U.S. contractors from a bridge. On Nov. 2, 2003, two female Army soldiers were in a Chinook helicopter shot down over Fallujah.
At least one of the dead Marines in Thursday's attack was a woman, as were 11 of the 13 wounded.
Thirteen Kutztown Area High School students are facing felony charges for tampering with district-issued laptop computers.
According to parent testimony and confirmed by an otherwise vaguely-worded letter from the Kutztown Police Department, students got hold of the system's secret administrative password and reconfigured their computers to achieve greater Internet and network access.
Some students used the newfound freedom to download music and inappropriate images from the Internet.
James Shrawder spoke on behalf of a group of parents of six of the accused at a June 20 school board meeting. He said the administration may have railroaded the process by not providing authorities with the whole story.
"That's absurd," Superintendent Brenda S. Winkler said after the board meeting, in response to Shrawder's allegations that the administration withheld information until the end of the school year.
Shrawder asked that the school board act in order to reverse the damage done by the administration.
..................
The more computer-savvy students began to disable the administrations' ability to spy on the students' computer use. For others, it became a game, trying to outsmart the administration and compete with fellow students who held the secret, Shrawder said.
"I don't know why this is such a big deal," he said. "At no time was the security of the server breached, and I don't know that it has cost the taxpayers any money." ................................
For the moment, parents were uncertain how to react to the threat of charges against their children. Paperwork is hung up in county juvenile court system and the only indication of the charges is the letter sent to parents and signed by Officer Walter J. Skavinsky of the Kutztown Police Department.
The Skavinsky letter, dated May 31, says the police were contacted on May 2 by members of the high school staff. An investigation found that 13 students had violated the school's permitted use policy and gained greater access to the school's Internet and intranet resources.
Skavinsky consulted with the Berks County District Attorney's office and recommended charges of "Computer Trespass," in violation of PA criminal code section 7615, which carries a third degree felony charge.
The letter tells parents that juveniles charged with a crime "must present themselves in a timely manner to the arresting police department for the purposes of fingerprinting and identification."
The iBook laptops were issued to all high school students last fall in an experimental program with Apple computers.
The program will cost up to $900,000 over the next four years.
Winkler reaffirmed the district's commitment to the program saying it has been "a learning experience."
Will students be able to install software on the laptop?
No, students installing software on school owned computers is a direct violation of the KASD Computer Policy. Students who violate the policy will be disciplined. All of the software necessary to integrate the laptop technology into the curriculum will be installed when the laptop is issued to the student. Security monitoring software will be used on all of the computers to assure that software is not loaded on the laptops. See the "Software" webpage in regards to the software installed on each laptop.
Will students be able to email, chat, and play games on their laptops?
Chat, IM, games, and email software will be removed from all computers. Student use of email, chatting, IM, and game playing is a direct violation of the KASD computer policy. Students who violate the computer policy will be disciplined.
What will the school do to help prevent students from going to inappropriate sites?
The KASD has a software/hardware product which is designed to help monitor all Internet sites that students attempt to access. This software/hardware blocks inappropriate sites and also logs a history of every site that each user opens. Students who attempt to find inappropriate sites will be disciplined. The current KASD content filter meets CIPA guidelines.
They were so worried about the use of the computer, they never instituted any common sense provisions to deal with an issue like this. Now, they want a pitched battle in the courts, and demands that kids use their own laptops? Come on, smart kids will bust any system. The way to prevent this is with suspensions, not prosecutions.
The school board will regret such an aggressive stand, because there is no need for it.
Then there is the entire cost of the program. Jesus, nearly a million bucks?
Rory Carroll in Baghdad Friday June 24, 2005 The Guardian
Dawn had yet to break and Baghdad's biggest police station, like the rest of the city, was quiet. About 80 officers dozed inside the fortress, leaving just a few sentries guarding the walls, razor wire and concrete barriers.
It started with mortars. A series of whooshes from north and south followed seconds later by explosions inside the perimeter. Figures emerged from the gloom and knelt in the middle of Hi al-Elam and Qatar Nada streets, pointing rocket launchers.
More figures materialised on rooftops overlooking the station to spray gunfire and lob grenades. Dozens of gunmen, guerrilla infantry, swarmed from houses and alleys. It was just after 5.30am and the station was surrounded.
The defenders heard engines rev and guessed what was next: suicide car bombers. Baghdad's biggest battle in months - and possibly the boldest yet by insurgents - had begun. .................
Not since April's attack on Abu Ghraib had there been such a concentration of force in the capital and yet the insurgents were repulsed thanks to the heroism of the beleaguered police officers, he said. But in Baghdad, the fact the insurgents had launched the attack at all was more indicative.
The sentries, pinned down by fire from the rooftops, did not respond when they heard the approaching suicide bombers. One vehicle exploded at the main entrance, killing at least four officers but without breaching the compound.
A nearby Iraqi army base was simultaneously targeted by mortars, gunfire and a suicide bomber, trapping the soldiers inside. Gunmen attacked the police station from four sides and came close to overrunning it. From bases in southern Baghdad US and Iraqi ground troops rushed for Baya'a only to confront insurgents at Derwesh Square and on the Doura highway tasked with slowing the relief force. At least three suicide car bombers had been held back for this purpose.
By 6.30am a police machine-gunner on the roof at Baya'a helped turn the tide, firing volleys which forced attackers to take cover and enabled his comrades to take better positions. Residents of the mixed Shia and Sunni neighbourhood made at least 55 phone calls informing the police of insurgent movements. Some fired on the attackers. An off-duty policeman was caught by insurgents, bundled into the boot of a car and later found beheaded.
The attackers retreated at around 7.30am. At least 10 were killed and 40 captured.
....................... Lt Col Funk worried about similarities to the Tet offensive, a 1968 push by North Vietnamese forces which failed militarily but whose scale and surprise gave the impression that the US and its allies were failing. "The media got Tet wrong and they're getting Iraq wrong. We are winning but people won't know that if all they are hearing about is death and violence."
BULLSHIT.
Absolute Bullshit.
Col Funk thinks because he repulsed the assault, he won?
First, the attack failed. So fucking what? Are we supposed to hang around until they succeed. They knew the attack would fail before they launched it. Like their other company sized attacks, the fact that they can make them is the real issue. So what if they lose. So fucking what. The US is supposed to have locked down the capital. Instead, they're fending off an overrun attack, one which was planned by infantry officers.
These attacks are training exercises designed to test US responses to an attack. You don't attack a fortress with 100 men if there are 80 inside and reenforcements close by. No shit the US won. If they had lost, Col. Funk would have been relieved of command and should have been.
Let's see what the Iraqi guerrillas gained for 50 men:
A clear understanding of how hard Iraqis will fight when attacked, how quickly US forces will respond and how much activity they can conduct in that area. They also make the Iraqi government look ineffective as hell. They have turned Operation Lightning into Operation Impotence. Oh yeah, this attack was conducted at dawn, with the potential of US air being dropped on them.
If they had wanted the building, they would have sent 3-400 men. This was about showing their power to strike in force, any time, any place.
We aren't winning. Because if we were, they wouldn't be making company-sized attacks in a locked down Baghdad
MILAN, June 24 - An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 officers and operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency on charges that they seized an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street two years ago and flew him to Egypt for questioning, Italian prosecutors and investigators said Friday.
The judge, Chiara Nobili of Milan, signed the arrest warrants on Wednesday for 13 C.I.A. operatives who are suspected of seizing an imam named Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, as he walked to his mosque here for noon prayers on Feb. 17, 2003.
It is unclear what prompted the issuance of the warrants, but Judge Guido Salvini said in May that it was "certain" that Mr. Nasr had been seized by "people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralizing him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities."
Mr. Nasr, who was under investigation before his disappearance for possible links to Al Qaeda, is still missing, and his family and friends say he was tortured repeatedly by Egyptian jailers.
The detailed warrants remained sealed in a Milan courthouse on Friday. But copies obtained by The New York Times show that 13 American citizens, all identified as either C.I.A. employees or as having links to the agency, are wanted to stand trial on kidnapping charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years and 8 months in prison. The Americans' whereabouts are unknown.
One of those wanted, identified in the court papers as the agency's top officer in Milan, is described as "having coordinated the mission and also guaranteeing connections and assistance to others involved in the crime." He left Milan and flew to Egypt five days after the abduction, the warrant says.
In the papers, Judge Nobili wrote that she was persuaded of the Americans' involvement in part because of evidence that their cellphones were "all interacting with one another" at the time and scene of the abduction.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has been an ally of the Bush administration in the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq, had no comment on the warrants. Such judicial documents are issued independently of the government.
Julian Borger in Washington Saturday June 25, 2005 The Guardian
President George Bush will make a primetime appeal to Americans next week to shore up dwindling domestic support for the war in Iraq, where insurgents have inflicted one of their deadliest attacks in months on US forces.
Mr Bush will attempt to persuade an increasingly sceptical public to maintain support for the war in a speech on Tuesday evening at the Fort Bragg army base in North Carolina.
Five marines and a sailor were feared killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a military convoy travelling through Falluja, a Sunni stronghold which US officers had until yesterday presented as an example of successful pacification. The Pentagon reported that women marines were among the dead.
As news broke of the Falluja bomb, Mr Bush was meeting the Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, in the White House to discuss the insurgency and political negotiations in the country on a new constitution.
At a joint press conference, the president insisted that progress was being made in Iraq against the insurgents, and again insisted that he would not set a deadline for American withdrawal.
"They're trying to shake our will," he said. "And so, of course, we understand the nature of that enemy. We also understand that there is reason to be optimistic about what's taking place. We're optimistic that more and more Iraqi troops are becoming better trained to fight the terrorists. We're optimistic about the constitutional process.
"There are not going to be any timetables. I have told this to the prime minister.
"We are there to complete a mission, and it's an important mission. A democratic Iraq is in the interests of the United States and it's in the interests of laying the foundation for peace. And if that's the mission, then why would you say to the enemy: Here's a timetable. Just go ahead and wait us out."
Our? Really.
At least five young women killed in Falluja, the pacified city.
Bush is going to have a hard time keeping the GOP in line as this continues.
By Adam Smeltz Posted on Wed, Sep. 01, 2004 Knight Ridder Newspapers
NEW YORK - Young Republicans gathered for their party's national convention... were asked: "Would you be willing to put on the uniform and go to fight in Iraq?"
In more than a dozen interviews, Republicans in their teens and 20s said, some have friends in the military in Iraq and are considering enlisting; others said they can better support the war by working politically in the United States; and still others said they think the military doesn't need them because the U.S. presence in Iraq is sufficient.
"Frankly, I want to be a politician. I'd like to survive to see that," said Vivian Lee, 17, a war supporter visiting the convention from Los Angeles.
Lee said she supports the war but would volunteer only if the United States faced a dire troop shortage or "if there's another Sept. 11."
"As long as there's a steady stream of volunteers, I don't see why I necessarily should volunteer," said Lee, who said she has a cousin deployed in the Middle East.
"If there was a need presented, I would go," said Chris Cusmano, a 21-year-old member of the College Republicans organization from Rocky Point, N.Y. But he said he hasn't really considered volunteering.
"It's always in the back of my mind - to enlist," Chase Carpenter, 16, a self-described moderate Republican visiting Manhattan this week from Santa Monica, Calif. He said he's torn over whether he'd join the military if he were 18.
Others said they could contribute on the home front.
"I physically probably couldn't do a whole lot" in Iraq, said Tiffanee Hokel, 18, of Webster City, Iowa, who called the war a moral imperative. She knows people posted in Iraq, but she didn't flinch when asked why she wouldn't go.
"I think I could do more here," Hokel said, adding that she's focusing on political action that supports the war and the troops.
"We don't have to be there physically to fight it," she said.
Similarly, 20-year-old Jeff Shafer, a University of Pennsylvania student, said vital work needs to be done in the United States. There are Republican policies to maintain and protect and an economy to sustain, Shafer said.
- Two Marines were killed Thursday when a suicide car bomber and gunmen attacked their convoy in Fallujah, Iraq.
---
The latest identification reported by the military:
- Army Sgt. Arnold Duplantier II, 26, Sacramento, Calif.; killed Wednesday by small-arms fire in Baghdad, Iraq; assigned to the Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, Auburn, Calif.
Every time you hear this shit, call them on their cowardice. Good people are dying in Iraq and they sit on their hands.
Bill Frist bestowed upon us CRNC'ers the honor of a telecast. After making a joke about how he's such a badass heart surgeon, the blond-headed belle in the row in front of me turned around and said, "He's good!" Yes, he's a pretty awesome doctor. Insert Terry Schiavo comment here.
Then a girl wearing pearls walked by. (Oh it's worth a mention all right.)
The girl wearing pearls walked by some dude rocking a polo shirt and sneakers, which is in itself worth noting at this kind of a gathering (casual? what?). Even more noteworthy than his crazy liberal dress, though, was the collection of empty Busch Light cans under his chair. I counted 6. Pearls. Busch Light. Pearls. Busch Light.
A little later, Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council took the stage, noting with courageous enthusiasm, "There are some things that are worth fighting for." He proceeded to talk about the Iraq War, and some very heroic veterans (give credit where credit's due, 'sall good). Then he said, "They're giving their lives as you're giving your time." Right. These (military-age) folks helped create this war, but they're letting everybody else fight it. The irony was lost on this crowd.
Note: the photo and post time. It's 11:43 AM. Now, when my father was working with alcoholics, one of the big warning signs was drinking before noon. Six fucking beers? Maybe they were Democratic Hill Rats undercover. Otherwise, that's just fucked up. More on Tony "KKK" Perkins and his speech later. And it was shit beer as well. The only time we drank like that was at Columbia games, and I'm an NYU alum.
The Young America's Foundation, in case you didn't know, is a bastion of awesomeness. They're doing a field training seminar here - it's still going on, but I thought I should slip out to get some ink on it.
First, here's the "Freedom's Source" document that comes in the hardcover folder they give everyone. (did you even know folders can come in hardcover?) The text:
"It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the soldier, who salutes the flag... who serves under the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag... who allows the protester to burn the flag.
Were it not for the brave... there would be no land of the free."
Author Unknown
Beneath the text, there are two addresses flanking the Young America's Foundation logo. One is for the F.M. Kirby Freedom Center, and the other is for the Reagan Ranch.
If you were to think war is wrong, or that war should only be a last resort, you would be wrong, at least according to YAF.
Inside the training, sparcely placed beer bottles (not cans this time, these guys are high class) punctuated the tables in Salon A. One young conservative felt the need to be wearing his aviators while he sipped on his Coors Light and listened to the speaker.
One speaker encouraged these College Republicans to use the following phrases on their posters to get people to their speaking events:
"Feminazi's Beware." "Where are MY reparations?" "What women really want."
Yet in spite of conservative tactics like these, David Horowitz continues to claim that it is the left that is intolerant, while the white Christian male is the downtrodden oppressed. I missed him earlier in the day, but I saw him last night at Heritage so 's all good.
Motherfucker, if being a soldier is so goddamn great, you can sign up at any recruiter you fucking choose. I see a bunch of healthy young men and women here. So why the fuck are they here and not at MCRD Parris Island or Ft. Jackson. If you love soldiers so goddamn much, go fucking be one. Take the oath. Your time doesn't mean dick. Not to the 11B's or the truck drivers or the ER nurses or surgeons or the orthopedics nurses. Your time? Fuck your time.
Tell that to the families of five women marines. They have to bury their barely out of high school daughters, and you want to talk about your goddamn time? Time. Let's talk about your service. You love this war so goddamn much, go fucking be part of it. They can have their families cheerlead.
Fucking cowards. Hiding behind people who's asses they aren't fit to wipe.
Our friends at CampusProgress.Org have some infiltrators inside the College Republican combat avoidance fest, while Jesus's Gemeral has deployed strike teams outside the building. And if you live in DC or nearby, here are some useful recon photos
However, I want to draw your attention to Jesse Lee Sambo's "speech" to his betters, er College Republicans
Sometimes it's hard to maintain your sense of humor.
Thus, here are some highlights from Rev. Jesse Lee Petersen's speech. (He is the head of BOND: Brotherhood Organization of New Destiny, and he is basically Jesse Jackson's sworn enemy.)
-
"I am an American, not an African-American."
- The Civil Rights movement destroyed black people's sense of self-respect and their compass for what's right.
- The Civil Rights Movement took the men out of their homes and prevented black people from thinking for themselves.
- It is not racism but lack of moral character that causes problems for black people.
- The black leadership succeeds by keeping black folks angry.
- Now Muslim folks are moving in and trying to take over.
- "I don't care what people say, but (Muslim people) don't like us!"
- America has already given black people all it has to give.
- On reparations, he emphasizes the fact that all the slaves are dead.
- On those who want reparations, he says, "Instead of reparations, how 'bout a free ticket back to Africa?" (Raucous laughter.)
- "The Democratic battle is ordained by the devil."
- "It's not white vs. black, it's good vs. evil."
- "White folks need to get over their fear of being called a racist."
Eric Holpin, current chairman of the CRNC, was grinning the entire time during Rev. Petersen's speech. They welcome this man into their midst, and they give him a standing ovation.
And conservatives still wonder why black people vote Democratic?
One note: he isn't a fly on Jesse Jackson's ass.
Let me translate
---I am a buck dancing grovelling nigger who will sell out his own kind, like I did in my previous career
---The Civil Rights movement brought us colored folk too close to white wimmin
---The Civil Rights Movements gave niggers too much dignity
---It is not racism which prevent black people from getting loans and being stopped by the police. It is that niggers can't do anything right and need white people to tell them how to live.
---Black leadership makes people angry by demanding their rights
---Muslims scare me, like they did in prison
---I don't care what you say, niggers are stupid, white folks smart
---White people stole our labor and kept us in peonage until 1964. Shit happens
---America has already stolen all it has from black folks and we still love her
---Slaves are dead. So why repay their relatives for anything. They should be glad that they're not still in Africa
---Those who want reparations are lazy niggers. They should go back to Africa, no good dirty niggers.
---The Democrats treat niggers with too much respect
---It's not white vs black, but disloyal slave vs good master
Conservatives need to understand that if Petersen, who is too ignorant for Larry Elder, were to say this to a black audience, he would have to flee a mob. Leadership reflects those who they lead. Jackson and Sharpton are moderates. If they think that black people will listen to this bullshit, they are in for a shock
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber slammed into a 7-ton U.S. military vehicle in Fallujah, killing five Marines and a Navy sailor, Marine Corps sources told NBC News, adding that at least three of the dead were female Marines and that 13 others were wounded.
A review of casualty records indicates the attack is the single deadliest toll for female servicemembers in Iraq. Since the war started, 44 female soldiers have died in attacks or in accidents while in Iraq.
The vehicle, which had 19 people on board, was ferrying members of a U.S. military civil affairs team headed to perform checkpoint searches of female Iraqi civilians when it was attacked Thursday night, the sources said.
The team was assigned to the II Marine Expeditionary Force, which is based at Camp LeJeune, N.C.
Hindrocket, now this, what is wrong with these people. I mean Pink Flamingos? I guess this guy loves John Waters
We don't link to right wing sites, but check the trackback.....
You have this coward at pink Flamingo Bar and Grill misunderstanding my words, so I will explain them to him, slowly. I mean, it's not like he's in Iraq, yet sits safe at home cheering the idea that other people will die to make him feel all big and manly. Of course the entire post is as cherry picked as depicitng all conservatives as feeling the US deserved the 9/11 attack for immorality, but, shit....why let facts get in the way.
Are liberals channeling speeches from a Karl Rove in an alternate universe or is this just unconscious projection of their views? How else to explain that response to that quote?
Remember how that turd Pataki sat there and laughed while Karl Rove stood there and insulted New York. Notice how Mike Bloomberg won't say dick either. While your sons are fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq, that little bastard impuned their patriotism and service to their country.
Karl Rove insulted those in the military? Please explain how Karl Roves words can be morphed into insults against our military. It might be helpful to also explain when did the liberal/progressive coalition start defending the military and the police departments?
Well, birdman, the 42nd ID is now in Iraq. A division largely made up of New Yorkers. If you've noticed John Kerry won New York handily. One could extrapolate (big word, I know, but it means conclude from facts) that many of those same Guardsmen were and are Democrats. That they vote for Democrats and that many might well be liberals serving their country. What the gutless turd Rove said is that these people didn't exist and only conservatives wanted to stop Osama.
As a New York, I find this the equvilient of blood libel. (You know, the lie that the Jews used Christian babies blood for matzoh). No one asked what party 343 firemen belonged to when they died, or the 34 policemen. No one asked what party nine members of the 69th Regiment, New York City's own infantry regiment with a lineage going back to WW I, were when they were killed in Iraq, two of whom were immigrants, one a Pakistani muslim. No one asked and no one cared.
To say that New Yorkers, who are 5-1 Democrats, are shirking from the service of their country is an insult to them and their service. No one asked for party enrollment when they took their oath and it is wrong to suggest that it matters now. Many New Yorkers, and Califonians as well, have died in the service of their country in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But, to you. birdman, I think it makes you feel all big and manly to say that. After all, you're not going to Iraq. You're not burying anyone killed there. So why should care if they're defamed by the President's aide? It doesn't effect anyone you know. right?
Let me explain something birdman: I smelled the dead in my windows for a week after 9/11. While you sat back and worried about some Sikh blowing up your mall, every time I took a breath, burning flesh and paper filled my nose. Every day, for a year, I opened the paper to read about yet another funeral. On nice, sunny days, I get reminded of 9/11.
Then, I get to read about how Congress wants to pull $125m in aid for Ground Zero workers.
So don't fucking lecture me about defending the people who protect my city. You don't drive by the firehouse memorials on every goddamn firehouse in the city. You don't see the stories about fucked up families left behind. You live in a fantasy world where big strong men kill the brown people and make you feel like a man. We know what they did for us far better than you ever will, no matter how much you pretend to understand. You don't. And you never will and you never want to.
But in my real world, I had an appointment in the new Cantor Fitzgerald building this week. Maybe you don't know what that means, but let me explain. The majority of civilians killed on 9/11 worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. Nearly 700 dead. So when you see their logo, it can creep you out. Because there is no way to escape that ghost.
Not that you care. You sit in your home and cheer the confused teenagers in Irqq dying for your ideas and you don't lift a finger to help them. You don't volunteer, do you? Not at the local VA, or military hospital. Nope. You just sit there, a big old coward, cheering on children as they get crippled in the quest to make the Islamic Republic of Iraq. A fight you will not join, either.
But like most conservatives, you expect others to do what you will not.
So does that explain how Rove insulted the military? I hope so.
AmericaBlog has this handy action alert to ask why slandering the men of the 42nd ID is acceptable politics Anti-Karl Rove Action Alert
by John in DC - 6/24/2005 10:41:00 AM
Atrios suggests we all do the following. I agree: This week Karl Rove headlined a couple of fundraisers for the Republican candidate for governor of New Jesrsey, Doug Forrester.
Call his campaign office and demand to know if Forrester stands by Karl Rove's assertion that Democrats like Dick Durbin are motivated by a desire to see troops die (especially if you live in New Jersey or imagine that you do). Demand that he return the money he raised. Find out if he's proud to stand with Karl Rove, and if also thinks that New Jersey Democrats are motivated by a desire to see our troops die.
2. CALL MAYOR BLOOMBERG OF NYC GOP Mayor Bloomberg of NYC has refused to repudiate what Rove's, Mehlman's, and the White House's assertion that YOU want to kill the troops and didn't give a damn about September 11. And remember folks, this is New York City, if they want to play that "liberal" card, let them. 80% of the city would call itself "liberal." So Bush thinks 80% of New Yorkers didn't give a damn about September 11. You're traitors, you dishonor the dead. When your friends died that day, you wanted to give Osama a hug.
Call Mayor Bloomberg and demand he publicly repudiate the White House's slander against New Yorkers and all those who survived September 11. Bloomberg's wishy-washy statement about how we wishes all sides would stop politicizing September 11 is cute, but "all sides" weren't politicizing it. Only one party has. That would be the party he invited to hold its patriotic orgasm of a convention there last fall, the one that politicized September 11.
It's time for Bloomberg to tell New Yorkers, is he with them or against them? Does he stand by the White House's words that 80% of New Yorkers are motivated by a desire to kill our troops, and that 80% of NYers didn't give a damn about September 11? Answer the damn question, or don't be mayor.
Then make some phone calls to Bloomberg's press people:
Edward Skyler, Robert Lawson, Jennifer Falk (212) 788-2958/
3. CALL GOP NY GOVERNOR PATAKI Pataki refused to even give a wishy-washy answer yesterday about the White House's slander of NYers and all Americans. He stood by Rove 100%. Give him a call too, and demand that he publicly repudiate this disgusting use of the 9/11 dead to help George Bush's polls.
Main governor's office phone: 518-474-8390, 212-681-4580 Email the governor here Lynn Rasic (Governor) (212) 681-4640
Luxury French boutique Hermes has apologised to talk show host Oprah Winfrey after refusing her entry to one of their outlets in Paris.
A friend of Winfrey, who witnessed the incident, said it was "one of the most humiliating moments of her life". ...........................
'Misunderstanding'
"People were in the store and they were shopping. Oprah was at the door and she was not allowed into the store," Winfrey's friend Gayle King told US show Entertainment Tonight.
A statement released by Hermes said: "Hermes regrets not having been able to welcome Oprah Winfrey and the people accompanying her to give them all the attention and service that Hermes is committed to giving each of its clients in the world.
"Hermes expresses its sincere regrets for any misunderstanding that these circumstances could have caused," it added.
Winfrey's friend Ms King said the TV presenter has no intention of shopping at Hermes again. "Her position is 'I will shop where people appreciate my business, and I don't believe that any longer includes Hermes'," she added.
Winfrey's show attracts about 30 million viewers each week, and is believed to have generated $225m (�123.6m) in revenues during the past year
Jen
I'm surprised by this, because the Hermes store in NYC is full of black salespeople.
Jen,
I'm not. Because this has happened to Oprah in New York. The official reason the French gave was that they had been having problems with "North Africans", the Parisian verison of "the Mexicans have been stealing from us."
The problem, because Hermes Parisian staff got snooty, is that the company is about to lose a lot of money. Pissing off Oprah is probably the worst business move you can make as a marketer.
Oprah's powers of recommendation is such that she can get free cars. I would think that Hermes could not afford to alienate such a powerful person who has such influence. They have not yet begun to grovel. Trust me.
Oprah's audience and the Hermes sales base has enough of an overlap that this will hurt them. Even black female professionals who could care less about Oprah will direct their dollars elsewhere. Because if she's snubbed, what will happen to them?
Foreign ministers from the G8 grouping of the world's richest and most powerful countries have called on other African leaders to denounce the forced evictions which are causing so much suffering in Zimbabwe.
Yet many of those other African governments have overseen similar brutal evictions in their own countries, and yet have suffered very little outside criticism.
The sad truth is that what is going on in Zimbabwe at the moment is not at all unusual.
From one end of Africa to the other, governments have set about slum clearance schemes without any consideration for the people who live there, or any sense of responsibility for what happens to them afterwards.
Unsanitary
Nigeria, the current chair of the African Union, was the scene of a huge mass eviction in 1990, when around 300,000 people were bulldozed out of the Maroko neighbourhood in Lagos in a single week to make way for corporate office buildings and executive villas.
Soldiers cleared the Washington area of Abidjan in Ivory Coast at gunpoint in 2002, turning people out of their homes, sometimes with less than an hour's notice.
Hundreds of families in Bonaberi area of Douala in Cameroon, lost their homes in similar purges.
In every case it was absolutely true that the areas were unsanitary, and the houses built without permission, yet there was never any sense that these exercises were being carried out to give residents a better place to live
When Zimbabwe erupts into a massive civil war, they will all be to blame.
A woman needs a repairman I still want my husband to change the light bulbs and fix the leaky faucets. Maybe I'm not as much of a feminist as I think I am.
Even given all this, I haven't changed a light bulb in 13 years, since the day I met my husband.
Before I was married, I didn't consider my failure to manage even basic hand tools a feminist inadequacy. I thought it had more to do with being Jewish. The Jews I knew growing up didn't do "do-it-yourself." When my father needed to hammer something he generally used his shoe, and the only real tool he owned was a pair of needle-nose pliers. My non-Jewish friends had fathers who changed faucet washers (they knew what faucet washers were) and replaned sticky doors. My father hacked with a pair of needle-nose pliers at anything my mother was not willing to call a repairman to fix.
Now when something breaks in the house, I respond with the panic of my forebears. Every popped light bulb is a catastrophe, every leaky faucet spells if not the end of the world then surely the beginning of months of crack-assed plumbers hunched over my sinks and toilets, flushing my hard-earned dollars down their mysterious drains. It always takes me a minute to remember that my husband is not like my father. He's got a set of needle-nose pliers, even two, but he's also got slip-joint pliers and groove-joint pliers and pliers I don't even know the names of. When the faucet leaks, he not only knows what a washer is, he can replace it. Moreover, he enjoys the job. He hangs pictures, he unclogs toilets, he knows what to do when the computer flashes that scary little bomb icon.
Ok, it's not a Jewish thing. Because Jen is as handy with tools as I am. In fact, she took shop in high school and got tools as her Christmas bonus.
If Waldman didn't have a husband, she'd learn to fix a faucet, quickly.
But she can play incompetent because it plays into her ideal of her manly, manly daddy-husband.
Isn't it better to be with someone who is more self sufficient? I mean, a light bulb?
Not in terms of the number of people killed or the battles, but the fact that people are beginning to realize what depths the US has sunk to. The White House can back Rove's play as much as they want, but in the end, it was stupid and vulgar, but more importantly, reflects the growing sense that people are turning against the war.
When people say a draft army would have prevented this, they missed Vietnam. What a draft would have done is turn a moral choice into a legal choice. Now people resist the military in the most effective way possible, saying no.
Instead, Americans are refusing to fight Bush's war and they know it. They have to bribe enlistees.
What DOD doesn't get is that their sales pitches are being held in the kind of centempt once reserved for used car salesmen.
They no longer trust them to care for their kids.
What I am not worried about is the spate of GOP attacks on liberals saying they're against the war.
My reply is simple: are you planning to enlist or encourage others to do so? No? Then you're sending other people out to die for what you believe in and not joining them. Anmd that is cowardice.
What I am worried about is this: A US base commander was asked about the loss of two Kiowas outside his base. His officers thought they may have been shot down from a nearby grove. But he said he couldn't be sure, because they don't go out there that often.
At first I read it and said, ok. Then I realized what he was really saying. He doesn't have enough men to do basic perimeter security. Those Halliburton contractors can't be formed into a security platoon and sent out there. They cannot protect their own perimeter. The guerrillas can walk up to the gates and kill Americans and cannot be stopped. That is truly scary. Perimeter security is both inside and outside the base. They don't have the men to do half the job.
Karl Rove's nonsense will be washed away by outrage and events. Those commanders will get no more troops.
That is what worries me, and when that sinks in, our adventure in Iraq will come to a close.
.......... On another note, my 17-yr-old niece, who was mesmerized by the Young Marines through 4 years of high school, is graduating today, and already signed up for a 5-year stint in the USMC, no doubt to Iraq. And no doubt thinking her Marine career will be just as "fun" and "cool" as the Young version. She was supposed to report mid July, but about 2 weeks ago, her dear recruiters (she supposedly fell in love with them she has said) contacted her and offered her $50,000! for college expenses if she would report 2 weeks earlier, which means like this weekend. The lure evidently worked its charm on her because despite everyone in the family encouraging her to think more about it, she's been more giddily exuberant about going ever since the money was waved in front of her. One brother says yesterday now though that she's getting scared, two days before reporting. Who woulda thought...?
Besides the tragedy of luring young people into the belly of the beast with promises of money and fame, aren't there other options available for young people in the States today? My wife and I have lived in Japan for about 10 years now so have become somewhat disattached from the realities on the ground in the US, but certainly it seems other possibilities would be out there for her, no? And the irony of it all is that for *years* this niece has repeated how she never wanted to go to college. And now suddenly she's found the desire? Someone's throwing sand in someone's eyes here, that's for sure. I wonder how long the Marines and other military service's desperation will go on before reality really hits them all. Or is it just bozos like Rumsfeld and Rove and Cheney (and Bush, but that's a given) who don't get it?
Me? I'm now just hoping beyond hope she gets stationed in Okinawa or somewhere relatively more quiet, but then Kim Jong Il isn't really a joker to be jacked around for too long without some repercussions. As you can imagine, he and his possible aims for the region are the story du jour nearly every day here.
Cheers ..............
Strange, though... part of me wants her to fail at basic training, go home and be forced to rethink what she can do with the life ahead of her. But at the same time, I also hope she passes and turns out to be the best damned Marine she can. But then I'm not quite sure what that really means, since the closest I've gotten to the military myself is getting selected for the AF Academy back in '77 only to fail my physical 6 times because of bad ears... oh, and a few encounters with MPs (I think) in Mercury, NV while protesting against nuclear testing & policies in the Nevada desert. Or maybe that was at Port Chicago near Concord, CA...? I forget. Anyway, I don't really have any personal knowledge of military life, nor do I know anyone who's in the military, perhaps a detriment in today's increasingly militarized US society. Kind of like cell phones. I don't have one nor want one, but as everyone else around me gets one and as society changes to nearly require one, I'm starting to wonder whether not having one is holding me back from something. Ahhh.. that illusive "something"!
Mind you, I generally respect the military (especially the National Guard) as a viable option for people, young ones included, but I have a much harder time when the military's become so politicized, a mere tool of the corporate class (but then, it's mostly always been, right?). And to see my niece now sucked into it, I'm sure expecting it to be like the Young Marines she's adored for years, gets me angry, actually. The $50K thrown in her face didn't help my feelings about the recruiters' desperate MO, either. And reading through comments from school friends of hers on her MySpace website (which seems to be a standard web presence for many young folks in the US these days) leads me to believe that many young people feel just as gung-ho for Bush, for the Iraqi adventure/morass, and as liberal-hating as my niece seems to be. Yeah, she's got some choice words on her site for folks who don't like Bush, in fact naming me by name in the title ("Uncle....., Stay Out of My Business!!!!") because of letters of concern I had sent her, but whether that myopia is connected to her desire to escape her sordid home life (for most of her years a single-mom upbringing) and jump into the Marines is unknown. I can only guess it is, of course
>They're always eager until they face the reality of war. Then they wish they were anywhere else. This isn't a movie or a game and when they shoot at you, when you get hit, you're wounded. You can't start over.
HARRISBURG - The General Assembly's Black Caucus issued a clear message to House Speaker John Perzel yesterday: African American history must be preserved as a mandate in the curriculum of Philadelphia schools.
In a highly unusual move, 12 of the 15 House members of the caucus descended on the Capitol newsroom, while the House was in session, to protest a letter sent this week by Perzel to James Nevels, chairman of Philadelphia's School Reform Commission.
In the letter, the Northeast Philadelphia Republican called the new African American history requirement "unnecessary" and asked the commission to reconsider its mandate. Perzel wrote that he was concerned the mandate would "divide, rather than unite, the district's student body."
In an interview, Perzel went on to say, "Most of these kids will never go to Africa. They have no affinity toward Africa."
"We want to make it clear that we are very much in support of the teaching of African American history in the Philadelphia School District and throughout Pennsylvania," said Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland, (D., Delaware), chairman of the Black Caucus.
To illustrate his point, Kirkland held a copy of the front page of yesterday's Inquirer, which featured stories about Perzel's letter and also about the manslaughter conviction of a man in the 1964 killings of three civil-rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss.
"This shows how important it is that African American studies are taught in our schools," said Kirkland. "So that things that happened 41 years ago won't repeat themselves today."
.....................
Jerome Avery, chairman of the African and African Descent Curriculum and Instruction Reform Committee, said he was especially angered that Perzel questioned African American students' interest in the course.
He said his group and others had presented Glenn and Vallas with petitions signed by more than 20,000 city residents calling for such a course.
Perzel's letter is "a reflection of the racism in this city," said Avery, 55, of West Philadelphia. "Perzel said that African American children have no affinity to Africa.
"Nobody would say, or would have the courage to say, that the Irish have no affinity with Ireland or that Jewish students have no affinity with Israel. How can he come out and disrespect the entire African American community?" Avery said. "It is almost sad."
...............
What a stupid thing to say.
Is a year long course on Africa necessary? If it works, sure, if not, no, but to denigrate it is asking for a very nasty fight.
It seems that any time black people have an opinion, some white Republican will call it divisive. What? Are they afraid that they'll be taught that the Irish only became white after 1900?
Cindy Sheehan lives with pain. She is the president of Gold Star Families for Peace and a grieving mother who lost her son, Casey Sheehan, on April 4, 2004 in Iraq. Sheehan has made it her mission to go after the Bush administration for her son's death and on behalf of every soldier killed or maimed in the Iraq quagmire.
On Wednesday night, she appeared on MSNBC's Hardball and heard the mother of a wounded soldier (now home from Iraq) make this statement:
I think now is the time to be united with our president, with our country, with our troops, to support them. Whether we believe in what is right and what is wrong, we need to support our men and women that are over there fighting, whether you believe in what they're fighting for is just or unjust. As an American, I'm going to support my president, the country, the troops in whatever means they need.
In a composed and dignified way, Cindy Sheehan gave this incredible response:
This war, nobody should have been there in the first place. Not one person should be killed. And I don't believe that we support our government when they're wrong. It is wrong. There's innocent people dying. There's innocent Iraqis dying. And Americans should never have been over there. We don't support our country when it is wrong.
We try to fight and make it a better place. And we need to keep pressure on the administration. They don't support the troops. You know, my son was killed doing a job he was not trained for. He was not wearing the proper body armor. He was not in an armored vehicle. And he was killed in a political mess, a political mess that our leadership made. That's not supporting the troops, as far as I'm concerned.
They have to pay for their own laundry when they're over there. They're getting killed guarding mercenaries who make $1,000 a day, when they barely bring home $2,000 a month. They're losing their homes here in America. They're not being supported by their government. I think the only way we can support our troops who are only there doing their jobs and doing the best they can to stay alive and doing their duties is to bring them home, because it is a lie.
And we're building permanent bases there. And our government doesn't intend on bringing our troops home. So, we have to put pressure on them. And we have to tell the American people that this war is wrong.
What an amazing person. We need to send some of our Congressional Democrats to Ms. Sheehan for a lesson in heart and courage
A low-key City Council debate over vendors and their immigration status became spirited after a controversial Brooklyn Democrat yesterday accused a Staten Island Republican of making racist remarks.
After the City Council approved a handful of legislation, Councilman James Oddo of Staten Island denounced a bill that would prohibit the city from asking the immigration status of those seeking vendor's licenses.
Oddo said that the proposal -- whose chief sponsor is Councilman Charles Barron, a self-described black radical -- would turn a blind eye to illegal immigration.
"The difference between my forefathers apparently and some others is that my forefathers came here legally," Oddo said. "These folks came here illegally and we're setting a structure in place not to question it, and if we find out about it, not to do anything."
Moments after the meeting, Barron called said Oddo's comments "racist."
"He thinks every immigrant is illegal," said Barron. "We're talking about legal immigrants who are green card holders."
Barron said he wasn't encouraging undocumented immigrants to obtain vendor's licenses, adding that asking about someone's status was discriminatory.
"They have contributed to the intellectual, the cultural and the economic capital of the city," said Barron. "Most people here are immigrants and for him to say something like that is outrageous."
Oddo shot back that the city should be more cautious about illegal immigrants. "Need I remind folks as to who did what to us on 9/11?"
.................
Oddo is both an idiot and a racist, and he's wrong. Most vendors are legal residents and Oddo can go fuck himself with that Ellis Island nonsense.
Staten Island is one of the most racist places in the city, if not the country and shitting on minorities is a speciality of the pols there.
And for his information, the 9/11 hijackers got in legally
In response, Pataki said Clinton hadn't voiced similar outrage over recent controversial comments from Democrats, including national chairman Howard Dean's disparaging remarks about Republicans and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin's invocation of Nazis and Soviet gulags in a speech about the U.S. military installation at Guantanamo Bay.
"I think it's a little hypocritical of Senator Clinton to call on me to repudiate a political figure's comments when she never asked Senator Durbin to repudiate his comments," Pataki said.
"Senator Clinton might think about her propensity to allow outrageous statements from the other side that are far beyond political dialogue -- insulting every Republican, comparing our soldiers to Nazis or Soviet gulag guards -- and never protesting when she serves with them," Pataki said.
Michael Long, chairman of the state Conservative Party, called Rove's speech "excellent" and said the Democrats' criticism only proved Rove correct. ................
Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged both sides to cool their rhetoric, saying, "We owe it to those we lost to keep partisan politics out of the discussion and keep alive the united spirit that came out of 9/11." New York state Democratic chairman Herman Farrell said the Republican mayor's "utter failure to repudiate Karl Rove's ugly and divisive comments demonstrates yet again that he is willing to put his loyalty to the White House ahead of his commitment to New York.
I hope 9/11 families and the survivors remember this, as well as those with family members serving in combat.
Remember how that turd Pataki sat there and laughed while Karl Rove stood there and insulted New York. Notice how Mike Bloomberg won't say dick either. While your sons are fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq, that little bastard impuned their patriotism and service to their country. Immigrants, first responders, men who walked away from careers, without consideration of politics, but were among the few who answer the call of their country. Karl Rove just slandered them as Mike Long and George Pataki laughed.
Rove who has never served anyone but his wallet, thinks its funny to mock American fighting men. We need to remind Mr. Rove and his bosses that an entire division of New Yorkers, democrats and republicans, independents and right to life, are serving in Iraq. I don't think the 9 men who died within a week in the 69th Regiment were thinking about politics. They were New York Guardsmen and they were serving their country.
Ask Pataki when his kids are planning to join the Guard in Iraq, he thinks it's so funny, or is avoiding service in time of war a family tradition.
Because Rove's comments are not about mere offense. He has insulted those who died on 9/11, those who worked at Ground Zero and those serving in combat And we need to ask him and those who refuse to repudiate what he said, why they think the couirage and bravery of New Yorkers is defined by party enrollment.
I think Mr. Rove will find the reaction to his comments to be far harsher than he expects.
By ELIZABETH OWENS REGISTER STAFF WRITER June 23, 2005
Distraught over his older brother's death in Iraq and his own deployment this fall to the war zone, Justin "Paul" Byers purposely stepped in front of a pickup truck Monday night, ending his own life, officials said.
About an hour before Sgt. Casey Byers' funeral began Wednesday morning, Crawford County's medical examiner said he had ruled Justin Byers' death a suicide.
Casey Byers, 22, who died June 11, will become the first Iowan killed in Iraq to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, D.C.
During Wednesday's funeral for Casey Byers in Denison, an Iowa Army National Guard official read a statement 19-year-old Justin had written about his brother.
"I will not lie to you - I was always fighting with my brother and we never got along. My mom said we fought so much because we were very much alike," wrote Justin, who could have avoided going into combat because of his brother's death.
Justin, whose family lives in Schleswig, wrote that he would not cry for Casey because he knew his older brother was proud of what he died for. But Justin Byers, who was the family's spokesman following his brother's death, expressed regret that he never got to say goodbye to Casey or apologize for all the fighting.
"Yes, Casey, I'm exactly like you," Justin wrote.
This family lost two sons in about 10 days.
Both should have had their lives ahead of them.
Now they are only memories.
So, does anyone want to explain how this family can make this sacrifice, while they, who support the war in Washington, do not. How this is resereved for the unlucky, ambitious and poor? And don't think a draft would make any difference, it wouildn't. The rich and powerful have usually shirked service. If we cannot win this war, why are we still fighting it? How many more men and women will die for this horrible mistake, their patriotism and service misused by lazy, indifferent, cowardly men.
I am 38 and in the most perfect relationship ever. We plan to be married in December. I love my boyfriend so much I get chills when he comes home from work. Here's the problem: He dresses like a flood victim. He wears his lack of concern for his appearance like a badge of honor and seems to think that paying the remotest attention to fashion would be evidence of vanity, a character flaw.
He is a brilliant lawyer, and to be with me, he relocated to a large, fashion-conscious city. I don't think he understands that co-workers can and will say, "Oh, you mean that clown who wears wool suits in July." He wears white gym socks with black dress shoes. He has a closet full of great ties from his mom, and yet still wears to work the ones that are visibly falling apart. He boasts about how he has "owned this suit since the '80s." (And it shows.)
I cringe when we go out to dinner at a nice restaurant because he looks so ridiculous at times (dark jeans, brown belt, frayed Izod shirt, white gym socks, black dress shoes). But I don't want to make him defensive, or he will just dig in his heels and make it worse. I hate to listen to myself nag, but perhaps a war of attrition, where he just gets tired and gives in to me, is indeed the solution. I honestly believe I would be doing him a favor if I didn't give up yet. But how should I approach this? Should I just poke my eyes out?
Preferring a Rain Barrel in NYC
Cary makes an excellent point here:
But just the opposite is true in a city like New York. It is not the ambitious but the slothful who seem out of place. If you're not a hustler, if you don't want to shine, what are you doing here? If you're not going someplace in a hurry, you're just in the way.
So I would ask your fianc�, What litigant in his right mind would appear before the judge in clothes that say he does not care whether he wins or loses the case? He is appearing before the world's greatest and quickest judges, the citizens of New York, allowing his case to be sized up and instantly dismissed before he even has a chance to say a word. He's probably bright enough to see the argument. So put it to him: He's prejudicing the judge and jury against his case. It's irresponsible. It's unlawyerly.
Oh jesus, did he pick the wrong city to live in.
He would have to be Paul Krugman brilliant to let that slide, and it's unlikely that he is.
New Yorkers are brutal about clothes, and not just the Sex and the City Crowd. Kids will ridicule you if you show up badly turned out. White socks and black shoes? Come on, that's just sloppy and lazy.
A lot of men dislike shopping for clothes, or ascribe proper dressing to, oh metrosexuality, when in reality, being well turned out is an asset professionally and personally. I'm a slob, but I'm also a writer, I don't represent clients in court or in business meetings. If I did, I would dress the part. It's one thing to buy face creams and hair gel, that's vanity. But a fitting suit and clean tie? Come on, that's common sense.
When Jen started her new job, she bought a whole bunch of lawyer clothes, because she wanted to look the part of a professional. I have khakis and shoes and shirts which can turn me from slob to fairly neat in a few minutes. I don't think we've ever gone anyplace where I've embarassed her with my clothes, and I've tried not to, since others have. It's not vain to look appropriately neat.
If he doesn't listen, there's always What Not to Wear.:)
By Peggy Peck, Senior Editor, MedPage Today June 20, 2005
CHICAGO, June 20-The American Medical Association's policy-making body voted today to press for state laws that would allow physicians to dispense medications when there is no nearby pharmacist willing to dispense the prescribed drugs.
The new AMA policy is an attempt to overcome what doctors say is a stampede of pharamacists who say they cannot in good conscience dispense certain medications. The issue of conscientious refusal was first raised when some pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for the emergency contraception pill, called Plan B. Additionally some pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for birth control pills.
But AMA delegates say the conscience-based refusals have now spread to psychotropic drugs and pain medications. The new AMA policy states that doctors should be allowed to dispense medications when there is no "willing pharmacist available within a 30 mile radius." That change would require change in state laws regulating both doctors and pharmacists.
The AMA House of Delegates' action went beyond initiatives that had been discussed at reference committee hearings.
The doctors say that many pharmacists compound their refusal to fill prescriptions by not returning the unfilled prescriptions to patients, thereby stymieing efforts to turn to other pharmacists.
"It's not just contraceptives," said Mary Frank, M.D., a family physician from Mill Valley, Calif., during a discussion of the issue. "It's pain medications and psychotropics. And not only are the patients not getting prescriptions filled, but pharmacists are refusing to return the prescriptions and they are lecturing the patients about the drugs."
I'm sorry, but you should try prayer instead of Xanax.
I got this missive from the Freeway Blogger and wanted to share
Hello all... the first pic shows what happens when you keep taking down my signs and then replace them with a lame,inkjetted "support our troops" sign.
The 2nd pic shows the cops that saw me putting up the sign, and yes, did want to speak to me. They asked me what it said and when I told them one replied, "Probably be a lot more too." and that was it. No hassles, no lectures, no ID check. They didn't even ask me to take it down. In fact, the sign stayed up for three days. Man I love San Francisco.
I have close to 2,000 signposters and wannabes in my database now. Big Action planned soon.
Karl Rove came to the heart of Manhattan last night to rhapsodize about the decline of liberalism in politics, saying Democrats responded weakly to Sept. 11 and had placed American troops in greater danger by criticizing their actions.
"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.
Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."
Told of Mr. Rove's remarks, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, replied: "In New York, where everyone unified after 9/11, the last thing we need is somebody who seeks to divide us for political purposes."
So, Karl, where's Osama?
And I would think US soldiers have to worry about people shooting at them and blowing up RDX bombs from material we forgot to secure. Not Dick Durbin. Oh, and Sen. Durbin, your apology means jack shit. They will hammer you anyway.
It seems conservatives send other people to die in a war they didn't really understand how to fight, much less win. Funny, I remember liberals supporting them at the time. But then, when Bush ran like the coward he is, you have to say something.
"We fire 10 bullets and it falls apart," he said. Zwayid patted a heavy machine gun mounted in the bed of the Humvee. "This jams," he said. "Are these the weapons worthy of a soldier?" He and others said it was a sign of the Americans' lack of confidence in them.
"We trust the Americans. We go everywhere with them, we do what they ask," he said. "But they don't trust us."
The Marines and the Army have struggled to supply adequate armor protection on humvees and trucks used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Marines were quicker than the Army in getting some level of armor protection - if only bolted-on plates - onto all of its vehicles last year.
But both services have said they will need until later this year to apply better-grade armor - principally in the form of factory-made kits - onto all vehicles.
Scott Allen, a Marine Corps official, said that of the 3,000 humvees the Marines are using in Iraq, about one-third are equipped with the highest level of protection. The goal is to have all humvees at that level by December, he said.
Members of Congress and family members of service personnel have criticized the pace of the up-armoring program. Military leaders have said that had they started early on to armor all vehicles, they could have completed the job well before now.
http://www.themilitant.com/2005/6923/692301.html BY MARK HAMM MIAMI-Point Blank Body Armor has become the focus of a controversy. The company sold the U.S. Marine Corps 19,000 bulletproof vests that failed the military's own quality tests, heightening safety concerns among GIs deployed in combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In face of damaging media coverage, on May 4 the Marines recalled about half of the 10,000 faulty vests that were given to U.S. troops.
The company has reaped hefty profits from Washington?s wars and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. DHB Industries, Point Blank?s parent company, has expanded dramatically to meet the military?s demands for one million vests. It opened two new, nonunion factories in Florida last year in addition to its now unionized plant in Oakland Park, just north of Ft. Lauderdale, near Miami, and saw its revenue jump from $130 million in 2003 to $230 million last year.
A number of workers at Point Blank were not surprised to hear about the Marines' recall of vests. In a number of interviews, workers at the Oakland Park plant said the recently reported quality defects are the result of top management decisions and policies aimed at maximizing profits.
PARIS - Money from the sale of stolen artifacts in Iraq is being used to fund terrorists there, the director of Iraq's National Museum said Thursday.
Donny George told cultural experts at a UNESCO meeting that 15,000 objects had been stolen from the museum and only 4,000 had been returned.
"Rich people are buying stolen material ... Money is going to Iraq and they're buying weapons to use against Iraqi police and U.S. forces," George said during a meeting to assess the state of Iraq's cultural heritage.
On the outskirts of Baghdad, workmen have been toiling frantically to repair a huge broken water main.
It was blown up by insurgents at the weekend. They knew exactly where to place the charge for maximum damage. It has taken out the water supply for more than half of Baghdad.
"We've been affected badly," complained one man in the area. "We don't have any water to drink. What are we supposed to do? Sometimes they cut the power as well. It's all the fault of the Americans."
It is typical of the frustration faced by the Americans and their allies, as they struggle to improve the quality of life in Iraq.
WASHINGTON, June 21 - A new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda's early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.
The assessment, completed last month and circulated among government agencies, was described in recent days by several Congressional and intelligence officials. The officials said it made clear that the war was likely to produce a dangerous legacy by dispersing to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept and better organized than they were before the conflict.
Congressional and intelligence officials who described the assessment called it a thorough examination that included extensive discussion of the areas that might be particularly prone to infiltration by combatants from Iraq, either Iraqis or foreigners.
They said the assessment had argued that Iraq, since the American invasion of 2003, had in many ways assumed the role played by Afghanistan during the rise of Al Qaeda during the 1980's and 1990's, as a magnet and a proving ground for Islamic extremists from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries.
No district of Baghdad, with Iraq's highest concentration of troops, is remotely safe. And a rare drive outside the capital last week showed how anarchic the hinterland has become. To move concrete blocks for a new checkpoint near a base at Taji, 15 miles from Baghdad, American troops blocked the main highway north for two hours with tanks, troop carriers and Apache helicopters circling overhead. In an 80-mile round trip, it was the only sighting of Americans, though the blight of war was everywhere. For mile after mile, the highway was strewn with rusting hulks of blown-up cars and trucks, with huge bomb craters beside the road.
Another journey last month pointed at the same challenge, not enough troops to establish control. Officers of the 42nd Infantry Division at Baquba, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, presented a picture of restored calm. A few days later, insurgents hiding in a sprawling palm grove just south of the town shot down a Kiowa helicopter in a nighttime attack, killing both crewmen, and pitted another Kiowa with ground fire when it hovered over the burning wreckage, causing it to make an emergency landing. American officers said later that with most of their troops hunkered in their bases, they had been unaware that rebels had infiltrated the grove.
In some cases, American commanders say, the problem can be too many American troops, not too few. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American officer in Iraq, has said that American forces, while stabilizing in some areas, can be destabilizing in others, by encouraging Iraqis to depend too heavily on outsiders.
It is a lesson learned in Iraqi Kurdistan, where American officers concluded that helping to resolve political disputes tended to keep the Kurds from working out their differences themselves. It is a conviction, too, among some American officers in the field, who complain that newly trained Iraqi troops often malinger on operations, confident that Americans will step in where they fail.
But whether there are too many American soldiers or too few, a feeling is growing among senior officers in Baghdad and Washington that it is only a matter of time before the Pentagon sets a timetable of its own for withdrawal. These officers point to the effect on American public opinion of the slow disintegration of the 30-nation military coalition that America leads, and to frustration on Capitol Hill with the faltering buildup of Iraqi forces. These officers also cite the recruiting slump and fear the risk is growing that the war, like Vietnam, will do lasting damage to the Army and the Marines.
Update: The folks at First Draft have a contest going: Via Atrios: Enough.
"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."
Enough with this. I want you all to do something.
If you are represented by a Republican in either house of Congress, I want you to send him or her an e-mail along the lines of the following:
Dear Rep./Sen. [Name],
According to the New York Times, presidential advisor Karl Rove recently said that liberals in this country want our troops to die.
As a liberal, I find this deeply offensive. I don't feel this is the sort of rhetoric our country needs during wartime, and I resent the idea that I want any of our troops to come to harm. In making such statements Mr. Rove is not only impugning my politics, he is degrading my basic humanity.
As a constituent of yours, I would like to know, [sir/madam], if you agree with Mr. Rove's statements. Does he speak for you?
Sincerely,
[your name]
The first person to get a response back that either distances the congressman/woman from Rove's statements will get their good work recognized here when we post the entire e-mail on the blog.
You'll also get a free First Draft T-shirt of your choice from the swag store to your left. That's slightly less sucky. E-mail your responses to first_draft_blog at yahoo dot com.
Remember, it has to be a Republican. Democrats denouncing this shit is good, but not enough to get it all over the Sunday shows. We just need to find one good-hearted, non-pudding-headed Republican Congressman or Congresswoman who's willing to say Karl, you went a little too far.
I'm sure they're out there. We just have to find them.
By Jonathan Krim Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page A01
The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.
The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.
The data will be managed by BeNow Inc. of Wakefield, Mass., one of many marketing firms that use computers to analyze large amounts of data to target potential customers based on their personal profiles and habits.
"The purpose of the system . . . is to provide a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service," according to the official notice of the program.
Privacy advocates said the plan appeared to be an effort to circumvent laws that restrict the government's right to collect or hold citizen information by turning to private firms to do the work.
Some information on high school students already is given to military recruiters in a separate program under provisions of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. Recruiters have been using the information to contact students at home, angering some parents and school districts around the country.
School systems that fail to provide that information risk losing federal funds, although individual parents or students can withhold information that would be transferred to the military by their districts. John Moriarty, president of the PTA at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, said the issue has "generated a great deal of angst" among many parents participating in an e-mail discussion group.
Under the new system, additional data will be collected from commercial data brokers, state drivers' license records and other sources, including information already held by the military.
This is going to cause a shitstorm. The war is unpopular, Congress knows this. To many people, this is the prelude to the draft. Recruiters are being threatened as is. When people realize that they're targeting their kids like this, the reaction will be unreal. This will go down very poorly, far more poorly than DOD can imagine.
Of the twenty-four liberal blogs in the top quintile, Dailykos, TPM Caf�, Smirking Chimp, Metafilter, BooMan Tribune, MyDD, and Dembloggers are full-fledged community sites where members cannot only comment, but they can also post diaries / articles / polls. By comparison, there are no community sites among the top twenty-four conservative blogs. None, zip, zero, nada. This is particularly stunning when one considers the importance of the Free Republic community to the conservative netroots. While it would appear that there are hordes of Glenn Reynolds wannabe's among conservatives in the netroots, Redstate.org sticks out as the only success story for a community oriented blog within the conservative blogosphere. In fact, of the five most trafficked conservative blogs (over 200,000 page views per week), only one, Little Green Footballs, even allows comments, much less the ability to actually write a diary or a new article.
The nine liberal community sites I listed in the paragraph above have accounted for the bulk of the exceptional growth of the liberal blogosphere over the past two years. In the summer of 2003, Dailykos was roughly equal in traffic to Atrios, and had less than half the traffic of Instapundit. However, starting with a large growth spurt following the introduction of Scoop in October of 2003, now Dailykos has grown to three times the size of Instapundit and four times the size of Atrios. Over the past year, Scoop sites Dembloggers, MyDD, and BooMan Tribune have risen from miniscule traffic numbers to top forty, even top twenty, blogs. Over the past two weeks, the traffic at Talking Points Memo and TPM Caf� has risen to a combined 1.3 million, making it easily the second most trafficked political blog (comfortably passing Instapundit). In fact, the introduction of the community oriented TPM Caf� has more than doubled the traffic at TPM of late. Overall, while both the right-wing and left-wing blogosphere have seen growth in traffic, the truly exceptional growth of many community sites on the liberal end of the blogosphere has made the difference that catapulted the liberal blogosphere from half the size of the right-wing blogosphere in July 2003 to more than 60% its size in June 2005.
Anyone who spends a significant amount of time on Scoop blogs should not have any difficulty figuring out why this is the case. Because of Scoop's diary feature, it is possible to become at least a semi-famous blogger without having a blog of your own. An entire generation of popular liberal bloggers grew out of the Dailykos diaries and comments: Billmon, Steve Soto, Steve Gillard, Melanie, DemfromCT, DhinMI, Theoria, Tom Schaller, Meteor Blades, DavidNYC, myself, SusanHu, Jerome a Paris, lapin, Maryscott O'Conner, NYCO, Mariascat, and many, many more. I believe that the wave of new talent and fresh voices that the comments and dairy options bring to a blog has been the key factor in the liberal blogosphere outpacing the growth of the right wing blogosphere. Every day brings more reasons to read the highly trafficked liberal blogs. Every two weeks or so brings a new liberal blog from someone who has already become famous as a diarist. Community moderated blogging platforms such as Scoop have provided us with an excellent means of finding new voices, and these are the voices that are generating the accelerated growth in the liberal and progressive blogosphere when compared to the right-wing blogosphere.
By comparison, right-wing blogs have pretty much only one means of finding a new voice in the blogosphere: when someone starts a new blog. The inability to operate within a community must be the primary reason behind the large number of conservative blogs in the second, third and fourth quintiles of the Blogads traffic rankings. In fact, of these 120 blogs, 77 of them are openly conservative / libertarian. There are swarms of new conservative voices looking to breakout in the right-wing blogosphere, but they are not even allowed to comment, much less post a diary and gain a following, on the high traffic conservative blogs. Instead, without any fanfare, they are forced to start their own blogs. However, because of the top-down nature of right-wing blogs, new conservative blogs remain almost entirely dependent upon the untouchable high traffic blogs for visitors. In short, the anti-community nature of right-wing blogs has resulted in a stagnant aristocracy within the conservative blogosphere that prevents the emergence of new voices and, as a result, new reasons for people to visit conservative blogs.
Unless right-wing blogs decide to open up and allow their readers to have a greater voice, I expect that the liberal and progressive blogosphere will continue its unborken twenty-month rise in relative traffic. Conservative bloggers continue to act as though they are simply a supplement to the existing pundit class, without any need to converse with those operating outside of a small social bubble or any need to engage people within the new structure of the public sphere. In the formulation of Stirling Newberry, they view themselves existing on top of a pyramid rather than in the middle of a sphere. At least when it comes to the national blogosphere, liberals are leaving conservatives in the dust. By comparison, conservatives seem all too happy to continue to cogitate from atop their lofty and increasingly irrelevant perch. That's fine by me. I hope some things never change.
Then Wizbang responds:
The SiteMeter comparisons show traffic to the top liberal blogs is 20% higher than the top conservative blogs, but even Bowers admits there are considerably more conservative blogs in the mid-tiers. My guess is that if you were to extend my ecosystem traffic numbers on down into the 200 range (I'll send you the parsing spreadsheet if you want) the liberal and conservative traffic would be essentially equal. If you were able to extend the traffic calculation even further down the ecosystem the total traffic for conservative blogs would quickly surpass liberal blogs due to the higher number of conservative blogs. Using a power law curve I'd estimate that, were you able to do the traffic calculations into the 1000 range, conservative blogs would hold a 10%-20% traffic edge. All of which goes to show that back of the envelope traffic calculations are an "iffy" proposition, regardless of whose making them.
................
Those "untouchable" high traffic blogs do a damn site more linking to new voices than the liberal communities. Bowers forgets to mention that with traffic on the left converging on a few mega-sites (that by and large do not support smaller liberal blogs by linking to them) they are actually harming independent liberal voices. It's not just me (the right-wing blogger) saying that, look into recent controversies among smaller lefty bloggers trying to get a little linkage from the big liberal bloggers.
There's plenty of new new voices emerging on the right. How do I know this you may ask? Look back at listings of the top sites from 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years ago. The cast is ever changing, blogs rise and blogs fall, and if we've learned anything it's that the blogosphere won't miss you much if you leave - someone new will step up to fill the void.
There is a philosophical difference here about blog growth. On the right, it's all about getting noticed and linked to. Which accounts for the traffic jam of middling blogs in their middle. If you say something clever, the patron notices you and then pats you on the head for a day. What Wizbang doesn't get is that those links do not build audience. Sure, you could link to a bunch of small sites, slashdot them, and they go away, unable to hold that boost in traffic. We were happy when doing NetSlaves to keep 10 percent of a slashdotting. That would have been a lot. He's also wrong about smaller sites. Those that do get noticed are likely to build that audience and keep it. How many conservative sites have grown to prominance over the last year. Mainly Powerline.
What some of the smarter people do is link their blog to a Kos diary. That draws traffic based on content, not just a pat on the head.
But Bowers hits on something which I think is critical. Anyone on the right who wants to get noticed has to start their own blog. Why? Because of comments. Most right blogs lack them. Which, besides moral cowardice, inhibits growth. And even if they have a good idea, they don't have the chance to deal with reaction to their opinions. I think many of us think that instead of an increasing number of blogs, it helps to have comments and feedback as well.
Wizbang admits their site is limiting comments:
Why I've Been Closing Comments
In the past I've been a staunch defender of open comments. I don't even bother register at sites that require registration. As we Wizbangers have oft mentioned, we are one of the last high traffic blogs to allow open comments. And I guess being a high traffic blog in a growing blogosphere is a multiple edged sword. The down side is we are visited by abject morons.
After Dick Durbin called U.S. soldiers Nazis, I thought that nobody would possibly defend the comments right? When Kevin opened the comments, I told him someone would play the part of the dumbass... Enter 'Gordon:'
"One thing is for certain: There won't be any more mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms."
President Bush Jan 12 2004
It's ok to attack Saddam because of this, but when the Bush admin is doing it, you castigate somebody who brings it to light.
Gordon takes the word "dumbass" to a height never before explored. He equates air conditioning to mass graves. I don't care if he was just a troll. People that stupid should not be given a forum... Hell, he shouldn't be given car keys.
So if you've wondered why I've been closing comments, you now have the answer. Kevin may still see the value but I personally am over its.
The problem is that they can't defend their stands. So they hide. Now, if they were too lazy to defend torture, well....But the point is that conservative blogs have a one way conversation with the reader and they find that increasingly limiting. Which why there is a spurt in blog growth on the right. They all want to make comments, but can't. I think it is a major mistake to close comments. It not only reeks of cowardice, jams your mailbox and hurts your site, it also makes it harder to support people.
What do I mean? Comments are the best way to encourage people to parrticipate in the blogging experience. It also serves as a challenge to writers to respond to their readers and defend their ideas. When you close down comments, you close down ideas.
There is some whining about Kos and Scoop, claiming that his development of it is customized. And it is. And he paid for every bit of work on it. However that is just an excuse for not having a community-based site.
You have Redstate, which routinely bounces people, and the trogodytes of LGF and the see no evil crowd of Tacitus for comments. The rest may well be better off without them. Powerline's owners send back responses which would embarass angry drunks. Imagine if they had to deal with posts on a daily basis? The same with the rest of the crowd. Token negro LaShawn Barber routinely threatens posts she doesn't like with the FBI.
So why don't they want to talk to their readers? Because they can't deal with the challenge.
As to the pat on the head theory of reader growth, it doesn't work. Sure there may be a lot of right wing blogs, but how many can keep an audience?
What we have consistantly told smaller bloggers is that they have to work on their writing and build their audience. No one can give them an audience, but I love to make sure that when I read good writing, other people can do the same. If you participate in comments on the larger sites, or post Kos diaries, that is a much better way to get readers than being annointed. Because when your writing starts to draw attention, you can accomodate that.
I think when people worry more about being annointed by Instacracker than creating their own audience, they will not keep it.
Take Jesus's General. He thought up his Operation Yellow Elephant in cooperation with Crooks and Liars. They used their readers to get this off the ground. They didn't ask for help, they didn't beg to be noticed. They did it and got their readers to help. The people who do good work don't beg for attention, you're drawn to their work. Just giving links for mundane comments isn't going to go far. People won't stay.
My point is that I want to cooperate with people, but I have to have a reason to send my readers to your site. Not just because you're a liberal. Because honestly, that's not enough. If people linked to me just because I was a liberal, well, they linked for the wrong reasons. I would hope it is because this is interesting writing and conversations, not just affinity. A badly written liberal screed is still badly written.
I think the left side of the blogosphere is not only growing, but growing smartly. We're now asking people to set up their own blogs, and they're bringing readers with them to their sites from other, more widely read sites. Which I think will work better in the end.. Bowers sites a bunch of people who participated at Kos in some way, Atrios has his offspring and two of my regulars have their own blogs. Which is what we want to see. Not just blogs, but people who have gotten others interested in their writing and then starting up their own shops. That's positive growth. That doesn't mean that people without that connection won't get noticed, but unlike the right, they're not getting pats on the heads, but using our sites to test their ideas and then go out on their own.
I want people to blog, because it will make for more voices. And it will end this gnawing passivity, whining about what someone else won't say when you can say it. This isn't TV. You can participate.
A Jessamine County woman is looking for work after being forced to make a tough decision - take two days to spend time with her husband on leave from Iraq, or lose her job.
Shirley Blankenship thought 10 years of service at McClane Cumberland, a distribution company, was enough to get her a couple of days off to be with her husband David before he returned to Iraq.
"Ever since I worked for them they said we're for family," said Blankenship. "But they wasn't for my family."
Staff sergeant David Blankenship has spent eight years of service in the National Guard, the last six months as a member of the 213th transportation unit out of Paducah.
............. she was told she had used all her allotted vacation and sick time and had to work while David was in town. Blankenship also said she was on a warning for excessive absences - time she says was used over the last few years to care for her epileptic son, Austin.
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Blankenship was was fired Tuesday. She said that while she's upset, she knows in her heart she made the right decision.
"I called from the airport, so my husband knew I had lost my job," said Blankenship. "So he was really upset about it. But he said we can deal with this." ..............................
So, this is how you support the troops? I hope they like the flood of shit coming their way
What? You think you can do better than me? Yeah, right.
While I understand why liberals want to "save" Iraq, to promote democratic virtues and women's rights, we cannot do that.
First, Saddam always faced a civil war. He bribed, cajoled and killed to prevent it. He played one group against another, moved people around, ethnically cleansed and he still got a rebellion in 199. Are we going to kill 100,000 Shia or Sunni to prevent a civil war? Are we going to start murdering anyone who objects to our plans?
In short, are we willing to mantain order no matter what the cost?
That's the real question. How many Iraqis will we kill to maintain peace? Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of people and created a state of fear. 100,000 Iraqis have been killed on our watch and we have a state of anarchy.
This isn't about brown people or democracy, but social order. Saddam destroyed it and the poltical systems which brought stable government. And instead of working with Iraqis to rebuild it, we turned to exiles who had been out of Iraq for years. They understood little of Saddam's Iraq and imposed their own vendettas,. making things far worse than they needed to be.
So to claim we must blunder around for a few more years to get things right condemns more Americans to maiming or death, Iraqis to anarchy and will provide no solution.
At the end of the day, we must negotiate with the people who hold the real power, mullahs and imams, and leave Iraq.
Since the 2004 elections, many have been debating "why Kerry lost," and more broadly "why the Democrats have been losing ground." Much of the debate has focused on the never-ending seesaw of "swing voters vs. base voters," or cultural/religious/"What's the Matter with Kansas?" issues, even George Lakoff-type "reframing" of key concepts and themes.
But what has been completely missing from the conversation is the fact that even when the Democrats win more votes, they don't necessarily win more seats. That's true in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the Electoral College. That's because there is a structural disadvantage for Democrats resulting from regional partisan demographics in red versus blue America that now are strongly embedded into our fundamental electoral institutions. This unfair structural disadvantage makes it more difficult for Democrats to win than Republicans. It's like having a foot race in which one side begins 10 meters in front of the other, election after election.
Yet practically no one is talking about it. Even though this bias undercuts any attempts by liberals and Democrats to gain control over the government, and will continue to do so for years to come, no matter how many volunteers Democrats mobilize or how much money they raise, these sorts of structural barriers are being ignored.
Here are the numbers in the U.S. that reveal the mountain that the Democrats must climb. Let's look at what happens if Democrats and Republicans win exactly the same number of nationwide votes for elections to the U.S. House. The picture isn't pretty.
When the two sides are tied nationally, the Republicans end up winning about 50 more House districts than the Democrats. Like the Conservatives in Britain, who in the UK's recent elections won far fewer seats than Tony Blair's Labour Party even though Labour only had 36% of the vote and 3% more than the Conservatives, the Democrats are undercut by regional partisan demographics funneled through a winner-take-all electoral system.
It turns out that there is a fundamental anti-urban (and thus anti-Democratic) bias with single-seat districts. The urban vote is more concentrated, and so it's easier to pack Democratic voters into fewer districts. As Democratic redistricting strategist Sam Hirsch has noted, nice square districts are in effect a Republican gerrymander because they "combine a decade-old (but previously unnoticed) Republican bias" that along with a newly heightened degree of incumbent protection "has brought us one step closer to government under a United States House of Unrepresentatives."
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Overall, the Republicans must be satisfied with the political geography of the Electoral College map. Having a national election come down to states like Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Iowa and Nevada, instead of a national direct election where Democrats could mobilize more voters in solidly blue states like California, New York and Illinois, does not play to the Democrats' strong suit. Think of Hillary Clinton trying to win the presidency by rallying blue-collar, NRA-supporting, church-going workers in Ohio and Florida. There's something wrong with that picture.
What the author wants, but does not say, is direct elections for president and porpotional member seats for Congress. Well, that's like saying you want McDonalds to stop frying foods. What he really wants is to change the Constitution. Which is a real "no-win" debate. What Hill doesn't note is that John Kerry almost became president with winning less than 20 states. The fact is that the population only gives the GOP a slight edge amd it was one Bill Clinton overcame easily. When you read something like this, you wish people would read demographic studies and look at maps
But what I love is the arrogance of the last paragraph. There is an assumption that those voters are not only a GOP lock, but unworthy of Democratic attention and support. What happens when those voters are black or Latino. This is the kind of liberal elitism which has hobbled the party for years. What he is calling for is undemocratic and shortsighted. His logic is flawed as well. Most Americans go to church, for one thing. But what he's assuming, wrongly, is that these folks all lean GOP without noting race or region.
Florida's population has exploded in the last three decades, so how would a direct election change Florida's role? The same with Nevada. Not only is it union heavy, Las Vegas is maybe the most unionized city in America, it is also exploding in population. Yet Hill doesn't even factor that in. His system could eaily lock in Republicans as well. What the electoral college does is spread out the campaign. In a direct election, you would never leave the coasts.
And the idea that one should be elected president on direct vote, which happens nowhere in the world, so Dems could have the advantage is well, silly. With a population shift, you could lock in Republicans for decades.
He's at a think tank and doesn't realize every state he named was a swing state with potential to elect Democrats across the board.
This is the kind of sneering, negative thinking which sounds good at first then blows up on you.
The fact is that winning the House will not be easy, but is clearly possible. The swing districts are in places where Democrats can win. More importantly, the collapse of Ohio's GOP machine, indicates this isn't fixed in stone. The GOP had to work hard to win those districts and they will have to work hard to keep them.
There are a lot of Democrats who are as classist as the day is long. They no more want to deal with people outside their class than Republican country club members. Sure they have liberal principles, but they don't like the working class and people can smell it on them. Hill thinks he has some special insight, and he does, he doesn't much like blue collar NRA members and think it is beneath Hillary Clinton to appeal to them. Oddly enough, upstate New York is littered with them.
AT 8 a.m., Elly Hushour hoists a bright blue flag with a white goat over her Greenmarket stand.
Until last year, Ms. Hushour, 47, a farmer from Nazareth, Pa., sold cheese and yogurt made from the milk of her Saanen goats, the same breed that Heidi of the storybook tended for her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. Then she recognized a growing market for goats themselves, or rather, goat shanks, shoulders and so on.
At first she drew customers from the various immigrant neighborhoods around her stand at the Fort Greene market in Brooklyn, where she is open on Saturdays. Then the crowds at the Union Square Market, where she goes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, started buying too.
"I have been quite surprised and pleased at the response to goat meat from the general public," she said. "It has been a learning experience for me."
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In East Los Angeles, birrierias del chivo, which serve goat, have become as established as hamburger stands in other neighborhoods. A birria is technically a stew or slow roast made of goat, but here tortillas are stuffed with slowly roasted goat, chopped onion, cilantro and a hot red sauce from Jalisco in central Mexico.
"Birrierias have gone from being novelties to real institutions," said Jonathan Gold, a writer for Gourmet and L.A. Weekly. "In the 80's there were one or two of these birrierias. Now there are hundreds."
Scott Conant was the first New York chef to make goat a signature dish at a high-end restaurant when he served capretto - roast baby goat - at L'Impero three years ago. The capretto was a dish his Italian grandmother made when he was growing up in the Bronx.
"I would roast the whole kid the way she did," Mr. Conant said. "But it's tough to cook a whole goat in a New York kitchen." ...........................
At Maestro, in the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner, Va., which has many Muslim customers, the chef, Fabio Trabocchi, receives four whole baby goats every week from a farmer in Lakewood, Pa., who uses a halal slaughterhouse, which kills animals according to Muslim law. Mr. Trabocchi butchers them at his restaurant.
He marinates the upper legs in rosemary, garlic, wine and olive oil, then braises them in the oven, after briefly smoking them over hay in the pot.
We used to make fun of goat eating. When I was a kid, I saw a whole goat hanging from a butcher shop once. Scared the shit out of me.
We need to be honest here: Iraq is not worth one more dead American.
People on the right and left want some deus ex machina to save Iraq, but we have., collectively, come to a simple conclusion:
Iraq is not worth dying for. Not for the warmongers on the right or the liberal hawks on the left.
It's bad the soldiers are trapped there, but we have made it their problem, No one is willingly going to join them, and 5,000 have deserted so far.
When you ask liberal hawks to enlist, they are offended by the question.
When you ask conservatives to enlist, they are offended by the question.
And America's parents are NOT sending their kids to die in Iraq if they can, at all, help it. No one blows up IED's at Wal Mart.
We have a volunteer army with fewer and fewer volunteers, and people reenlisting only to save their friends. There is a time limit to their ability to be in combat. They cannot serve forever. They will have to be replaced. And fewer and fewer are willing to replace them,
