Literally. We're off on a week-long break from the world...will blog if I get a chance, since I'm sure that there are internet cafes somewhere in the town where we're staying...

Until then, Hasta La Bye Bye and see you next Saturday or Sunday...

Peace.

I missed much of the Kerry speech, we had network problem that took me away to the office, so I have been catching up via transcripts and blogs...then it struck me, what does the Duchess have to say... that recent No More Bush convert, which I guess is different from him supporting Kerry (can he vote?).

This made me laugh...

... The first and most obvious thing to say about Kerry's speech was that it was far too long. ...

FMA Bad

To me at least, he is a deeply unlikable guy: arrogant, dull, pompous, mannered, self-righteous.

our good buddy skippy the bush kangaroo, has a most worthy post noting that the gang whose war lies are as transparent as cellophane can't even lie about the little things and get it right...

the first family...does not snack...they are very good at respecting meal time hours and do not eat between meals...there is no snacking..."

- white house pastry chef roland mesnier, whitehouse.gov, 7/27/04

versus

"president bush fainted for a brief time sunday in the residence of the white house while eating a pretzel and watching a professional football game on television."

- cnn, 1/14/02

We blogged about Sibel Edmonds long ago, and now it looks like she may have in fact, have had a few legitimate concerns.

A classified Justice Department investigation has concluded that a former F.B.I. translator at the center of a growing controversy was dismissed in part because she accused the bureau of ineptitude, and it found that the F.B.I. did not aggressively investigate her claims of espionage against a co-worker.

The Justice Department's inspector general concluded that the allegations by the translator, Sibel Edmonds, "were at least a contributing factor in why the F.B.I. terminated her services," and the F.B.I. is considering disciplinary action against some employees as a result, Robert S. Mueller III, director of the bureau, said in a letter last week to lawmakers. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.

Hope NEEDS to be on the way...the police state of a second 1600 Crew term will open the gulags and the soulless factories of a truly Christo-Corpo-Fascist state.

Catching a story off the MSGOP/WaPo internet site today...pretty much read like a rah-rah piece at first, until I got to this quote by Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr. who commanded the 82nd Airborne in eYe-Rack.

Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division in western Iraq for much of the past year, said he generally endorses the idea of putting Iraqi security forces at the fore while U.S. troops move to the background. The problem, he said in a talk in Washington last month, was that the U.S. aid program has been too sluggish to put that theory into practice. "I never got to the point where we had the equipment to do that," said Swannack, who worked with Mines in Al Anbar. "I couldn't get the flak vests, communications and vehicles to do that." (my emphasis)

I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening. And so I take my responsibility seriously. And it starts with making sure we rebuild our military. Morale in today’s military is low. We’re having trouble meeting recruiting goals. Some of our troops are not well-equipped. I believe we’re overextended in too many places. I want to rebuild the military power. It starts with a billion dollar pay raise for the men and women who wear the uniform to make sure our troops are well-housed and well-equipped; bonus plans to keep some of our high-skilled folks in the services; and a commander in chief who clearly sets the mission.

Source: Presidential debate, Boston MA Oct 3, 2000

A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam. When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming.

Source: Speech to Republican National Convention Aug 3, 2000

I never thought that I'd actually get to see Her Majesty verbalize her conceit that she's smarter, wiser and just better than us all...here goes:

I've been writing for months now that Kerry's most effective message would be that he'd conduct the war on terror with more allies and more wisdom than Bush. But I never actually believed he'd be canny enough to do exactly that.

Update: And then there's this little Andrew-esque gem:

And then there was the gut-punch: the indirect use of Bush's dubious National Guard service. In fact, the way in which the Democrats used the service record of Kerry against Bush was straight out of the Republican playbook. It's a pretty low blow, and Carter delivered it with a deep thud. When you describe someone as weak on defense and a draft-dodger, you're usually a Republican. But not this time.

This has to be one of the most overarching themes of the convention and this electoral season...

In Democratic circles not so long ago, "FOB" stood for "Friends of Bill." Now a new meaning has permeated the party: Fear of Bush.
...
"George W. Bush has done more to unify the Democratic Party than any other Republican in my lifetime, and I've been active in state politics for about 60 years," said Dennis Jenson, 79, an Arizona delegate from Sun City, sounding a variation on a theme that echoed again and again during interviews with delegates from Arizona to Wisconsin.

Everything about the phony little sleaze from stealing an election to lying about seeing the WTC being attacked to lying about Iraq has made him the worst President in American history. I wonder how he'll see himself a year from now, when he's unemployed and hung over, Mrs. Hump-a-Lump be damned. Probobly be stumbling down to the local package store for another bottle of Mescal or something.

I thought that we, as Democrats would not have to resort to the tactics of the 1600 Crew to keep the voices we disagree with out of sight, out of mind. I would not favor speakers who are inciting riots on the convention floor, but the whole "Free Speech Zone", used by either party is just plain wrong.

Bob Kunst is working up a head of steam. "Do you think this is a real election?" he thunders into the microphone from the stage of the Democratic Convention's protest pen. "This is a phony thing. We're being sold a bill of goods!"

...In fact, let's do a quick count: Not including a couple of reporters and a dozen cops and National Guardsmen working security, there's exactly . . . no one listening. ...

This is not entirely Kunst's fault. The officially designated "Free Speech" zone and all-purpose protest area for this celebration of the Democratic way isn't exactly front and center. It's wedged between a parking lot for buses and a bunch of trailers, and set beneath the blue-green steel supports of a condemned stretch of the T, Boston's mass-transit line. The area's perimeter is marked by a sawtooth pattern of Jersey barriers, and it's caged top to bottom with cyclone fencing and barbed wire. A black plastic tarp keeps officially credentialed types in the FleetCenter compound from seeing inside the pen.

I doub that any delegate would be harmed by the likes of Mr. Kunst, but our values sure take a beating over his treatment. I guess once again we can thank Preznit Brainless Twit for mainstreaming an abhorrent practice to the detriment of us all.

Damn.

Are we seeing a future president here? Was that not a kick-ass speech?

I tuned in to see one of the best speeches of the convention so far and to hear one of the most mindless pieces of punditry (paraphrasing...) BoBo Brooks on PBS -- "Why he was like Tiger Woods" or words to that effect.

BoBo Brooks...what an asshat.

Of all the things that the P-Town Puffer has written, this has to be, by far, the most asinine:

A SOLDIER: Responds to Michael Moore. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is having a devastating effect on morale. Which was, of course, the point.

If you read the piece the Dim Duchess links to, it's an excercise in listening to a soldier bitch about what he percieves as Michael Moore abusing what he (the soldier) perceives as Moore abusing the First Amendment. What surprises me more than anything about this is that Sullivan would so blithely link to someone who so narrowly interprets the First Amendment. The same soldier might (and I conjecture here) be as opposed to Sullivan as he is to Moore for both First Amendment (an active proponent of Gay Rights and all with a media prescence) and "moral" reasons (a "Levitican").

Sometimes it really is fun to watch Sullivan shoot himself in the foot with a howitzer...

So the republicans are set to take potshots at John Kerry during the convention. Fine. Here's Ed "Little Head" Gillespie:

...We know we're swimming upstream and that our quotes are going to be on the jump page. But we don't want to let charges go unanswered and we don't want to allow them to ditch the senator's record, because we believe it's important in the debate.

• Disappeared from the Texas Air National Guard, never explained the gap in his service
• Lied about What Saddam Could Do over and over and over
• Responsible for the unnesscary deaths of over 900 American in the Mess in Mesopotamia
• Responsible for bankrupting the economy for generations to come
• Runs an adminstration that presided over the largest job loss since Herbert Hoover
• Cost the American People the respect of the rest of the world due to his arrogance and stupidity

Hey Ed: refute that you punk-ass bitch!

Al Gore tonight:

Al Gore said tonight, "I prefer to focus on the future because I know from my own experience that America is a land of opportunity, where every little boy and girl has a chance to grow up and win the popular vote."

You know, the one that should be getting 100% of the attention of that minion of CheneyBurton, Preznit Saudi Sucker, they're getting ready to have an election ... if you know those pesky actual Friends of Osama don't interfere in the electoral process...

Officially announcing his candidacy for the country's first democratic election, President Hamid Karzai dropped one of his vice presidents from his ticket, raising concerns in the capital that the spurned faction leader might react violently.

NATO and the international peacekeeping force in Kabul were on a heightened state of alert and conducting additional patrols through the city after First Vice President Mohammed Fahim, who is Afghanistan's defense minister and commands the Northern Alliance militia, was left off Karzai's slate. "This is a sensitive time in the Afghan political process," said Cmdr. Chris Henderson of Canada, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force.
...
Monday was the deadline for candidates to submit their applications, and the final list will be announced by the election commission on Thursday. About 20 Afghans had expressed intention to run, including one woman, Masooda Jalal, 41, a pediatrician who is running a grass-roots campaign that she said has collected 20,000 signatures on filing petitions -- twice the number needed.
...
Taliban fighters still active in the south and southeast of the country have threatened to disrupt the polls and have staged several attacks in recent months against election workers and voters carrying registration cards. But military officials said the attacks so far appear uncoordinated and relatively ineffective.

Why do I suspect that the next major problem over there will be treated as a big shock by Fearless Leader and given as yet another example of his sterling "Leadership". Not.

James Carville, as noted, no paragon of restraint (that can be said for moi as well) went to a Veterans for Kerry event and laid it out:

Let me tell you something...." Pause for maximum effect. "It'll probably get out there, but what the hell...." Pause for comedic timing.... Glance at the dozens of cameras and journalists standing in the back of the ballroom.... "It'll probably get out there, but what the hell: John Kerry is just a better man than George W. Bush."

I wonder when the republican manufactured-outrage machine will be demanding the tapes...

Yeah, Saddam was a bad man. I guess his credit report must have gone south on him, because apparently there was no other compelling reason in our National Interest to invade Iraq other than perhaps non-payment of CheneyBurton invoices or something.

One week after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, White House counterterrorism director Paul Kurtz wrote in a memo to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that no "compelling case" existed for Iraq's involvement in the attacks and that links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government were weak.

Not only did Osama bin Laden resent the Iraqi government's secularism, Kurtz's classified memo stated, but there was no confirmed information about collaboration between them on weapons of mass destruction.
...
Four days later, when Bush convened a seminal meeting of his senior advisers at Camp David to decide retaliatory steps, the Defense Department submitted a paper that depicted Iraq, the Taliban and al Qaeda as priority targets in the first stage of action, the commission states. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith argued in three memos for Rumsfeld in subsequent days why Iraq should be hit, the report discloses.

The memos -- including one dated Sept. 18 and titled "Were We Asleep?" -- listed alleged ties between al Qaeda and Iraq that the commission report debunks, such as a theory that Ramzi Yousef, an al Qaeda-affiliated bomber convicted of masterminding the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, was an Iraqi agent.

I will always choose to defend America. I would never try to defend these miserable fuckwits.

In todays episode of "The Dirty Dish" our princess almost sounds rational, almost talks as though she's recognizing that the Christo-Fascist republicans want to march her off to a Lager in some Western State, complete with guard dogs and barbed-wire. The comes the usual "I can't believe that I could ever be as bad as a [gasp] progressive, Democratic kinda Princess" moment...

Yes, today's Republicans are now the inheritors of those Democrats who did all they could to prevent African-Americans from winning their civil rights.

The Army's investigator of abuse today decleared that there was not a pattern of abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An Army investigation has concluded that the abuse of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq was the result of individual acts of indiscipline, not of any systemic problem or flawed policy.

Lt. Gen. Paul T. Mikolashek, the Army's inspector general, told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that while his review of 94 confirmed cases of abuse found some "shortcomings and flaws," particularly in Army training of military police, overall there was no sign of a "pattern" of abuse that would suggest "any systemic failure."
...
The Army's long-awaited conclusions supported statements by President Bush and top military officials, who have said the acts of mistreatment of prisoners were aberrations rather than the product of any policy, implicit or explicit, or of a culture in the Army.

I guess a pattern would have involved incarerating and then raping children. Oh, my bad, that allegedly happened too.

The terrorists plan and carry out a devastating strike against our country. Preznit Fuzzy Thinking launches into action fresh from his 100th day of vacation in 2001. He continues to read a book about Goats to Kids and then proceeds to spend the next 24 hours doing what he did for his entire National Guard career: Hiding out. Then whipping up everyone's fear level to just short of a declaration of Martial Law, he reluctantly appoints a commission to "look into" the whole 9/11 debacle. Today they hand him the report.

Citing multiple failures across the government to detect and prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plot, the bipartisan commission investigating the attacks today called for the appointment of a new high-level intelligence chief and the establishment of a national counterterrorism center to help overcome deep institutional failings and deal with the likelihood of another major terrorist assault.

President Bush, presented with a copy of the report at the White House this morning, said he would study the panel's "very constructive recommendations." But he did not immediately commit his administration to any fundamental changes.

Sorry, didn't mean to sugar coat it like that.

Der Duchess is having paroxsyms of joy over a statement by Joe Wilson:

WILSON: I never claimed to have "debunked" the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

When he returns to Terra Firma, someone will still be criminally liable for releasing Valerie Plame's name to Novakula to "punish" Wilson for not being a good little lap-dog. He seems to either forget or not care that a crime was committed by a member of the 1600 Crew. Just another case of Moral Relativism at work, officer, nothing to see here...move on.

I'm taking no position one way or another on the whole Sandy Berger thing...I wish that the SCLM was this upset about Valerie Plame being "outed". For a better analysis than I could do right now, go check out Functional Ambivalent's take on the whole thing.

Tempest. Teapot. Poll numbers down? Pimp a Dem. Original...oh, and how is the Valerie Plame investigation going, anyhow?

For all my buds out there running some kind of comment-policing software on your blog here are some URL's that dropped over 600 comments into my blog in the last couple of hours. One, play--- is still trying to spam me; it had over 400 of the entries alone. Add these to your blacklist...

playgay.biz
meds-pill.com
milfporn.org
xxx-dvd.biz
xxx-stories.net
zoo-zone.com

Happy blogging. I hate comment spammers with a passion.

When we start paying our enlisted men and women, especially those at the pointy edge of the spear maybe this will be a little less disconcerting. Watching supposedly "American" companies and individuals prey on those who are in many ways highly vulnerable makes me sick.

Nicholas Stachler was 19 years old when he reported for basic training with the Army at Fort Benning, Ga., before shipping out for 11 months to Iraq.

A gentle, trusting man, he had only weeks earlier graduated from high school with a handful of trophies in hockey and soccer, middling grades and hardly a clue about how to handle his money. He had held only casual jobs baby-sitting and mowing lawns and had never opened a checking account. The bus trip to boot camp, from the foothills of the Appalachians in southern Ohio to the kudzu-covered fields of western Georgia, took him farther from home than he had ever been.

About six weeks into his training - six weeks of combat drills and drummed-in lessons in Army ways - he tasted one of the less-honorable traditions of military life: a compulsory classroom briefing on personal finance that was a life insurance sales pitch in disguise.

Every serviceperson has access to some good, solid financial advice and services from companies like USAA, if they're eligible to join, or military credit unions, like Navy Federal and Pentagon Federal; they offer financial products that will meet the needs of service members and their families and they don't have to resort to 'interesting' practices to get business. Dollars to Donuts GEN Zinni is a member of both USAA and Navy Federal...

The solution to this is to pressure the congressCriminals to tighten up the laws and put some teeth into enforcement oversight against these predators. No E-4 should be buying financial products it takes an MBA to decipher and then losing their ass in the process while they are facing combat...why not just start selling them derivatives or something? It seems that these "salesmen" took advantage of a system that's badly in need of repair, to the detriment, it seems to me, of Good Order and Discipline...

Does anyone out there seem to remember hearing something like this before?

President Bush said Monday the United States is trying to determine whether Iran was involved in the Sept. 11 plot and accused Tehran of harboring al-Qaida leaders.
...
Bush said the United States will continue to look into whether Iran was involved. “As to direct connections with Sept. 11, we’re digging into the facts to determine if there was one.”

Iran, branded like Iraq by Bush as part of an “axis of evil” that threatens to fuel global terrorism, was “harboring al-Qaida leadership there,” the president said. He urged Tehran to have them “turned over to their respective countries” of origin.

Being an anti-death penalty kind guy, I'm really happy to see this, a call to end the execution of people who commit crimes before the age of 18. If it were not for Lawn Odor republicans, and pandering Democrats this would not even be an issue.

A broad array of individuals and groups ranging from Jimmy Carter to Mikhail Gorbachev and the American Medical Association to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urged the Supreme Court yesterday to declare that it is unconstitutional to execute people for crimes they committed before turning 18.

The United States is one of five countries that execute juvenile offenders, a practice that shocks European allies and violates "minimum standards of decency shared by virtually every nation in the world," nine eminent former U.S. diplomats told the court in one of 15 briefs filed yesterday. Virginia is one of seven states that execute juvenile offenders.

Choose a descriptor...guess who? Yes, sadly the She-Devil with No Memory is now rallying support to that most Chicken of Hawks, Michael Ledeen's newest bloodlust target ... Iran. Surely you all remember Ledeen, a General in the 101st Keyboard Brigade who 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

It really is hard to believe this and to make it more ...interesting... her majesty couches the argument in terms that might make a reader believe he has no ill intentions. It's almost a debate on Foreign Policy ... except the concept of Policy is as Foreign to him as it is to the Dimmest of Bulbs, Preznit Brand'm Deke.

What Sullivan really wants is more young men (servants) in uniform so he can continue to live out those P-Town macho masturbatory fantasies of Hot Young Soldiers all coming for him. Remember, it's not about right and wrong it's about ... ahhh who knows with him anymore.

Sullivan. One twisted Cheneyer.

Oh, and Andrew...get a mirror.

... Has anyone as repulsively pompous as Joe Wilson emerged from the D.C. undergrowth in recent years?

Good morning...I'm back. Slacktivist has a post up re-examining biblical injuctions, something we should all regularly do in today's Murika. The Preznit says so. Anyhow in the comments in Slacktivist's post I found this. Laughed my ass off...hope you enjoy it,

A Letter to Dr. Laura...

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your radio show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific Bible laws and how to follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors complain to the zoning people. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. What do you think would be a fair price for her? She's 18 and starting college. Will the slave buyer be required to continue to pay for her education by law ?

c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense and threaten to call Human Resources.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? ....Why can't I own Canadians? Is there something wrong with tham due to the weather?

e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should this be a neighborhood improvement project ? What is a good day to start? Should we begin with small stones? Kind of lead up to it?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. I mean, a shrimp just isn't the same as a you-know-what. Can you settle this?

g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? Would contact lenses fall within some exception?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die? The Mafia once took out Albert Anastasia in a barbershop, but I'm not Catholic; is this ecumenical thing a sign that it's ok?

I) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan

Being in that hotel in New Orleans and not having decent internet access made me miss things like this, which of course begs the question: Fool, what the hell were you doing in your hotel room in New Orleans...okay, I got out some (note: lack o' blogging). Anyhow, I did not make the rounds and so missed this story I found at SK Bubba's fine establishment.

Trudeau said he penned his very first cartoon to illustrate an article in the Yale Daily News on Bush and allegations that his fraternity, DKE, had hazed incoming pledges by branding them with an iron.

The article in the campus paper prompted The New York Times to interview Bush, who was a senior that year. Trudeau recalled that Bush told the Times "it was just a coat hanger, and ... it didn't hurt any more than a cigarette burn."

"It does put one in mind of what his views on torture might be today," Trudeau said.

Krauthammer made another point with which we lustily agree:

KRAUTHAMMER: It is part of the trivialization of politics that we give endless attention to the inner life of the politician...I don't really care what a public figure thinks. Let God probe his inner heart. Tell me about his outer acts.

Preznit Coat Hanger...has a certain je ne sais pas ce qui. Forgive my French.

Over at MSNBC they have a list of stupid laws. Glad I never lived in Mississippi or went drinking there in my bachelor Navy days...

LAW: A man may not seduce a woman by lying, and claiming he will marry her.
COUNTRY: USA / STATE: Mississippi
CITATION: 97-29-55 Seduction of female over age of eighteen by promised or pretended marriage.
ACTUAL: If any person shall obtain carnal knowledge of any woman, or female child, over the age of eighteen years, of previous chaste character, by virtue of any feigned or pretended marriage or any false or feigned promise of marriage, he shall, upon conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years; but the testimony of the female seduced, alone, shall not be sufficient to warrant a conviction.

Mark Kleiman bemoans the lack of civility of those pesky bots that harvest email addresses from all over the internet. Well, yer trusty Fish has found the answer...if you want an email URL in your blog or what ever follow this link, all its instructions and you too can have an unharvestable, encrypted email address in your blog. Might have to do it myself....

I think I read stories like this from the 1930's in Germany once upon a time...

"Dear Tenants," the letter stated, "As you know the United States Government and specifically the Homeland Security Administration is investigating illegal aliens . . . I have given them all the information that I know about my tenants (age, names, work, cars, marriage, country of origin, telephone numbers, children) . . . You should expect a visit in the near future."
...
Much has changed in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, world of New York. There are subway announcements advising riders to watch for suspicious people and unattended packages. There is the shared memory of attacks past and the fear of more to come. And for some of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the city, especially those whose visa papers are not in order, the fear is doubled. They worry about more attacks and about those who might take advantage of them in these troubled times.

"This case in the Bronx is a particularly flagrant example of what our constituency faces with some frequency," said Andrew Friedman, co-director of Make the Road by Walking, an immigrant advocacy group that has worked with tenants in Brooklyn who have received similar verbal threats from landlords. "People put up with absolutely ghastly living conditions and feel they can't complain in this security-conscious world."
...
Landlord Scott Kalb, who owns a dozen buildings in the South Bronx, said in an interview that he did not write the letter. It bears his return address and telephone number, and the type font is the same as his previous letters to tenants. In the interview he referred approvingly to the letter's message.

"It's a whole, big scare thing; you're trying to turn me into a dragon landlord," he said. In reference to his tenants, he said: "You are talking about people who don't even speak English, who are illegal immigrants just like the letter says. Tell me this: What do they know?"

Close your eyes and imagine that you are living in a world where everything is awarded fairly and to the most competant company. Now open them up ... welcome to republican America in debt.

Congress is poised to appropriate $100 million to keep one of the federal government's most scandal-ridden and contentious programs -- the Air Force's plan to replace its aging aerial-refueling tankers with new Boeing 767s.

Insiders say that the primary reason for the payout is that House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has made Boeing Co.'s cause his own.
...
According to PoliticalMoneyLine.com, a nonpartisan campaign finance research group, the $4 million Boeing spent to pay dozens of lobbyists last year (the latest data available) made it No. 20 on the long list of major companies and interest groups that try to influence Washington decision-makers. In the current election cycle, Boeing ranks No. 12 among corporations in campaign giving to federal candidates. Its political action committee has contributed $492,000 so far, of which $10,000 went to Hastert, PoliticalMoneyLine.com records show.

McCain and others have charged that the proposed $23.5 billion deal for 100 Boeing jets -- the costliest lease in U.S. history -- was designed more to benefit Boeing than American taxpayers. ...

Boeing has not been coy about saying one reason it decided to move to Chicago from Seattle was that it could count on Hastert's patronage. Hastert, the House's top Republican, makes a habit of helping Illinois-based corporations. He has championed measures for years that have benefited Caterpillar Inc. and UAL Corp., the parent company of United Airlines. In 1998, he added $250,000 to the Pentagon spending bill so that Amurol Confections Co. of his hometown of Yorkville, Ill., could study caffeinated chewing gum.

Well, he went and pressed his case for the jerk-off. As everyone and their box turtle knows, if it weren't for Sullivan and his self-serving smug overpaid brethren in the media who sold the Gore-Internet-Dog Meds bullshit over and over again, along with the Clenis™ life in these 50 states might be somewhat different...Al-Qaeda or not.

Reading how the GOP hopes to use fear of gays to rev up their base across the country really makes me feel ill.

Indeed.

Over at Atrios they're flogging this story, and it needs more attention. I googled for it, yahoo'd for it and came up empty. Both the Sydney Morning Herald and Bloomberg have picked it up. Saddam might have been a bad man, is Allawi worse?

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
...
They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death".

The Prime Minister's office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun.
...
Iraq's Interior Minister, Falah al-Naqib, is said to have looked on and congratulated him when the job was done. Mr al-Naqib's office has issued a verbal denial.
...
"The prisoners were against the wall and we were standing in the courtyard when the Interior Minister said that he would like to kill them all on the spot. Allawi said that they deserved worse than death - but then he pulled the pistol from his belt and started shooting them."
...
A former CIA officer, Vincent Cannisatraro, recently told The New Yorker: "If you're asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does. He was a paid Mukhabarat [intelligence] agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff."
...
Before the shootings, the 58-year-old Prime Minister is said to have told the policemen they must have courage in their work and that he would shield them from any repercussions if they killed insurgents in the course of their duty.

If this story is in the least bit true, there goes the 1600 Crew rationale for "Saddam Bad Man...Must Go", I mean hell, we have pictures of SH and Rummy back when they were almost kissin' cousins. Now, we're seeing the genesis of another dimension of yet another Persian Gulf Disaster...no thanks, I think it's time for the Neocons, Warfloggers and CongressCriminals to start sending their kids over for a taste of the Persian Gulf Paradise.

Well in the world o'strange, this has to be one of the stranger things I've seen in a while. The Donald has little regard for Preznit No Accountability. In fact, The Donald says he'd fire him...will he put his not-inconsiderable bank account where his mouth is?

"Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in. I would never have handled it that way. Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country?," Trump said.

"C'mon. Two minutes after we leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. And he'll have weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam didn't have," Trump said in excerpts of the interview released in advance to Reuters.
...
What was the purpose of the whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and no legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who've been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!," Trump said.
...
"Bin Laden would have been caught long ago. Tell me, how is it possible that we can't find a guy who's six-foot-six and supposedly needs a dialysis machine? Can you explain that one to me? We have all our energies focused on one place, where they shouldn't be focused," he said.

Well it seems that the last straw that the Warfloggers clutched, the mythical "Coalition of the Willing" is now the coalition of "cabbie, Baghdad International, and step on it". Foreign Policy? Allies thru thick and thin? Uh-huh.

The Bush administration faces growing challenges in holding together the 32-nation coalition deployed in Iraq, with four countries already gone, another four due to leave by September and others now making known their intention to wind down or depart before the political transition is complete next year, according to officials from 28 participating countries.
...
Any dwindling of the coalition -- by choice or after hostage seizures and other violence -- further complicates the already difficult job of sustaining the multinational force, which is critical to Washington's assertion that it has international support for the Iraq mission. It could also encourage further abductions or attacks to heighten the psychological pressure and undermine the U.S.-led mission, coalition diplomats say.

"We think withdrawal sends the wrong signal and that it is important for people to stand up to terrorists and not allow them to change our behavior," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

Lockheed, the company repsponsible for legendary advances in aircraft design was, I guess, was not so progressive in their policies of dealing with racist employees. Last summer, an employee shot 14 of his fellow employees, six of them were black and dead by the end of his rampage.

The July 8, 2003, shootings by Lockheed worker Doug Williams left six of the victims dead, four of whom were black. Williams killed himself at the scene.
...
"Nothing will ever bring these persons back," Means said. "But it validates their claims that the killings were racially motivated and that something could have been done to have prevented these incidents from ever occurring."

Means said workers at the plant had brought Williams's conduct to the company's attention, and Lockheed sent him to anger management classes. Among other things, Williams once wore a Ku Klux Klan hood to work, according to Means, and brought unconcealed weapons into the building the morning of the shooting.

Preznit Incoherent Idiot was in the terra-tory of my fellow Rocky Top Brigaders yesterday...and he's still trying to avoid that the most obvious threat Iraq represented to Americans was the Death of over 800 of them at the hands of the 1600 Crew.

President Bush asserted Monday that the war against Iraq has made America safer as he sought to counteract the findings in a Senate report late last week that the U.S. intelligence community distorted and exaggerated the weapons threat posed by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
...
...A new Washington Post poll found that 45 percent of the public believes the war was worth fighting, compared with 49 percent in May and 57 percent a year ago.

Proof that Preznit Opium Dreams is smokin' the Poppy:

"We are defending the peace by taking the fight to the enemy," Bush said in a subtle reformulation of the idea of "preemption" that has been a centerpiece of his foreign policy since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "We have followed this strategy -- defending the peace, protecting the peace and extending the peace -- for nearly three years. We have been focused and patient, firm and consistent."

Bush said the administration's policies have not only benefited Iraq but also sowed positive change in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Libya. As a result, he said, "the American people are safer" -- a refrain he used seven times in a 32-minute speech.

Just a note...blogging will be a bit sporadic; I'm on the road with my laptop and a funky hotel broadband connection...it acts like something like a cross between a dial-up line and a DS-3...so when I want to do stuff, it acts weird.

Back later...off to the geek convention!!!

Okay, help me out here, I know we've covered this before but I just have to know why ... Clinton lied about getting a getting a blow-job, certainly among the things the Baroness has at the top of her list of Indoor Olympic Sports, and he was not only unfit to be a leader but was to be denied membership in the Human Race. Preznit All-American Fuck-up not only lies about Everything Saddam, but uses the War on Terra™ as an excuse for Everything Iraq, hands out fat, longterm, no-bid, budget-breaking contracts to his VP's former company and Sullivan wants to be sure that Preznit BOHICA Boy is a moral, righteous guy, because well Kerry looks funny.

If this were not so sad, it would be hysterical. And Andy, what's with this:

I'm still glad we fought it.

Oh, and Andy...happy FMA in the Senate day are all your Commander Codpiece dreams coming true? You do after all, love him, does he love you too?

There ought to be two words that should bring fear to the 1600 Crew in this campaign season: Tora Bora. Where the 1600 Crew allowed Osama bin Forgotten to escape.

The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.
...
After-action reviews, conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States.
...
The Bush administration has never acknowledged that bin Laden slipped through the cordon ostensibly placed around Tora Bora as U.S. aircraft began bombing on Nov. 30.

A half-brother of Osama bin Laden said in a television interview he never thinks of whether to turn in the al-Qaida leader and questioned which court would try him.

Asked hypothetically whether he would turn in the al-Qaeda leader, Yeslam Binladin replied: "What do you think? Would you turn in your brother? Or half brother? Tell me. I put the question back to you. You answer it."
...
Binladin has been under scrutiny in France and Switzerland during a money-laundering investigation but has never been charged.

Every time that the 1600 Crew and Preznit Always AWOL bring up the War on Terra™ thing, Kerry and Edwards should refer to the Tora Bora incident; and how it allowed Bin Laden to escape. The 1600 Crew as Leaders...I think not.

A blog entry a little earlier today had a link back to a Post 9/11 press briefing where Ari was telling everyone to shut up. I was traveling around blotopia, reading other things when I found this piece by Digby about Valerie Plame (remember her?). Well, in keeping with his well-known policy of "Rules are for everyone but me", Preznit Electoral Whore said this back in 2001 (according to Fleischer):

A few Sundays ago, shortly after returning from a weekend of national security briefings at Camp David, President Bush walked into the White House with a small group of advisers and delivered a stern warning. "Anybody who discloses classified information could literally endanger somebody's life," he told the group, according to Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, who was there.

86-43-04.