Well, it's glamorous and exciting but I'm doing my laundry and going to a birthday party...and being the designated driver...so no posts tonght.

But I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year (and short, mellow hangover, if applicable).

Please be safe and see you Next Year! The year we say bye-bye Miserable Failure!?!

The Year has come to an end. In less than 24 hours it will be the year we get to quit bitching and start voting. Finally. Over at Atrios, I think that the most disturbing image I have yet encountered from the War to Make George Happy is in a story about a young soldier blinded in Iraq. The mental image I have is not of him. His story, while certainly one which never needed to happen is not the one which has been on my mind today and will be for many days to come, it's this one:(emphasis intended)

During the two months Jeremy Feldbusch spent recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, his parents lived at his bedside. Charlene Feldbusch remembers one day seeing a young female soldier crawling past her in the corridor with no legs and her 3-year-old son trailing behind.

Perhaps Michael Douchebag Ledeen and William Fucking Kristol had her in mind when they said:

I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. . . . What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well and if the American public has the conviction that we're being well-led and that our people are fighting well and that we're winning, I don't think casualties are going to be the issue.
Michael Ledeen
AEI Breakfast
March 27, 2003

I think the American people are going to have great tolerance for the war taking longer, and they are going to have great tolerance for more casualties.
William Kristol
AEI Breakfast
March 27, 2003

I have read several articles on the internet recently that seem to pointing to a shortage of manpower in the military despite the "stop-loss" orders being promulgated from the five-sided monument to Murphy's law on the Potomac. If there's a shortage, I'll bet money that if the Miserable Failure wins (no! no!) and they institute a draft, something that one of my faithful commenters, Bryan, has said will come true: A two-tier pay scale for draftees v. volunteers, it seems like such republican thing to do, don't you think? Cheap labor conservatives indeed.

She's headed to San Diego, the ol' Midway Maru. I'll be there next June when they open her up as a museum. I hope they kept some of those BK doors intact (great paintings)!

More than half again as heavy as the Hornet, the Midway was the namesake for the last class of carriers developed during World War II. Japan surrendered before the Midway went on active duty, but the ship served three tours during the Vietnam War and led the air bombardment of Iraq during the first Gulf War.

The Midway was based in Alameda from 1958 through the Vietnam War.

It was later home ported in Japan, and one of its main tasks was showing American force in the Far East.

As the navel-gazing over the mad-cow issue grows (as does the number of places that pesky cow has been parted out to), here's the latest quote from the bseinfo.org website, which is linked from guess where: The National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association expects trade to be the Administration’s top priority. Beef and variety meat exports represent approximately 10 percent of U.S. beef production and were valued at $3.5 billion to the U.S. industry in 2002.

Nope, those good folks who have worked hand-in-hand with congresscritters to prevent testing/screening from happening, who are just representing the good-old 'murkan values typified by the cowboy-boot wearin' yahoos...never mind that they are actually Gucci-clad feedlot owners...they are more concerned with Trade numbers than Public Health; and they are not even ashamed to admit it.

It's OK if you or a loved one dies a horrible, wasting death, as long as those damned Japanese keep importing our meat! So says the 1600 Crew and their good friends, the Cattleman's Lobbyists and pet congresscritters.

How did I leave "To the Barricades" off my blogroll when I moved my site? [whack...sound of hand hitting forehead]. Anyhow, that oversight has now been corrected, and I point you to this wonderful list of how to be a republican. Very funny and sadly, true.

Are you shocked and amazed that there is not a good system in place to track cattle herds from birth to death? Even though the significance of knowing where they are as they pass from womb-to-table has been vital since the first discovery of BSE and its' human variant CJD. Well golly, setting up databases and havin' them dang com-pew-tors with gub'mint reg-ladors would be positively un-amurkan.

Cattle in other states may have eaten the same contaminated feed that infected a Washington state Holstein with mad cow disease, but investigators who want to track the infection to its source are being confounded by the lack of an organized system that would lead them to the herd where the cow was born, officials said yesterday.

The lack of a reliable tracking system, and a complex trail of clues, rumors and false leads, mean it could be days or months -- or never -- before all the links are fully explored, officials said. For a nation already jittery about the Holstein, the expanding investigation could spread worry.

"The epidemiological investigation becomes a tangled web of different possibilities," said W. Ron DeHaven, deputy administrator and chief veterinary officer at the Agriculture Department. "Some of those do lead back to Canada. Some take us into the state of Washington and other states, as well."
...
The birth herd is where the Holstein was probably infected -- and from which infectious links could radiate in multiple directions. Investigators want to track down who supplied the birth herd with infected feed four or five years ago to deduce whether contaminated feed was also sent to other farms.

This sure looks like a smaller-government compassionate-conservative move to me. Hmmmmm, is there an issue here?

Sullivan in what I am sure is an unintentional faux pas has awarded himself one of his own awards...the coveted McSullivan Award for Inadequate Attention to Detail. In the quest to be holier-than-Us, Our Lady has made an award to Simon Jenkins for his overstatement of the defense of Baghdad by the Iraqis. While it is true that our forces had little to no opposition in the first days of Saddam's defeat let's look to the one of HRH's co-religionists, Tucker Carlson, who unlike Andy has actually been to B-Dad.

People seem like it's threatening. One of the guys I was traveling with is a former Marine recon guy, Special Forces guy, who spent five months in Somalia in the early '90s. And he said he believed after living here for six months that it's more dangerous than Mogadishu, is what he said.
...

I can tell you that coming over here, we're staying far outside the Green Zone in a house. I'm staying with Kelly McCann and some of the guys he works with.

Merry Christmas to you, you Miserable Failure. I am sure that there are some families who are gonna be rockin' the vote for you ... not.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Guerrillas killed two U.S. soldiers in a mortar attack north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Friday, as rockets shook the Iraqi capital in the biggest insurgent attacks since the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Insurgents also wounded two Polish soldiers in an ambush in southern Iraq, the latest in a string of attacks on the forces of countries which have answered Washington’s call for troops to help it secure the country it invaded to topple Saddam.

The U.S. casualties brought to 208 the number of U.S. combat deaths since Washington -- now under pressure over troop casualties as the 2004 presidential election approaches --announced the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1.

So the case of "mad cow" has been confirmed...sort of. I have not seen the report from the lab in the UK, which has the authoritative tests make it into the media yet; but they'll report sometime soon, I'm sure. Not being a carnivore any more, I am not concerned with the outcome of the tests for my sake, but there are lots (millions) of folks, including my family who are of the carnivorous bent and are affected. Now from the Farm and Market Bureau of the 1600 Crew we see this:

As the American beef industry struggles with its first case of mad cow disease, the Department of Agriculture is debating whether to do far more screening of meat and change the way meat from suspect animals is used, department officials say.

The officials declined to say exactly what they would recommend, but acknowledged that European and Japanese regulators screened millions of animals using tests that take only three hours, fast enough to stop diseased carcasses from being cut up for food.

I still don't understand how that cow contracted BSE, I thought that the feeding of "animal parts" was banned. Did it somehow "slip by" our extra-rigorous and highly paid USDA meat inspection folks...whom I am sure that the 1600 Crew wants to cut by at least 90% to satisfy that friend o'Islam, Grover Norquist.

Here's to hoping everyone is having a great Holiday Season, and being safe, warm and with loved ones!

Cheers!

There are those noises again. It's time to go topside to get the images of most of the 1600 Crew out of my mind, so I can enjoy the Holiday Rooty-Toots. I am glad for my small family, gratefully go my job as a "whining boomer", and would have traded none of it, for anything.

Being at sea on a peaceful Christmas evening walking the flight decks, touching the planes that our lives were intertwined with. Some were like our guardian angels and would bring us home no matter what, some folded like a cheap suit and cost the lives of the men flying them in a split second. Very rarely was there an in-between, a grey area of life an death.

****************************************
Maybe that noise is the persistent knocking of my buddies going on liberty here in Tokyo...we're staying in the New Sanno Hotel, minutes from nowwhere and everywhere, depending on your point of view. I answer the door, in my Kong-acquired red-silk robe, a bottle of GlenLivet from my dad (well, he capitalized said bottle for this voyage) and tell me mates that, I am going exactly nowhere, since I have a better view of Mt Fuji than does the dried up old emporer himself. And I have every intention of watching the sun set, drink to celebrate it's passage and then hit the streets looking for sustenance at the Yaki-Niku stands or noodle stands.

Besides, when the scotch is gone, there will be Sake to follow...as to ladies of the evening, they were on their own..

Darkness inevitably falls, hunger prevails and we head out to get food. Much to my initial chagrin, my buds made me leave the robe, since we transited an area where someone migh have mistaken me for merchandise, if they were into Hulk Hogan Crossed with Chris Farley....ewww.

They were both great christmas eves...which later became christmas day. Certainly days that meant a lot to me. When this season comes to pass every year, I want some one else to have those experiences, or to make their own traditions to carry with then, to be brought out in later years, to help add meaining to a job that sometimes seems to have to have no meaing at all.

Be Happy, BE Safe and may this be the last holiday away from the World and your loved ones for you; your troops; and buddies. Happy Holidays, come home soon.

Her Royal Highness nominates Rosie O'Donnel for a Sontag Award, for essentially speaking the truth to power.

"The country was really taken over. It was a coup. This man was not elected, he sits in the White House and he's declaring war. That's a coup d'état. America should be in the streets picketing. And our boys and our girls, our teenagers and 20- year-olds, are off there killing people. And war begets war."

A Polite Request Addressed To Andrew Sullivan

2003 is coming to a close, so how about you gather up all the nominations for your cute little "awards," name the winners in each category, and then NEVER USE THE WORD "AWARD" AGAIN. NOT. FUCKING. EVER.

Seriously, I am having a very hard time deciding which gimmick is more annoying, your awards or Kaus's imaginary editor - and damn you both for the fact that I spent 30 seconds of my life actually thinking about this.

Although the Fightin' Keyboarders led by Grand Admirals of The Chickenhawks, Tom Delay and Dick Cheney would unmercifully question both his mettle and patriotism in an nanosecond, retired Marine Major General Anthony Zinni has been spending a good bit of his time speaking out about the Quagmire he sees as Iraq. And it seems to be a term he uses with some familiarity.

Anthony C. Zinni's opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq began on the monsoon-ridden afternoon of Nov. 3, 1970. He was lying on a Vietnamese mountainside west of Da Nang, three rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle in his side and back. He could feel his lifeblood seeping into the ground as he slipped in and out of consciousness.
...
It is one of the more unusual political journeys to come out of the American experience with Iraq. Zinni still talks like an old-school Marine -- a big-shouldered, weight-lifting, working-class Philadelphian whose father emigrated from Italy's Abruzzi region, and who is fond of quoting the wisdom of his fictitious "Uncle Guido, the plumber." Yet he finds himself in the unaccustomed role of rallying the antiwar camp, attacking the policies of the president and commander in chief whom he had endorsed in the 2000 election.
...
...He was there in Nashville in August 2002 to receive the group's Dwight D. Eisenhower Distinguished Service Award, recognition for his 35 years in the Marine Corps.

Vice President Cheney was also there, delivering a speech on foreign policy. Sitting on the stage behind the vice president, Zinni grew increasingly puzzled. He had endorsed Bush and Cheney two years earlier, just after he retired from his last military post, as chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq.
...
He was alarmed that day to hear Cheney make the argument for attacking Iraq on grounds that Zinni found questionable at best:

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said. "There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Cheney's certitude bewildered Zinni. As chief of the Central Command, Zinni had been immersed in U.S. intelligence about Iraq. He was all too familiar with the intelligence analysts' doubts about Iraq's programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. "In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never -- not once -- did it say, 'He has WMD.' "

Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. "I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I'd say to analysts, 'Where's the threat?' " Their response, he recalls, was, "Silence."

Zinni's concern deepened as Cheney pressed on that day at the Opryland Hotel. "Time is not on our side," the vice president said. "The risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of action."

Zinni's conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: "These guys don't understand what they are getting into."

This retired Marine commander is hardly a late-life convert to pacifism. "I'm not saying there aren't parts of the world that don't need their ass kicked," he says, sitting in a hotel lobby in Pentagon City, wearing an open-necked blue shirt. Even at the age of 60, he remains an avid weight-lifter and is still a solid, square-faced slab of a man. "Afghanistan was the right thing to do," he adds, referring to the U.S. invasion there in 2001 to oust the Taliban regime and its allies in the al Qaeda terrorist organization.

But he didn't see any need to invade Iraq. He didn't think Hussein was much of a worry anymore. "He was contained," he says. "It was a pain in the ass, but he was contained. He had a deteriorated military. He wasn't a threat to the region."
...
So early in 1999 he ordered that plans be devised for the possibility of the U.S. military having to occupy Iraq. Under the code name "Desert Crossing," the resulting document called for a nationwide civilian occupation authority, with offices in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. That plan contrasts sharply, he notes, with the reality of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation power, which for months this year had almost no presence outside Baghdad -- an absence that some Army generals say has increased their burden in Iraq.

Listening to the administration officials testify that day, Zinni began to suspect that his careful plans had been disregarded. Concerned, he later called a general at Central Command's headquarters in Tampa and asked, "Are you guys looking at Desert Crossing?" The answer, he recalls, was, "What's that?"

The more he listened to Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist "neoconservative" ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn't understand. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground."

And the more he dwelled on this, the more he began to believe that U.S. soldiers would wind up paying for the mistakes of Washington policymakers. And that took him back to that bloody day in the sodden Que Son mountains in Vietnam.
...
"Obviously there are differences" between Vietnam and Iraq, he says. "Every situation is unique." But in his bones, he feels the same chill. "It feels the same. I hear the same things -- about [administration charges about] not telling the good news, about cooking up a rationale for getting into the war." He sees both conflicts as beginning with deception by the U.S. government, drawing a parallel between how the Johnson administration handled the beginning of the Vietnam War and how the Bush administration touted the threat presented by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. "I think the American people were conned into this," he says. Referring to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the Johnson administration claimed that U.S. Navy ships had been subjected to an unprovoked attack by North Vietnam, he says, "The Gulf of Tonkin and the case for WMD and terrorism is synonymous in my mind."

Likewise, he says, the goal of transforming the Middle East by imposing democracy by force reminds him of the "domino theory" in the 1960s that the United States had to win in Vietnam to prevent the rest of Southeast Asia from falling into communist hands.

And that brings him back to Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies as the root of the problem. "I don't know where the neocons came from -- that wasn't the platform they ran on," he says. "Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president."

Zinni says that he hasn't received a single negative response from military people about the stance he has taken. "I was surprised by the number of uniformed guys, all ranks, who said, 'You're speaking for us. Keep on keeping on.' "

Even home in Williamsburg, he has been surprised at the reaction. "I mean, I live in a very conservative Republican community, and people were saying, 'You're right.' "

But Zinni vows that he has learned a lesson. Reminded that he endorsed Bush in 2000, he says, "I'm not going to do anything political again -- ever. I made that mistake one time."

You could not write this stuff as fiction if you tried:

Rush Limbaugh says he's the victim of a rush to judgment.

A kid, 14 years old burns down a boathouse that has the ex-presidents boat motor in it, and gets a total of 57 months in the federal prison system.

It was supposed to be simple, breaking into a small boatyard near here and stealing a marine radio to monitor police frequencies.

But when the two intruders, Patrick V., 14, and his accomplice, Christopher Conley, 19, spotted what they thought were video surveillance cameras, they panicked and set fire to the building, burning it down along with several boats and engines. Unknown to them, one of the boat engines belonged to former President George Bush, whose summer house is seven miles away.

Within days of the July 2002 fire, Secret Service and other federal agents were at Patrick's house here. His mother, Denise Collier, said they told her that the young men had "blown up the president's boat" in what might have been "a terrorist act." One federal firearms agent told her, Ms. Collier recalled, that the incident had raised "national security concerns."
...
Under a federal law dating to the 1970's, juveniles are to be tried in state juvenile court except in special circumstances, said Robert Schwartz, director of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, a nonprofit law firm that represents juveniles. The attorney general of the United States or the local United States attorney must certify to the court in writing that the case meets these requirements, Mr. Schwartz said.
...
There are so few juveniles in the custody of the bureau that it does not even have its own juvenile prison, Mr. Dunne said. Instead, it has contracts with states, like Pennsylvania, where Patrick is being kept at the Cresson Secure Treatment Center in the central part of the state.

Cresson is for the most serious juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania who have proved disruptive in other facilities. Patrick is now housed in a wing where the other inmates are all mentally ill or mentally retarded, his mother said.
...
"They already had all the evidence they needed," Mr. Mongue said. "This was not a thin case. I am unaware of any investigation after Mike Cantara gave Patrick to the feds."

"So the real question is why the feds were so hellbent on obtaining jurisdiction," he said. "It's difficult not to draw the conclusion that the reason was the Bush connection."

Using what are sure to be tactics that engender love and flowers, the 1600 Crew have been instructing soldiers in Iraq to behave as much like fascist footsoldiers as possible. They have been out looking for more of those pesky Iraqi "Wolverines" (think "Red Dawn") again.

Using sledgehammers, crowbars, explosives and armored vehicles, U.S. forces smashed down the gates of homes and the doors of workshops and junkyards Wednesday to attack the Iraqi resistance that has persisted despite the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Loud blasts mixed with the sound of women and children screaming inside the houses. An explosion at the gate of one compound shattered windows, cutting a 1-year-old baby with glass. U.S. medics treated the injury while other soldiers handcuffed four men, who were later released.

The raid, launched before dawn and lasting until midmorning, targeted the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad. U.S. officials say some 1,500 fighters operate in Samarra, making it one of the persistent hotspots in the so-called Sunni Triangle.

''Samarra has been a little bit of a thorn in our side,'' said Col. Nate Sassaman. ''It hasn't come along as quickly as other cities in the rebuilding of Iraq. This operation is designed to bring them up to speed.''

Jeebus, it's like the ultimate Fractured Fairy Tale...every freakin' day.

Apologies to the late Frank Zappa.

It seems that there is at least one American CPA administrator in Iraq who might be getting a clue.

When American diplomat Keith Mines wanted the bombed-out Baath Party headquarters here torn down, he began with contracting rules issued by the U.S. occupation authority. He posted an official notice soliciting bids. A week later, he accepted several sealed proposals, planning to choose the lowest bid.

Then Hamid Rashid Mahenna, an influential tribal sheik, heard about the contract. Mahenna wears suede jackets and a red-and-white headscarf, smokes Dunhill cigarettes, and owns a construction company. His tribesmen had been helping U.S. forces in Ramadi -- and he figured it was payback time. After the deadline, he drove up in his white Mercedes and handed Mines four sealed envelopes. Inside, Mines said, were bids far higher than those from other Iraqi contractors.

...
"I don't have a lot of other options," Mines said. "The sheiks are a valuable bridge into the community."

A key uncertainty in the gamble Mines has taken is whether or not the sheiks will deliver. Thus far, the sheiks have not lessened the resistance, prompting questions about whether tribal leaders are doing enough to bring their followers in line. But sheiks in Ramadi insist their power only goes so far. "We try, but we cannot control every one of our members," said Bazia Gaoud, the stout leader of the Bunimir tribe.
...
When Mahenna, who leads the Bu-Alwan tribe, heard that Mines was looking for a contractor to tear down the Baath Party headquarters and build a park dedicated to peace, the sheik swung into action. He had his construction company -- one of several businesses he owns -- draw up four sealed bids for Mines, ranging from $75,000 to $120,000

As he handed over envelopes, Mines recalled him saying, "I hope you'll be fair to me."
...
"Thirty-five thousand is nothing," Mahenna told Mines, in an openly complaining tone. "What am I going to tell my people?"

"You're going to tell them we have a park," Mines responded.

"It's not enough," Mahenna protested.

"The big contracts are coming," Mines said. "We're just getting started."

With that, Mahenna pulled out three envelopes from his leather folder. Inside were bids for other contracts. "These I want for me," he said, thrusting the envelopes at Mines.

Then Mahenna got in his Mercedes and drove away.

"Dealing with the sheiks isn't easy," Mines said as he watched the car pull out of the parking lot. "But we don't have another choice."

The problem is, as the story says, if there not a reasonable feeling among many Iraqi's in the next six months that we have made some kind of progress in the "fixing" department, all the efforts of the CPA will be in the dumper. Big Time.

Iraq is a country where respect comes from a Gun, a Buck or both. Up until now, we've had both, but the 1600 Crew is notorious for getting bored with a problem and then removing option two (the bucks) while leaving the bearers of option one to clean up...think Afghanistan. At this point, I doubt that the "insurgents" will ever let them pump out economic quantities of Oil...which leads to the boredom factor going up and the quagmire aspect increasing. Gosh, who said Vietnam?

Gee, GOoper congresscritters are now complaining in a round-about way about being pressured on the Medicare "bill".

Lawmakers from both parties have complained about the tactics used on the night when the House leadership pushed the Medicare bill through by a vote of 220 to 215. The margin would have been even closer if some lawmakers had not changed no votes to yes when it became clear the bill would pass.

It's hard to believe they'd bitch about eating where they shit.

Seems to me that for all their whining about "bad Unions", the politicians who make statements accusing unions of Societal Malfeasance should read and remember this story...but I guess that's hard to do when soliciting for campaign dollars with a mattress strapped to your back. This looks like a bi-partisan crime to me.

Every one of their deaths was a potential crime. Workers decapitated on assembly lines, shredded in machinery, burned beyond recognition, electrocuted, buried alive — all of them killed, investigators concluded, because their employers willfully violated workplace safety laws.

These deaths represent the very worst in the American workplace, acts of intentional wrongdoing or plain indifference that kill about 100 workers each year. They were not accidents. They happened because a boss removed a safety device to speed up production, or because a company ignored explicit safety warnings, or because a worker was denied proper protective gear.
...
Over a span of two decades, from 1982 to 2002, OSHA investigated 1,242 of these horror stories — instances in which the agency itself concluded that workers had died because of their employer's "willful" safety violations. Yet in 93 percent of those cases, OSHA declined to seek prosecution, an eight-month examination of workplace deaths by The New York Times has found.

What is more, having avoided prosecution once, at least 70 employers willfully violated safety laws again, resulting in scores of additional deaths. Even these repeat violators were rarely prosecuted.

Sullivan thanks the two-headed dog that can't hunt, Bush-Blair for their part in the surrender of Ghaddafi by invading Iraq. He says that former Blair cabinet minister Claire Short is just bitter over the Mutts accomplishments. Well, it takes one to know one I guess. After all what would an aging gay man whose community, church and political party have all left him know about being bitter?

Never mentioned it, but I saw it on opening day. Still mulling it over, if you've seen it by now what's your verdict? Not to be a spoiler, but what's the deal with all the "endings" and why no "Scouring of the Shire"? A couple of the scenes made me want to kick Peter Jackson's private parts (Frodo/Sam/Gollum at Cirith Ungol) and some were very good (Pelennor Fields).

I guess I need to see it again...once is not enough. Eowyn Rocked! And what was up with Gimli giving the Crown to Aragorn, or was I missing something?

If you haven't seen it, give up a few bucks to New Line Cinema and enjoy it...I am looking forward to extended DVD to fill in a few of the gaps (again).

Gee, this is a Casablanca Moment...

A lengthy investigation of the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, by American and European intelligence agencies and international nuclear inspectors has forced Pakistani officials to question his aides and openly confront evidence that the country was the source of crucial technology to enrich uranium for Iran, North Korea and other nations.

Until the past few weeks, Pakistani officials had denied evidence that the A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories, named for the man considered a national hero, had ever been a source of weapons technology to countries aspiring to gain nuclear weapons. Now they are backing away from those denials, while insisting that there has been no transfer of nuclear technology since President Pervez Musharraf took power four years ago.
...
Pakistani officials said the sales to Iran might have occurred in the 1980's during the rule of the last American-backed military ruler, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq. They acknowledge questioning three scientists: Mohammed Farooq, Yasin Chohan and a man believed to be named Sayeed Ahmad, all close aides to Dr. Khan.

And the 1600 Crew is just St. Ronnie's & Tricky Dicky's bunch revisited. Damn, I feel so much better now, and safer too!

He might have been talking about other Democratic contenders, but it certainly makes you think of the lack of service or "lacksadaisical" service of certain republican politicians (no names shrub).

"You know, the American flag doesn't belong to the Republican Party," he said. After asking the veterans in the audience to stand, he continued, still clutching the fabric. "That's our flag. We saluted that flag. We served under it. We fought for it. We watched brave men and women buried under it. And no Tom DeLay or John Ashcroft or George W. Bush is going to take this flag away from us."

Clark's pointed words and theatrical flair drew a sustained ovation from the audience that night, and the moment captured the essence of Clark's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. With Democrats worried and resentful that President Bush will run for reelection on a heavy dose of patriotism, Clark offers himself as the antiwar warrior: the one candidate who not only opposed the Iraq war but also has the résumé and experience to checkmate a commander in chief.
...
Arguing that national security will be at the forefront of the general election, Clark told reporters recently, "If we nominate a person who hasn't had the experience . . . if he hasn't been there, hasn't done it, hasn't proved himself, he's going to have a tough time -- and that's the issue."

Well, it's always been said, "Bad Press is better than No Press", so if the Media Whores are saying something at least they are saying something. Now, about that AWOL stuff....

Looks like the Homeland Security Department is taking a break from busting the chops of Australian Journalists to raise the threat level...

Federal officials said yesterday that because fresh intelligence suggests al Qaeda is planning multiple catastrophic terrorist attacks in the United States, they were raising the national threat alert status to "high risk," or code orange, a step administration officials previously had said they were reluctant to take except in the most unusual circumstances.

Seems that at some point yesterday my ISP/Web hosting company experienced an equipment failure on the server that hosts me amd my stuff. They were in constant cimmunication with all of us as clients, and worked their tails off to get the server back up and running.

So a little later today, I'l be posting again (I hope). I missed Friday night because of network issues and routine maintenance did not get me home til well after midnight...sleep was looking real good after an 18-hour day.

So, back later today, sorry for the inconvenience...
Update: Apparently three posts did not get restored either, because the Host's Tape Server crashed/could not restore. So if you came here from SullyWatch! looking for the post on Tammy Bruce, tis gone...sorry. I had not backed up my stuff locally lately, looks like I need to start that again. mmmmm....computers.

Was Ghaddafi so looking to not have Wheelis Air Base set up again, or what? Talk among yourselves....

Update update...I think I fixed all my typos, it's hell growing old and not having your reading glasses sometimes. Golly gee.

If there were any one crime that we could legitimately take the Evil-Doer Saddam to trial for it would be the attack on the USS Stark (FFG-31) in 1987. Who could object to that? Funny that none of the 'fighting keyboarders' seem to remember that little incident, isn't it?

Seems that the 1600 Crew and close relatives are not the only ones who are worried what former All-Around Bad Guy Saddam might spill.

Sheikh Mahmoud Nidda, who heads Saddam Hussein's al-Nasseri tribe, has reasons to be upset. United States forces make his life difficult because he is a relative of the deposed leader. And now, Saddam himself is no longer a source of pride and prestige. He has become reason for embarrassment.

"We are a tribe of brave men," the sheikh, 60, asserts in his large reception hall in Ouja, the village near Tikrit where Saddam was born. "Saddam should have fought. He should have killed a couple of American soldiers and then he should have let them kill him, just like his sons Uday and Qusay did."

Now that he's been caught, he's incommunicado. For all the braying that the National Embarrassment has been doing about not influencing the outcome of any judicial action against Saddam, they sure are holding on to him tightly. Why not just turn his sorry ass over to the Hague and be done with him, let the Iraqi's deal directly with the international courts...you know cut out the middle man?

Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, according to government officials.

It is a secretive universe, they said, made up of large and small facilities scattered throughout the world that have sprouted up to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government arrested by the United States and its allies since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the war in Iraq.

Interesting issue, one that has been vaguely mirrored here in some legislation in California and other places, either denying benefits or forcing immigrants to meet certain expectations for 'getting' by in our immigrant-based society. The ever-tolerant French have gone one step further in marginalizing their immigrant population by mandating that observant Islamic girls/women can not wear their traditional headscarves in public schools. As a sop to someone, I'm not sure who, they have also forbade the wearing of Jewish skullcaps and Christian symbols (crucifixes) as well. But...small Stars-of-David and Crosses are OK.

Warning that growing ethnic and religious divisions threaten to erode France's tradition of equality, President Jacques Chirac called Wednesday for a law that would ban Muslim head scarves and all other overt religious symbols from public schools.
...
"The Islamic veil, whatever name it is given, the kippa [the Jewish skullcap] or the cross, if of manifestly excessive dimensions, don't have a place within the walls of public schools," Chirac said. Small, discreet signs, such as tiny crosses or Stars of David, should be allowed, he said.

The Chairman of the 9-11 Commission has come out and said that the disaster that was 9-11 could have and should have been prevented but the 1600 Crew was asleep at the switch. I'm pretty surprised, don't know about you. Thomas Kean, former republican Governor of New Jersey, ostensibly chosen for malleability and the ability to take orders from within the 1600 Crew is standing up to them and telling the truth. Not a popular pasttime within the administration, but he's doing it. Figure that'll get him the undying enmity of La Famiglia Bush...

For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented...
...
"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.

Ahhh, so what's the story with GITMO then, WhistleAss?

Even while expressing his views, Bush said Saddam's punishment "will be decided not by the president of the United States but by the citizens of Iraq in one form or another."

He said he doesn't see a need for an American role in Saddam's trial, a process that Iraqis are "plenty capable of conducting."

The president distanced himself from possible interrogation methods used to elicit information from Saddam, other than to say that "this country doesn't torture."

And to all the wingnuts who have made a career of parsing the word "is" and bashing Clinton, the Miserable Failure will surely pass into the history books as the Biggest Liar Ever in the White House. Let's now move on to the word "if". Here are some examples from today: (emphasis added)

Bush also defended the intelligence that he used in citing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a main reason for going to war. Asked about the emphasis now on alleged weapons "programs" instead on possession of weapons themselves, Bush remained firm about his prewar assessment of the threat Saddam posed and insisted the world and America are safer because of the war that toppled him.

"What's the difference?" he said. "If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9-11, is a threat that needed to be dealt with."

In reality, WhistleAss is probably hoping against hope for another Karla Faye Tucker moment to demonstrate his compassion and true christo-fascist brotherhood. All he'll need is a white hood to make it a Photo Moment for Laura's scrapbook o'death.

So here I am blogging away, sending my random idiocy to blogtopia via Moveable Type, which has a cool feature that pings some of the blogs that track blogs, like blo.gs; and weblogs.com. Weblogs.com however sends me this message:

Ping 'http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2' failed: Ping error: Thanks for the ping, however we can only accept one ping every half-hour. It's cool that you're updating so often, however, if I may be so bold as to offer some advice -- take a break, you'll enjoy li

An interesting note from CBS's website quoting a former CIA director, James Woolsey on the 'treatment' of Saddam.

He has greeted his initial interrogation with a mix of sarcasm and defiance, the officials said. Former CIA director James Woolsey was not optimistic that the deposed leader would become more forthcoming.

"I think we'll be lucky to get anything useful out of him," Woolsey told the CBS News Early Show, noting that Saddam could not be tortured or even subjected to some of the interrogation tricks used on al Qaeda suspects. "But even liars sometimes can point you in a useful direction by what they lie about and the way they lie, so we may learn some useful thing."

Can I designate my tax dollars to go directly to the E-3 with the spouse and two kids waiting at home for their return? No stops by the RNC or CheneyBurton first...

More evidence that perhaps the 1600 Crew think this whole going to war thing is just a big ol' joke...the operation to bring in the bad, bad former trading partner and ally Saddam was named...Operation Red Dawn, and the locations that they scouted out were called Wolverine I and Wolverine II. Jeebus.

The problem with calling Saddam's capture Operation Red Dawn is that it subverts the righteousness of our action with Orwellian Newspeak. (By sheerest coincidence, Red Dawn was released in 1984.) The U.S. military isn't mounting an insurgency against a foreign invader. It is the foreign invader. The real insurgents in Iraq—its Wolverines—are the Baathists and Islamist extremists who continue to wage guerrilla war against the American occupation and its Iraqi collaborators.

For years we have all wondered, "What the hell happened to Andy?". Well, sort of. Now he's inadvertently given us the answer, in his advice to Howie "the Whore" Kurtz:

Poor Howie. I'm not sure he realizes what a permanent deadline of 'now' does to your mental equilibrium.

In a classic piece, Paul Krugman deconstructs some of the ties of CheneyBurton and others to the 1600 Crew. Nice job.

Meanwhile, NBC News has obtained Pentagon inspection reports of unsanitary conditions at mess halls run by Halliburton in Iraq: "Blood all over the floors of refrigerators, dirty pans, dirty grills, dirty salad bars, rotting meat and vegetables." An October report complains that Halliburton had promised to fix the problem but didn't.

Why does NBC News Hate America?

The Great National Embarrassment has to be doing a little of the Gange or a couple of "wake up in the AM" lines or something. Here's from the All-Saddam All-the-Time press conference today. (emphasis added)

Q Thank you, Mr. President. The dollar has fallen quite sharply, Wall Street is increasingly worried about the deficit. Sorry. Wall Street is increasingly worried about the deficit. Will you have a specific plan for reducing the deficit, or will economic growth alone take care of the problem?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that question. Josh Bolten laid out a plan that will shrink the deficit in half in a five-year period, and that's based upon reasonable growth assumptions. And it's a plan that depends upon Congress to continue to hold the line on spending. We have a deficit because of, one, a recession; two, a war. I want to remind you all that in order to fight and win the war, it requires an expenditure of money that is commiserate with keeping a promise to our troops to make sure that they're well paid, well trained, well equipped.

Which Congress is holding the lines on spending again? Or which administration? And supplies for the troops...let's see, the Deficit Dollars go into CheneyBurton and if anyone is lucky some supplies come out the other end. Okay, commiserate might be the right word for that. Jeebus, what an idiot.

"well paid" - never mind about that whole hazardous duty pay reduction thing
"well trained" - arguably they are, but not in Iraqi customs or language
"well equipped" - except for small things like body armor

Yeah, he's on top of screwing the troops...for the benefit of his biggest contributors. Daily.

If it wasn't so long, Juan Cole's "email of the day" to Sullivan would almost make a great "shorter" piece. But hey, I have to try:

"You're a demagogue."

That wasn't so hard.

That's the way that the case is going to be framed. Not the People of Iraq v. Hussein, but rather the aging, convict, self-appointed grand Neocon Poobah v. Saddam Hussein. Chalabi who has no real ties to Iraq other than being a Neocon and possessing a thirst for money and a lust for power, which he sold to Perlowitz & Company, is now setting the ground rules for he trial of Saddam. Note in the story that they are setting aside $75 million for the "trial". Are they looking for a blue dress too? And what's with his nephew being involved...oh yeah, it's the Nepostism Administration...no wait that's here. I'm so confused.

An Iraqi-run tribunal could begin proceedings against former president Saddam Hussein on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity as early as next spring, Iraqi political leaders and officials responsible for the court said Monday.

One of the architects of the tribunal, Salem Chalabi, said political leaders and legal specialists had already begun discussing the best prosecutorial strategy to employ against Hussein. Chalabi said there was growing agreement that Hussein should be charged with perhaps only a dozen specific atrocities in an effort to keep a trial from bogging down. The charges would include the use of chemical weapons against ethnic Kurds in 1988, the execution of prominent Shiite Muslim clerics and the killing of hundreds of Sunni Muslim tribesmen after a coup attempt, he said.
...
U.S. officials said they were confident the tribunal would be able to conduct a fair trial of the former president. Although the law authorizing the tribunal was passed only last week by Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council, it was vetted by the occupation authority, the Pentagon and the White House, according to officials involved in the process.

"We think it will work," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the tribunal.

At a White House news conference on Monday, President Bush pledged that the United States would "work with the Iraqis to develop a way to try him that withstands international scrutiny."
...
"We're not going to hold a kangaroo court," he (Chalabi) said.

Taking that short 30-second break from the sixth-circle chain gang, New Fish, Strom Thurmond paused to wipe his eyes with greasy sack-cloth as he considered the fate of the woman who had just come forth as his illegitimate daughter; Essie Mae Washington-Williams. After careful reflection, on her and a lifetimes' work that had gottten him such a well-placed job as "pit-boss" in Hell, Thurmond looked over the article and made his decision: can't let the team down now!. A quick glance at the paper (the Washginton Post, it is hell after all) reveals:

Essie Mae Washington-Williams described her claims in a lengthy telephone interview last week, saying she protected Thurmond because of their mutual "deep respect" and her fears that disclosure would embarrass her and harm his political career. Thurmond, who died in June at age 100, said late in life through his office that Williams was a friend.
...
"We are not seeking to challenge the wishes of the late senator with regard to his estate," said Wheaton, who has been joined by Columbia-area attorney Glenn Walters in representing Williams. "Let's be emphatically clear: We are not looking for money. We are merely seeking closure by way of the truth for Essie Mae Washington-Williams."

Taylor said he has had no contact with Williams. Thurmond's will did not acknowledge Williams or her heirs. Williams has struggled financially over the years, and in 2001, court records show, she declared personal bankruptcy.

Strom Jr., Thurmond's son and a U.S. attorney, did not return a phone call seeking comment. In interviews over the years, Thurmond's sisters and staff have repeatedly said that Williams was only a family friend.
....
After Thurmond's death, his will valued his estate at $200,000. He gave the largest cash amount -- $50,000 -- to his surviving daughter, Julie, and split other assets and his collection of clothing between his sons, Paul and Strom Jr. In 1989, when Thurmond had a declared net worth of $2 million, he began placing assets in trust accounts for his children, according to news accounts. Taylor said those estate accounts were separate legal instruments and were not included in Thurmond's will.

After Thurmond died, Williams hired Wheaton as her counsel and decided to write a letter to Strom Jr., who -- with his father's help -- won appointment to be U.S. attorney for South Carolina. The letter expressed the hope, Wheaton said, that Williams would not have to make a claim against the estate and that the matter could be "resolved among family."

and the Hairy Thunderer forbid that these fine young men and women carry a scar with them forever because of a stupid policy.

It's against the rules for U.S. soldiers in Iraq to have pets, but the skinny black puppy that wandered up to the Florida National Guard soldiers at a base in northern Iraq wouldn't go away.

So the soldiers from Alpha Co. of the 2nd Battalion of the 124th Infantry Regiment adopted the mutt and named her Apache after their radio call sign.
...
While affectionate with the 130 or so soldiers in the company, Apache could spot a stranger instantly and would bark and growl menacingly. She seemed to especially dislike officers, and in September nipped at a captain from another company who got too close.

But Apache would happily greet the soldiers when they returned from patrols, then roll over to have her belly rubbed and chew playfully on their arms.

Still, the soldiers were warned repeatedly that they were flouting the rules and that they had to get rid of the dog.

Maggie Ford said her husband was researching how to bring Apache back when the soldiers come home in February, but commanders last month gave the soldiers a deadline.
...
Iraq, after all, is a place where life is hard enough for people, let alone animals.

Kim Alfonso said her husband recently had her mail him some clothes their 3-year-old daughter had outgrown so he could give them to children in the local villages, who often wear little more than rags.

"You have to keep things in perspective," Kim Alfonso said. "It's not like one of our guys was shot. We're talking about a dog. But it is sad."

Sullivan writes that Saddam not firing a shot when captured, despite the possession of two AK's and a pistol proves that Saddam the Tyrant was/is a coward underneath...perhaps. But since he saw what happened to his sons who "resisted" perhaps he figured that the old thing about "live to fignt day" made more sense. It's not like he's a pauper, it's not like he has no bargaining chips. So maybe Sulllivan (again) needs to think it through before putting fingers to keyboard. Saddam did not survive by believing in the ethos of the Wild West, there's no reason to believe he would have gone out in a proverbial "blaze of glory" just because...but it sure would have made Andy happy...wouldn't it? Sick Prick.

Now there's a loaded word with several possible meanings today, and all apply to the capture of our former trading partner and bestest buddy, ol' Saddam. Talk about knowing where the bodies are buried; someone (or many someones) in the 1600 Crew have to be shitting Twinkies over this.

I think that to give this any future "trial" charade a modicum of credibility, they are going to have to let it go forth in the Hague; as little as the 1600 Crew seems to like such forums, letting that Sock-Puppet Chalabi "conduct" a "trial"...hell, just take the guy out a shoot him now, why give Ahmed an opportunity to set up a mechanism to steal a few more million dollars?

It's good they caught him, my main point of apprehension is that it's not going to change the attacks in soldiers, it's not going to unite anyone except against any coalition forces, such as they are, and it's soon to be forgotten unless there's the International equivalent of the OJ trial in the Arab media.

Off for a weekend of frivolity. Posting scheduled to resume Sunday Night. Will post of able, but don't think that there are too many computers on the ice. In any event may I be so bold as to recommend the blogs in the Fish Pond. All are great reading and you won't be bored!

Have a great and safe weekend....see ya Sunday night.

Just too hard to believe...not!

U.S. Sees Evidence of Overcharging in Iraq Contract

A Pentagon investigation has found evidence that a subsidiary of the politically connected Halliburton Company overcharged the government by as much as $61 million for fuel delivered to Iraq under huge no-bid reconstruction contracts, senior military officials said Thursday.

The subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, also submitted a proposal for cafeteria services that seemed to be inflated by $67 million, the officials said. The Pentagon rejected that proposal, they said.

Of course being politically "well connected" at the V-POTUS level has it's advantages...ol Classify'em Dick might just decide this is all Top Secret stuff and our great-great grandchildren will all get to read all about it. If they care.

Every day the 1600 Crew never ceases to amaze me. The Great National Embarrassment can't even have Arab-American Waiters in the same building with him...he's too afwaid...mommy not there to pwotect widdle iddy-biddy failure from meanie old awabs...

The Secret Service took responsibility yesterday for sending an Arab American waiter home from his job at a Baltimore hotel before a presidential fundraiser last week. But it said the decision resulted from confusion over his work schedule, rather than from ethnic or religious discrimination.

While expressing regret over the incident, the Secret Service also stopped short of offering the apology that the waiter, Mohamad I. Pharoan, 58, has sought.
...
We seek to assure Mr. Pharoan and the Arab American community that the problems he experienced on that day were in no way related to his ethnic or religious background. These problems simply stemmed from confusion over a work schedule," Gill said. "The Secret Service regrets any difficulties and inconvenience this confusion may have caused the employee involved.

Well good. A 'bulk e-mailer' as they so euphamistically call themselves is getting charged with Spamming. How well prosecution and appeals will go remains to be seen... after all this is a new area for prosecution. But let the games begin

A man alleged to be one of the world's most notorious spammers was arrested yesterday in North Carolina, accused by Virginia prosecutors of falsifying the origin of e-mails that pitched low-priced "penny" stocks and home-mortgage schemes.

Jeremy Jaynes, also known as Gaven Stubberfield, of Raleigh was charged with four felony counts as prosecutors seek to increase the heat -- by bringing criminal penalties -- on spammers for deceptive e-mail marketing.

The case marks the first time Virginia's criminal provisions for spam have been invoked.

This is one of the most disturbing quotes ever from Snake-Handler Johnny. Some background: September 11th terrorist suspect exonerated at trial (that's why they hold trials, right...not so fast Chucko, read on) in Germany by the confession of a top al Qaeda member.

The trial of a Moroccan man accused of helping the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers appeared close to collapse Thursday after the court announced that the German federal police had provided information, apparently taken from the interrogation of a top al Qaeda planner in U.S. custody, that the defendant had no advance knowledge of the plot.

The trial will continue, but presiding Judge Klaus Ruehle released Abdelghani Mzoudi, 31, who has been imprisoned since his arrest in October 2002 on charges of membership of a terrorist organization and more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder. The judge said Mzoudi, alleged to be a member of the Hamburg cell that spearheaded the attacks in the United States, will have to continue to attend the trial but is otherwise free until a verdict is reached.

In Washington, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told reporters that he was "disappointed that the case in Germany has taken the turn it has taken." He added that "fortunately, in the United States, we enjoy a legal structure which anticipates the need for protecting both national security and adjudicating the innocence or guilt of individuals who are charged."

This can't be a good sign for the Army of One. They're returning a company, (Bravo Company) of the "Old Guard", the men and women who in this case do funeral duty at Arlington National Cemetary to combat duty. Don't get me wrong, they are proficient infantry troops in addition to being Masters at their difficult, precise and demanding (and it really is) ceremonial duties at Arlington. But it's a little scary to think that they are taking this group at this time for this reason (emphasis added);

For the U.S. Army's Old Guard, the war in Iraq has been one of ceremony: escorting the caskets of fallen soldiers as they arrive at Dover Air Force Base, serving at dozens of burials at Arlington National Cemetery, standing watch over the Tomb of the Unknowns.

In coming days, for the first time since the Vietnam War, a company of soldiers from this prestigious ceremonial unit will join the battle overseas, deploying to the Horn of Africa for the fight against terrorism.

Strained by combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as commitments in South Korea and the Balkans, the Army has ordered soldiers from the unit's Bravo Company to put their dress blues in the closet and don desert camouflage battle fatigues...

*To the tune of Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash

I lose the distinction sometimes. Ward Sutton in the Village Voice.

Sorry for the lack o'blogging, was a bit under the weather. The Doc gave me an IV of something that made me a bit sick...and I was off for a day or so. Glad to be back, so much to see and blog about.

:>)

Andrew Sullivans new motto: rip all civil liberties from suspected Islamo Fascist Terrorists NOW! But for god's sake don't ask about them about sex.

omigod here I said irony was dead...perhaps like Mark Twain I went with the early untimely demise thing too soon. This is positively delicious.

President Bush found himself in the awkward position on Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's debts, just a day after the Pentagon excluded those countries and others from $18 billion in American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects.

White House officials were fuming about the timing and the tone of the Pentagon's directive, even while conceding that they had approved the Pentagon policy of limiting contracts to 63 countries that have given the United States political or military aid in Iraq.
...
The Russian defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, when asked about the Pentagon decision, responded by ruling out any debt write-off for Iraq.

The Canadian deputy prime minister, John Manley, suggested crisply that "it would be difficult" to add to the $190 million already given for reconstruction in Iraq.

On a more serious note, some of the worlds largest multi-national companies are in those countries, and they can't be pleased with the 1600 Crew decision. I hope they start using some of their economic muscle to help send the 1600 Crew to the dustbin of history in 2004.

Well, there are some jurists out there not in lockstep with the Asscrack Justice Department...praise Jeebus. Seems some impertinent judge wants to know why the prosecution in a "terror" trial was withholding evidence against the defendants. Good for him.

The judge in the first terror trial after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has ordered an emergency hearing Friday to determine why prosecutors did not turn over evidence that defense attorneys contend would have helped exonerate their clients.

U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen said that anyone who has "knowledge of this matter, including, but not limited to, information as to why this evidence was not provided to defense counsel" should show up Friday.
...
The attorneys' request came after federal prosecutors acknowledged last month that they had not turned over an FBI interview with a convicted drug dealer who undercut the testimony of a key government witness. In a December 2000 letter, Milton "Butch" Jones wrote that prosecution witness Youssef Hmimssa told him while they were in jail "how he lied to the FBI, how he fool'd the Secret Service agent on his case."

Der Governator is trying really, really hard to get that Diznee ending to this script, you know where everything comes out alright despite the earthquake, fire, double homicide, tidal wave and outbreak of Dengue fever. Problem is, real life intrudes, and it's really not a movie out here.

The rallies that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) staged in barnstorming stops around the state last week went exactly as planned.

Thousands of people swarmed mall parking lots to see him. He blasted the old rock song "Takin' Care of Business" and then gave rousing speeches that ended with a dramatic flourish: He tore and tossed fake credit cards as he blamed state legislators for putting California on the brink of financial ruin.

"Tell them you want action," Schwarzenegger told a large crowd last Thursday in Bakersfield, "and you want it now."

It all looked and sounded just like his wildly successful campaign, except for one glaring difference. It didn't work.
...
He has triumphantly repealed the tripling of car taxes that his predecessor, Democrat Gray Davis, approved earlier this year. But that has left cities and counties across California angrily scrambling to replace lost revenue -- and may force them to cut funding for police and firefighters.

And Mr. Issa, please call rewrite on your way to dinner, would you? This script needs some work.

At a blog/site called AirBeagle is an animation from the Kucinich Campaign that I had not seen before. Worth a look. Truly frightening numbers, well done message.

Tom "I left my Spine...in South Dakota" Daschle has appointed former Senator Bob Kerrey to take Max Cleland's place on the National Joke Commission errrr...the 9/11 commission. If there is any one thing that even the Kool-Aid Konsumers ought to be upset about, it's the way that the 1600 Crew has consistantly blocked the legitimate avenues of questioning that the Commission has pursued. Will there be a judgement of history that this was as much a "whitewash" as the Warren Commission? Perhaps. Will everyone remember that the Great National Embarrassment impeded the work of the Commission at every juncture? Definately. Could it help defeat the 1600 Crew? Really, really hope so...

I'm waiting for the day when some hapless Chickenhawk schmuck from the 1600 Crew questions Kerrey's patriotism. That might start some fireworks.

Blah3 got interviewed today on the BBC, about the concept of Google Bombing and the Miserable Failure project. What a hoot! Note: we do our part every day...proudly!

Over at the P-Town Pixel Post, Sully is conducting Pledge Week, which I assume means he is looking for Perfctly-Pectoraled Pledges to Populate P-Town for his Pleasure. Surely he doesn't expect...cash? If you feel the urge to drop any money in Sullivan's bank account, please allow me to figuratively smack you up side the head, take your money, and give it to Sullywatch to help them get off Blogger...

To start her "Throw your Money in a Black Hole" week, the Queen Chickenblogger pushes the "war is OK", even if you have to lie to have one theme: Saddam was a bad man, it is a moral cause. Lying is alright, OK, just fine. So, Andy Lying is Moral? Please address that letter of apology to President Clinton c/o HRC, US Senate...that way we know he'll get it. At least he knew how to admit a mistake/misstep. Can Commander Codpiece (and you) say the same?

Meet Ms. Jones. Paula Jones. Take a good look. Now meet Rhonda Miller, a woman who says she incurred real damages by the alleged actions of you and your staff.

The day before Schwarzenegger was elected California's governor, Rhonda Miller spoke at a news conference alleging "outrageous acts" of sexual harassment by the bodybuilder-turned-actor-turned-politician.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, repeats that claim and says his campaign spread lies that she was a convicted felon.

"Miss Miller has never been arrested in her life. She's never been convicted of anything," said her attorney, Paul Hoffman. "She's a nice woman. And what they did was not very nice."

Miller, who also is represented by Gloria Allred, claims in the lawsuit that while working with the superstar in January 1991 on the set of "Terminator 2," Schwarzenegger engaged in "improper and unlawful" conduct.

I hope Ms. Miller beats the snot out of Ahnold in open court, and Gloria Allred gets to gloat on all the appropriate Talking Head shows...a whole lot. It would serve Der Gropenfuhrer right to get brought down a notch or three...hmmm, a politician having to fight allegations of sexual impropriety while trying to govern. Where have I seen that movie before?

Janklow Guilty. All counts, which according to the commenters on other blogs who seem to know the appropriate South Dakota law, means a possibility of up to 10 years, which I think unlikely. But, it'll be interesting to see how Congressman Convict Janklow interacts with the prison system, at whatever level, now that he's not "in charge" anymore. Was there ever a prison administrator he annoyed while Governor? Payback is a bitch.

The most interesting quote has to be from a Janklow attorney:

Janklow's lawyers said during trial that his reflexes were dulled by low blood sugar as a result of diabetes, which he didn't realize because the symptoms were masked by a hypertension drug.

Someone, somewhere, observed it was a shame (for him) his last name isn't Bush, he doesn't live in Florida, or have a daddy who can bail him out of bad things.

Remember: Vote for the Party of Personal Responsibility, Smaller Government and Peace (and convicted Felons).

Sullivan, ever the deficit hawk points out that "peace activists" might have been correct about the "financial costs" (is that redundant?)...but he still misses the point; "they" are right about the moral costs of the war too...I guess between blinders and blastfaxes, he's got everything he needs for nothing.

Can the Bizarro World come to life like this

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said yesterday that the Bush administration has gone "off a cliff" in postwar Iraq and that "the White House has to get a grip on this."

In a blunt critique by a leading Republican, Gingrich said the administration has failed "to put the Iraqis at the center of this equation. . . . The key to defeating the bad guys is having enough good guys who are Iraqis," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. defended the administration's policy. "I think things are going very well in a very tough situation in Iraq. . . . Newt Gingrich is not all-knowing," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Well not everyone likes to be a fish in a barrel, I guess. In what's sure to be a telling move for other "contractors" to watch, 60 or so South Korean engineers and other workers have walked off the job in Iraq over security-related issues.

A week after two of their colleagues were killed in an ambush, the remaining contingent of 60 South Korean contract engineers and technicians working for the U.S. government on a project north of the capital has decided to leave the country.

It is the largest known withdrawal of contractors over security issues and follows a week of confrontations between the workers and their managers that culminated with yelling and punches Sunday afternoon.
...
Many large contracting companies concede that employees have left Iraq recently or have declined assignments because of safety concerns. The lack of security is complicating efforts to hire the thousands of contractors necessary to staff the $18 billion worth of new reconstruction projects recently approved by the U.S. government.

The Korean electricity workers said they were sorry to abandon the project but that they had been led to believe that the area they would be working in -- the Sunni Triangle, where resistance to the U.S.-led occupation has been strongest -- was stable. They said their managers withheld information crucial to their safety and neglected to provide them with protective equipment.

Now as projects lapse, and expertise is sucked away from the country by security issues, what's the next step...actually hiring Iraqis, like they should have done from day One?

To twist an old 60's anti-war poster: What if they gave a reconstruction effort and nobody came?

Go home, Joe. If there is a candidate closer to the heart of the republican party than Joe Lieberman, I don't know who it is. It's interesting to see his non-evolution as a candidate unfold; in a Washington Post story there's an interesting riff on Joe v. the Entertainment Monolith, sadly he comes off sounding more like Sullivan than does Sully (the Mortenson commentary)...

"The biggest damage he's done is to associate the national Democratic Party as the party with the most hostility toward youth culture," says Danny Goldberg, a longtime record-industry executive active in Democratic politics. "It turns off a core group -- young people -- that should be Democratic voters. I'm not sure what he gets for it in return."
...
This is a persistent criticism of Lieberman -- that he works with a broad brush and lacks direct knowledge of the products and programs he goes after. Several entertainment-industry lobbyists and reporters remember a news conference Lieberman and Bennett called in 1994 to condemn media violence. When a reporter asked Lieberman to name a favorite TV program, the senator cited "The McNeil-Lehrer Report" on PBS. Pressed for the name of an entertainment program, Lieberman hesitated, seemingly unable to come up with an answer.

Samarra. It's just too unbelievable. And is it really happening again?

"The US military spokesman, who caused an excited ITV news desk to wake me at 1am, claimed that they had defeated co-ordinated attacks by about 200 'terrorists', some of them wearing the uniform of the feared Saddam Fedayeen," he wrote in today's Spectator magazine.

"We arrived half expecting to see the bodies of dead insurgents littering the streets. Instead, at the town cemetery, we found that one of the first bodies to be buried under the speedy Muslim rite was that of a female employee of the town's drugs factory, Ameera Sahil, who had been shot dead while waiting for a bus near the factory gate."

According to Manyon's account, just six fresh graves had been dug at the local cemetery and hospital officials put the final death toll at eight, with around 30 wounded.
...
But at a briefing in Baghdad today the US military was sticking by its story. "I trust the reports of my soldiers," said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt.

"There's no reason to doubt what these soldiers saw. There's no reason to doubt what the soldiers reported."

What was Kimmit in 1969, a plebe at West Point, a 4/C ROTC cadet or a freshman in college...he ought to be smarter than this. But Generals are always looking for their next promotion, even at the expense of the truth and common sense it seems.

The ruckus about the alleged attempted bribery of a CongressCritter has reached the desk of Snake-Handler Johnny. Seems that some of the spineless members of the DNC who could have done more to hand the 1600 Crew a defeat here are now asking Jeebus John to investigate the bribery attempt. Yeah, let's put Inspector Clouseau on the case, now!!

Democrats and a legal watchdog group have asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate allegations that Republicans offered a House member $100,000 in contributions for his son's election campaign if he would vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit passed by Congress last month.
...
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan legal watchdog group, also wrote Ashcroft demanding an investigation. "The attempted bribery and extortion of a member of Congress on the House floor destroys the heart of our democracy," she wrote.

Norman Ornstein at the American Enterprise Institute pretends shock and awe at the tactics of the 1600 Crew and congress.

American Enterprise Institute political analyst Norman Ornstein said that if the reports are true, the incident "cuts across a whole series of lines." He said Thompson's presence and Hastert's lobbying were highly unusual. "I've never heard of anything like this on the floor," Ornstein said. "It just stains the speakership."

Ornstein said an inducement of campaign money "is by every standard a violation of the law." But he added, "Will anything be done about it? I'm very skeptical."

It's really, really hard to believe that in the year 2003 there are people still saying things like this:

Tom Coburn, a physician, and co-chairman of the presidential AIDS panel called the distribution misguided because, he said, condoms fail 20 percent of the time.

"We used to think condoms were fairly effective," the former Oklahoma congressman said. "If used perfectly, they are probably 94 or 95 percent effective, but we're human, and we don't use them perfectly. . . . The city would be much better off spending its money getting people tested, treated and counseled not to give the virus to others."

I especially like this next quote:

Robert E. Rector, with the conservative Heritage Foundation said he doubted there is any positive effect in giving away condoms. "The number-one determinant of whether a person will catch a sexually transmitted disease is the number of lifetime sexual partners. We seem to go out of our way as a government and a nation to avoid telling people that, but we hand out a lot of free condoms."

Monty Python just soooo didn't get it...

ARTHUR: Old woman!

DENNIS: Man!

ARTHUR: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?

DENNIS: I'm thirty seven.

ARTHUR: What?

DENNIS: I'm thirty seven -- I'm not old!

ARTHUR: Well, I can't just call you `Man'.

DENNIS: Well, you could say `Dennis'.

ARTHUR: Well, I didn't know you were called `Dennis.'

DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?

ARTHUR: I did say sorry about the `old woman,' but from the behind you looked--

DENNIS: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!

ARTHUR: Well, I AM king...

DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. An' how'd you get that, eh? By exploitin' the workers -- by 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society! If there's ever going to be any progress--

WOMAN: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh -- how d'you do?

ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady. I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Who's castle is that?

WOMAN: King of the who?

ARTHUR: The Britons.

WOMAN: Who are the Britons?

ARTHUR: Well, we all are. we're all Britons and I am your king.

WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.

DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--

WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.

DENNIS: That's what it's all about if only people would--

ARTHUR: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?

WOMAN: No one live there.

ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?

WOMAN: We don't have a lord.

ARTHUR: What?

DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.

ARTHUR: Yes.

DENNIS: But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.

ARTHUR: Yes, I see.

DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--

ARTHUR: Be quiet!

DENNIS: --but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--

ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

WOMAN: Order, eh -- who does he think he is?

ARTHUR: I am your king!

WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.

ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.

WOMAN: Well, 'ow did you become king then?

ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, [angels sing] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] That is why I am your king!

DENNIS: Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

ARTHUR: Be quiet!

DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

ARTHUR: Shut up!

DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an empereror just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!

ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up!

DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.

ARTHUR: Shut up!

DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!

ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!

DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you hear that, did you here that, eh? That's what I'm on about -- did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn't you?

Wow. Talk about just missing the story...MSGOP. If this guy had been looking into Texas Air National Guard records and published a book, he'd probably be locked up in GITMO or Charleston. But he did a good thing and deserved his accolades. Seems that this gent, came up with lots of folks who claimed that they were Vietanam Vets and he debunked/exposed their stories. Good on him.

B.G. “JUG” BURKETT received the Army’s Distinguished Civilian Service Award on Monday from former President George H.W. Bush at the Bush Library in College Station.

“He exposed a mass distortion of history that cost taxpayers billions of dollars” in undeserved veterans benefits, said John W. Nicholson, an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “He returned to the Vietnam veterans their good name.”

Burkett’s mission began in 1986 with his efforts to raise funds for the Texas Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Dallas. Many people refused to donate, Burkett said, because they believed they would be helping drug-abusing psychopaths with no desire to work or contribute to society.

A letter-writer to Sully compliments our lassie for "providing largely informative and logical opinions from a conservative viewpoint", and then calls him(self) out?... "two of your own blog postings in the last couple of days have, unfortunately, strayed into the extreme in their depiction of your ideological counterparts on the Left." So, does Sully write himself email and then publish it?

Only Boyfriend and Beagle know for sure, but it sure looks that way to me. Why? Is this an American turn of a phrase? " I attended university recently". That phrase just doesn't add up, but it would if you were say, a Brit edu-ma-cated here in Amurka. Sound like anyone we know? If Sully has this much time on hands to write fictional email, wow. Where do I sign up?

Oh yeah, PanderBear. Wasn't that what the SCLM and selected republicans accused Gore of being in 2000? Well, if this isn't the one of the biggest cases of Pandering in the history of politics, I honestly don't know what is.

President Bush had little choice on Thursday when he reversed himself and lifted the tariffs on imported steel that he imposed last year.

For the first time in his nearly three years in office, the president, who has often reveled in the exercise of American power, finally met an international organization that had figured out how to hit back at the administration where it would hurt. Employing relatively untested powers, the eight-year-old World Trade Organization authorized European and Asian nations to devise retaliatory tariffs against the United States, just 11 months before a presidential election.

El Gasbaggo is in..deep doo-doo (that's the legal term, I think). Seems that ol' Rushbo might have been doing a bit of Alleged "Doctor Shopping" for some his controlled substances. His attorney, Roy Black, had this quote:

Reading from a statement prepared by his attorney Roy Black, Limbaugh denied any wrongdoing and said the medical records will clear him.

``What these records show is that Mr. Limbaugh suffered extreme pain and had legitimate reasons for taking pain medication,'' Limbaugh said. ``Unfortunately, because of Mr. Limbaugh's prominence and well-known political opinions, he is being subjected to an invasion of privacy no citizen of this republic should endure.''

On the subject of pain, I thought it was back pain that led him to doing the drugs he was in rehab for. Why were they looking at the records of an Ear, Nose and Throat practice? I guess it only hurt when he bogeyed on the 18th...

Just couldn't be happening to a nicer hypocrite.

Andy once again is shilling for what he terms "Big Pharma", somehow managing to confuse Captialism and Compassion. His claim that the large pharmaceutical companies will cease-and-desist funding AIDS research puzzles me. Is it not in the best interests of any company that can try to produce such a drug to produce one if possible? If for no other reason than to be remembered forever as the company that Beat the Reaper? I would guess it would be, but then I'm just a dumb Democrat...not a smart Shill.

One of the key ingredients it would seem would be having those pesky elections in Iraq happen...something the 1600 Crew says they deseperately want (and Sir Karl the Chubbette surely wants) before the coronation in NYC, is a body count (no, not that kind) a Census. But wait, they can't have one...why?

Iraqi census officials devised a detailed plan to count the country's entire population next summer and prepare a voter roll that would open the way to national elections in September. But American officials say they rejected the idea, and the Iraqi Governing Council members say they never saw the plan to consider it.

The practicality of national elections is now the subject of intense debate among Iraqi and American officials, who are trying to move forward on a plan to give Iraqis sovereignty next summer. As the American occupation officials rejected the plan to compile a voter roll rapidly, they also argued to the Governing Council that the lack of a voter roll meant national elections were impractical.

The American plan for Iraqi sovereignty proposes instead a series of caucus-style, indirect elections.

Once again I bow to Atrios for a tidbit that can't be passed up. Seems a Doctor, as in MD-type wrote this to the Tuscon Citizen:

Executions would halt killings

We can stop the murders of American soldiers in Iraq by those who seek revenge or to regain their power. Whenever there is an assassination or another atrocity we should proceed to the closest mosque and execute five of the first Muslims we encounter.

After all this is a "Holy War" and although such a procedure is not fair or just, it might end the horror.

Machiavelli was correct. In war it is more effective to be feared than loved and the end result would be a more equitable solution for both giving us a chance to build a better Iraq for the Iraqis.

- EMORY METZ WRIGHT JR., M.D

The intention of Memorial Lidice is to take care of permanent retainment of the extermination of town Lidice and the suffering of its residents who 10.6.1942 became the victims of the fascist violence and to keep the name of the town Lidice as a world symbol of all victims of war malefactions.

The lot of the Czech nation was complicated by the decision of the Czechoslovak government in London to get rid of Heydrich. The operation by Czechoslovak parachutists in which Heydrich was, mortally wounded on May 37, 1942 brought reprisals which shocked the whole world.

The vague contents of a letter, addressed to a woman employed in a Slaný factory and held back by the factory co-owner. F. Pala, roused the suspicions of the Kladno Gestapo that there was some connection between Heydrich's assassination and the Horák family in Lidice who had a son serving in the Czechoslovak army in Britain. Although investigations and a house-search produced no compromising material, weapons or transmitter, the Nazis needed to carry out an act of vengeance for the death of "an outstanding man of the German nation", and for this they chose the people of Lidice.

The tragedy ot this little village and its 503 inhabitants began on June 10, 1942 a few hours after midnight. The events of that summer day are recorded in a documentary, filmed by those who actually carried out that brutal crime against innocent people. Although a silent film, it can be understood by all people, irrespective of their colour or tongue. This film served as document No. 379 at the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi German leaders in 1945. Parts of the film are shown on a video recording at the Lidice museum.

At the orders of K. H. Frank 173 Lidice men were shot on that fateful day in the garden of the Horak farm. The women and children were taken to the gymnasium of Kladno grammar school. Three days later the children were taken from their mothers and, except for those selected for re-education in German families and babies under one year of age, were poisoned by exhaust gas in specially adapted vehicles in the Polish extermination camp at Chelm. The women were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp which usually meant quick or lingering death for the inmates.

Having rid the village of its inhabitants, the Nazis began to destroy the village itself, first setting the houses on fire and then razing them to the ground with plastic explosives. They did not stop at that but proceeded to destroy the church and even the last place of rest - the cemetery. ln 1943 all that remained was an empty space. Until the end of the war the sight was marked by notices forbidding entry.

Just a note, I don't think this affects too many folks, but if by chance you have DemVet in your blogroll as usndemvet.com, could you add a /blog to the end of that, so it is usndemvet.com/blog you can just cut and paste that, no typing required. For some reason the pointer in some file is screwy, and it is pointing to the wrong place. If I can find it, I can fix it. I appreciate your help...once it's fixed, I hope either URL will work, and there will be no need to change it back or mess with it ever again.

Poppy already called it Voodo Economics, so I can't. But it is.

Atrios points out that Dear Leader claims he has resolved the issue of WMD's in Iraq during a fundraiser in New Jersey. His words:

"I came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations," Bush told the crowd.

Thomas Scully, head medicare dude. Now with the republican medicare bill about to become law, all the companies want to maximize their profits from it. So why not hire the guy who helped write it, who incidentally is now in charge of Medicare?

The federal official who runs Medicare and was intimately involved in drafting legislation to overhaul the program is the object of a bidding war among five firms hoping to hire him to advise clients affected by the measure.

Though the official, Thomas A. Scully, is not widely known outside Washington, his exhaustive knowledge of the Medicare program and the intricacies of the legislation, approved by Congress last week, would make him a prize catch for any law firm or private equity firm.
...
Mr. Scully said Tuesday evening, after several earlier interviews about his job negotiations, that he was submitting a letter of resignation and would step down on Dec. 16. He said he had not decided which of the five jobs to take.

Gail E. Shearer, a health policy analyst at Consumers Union, said Mr. Scully's discussions with prospective employers were troubling. "At a time when there are questions about whether the Medicare legislation serves special interests or consumers, we want to know that our public officials have their minds totally focused on doing what's best for consumers," she said.
...
Mr. Scully, who served as a White House budget official in the first Bush administration, has run Medicare and Medicaid since May 2001.

So you expected better now that the grownups are in charge in La Busha Nostra?

Sullivan: Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the Right. Here I am, stuck in the muddle with you. Sully rants about the affinity of every nut case, left and right, for Islamism. I do notice though he never seems to want to talk about the connections of the Miserable Failure's family between the Saudi Royals, Radical Muslim Clerics and Madrassas. I guess that would require both journalism and a comittment to finding (and writing) the truth, not just ranting about everyone who doesn't share his worldview...whatever that might be. Or it might lead him to the most unpleasant discovery that [GASP] all is not as it seems in the 1600 Crew, and they are .... not really straight-shooters or the heros he has made them out to be.

In the truest tradition of never met a stupid idea it didn't like, the REMF geniuses at the Pentagram are actually using our money to fund this

It's called the Segway Human Transporter, but the Pentagon is drafting the two-wheeled scooter as part of a plan to develop battlefield robots that think on their own and communicate with troops.
...
Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said the idea is to let researchers concentrate on what the agency calls Mobile Autonomous Robot Software, rather than the mode of transportation. The Segway, which uses gyroscopes to balance itself, provides a common platform on which researchers can swap open-source programs.

Apparently three recently retired Flag Officers are speaking out about the indefinate detentions in GITMO. Better late than never.

[RADM Don] Guter, Rear Adm. John Hutson and Brig. Gen. David Brahms worry that lengthy incarcerations at Guantanamo without hearings will undermine the rule of law and endanger U.S. forces.

"For me it's a question of balance between security needs and due process, and I think we've lost our balance," Guter said.
...
Guter's group believes the administration and Pentagon missed a chance to provide quick hearings called for in international conventions on the treatment of prisoners to determine if the captives were probably enemy combatants.

"Somehow, in the fog of war, we skipped over that," Hutson said.
...
For two years, the Bush administration has described the detainees as "the worst of the worst" and "killers." The three former officers are skeptical, noting that 88 have been released so far from the prison camp.
...
The trio also worries that the Guantanamo precedent will make it easier for other countries, groups and warlords to hold Americans, keep them isolated and ignore the Geneva Conventions.

"If we want the world to play by the rules, we have to be on the moral high ground," said Brahms, who spent 26 years in the Marines before opening a private law practice in Carlsbad, Calif.
...
"We took an oath to defend the Constitution," he said, "not the president or secretary of defense."

How dare you question Infalliable Leader. Why do you hate America so?

That President Chump-Change is an idiot. The massively transparent "stimulus" has some historical precedents, most notably what happened under the man who seems to be the hero and inspiration for most of the 1600 Crew, Tricky Dick.

To win re-election in 1972, Nixon ramped up federal spending and took other actions to juice the economy and financial markets, including imposing wage and price controls to combat inflation.

Nixon won in a landslide. But the economy soon collapsed in a harsh recession.

Inflation is not among Bush's problems. But artificial stimulation of the economy usually backfires.

"There is enormous stimulus in the system," says Robert Rubin, who was President Bill Clinton's treasury secretary. He cites the Bush tax cuts, mushrooming federal deficit, heavy spending on defense and the current low-interest rate environment.

"We have created a horrendous fiscal mess for ourselves," Rubin said.

Deficit spending can help revive a stagnant economy and help create jobs -- currently Bush's biggest problem.

1. Happy New Year
   
2. Disturbing Images
   
3. The (low-cost) Draft?
   
4. Brings A Tear to my eye..
   
5. Talking Beef...errr...Dollars
   
6. 25 republican "virtues"
   
7. Behold, the Power of Lobbyists
   
8. The Andy Doofus Awards
   
9. A Chickenhawk Christmas present...WAR
   
10. Big Beef?