Quote of the Day

"The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons."

--Joseph C. Wilson 4th, July 6, 2003


Now, over 2 years later, and over 10 times the number of soldier deaths later these words take on new meaning. The death must stop, and someone must be accountable for lying the nation into war.

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

- Siegfried Sassoon, 1918

You thought SWAT team raids for a lil' joint were bad?

October 28, 2005 As a woman clings to her twin children, soldiers from Cold Steel Company interview and detain her husband during a house raid in Ouja, near Tikrit.
(Photo: Kim Komenich)

Another heart is Breaking

October 27, 2005 Comforted by her parents, Connie and Paul Raney, Chantal Plummill, wife of Marine Staff Sgt. Rick Pummill, holds his flag and Purple Heart citation during his burial at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Withamsville, Ohio. Pummill was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
(Photo: Glenn Hartong / AP)

Halloween Special

Trombone or Treat

A Ribbon

Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 30 seconds.





Happy Halloween everyone.

What is Home?

(REUTERS/Juan Medina)
A would-be immigrant rests after being intercepted aboard a makeshift boat off Fuerteventura in Spain's Canary Islands, October 31, 2005. Hundreds of Africans, trying to reach European soil, have arrived in Fuerteventura's shores this year, the closest of the Canary Islands to the African coast.

Bill Bennett on Ohio GOP donors:

Bob Bennett, the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said it’s a stretch to connect state contracts to campaign donations.
“Why is it wrong?” he said. “What makes it wrong? You assume that these people are buying something, and they’re not. They’re buying good government. They’re buying a philosophy of government.”

It seems Bill has taken all the mystery out of this for us.

Freeper Friday's @ Walter Reed

From the WaPo:

The war supporters, many of them known as "Freepers" because of their devotion to FreeRepublic.com, insist it is unpatriotic and demoralizing to protest the war in clear view of wounded soldiers. They started congregating along Georgia Avenue on Fridays after learning that the protesters were out there delivering a "despicable" message.

"We believe this is an obscene blood dance to exploit the war wounded for their twisted propaganda purposes," said Bill Floyd, 51, of Alexandria, a Freeper and Friday night regular. "It's indecent. Leave the wounded alone."

If you're not certain there should be 'war protests' at a Veteran's hospital -- read the article. Code Pink holds their vigils, peaceful vigils, on a street near the hospital. Not at the entry or exit to Walter Reed. They go there on Fridays with the best interests of the troops in their heart. They want to reunite families, they don't want our soldiers forgotten, and as flaky as it may sound they hope for world peace.

The Freepers only go to Reed on Friday's, and I quote:

"Until Code Pink stops protesting outside the hospital," Taylor said.

No expression of concern for the troops or our Veterans, or their families. No honoring them. No respect for them. If any true emotion, other than hate had anything at all to do with their Friday night activities I think they'd all get together and spend them at their local recruitment centers until every last one meets the recruiting goals of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. They'd have to really support the war though, and the Freepers only talk the talk. Badly.

What do geeks do on Halloween?

Hint: It involves computers and pumpkins.

In Daddy's arms

An Indian man carries his injured son to a hospital following a series of bomb blasts. Powerful explosions ripped through crowded markets in New Delhi just moments apart, killing at least 55 people in an apparently coordinated attack on the eve of a major Hindu holiday.(AFP/Prakash Singh)

The Scream in 30 seconds.

What about Valerie?

Joe Wilson on 60 Minutes:


"There have been specific threats [against Plame]. Beyond that I just can’t go," Wilson tells Bradley. Wilson says he and his wife have discussed security for her with "several agencies."


. . .

Former CIA colleagues say that by revealing her identity, harm could be caused to the CIA’s agents and operations. "If a CIA agent is exposed, then everyone coming in contact with that agent is exposed," says Jim Marcinkowski, a former CIA agent who trained with Plame at the top-secret Virginia facility known as "the Farm." "There is a possibility that there were other agents that would use that same kind of a cover. So they may have been using Brewster Jennings just like her," said Marcinkowski, referring to the fictional firm the CIA set up as her cover that also came out when journalists, including Robert Novak, disclosed it.

Marcinkowski also points out, "[Plame] is the wife of an ambassador, for example. Now, since this happened…they’ll know there’s a possibility that the wife of a U.S. ambassador is a CIA agent."

Another friend, once a covert CIA operative, says people who say Plame wasn’t in a sensitive position need to understand how intricate a cover story is, regardless of what an agent is working on. "Cover is…for a clandestine officer, can be different things at different times. We change cover. We modify cover based on how we need it. But that cover is linked together," she tells Bradley. "If you start to unravel one part of that, you can unravel the whole thing."

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., a former intelligence analyst and member of the House Intelligence Committee, agrees. "I think any time the identity of a covert agent is released, there is some damage -- and it’s serious." Holt says it’s possible agents overseas could be arrested or even killed, but "if there were, and I’d been briefed on it, I couldn’t talk about it," he tells Bradley. He did say he has been assured the CIA was mitigating the effects of the leak. "They have taken the usual procedures to protect the damage from spreading."


I'd like to know if anyone from the White House has contacted Valerie to apologize for the chaos in the administration,(not to mention the American people!) for the upset to her life, the ruin of her career, and the undue stress to her family? Is the White House making sure that she is protected, or are the Wilson's alone in seeking peace of mind?

Regardless of the outcome of any future trials, it is clear that top White House officials were in fact responsible for the outing of Valerie Plame. No one need wait for the verdicts to come in before doing what needs to be done for Valerie.

A ribbon for Rosa

A ribbon for Rosa: Thirteen-year-old Christopher Ellison rides a Detroit city bus whose empty front seat honors civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. Parks, the black woman who refused to yield her seat to a white man in 1955, died Monday in Detroit at 92.

While the world pays respects to Rosa Parks . . .

Brit Hume has fun on Fox.

An incomplete death toll by men in suits, far removed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has estimated that nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents since January 2004, with the daily number increasing fairly steadily.

A Pentagon report to Congress said casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces rose from about 26 a day between January 1 and March 31, 2004, to about 64 a day between August 29 and September 16, 2005, just before the referendum on the Iraqi constitution.

The Pentagon has not previously provided such a comprehensive estimate of the Iraqi casualty toll from insurgent attacks. It also refuses to release data on the number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded by U.S. forces.

"Approximately 80 percent of all attacks are directed against Coalition Forces, but 80 percent of all casualties are suffered by Iraqis," the report said. It was made available on the Pentagon's Web site.



First the war was about the threat of wmd's. Then, it was about the Iraqi people. Clearly, this is a war created by impotent men, so that they may feel in control of something.

Let them go back to playing the stock market. It's not as lethal.

The real Terror

(REUTERS/Will Burgess)
Protester, mouths taped, takes part in a rally outside the Sydney residence of Australian Prime Minister John Howard October 30, 2005. The rally organisers said protesters wore tape over their mouths to symbolise their concerns and opposition to new government anti-terrorist laws which they said are against free speech. The rally was organised by the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties and the Australian Medical Association for the Prevention of War.

Sadly ironic

A Bush 2000 campaign commercial.

Partial transcript:

Domestic concerns were at the heart of the 2000 presidential campaign as Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush sparred over a relatively small group of key issues, including prescription drug plans for senior citizens, the future of social security, education, and the economy. Each side claimed that the other’s economic plan would result in increased deficits. Gore’s commercials claimed that Bush’s planned tax cuts were irresponsible, and Bush’s commercials claimed that a Gore administration would squander the budget surplus through big spending, bringing back the days of high deficits. Without an incumbent running for re-election, with the economy in good shape, and with the public seemingly uninterested in foreign affairs, the election was a battle for the center. The commercials for both campaigns attempted to create warm images of their candidates, who were often shown speaking directly to the camera, with soft background music.

Mark Fiore

GOPS

Will you explain the good we're doing in Iraq to her, if she wakes up?

A wounded girl is treated at a local hospital after a car bomb exploded in the center of the Shiite village of Huweder, near Baqouba north of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2005, killing 20 people and wounding 30. The blast occurred just before sunset when Muslims would have been breaking their daily Ramadan fast, police said. (AP Photo/Mohammed Adnan)

Overcome with the joy of Freedom

An Iraqi man mourns the death of his relative outside Baquba hospital, after a car bomb exploded in the Shi'ite town of Howaider, near Baquba northeast of Baghdad, October 29, 2005. A car bomb exploded in a crowded small town northeast of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 40 more, police sources said. The blast hit the Shi'ite town of Howaider, which is north of the provincial capital Baquba, around sundown when people would have been breaking the Ramadan fast. (REUTERS/Hilmy Al-Azawy)

The Shining in 30 seconds.

Someone's

Remember the hungry

The fingers of malnourished one-year-old Alassa Galisou are pressed against the lips of his mother Fatou Ousseini at an emergency feeding clinic in the town of Tahoua in northwestern Niger. The growth in the number of aid agencies trying to persuade a reluctant public to part with its cash has led to a resurgence in shocking poster tactics that critics call 'development pornography'. Twenty years ago, images of starving black babies in Ethiopia pleading silently for food helped to raise billions of dollars in aid. However, the campaign led to soul-searching among aid agency staff who believed such images reinforced debasing stereotypes of Africa and robbed the subjects of their dignity. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Files/Reuters)