What do you call your tree?

If people would worry half as much about living children in our country as they do tiny cells that they can't yet see and what happens to them, I'll call it a Pat Robertson tree.

If people would spend half the time they spend planning a war on trying to understand the beliefs, the attitudes, and the customs of another nation, I'd call it a George Bush tree.

If people would spend half the time they spend convicting a young black/asian/hispanic man for gang crimes on working on solutions to inner city gang violence, I'd call it a Justice tree.

If the Pope would spend a month working alongside a group of gay activists -- only for the sake of getting to know them, and understanding some of their issues -- I'd call my tree Benny.


If our politicians were able to actually spend half the time they spend at black-tie fund raisers making small talk, out on the streets of America with everyday citizens, I'd call it the Mother-of-God-we-might-see-changes-in-our-lifetime Tree.

If *christians* would spend half the time they spend condemning single-mothers, welfare recipients, drug addicts, poor people, gays[am I forgetting anyone here??]on trying to make the world a little bit of a nicer place to be I'd call it a Christmas tree.

If everyone would spend half the time they spend making their Christmas wish list on their list for charitable donations for the coming year . . . I'll call it any gotdamn thing you want.


Inspired by a very good merlot, and far too much kvetching about Holiday vs Christmas tree nonsense. Pfft.

Judy's Sorry

[Sung to the tune of "I'm Sorry" by All-4-One]

I know I was wrong
For misleading you the way I did (the way I did)
I have so much on my mind
I didn't know where my deception fit in (where deception fit in)
And if I could do it all over again (again)
I'll still have to do it that way
(I'll still have to do it that way again)
I apologize for the thousands of deaths that I caused
and I just wanna say (I just wanna say)
I'm sorry (I'm sorry)
So sorry (so sorry)
for misleading you to war the way I did (I meant it baby, we're talking 7 figures)
I'm sorry (I'm sorry)
So sorry (so sorry)
For misleading you the way I did

When I try close my eyes
I think of how it used to be (used to be)
New face lift, you see
Just how much being in the limelight means to me (means to me)
A new focus is all that I need (I need)
To surgically enhance what's wrong and make it right
(to surgically enhance what's wrong and make it right)
A fool I was to let youth slip away (away)
When I know I needed Scooter in my life (needed Scooter in my life)

I'm sorry (I'm sorry)
So sorry (So sorry)
For misleading you the way I did
(I didn't mean to hurt your baby)
I'm sorry (I'm sorry)
So sorry (So sorry)
For misleading you the way I did

And I know everytime (everytime)
Everytime I printed a lie (a lie)
You still believed in me (in me)
I'll do anything to get you back in to my life
I'll check my facts and check 'em twice (yeah, right)
Lie to you again (lie to you)
Bat my innocent surgically lifted eyes at you (eyes at you)
And I'll do it again (to you)
Listen to me (listen to me)
I'm not getting down on my knees (down on my knees)
Can we start over again (can we start over)

I'm sorry (I'm sorry)
So sorry (So sorry)
For misleading you the way I did
(I didn't mean to kill your brother, honey)
I'm sorry (I'm sorry)
So sorry (so so sorry)
For misleading you the way I did
You gotta believe me when I say that
I'm sorry (so sorry)
So sorry
For treating you (for treating you the way I did)
I'll never never never mislead you again (unless the pay is excellent)
I'm sorry (so sorry)
For misleading you ( for misleading you the way I did)
I'm sorry, you dead innocent people.

Mission accomplished

People gather around the coffin of Watheq Abdula, in Baqouba, Iraq, in this Nov.17, 2005 file photo. According to relatives Abula, a member of the Iraqi Islamic party, was arrested Nov. 13 by the Interior Ministry special forces, and his dead body was found Wednesday on a sidewalk in Baquoba. Iraq's government missed a two-week deadline Wednesday Nov. 30, 2005 to complete an investigation into torture allegations at an Interior Ministry lockup, a probe which Amnesty International warned may show a pattern of abuse of prisoners by government forces. [AP Photo/Mohammed Adnan/File]

Caption this.

Signs

From the E&P:

Was this past Sunday's "Doonesbury" -- which had George W. Bush defending the burning of Yale University fraternity initiates with a brand in 1967 -- fact or fiction?

"Totally fact-based," replied Garry Trudeau, in response to an E&P e-mail query. "Bush's comment in panel seven is a direct quote, which is why I put it in quotation marks. In the original Yale Daily News expose, we ran a photo of a pledge's seared backside."

Trudeau, a Yale grad, added: "I did a week on this in the strip back during the 2000 election. The reason I revisited the episode is that it's gained in relevance with the president's reluctance to forego torture in intelligence-gathering."

The branding, which was exposed by the Yale paper, was first covered by The New York Times in a Nov. 8, 1967, article. Trudeau much later told Rolling Stone in an interview that he drew his first editorial cartoon for the Yale Daily News during the branding controversy.


The quote, if you can't read the panel above: "Insignificant! There's no scarring mark physically or mentally!"

So sayeth our leader, the amateur psychiatrist. Feh.

Lying, hate pandering sock puppet

Apparently, the rules for the list have changed. Via Media Matters:

O'Reilly: "We will expose those media which pass along the vicious personal attacks" of "far-left smear sites"


Soooo . . . now I have to be a mainstream media journamalist to make the list? What bullshit.

It's Hard

It's Hard


Support the troops. Bring them home.

[REUTERS/Fayaz Kabli]
A Kashmiri earthquake survivor weeps during snowfall in Drangyari, 130 km (81 miles) northwest of Srinagar, November 29, 2005.

[REUTERS/Fayaz Kabli]
A Kashmiri earthquake survivor with her children sit under a makeshift tent during a snowfall in Drangyari, 130 km (81 miles) northwest of Srinagar, November 29, 2005. Thousands of Kashmiris who survived the devastating October 8 earthquake are fighting a grim battle with the harsh Himalayan winter which has just set in. Picture taken November 29, 2005.

~music

It's classical music. No wait, it's rock. Um, . . . you decide.

Western style Democracy

WASHINGTON — As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.


Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.

Perhaps I've judged the efforts in Iraq too harshly. This sounds just like the liberal media here at home. Excuse me whilst I wipe this tear from my eye.

While Repubs hold fundraisers for crooked politicians,

[REUTERS/Fayaz Kabli]
A child survivor of the Kashmiri earthquake covers his head during a snowfall in Drangyari, 130 km (81 miles) northwest of Srinagar, November 29, 2005. Thousands of Kashmiris who survived the devastating October 8 earthquake are fighting a grim battle with harsh Himalayan winter which has just set in. Picture taken November 29, 2005.

Eight people died in Pakistan from pneumonia, and hypothermia, with another 700 pouring into hospitals with weather related ills.

I wonder how many tents could have been winterized for quake survivors in the region with the money raised for Tom DeLay's legal defense? Hell, for that matter with the money spent on the fucking party for the fundraiser . . .

Quote of the Day

Via Atrios:

"You know, I just recently came off a trip to the Far East...And it struck me that I was in a region of the world where there -- where wars had started." -- G.W.Bush, 11-29-2005


All y'all might think that I find statements such as this amusing, but that's not true at all. When I read something like that -- first I get the look of horror on my face -- and then I shake my head as I think jeebus christ on a crutch, this is the leader of my country. We're all so totally fucked.

Detroit Mayor on the Recount

"It costs too much, and I won, gotdamnit."

Time to get busy so's I can get on that List!

O'Reilly: "I only said shut up once in 6 years!"

O'Reilly

The List

Luckily, they had never viewed Sponge Bob Squarepants

Mourners grieve over the bodies of two men, who were slain Monday by unknown gunmen, in Baghdad November 29, 2005. Police said that gunmen shot dead three men in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib district on Monday night, one of whom was Sheikh Ayad Al-Izzi, a high level official of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party. Relatives took the body of the third man to the nearby town of Falluja for the funeral and burial. [REUTERS/Ali Jasim]

caption this.

Iraq

Killing until you figure out what the fuck you're doing is no kind of strategy at all.

~music

Oasis: All around the World

Seriously,

Is there any rational reason they can't go to the local nursery and get a gotdamn pine tree and plant it on the lawn??

[Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts]

Away with the Manger

I think you should pretty much be able to put whatever you want to in your own front yard. Except pink flamingos. I hate those.

Worst. Governor. Ever.

A Zogby International online survey, conducted a week after the Nov. 8 election and released yesterday, shows just 6.5 percent of Ohio voters view the embattled GOP governor very or somewhat favorably. Barely 3 percent rate his job performance as "good" or "excellent."

"I'm not aware of anyone who's ever sunk lower," pollster John Zogby said.

Sixty-one percent of respondents said Mr. Taft should have resigned after pleading guilty in August to misdemeanor ethics charges for failing to report dozens of gifts and golf outings to state officials.

Yet in the same poll:

Asked which party was more "organized and effective," 52 percent said Republicans, compared to 12 percent for Democrats, who haven't won a statewide executive election in 15 years and who are currently looking for a new state party chairman.

Go figure.

It's a Wonderful Life

. . . in 30 seconds.

Uh-oh

I'm not sure quite what the significance of chain store retail sales falling over the past week could be, but it doesn't sound good.

Who says there's no honor among thieves?

Via Crooks and Liars:

"Duke Cunningham is a hero,” DeLay said during a press briefing Tuesday. “He is an honorable man of high integrity."


I've laughed out loud every single time I've read this. If Tom DeLay thinks you're hero material, it's time to rethink your direction in life. heh.

Look what we've done to the world, Pa

From the NYT:

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

Some of the young men have turned up alive in prison. In a secret bunker discovered earlier this month in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials acknowledged that some of the mostly Sunni inmates appeared to have been tortured.

Bayan Jabr, the interior minister, and other government officials denied any government involvement, saying the killings were carried out by men driving stolen police cars and wearing police and army uniforms purchased at local markets. "Impossible! Impossible!" Mr. Jabr said. "That is totally wrong; it's only rumors; it is nonsense."

Many of the claims of killings and abductions have been substantiated by at least one human rights organization working here - which asked not to be identified because of safety concerns - and documented by Sunni leaders working in their communities.

The possibility that we could be training -- and arming -- a military for a sect that could be just as brutal as Saddam's regime is something that should have been considered before the occupation of Iraq.

The insurgents are fighting an oppressive regime -- us. For all of the talk about the progress in Iraq, take note that the 3 mile stretch of road -- the Airport Road -- is still not safe these years later, regardless of our military presence.

Blogger Question

Today's automated email re my 'old' hijacked by porn spammers site:

"Thanks for your note. This is an automated update from Blogger Support.
Due to the tremendous amount of help requests from users, we're
currently
unable to offer timely, personal assistance to everyone."

Have any of you bloggers had an issue with blogger that needed -- and more importantly -- received personal attention?

Rove instructed his assistant *not* to log in call with Cooper

Via Raw Story:

Rove has remained under intense scrutiny because of inconsistencies in his testimony to investigators and the grand jury. According to sources, Rove withheld crucial facts on three separate occasions and allegedly misled investigators about conversations he had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

The attorneys say that Rove’s former personal assistant, Susan B. Ralston -- who was also a special assistant to President Bush -- testified in August about why Cooper’s call to Rove was not logged. Ralston said it occurred because Cooper had phoned in through the White House switchboard and was then transferred to Rove’s office as opposed to calling Rove’s office directly. As Rove’s assistant, Ralston screened Rove’s calls.


But those close to the probe tell RAW STORY that Fitzgerald obtained documentary evidence showing that other unrelated calls transferred to Rove’s office by the switchboard were logged. He then called Ralston back to testify.

Earlier this month, attorneys say Fitzgerald received additional testimony from Ralston -- who said that Rove instructed her not to log a phone call Rove had with Cooper about Plame in July 2003.

Ralston also provided Fitzgerald with more information and “clarification” about several telephone calls Rove allegedly made to a few reporters, including syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the lawyers said.

Only 27 shopping days until Fitzmas!

~music

The Bangles: Manic Monday

there are others, but Manic Monday seems appropriate . . .

Running like hell

In just under three years, U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris has had four chiefs of staff, four district directors and four press secretaries.

Harris has had to replace key people on her staff every nine months, a rate of staff turnover that far exceeds most of those in Congress.

On average, members of Congress hold onto their high-level staff for four to five years.

Turnover isn't limited to Harris' congressional office, either. As she prepares to run against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, Harris has been hampered by turnover on her campaign staff. Her campaign manager quit last week, after just a few months on the job and not long after she lost a pollster and a campaign finance director earlier this year.

Will Harris take a hint and bow out gracefully?

Just teasing the Taliban

"You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be," read one soldier identified as psyops specialist Sgt. Jim Baker. over loudspeakers as propoganda.

But, the burning of the bodies was not meant as desecration.

Two US Congressmen injured in Iraq

Via TPM: A military vehicle carrying 3 congressmen overturned on the way to the Baghdad airport.

An Officer with Honor in a war with None

Did one of the Army's leading scholars of military ethics, a professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to teach his students better, really commit suicide?

Col.Ted Westhusing a few weeks before his death "received an anonymous complaint that a private security company he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and committed human rights violations. Westhusing confronted the contractor and reported the concerns to superiors, who launched an investigation.

In e-mail to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. has come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military."

In light of the newly released video apparently showing contractors randomly shooting Iraqi civilians, I wonder if these renegades could be what had come to make the Colonel afraid of being alone at night in his trailer on the Baghdad base? Or, was just being among the corruption that naturally flows from our corrupt administration enough to push a man with honor over the edge?

Damned whistleblowers

I can see how the discovery that before you're blown to bits during a tour of service, you must submit to nekkid beatings until you're unconscious could hinder recruiting efforts. Too bad, that.

Downing Street Protest

[REUTERS/Stringer/uk]
An Amnesty International supporter protests outside number 10 Downing Street, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's official residence, in London November 27, 2005. The international human rights organisation is accusing the British government of returning people to countries known to use torture.

~music

Natalie Merchant: Jealousy

Bill Maher

From the Global Warming Special

Shiites to Bush:

"Give us power drills and torture chambers, or give us death!"

Stirring up sectarian violence there, so we don't have to do it here.

[REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed]
Victims of a roadside car bomb blast get medical care at hospital in the city of Kirkuk.

Who's next on the Chopping Block?

Via Think Progress:

"full scale parlimentary inquiry into the “justification, conduct and aftermath” of the Iraq war."

Unregulated: Contractors gone Wild

A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.


The video, which first appeared on a website that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defence Services, contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars. All of the shooting incidents apparently took place on "route Irish", a road that links the airport to Baghdad.

The road has acquired the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous in the world because of the number of suicide attacks and ambushes carried out by insurgents against coalition troops. In one four-month period earlier this year it was the scene of 150 attacks.

In one of the videoed attacks, a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. In the last clip, a white civilian car is raked with machine gun fire as it approaches an unidentified security company vehicle. Bullets can be seen hitting the vehicle before it comes to a slow stop.

There are no clues as to the shooter but either a Scottish or Irish accent can be heard in at least one of the clips above Elvis Presley's Mystery Train, the music which accompanies the video.


The videos are now of course gone from the site. Security companies under contract with the US remain free to employ lethal force at will:

Security companies awarded contracts by the US administration in Iraq adopt the same rules for opening fire as the American military. US military vehicles carry a sign warning drivers to keep their distance from the vehicle. The warning which appears in both Arabic and English reads "Danger. Keep back. Authorised to use lethal force." A similar warning is also displayed on the rear of vehicles belonging to Aegis.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that this were true. Afterall, why are we in Iraq?

[Update: Here is the video mentioned in the news article.]

How much do Republicans Care?

How much do Republicans care? Vol.1

~music

Doves: Reuben Sutherland

Padilla

Sent upstream waterboarding without a paddle.

Michigan Ties

Four Michigan guardsmen were critically injured in a landmine explosion that killed one.

Cheney's Progress

Hussein Alwan kisses the lifeless body of his nephew Ahmad Hassan 3-years old, outside Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital morgue, Friday, Nov. 25, 2005. Ahmad Hassan died when a suicide car bomber detonated outside Mahmoudiya hospital south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing some 30 and wounding 35, a doctor said. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Crossing the invisible Line

Ann Coulter on Murtha:

It is simply a fact that Democrats like Murtha are encouraging the Iraqi insurgents when they say the war is going badly and it’s time to bring the troops home…[T]hey long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle. They fill the airwaves with treason…These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors.


You can contact the company that syndicates Coulter’s column, UPS, at lsalem@amuniversal.com. Please contact them, and don't stop until this one has no more forum to spew this sort of disrespect at distinguished Veterans like Rep. Murtha.

~music

Greenday: Jesus of Suburbia

Uh oh.

Tony has company.

Living in America

November 24, 2005 - Ronald Bedan, 65, sleeps in his wheelchair. He says dizzy spells put him in the chair, and he's spent 10 years on the streets.
[Photo: Francine Orr / The LA Times]

TGIF

Means it's time for Cat blogging

~music

Greenday: Life During Wartime

Zimbabwe and Me

"The failed political and economic policies of the Robert Mugabe regime have succeeded in devastating Zimbabwe," the White House statement said.


"The failed political and economic policies of the Bush-Cheney-Rovian Republican regime have succeeded in devastating the United States," Desi of MiaCulpa said.

'Pinko-commie Liberal'

[REUTERS/Jim Young]
Jerome Valenta bows his head in prayer at an anti-war protest near U.S. President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas November 24, 2005.

Got a warm Bed?

[REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic]
A little girl who is an earthquake survivor sits inside a tent at a camp in the devastated city of Muzaffarabad November 24, 2005. The head of the U.N. refugee agency said on Thursday the focus of Pakistani earthquake relief efforts was now to avert a tragedy over the imminent winter.

Home is where you pitch your Tent.

[REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic]
An earthquake survivor boy walks out of a tent at a camp in the devastated city of Muzaffarabad November 24, 2005. The head of the U.N. refugee agency said on Thursday the focus of Pakistani earthquake relief efforts was now to avert a tragedy over the imminent winter.

Paul Hackett talks with Tweety

Crooks and Liars has the video.

Jeebus christmas on a crutch!

Who would actually consider hiring this incompetent asshole?

Yesterday

Yesterday

Responsibility

A 7 year old boy, wounded during a US airstrike on Fallujah desperately needs surgery in the United States to help give him a chance at a more normal life.

Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh has agreed to absorb half the cost. The child needs someone -- or many someones -- to guarantee the other half.

I think everyone who still backs this war should be willing to help this innocent victim receive his medical care.

I've got a lot of emails to write. A word of caution, if you click on the link to the article, there is a photo of the boy, Abdul, as he appears today. He is very disfigured facially. Not for the faint of heart amongst us.

Hold On

Hold On

Bastards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon plans to shrink the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, currently 155,000, to about 138,000 after the December 15 Iraqi elections and is considering dropping the number to about 100,000 next summer if conditions allow, defense officials said on Wednesday.

But officials said a variety of planning scenarios, including the possibility of no cut in troop levels, are being reviewed based on political and security conditions in Iraq and progress in developing U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces.

The officials stressed no decisions had been made. This comes amid intensifying debate in the U.S. Congress over whether U.S. troops should be withdrawn after 2-1/2 years of war in Iraq.

Atrios was right. Bush is going to let as many people die as possible as long as he's in office. I so wanted to believe the spin . . .

~Music

Johnny Cash: City of New Orleans

Hmm . . .

I don't know, but given the sensitive nature of the reporting Judy Miller did while working for the NYT isn't it a bit curious that she never filed to attempt to receive information from the Pentagon for any information leading up the war in Iraq or anything related to it since, under the Freedom of Information Act?

From Raw Story:

Michael Petrelis, who obtained the FOIA logs, said his initial request was tied to former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who left after coming under fire by her own reporters for questionable reporting on weapons of mass destruction and her role in the CIA leak case.

“I requested the Pentagon's FOIA request logs because I believed that former New York Times reporter Judith Miller may have filed FOIA requests, and I was curious to know what she and other New York Times journalists had FOIAed,” Petrelis said. “The best to way to learn about any FOIA requests from either New York Times reporters or other journalists was to simply FOIA the FOIA logs.”

According to the logs, Miller made no FOIA requests of the Pentagon.

He said he was surprised at the speed at which the Pentagon got back to him with the list.

In total, the three papers with daily circulations greater than one million--USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times -- made just 21 requests of the Pentagon between 2000 and February 2005. USA Today made nine; the Journal, six; and the Times, 21. Judy Miller could have made requests under the name of the NYT, however, the only information requested by the Times was for “epidemiology and ecology reports” from Utah, information on Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s holdings, and information for plans on biological attacks on Cuba and mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq.

How could you report unbiasedly for a newspaper -- about the war -- without veryifying anything you write about with the Pentagon? Unless, you don't care about accuracy, and are reporting only spin?

Sneak home and pray you'll never know the hell where youth and laughter go.

Michigan National Guard Pfc. John Dearing in an undated family photo was killed in Iraq when his vehicle ran over a land mine. Four other soldiers, each from the Saginaw, Mich., based Guard unit were injured, Dearing's family said. Dearing grew up in Oscoda, Mich., and graduated from Oscoda High School in 2003 and moved to Hazel Park, Mich., in 2004. [AP Photo/Dearing Family]

We trained them well.

Iraqi women mourn near the dead body of Khadim Sarhid al-Hemaiyem, the leader of the Sunni Batta tribe and the brother of a candidate in the Dec. 15 election, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2005. Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms broke into the home of al-Hemaiyem Wednesday and killed him, his three sons and his son-in-law on the outskirts of Baghdad, his brother and an interior ministry official said.[AP Photo/Hadi Mizban]

Meant to post this yesterday. I don't know who the artist was. Anyone?

Kudos

I'd like to offer my kudos to the Seattle Times for their article on gambling addiction, particularly in older adults, from today's edition. Complete with numbers for help in the area.

My remaining living family is located in Las Vegas. My mother is there, somewhere. No doubt at a slot machine, enjoying the lights, the action, and the steady flow of free drinks provided for those gambling. While I lived in the area, shortly after mom's second husband passed away, it was common for her to just vanish for days on end. Sometimes to return and dump thousands in small bills and change onto the dining room table[only to vanish again within 48 hours], or to be desperate to get more cash by heading to any of the convenient pawn shops located throughout the city. Hell, she couldn't even go to the grocery store no thanks to the convenient slot machines at the entrances to gladly suck up your money for food. They were always packed with elderly regulars who would gladly tell you which machines were 'hot'[paying out wins] that day. I got to know many of them from the many trips searching for mom.

In under 6 months, she lost her home, every penny of the insurance money from her husband's passing, all her savings, and everything of value that she owned. There's still her monthly pension, and help from sibling enablers. Seeing her come home drunk, beaten, and bruised one day was more than I could bear.

I wish I could say something good about Vegas after telling my family's troubles there, but after being on the strip during a gang shoot-out, and the little girl who was raped and murdered in the bathroom of a 'family oriented' casino, I just can't.

If someone you know has a problem with gambling, my heart goes out to you. Don't let it destroy you, too. Good luck.

Caption this.

Spinning like a whirling dervish on Crack

Last month, Condi refused to rule out the possibility of US troops still being in Iraq 10 years from now.

Today, after a bitter debate in the House about the administration's war policy, and a passionate plea from Rep. John Murtha -- A decorated Vietnam Veteran -- as well as demands from the newly established Iraqi government for the US to stand down . . . WHOOSH:

"I suspect that American forces are not going to be needed in the numbers that they're there for all that much longer, because Iraqis are continuing to make progress in function, not just in numbers, but in their capabilities to do certain functions," Rice told CNN on Tuesday.

She said "the number of coalition forces is clearly going to come down because Iraqis are making it possible now to do those functions themselves."

The Iraqis have made amazing progress in the past thirty days, and we're going to be able to start to reduce the number of US troops in Iraq. Everything is working out just the way they planned it. Gotdamn, I think I've got fucking whiplash.

Holy smokes, Batman! Not the Official Secrets Act!

The attorney general last night threatened newspapers with the Official Secrets Act if they revealed the contents of a document allegedly relating to a dispute between Tony Blair and George Bush over the conduct of military operations in Iraq.

It is believed to be the first time the Blair government has threatened newspapers in this way. Though it has obtained court injunctions against newspapers, the government has never prosecuted editors for publishing the contents of leaked documents, including highly sensitive ones about the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, last night referred editors to newspaper reports yesterday that described the contents of a memo purporting to be at the centre of charges against two men under the secrets act.

Under the front-page headline "Bush plot to bomb his ally", the Daily Mirror reported that the US president last year planned to attack the Arabic television station al-Jazeera, which has its headquarters in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where US and British bombers were based.


Can the document actually be worse than this sort of publicity? The mind reels . . .

~Music

Crosby, Stills, & Nash: Wasted on the Way [Live]

Detroit Recount

Freeman Hendrix -- at the urging of supporters -- has requested a recount of the Nov.8 Detroit mayoral election.

Election day voting and ballot-counting issues including reports of broken seals and transmission line malfunctions.

Hope floats that perhaps we've seen the last of Kwame living it up on his city issued credit card, and parties at the mayor's mansion with strippers that end up shot dead in the street afterall.

Oxycontin Head

Murtha "just the useful idiot of the moment"

What branch of the military was Oxycontin head in that he is even remotely qualified to question Murtha's military judgement? Here we have it, disqualified from the draft during Vietnam because of an ingrown hair on his ass.

Whose judgement is questionable?

Everybody

Hates Saddam

Great Expectations

Via Think Progress:

President Bush said in an interview on Thursday that he would withdraw American forces from Iraq if the new government that is elected on Sunday asked him to do so, but that he expected Iraq’s first democratically elected leaders would want the troops to remain as helpers, not as occupiers.

The new Democratic Iraq to George Bush: Go Home!

The chil'run aren't cooperating. What to do, what to do?

Preznint Cuckoo Bananas

LONDON - A civil servant has been charged under Britain's Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a government memo that a newspaper said Tuesday suggested that Prime Minister
Tony Blair persuaded
President Bush not to bomb the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera.

The Daily Mirror reported that Bush spoke of targeting Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar, when he met Blair at the White House on April 16, 2004. The Bush administration has regularly accused Al-Jazeera of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for anti-American sentiments.

The Daily Mirror attributed its information to unidentified sources. One source, said to be in the government, was quoted as saying that the alleged threat was "humorous, not serious," but the newspaper quoted another source as saying that "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair."


It's more than a little amazing to me that there is paper evidence of this discussion. But, our evil leader is too busy being evil to concern himself with paper trails, I supppose.

Of Laughingstocks and Lying Liars

[Photo:NBC-TV]
Actress Rachel Dratch of NBC-TV's "Saturday Night Live" portrays Rep. Jean Schmidt of Clermont County as a laughingstock lawmaker.

Don't spend too much on an attempt at a re-election bid nex time 'round, Crazy Jean:

Danny Bubp, a freshman state representative who is a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, told The Enquirer that he never mentioned Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., by name when talking with Schmidt, and he would never call a fellow Marine a coward.

ER

A day in the ER of Yarmouk, Iraq:

"Dr Omar Ta'ie is 26 and has only recently qualified; he speaks flawless English and says he listens to western pop music. As part of his ongoing medical training he is spending a year here in the ER. He does 12-hour shifts for four consecutive days, then gets three days off. He talks me through an average day.

"Our day starts busy," he says. "The first attacks happen in the morning, and patients start arriving by 7.15am. By 8am all these beds are full."

The first victims tend to be from insurgent attacks. The insurgents like to let off their car bombs and small explosives, and to carry out their assassinations, while it's still early. The idea is to catch officials and policemen either as they change shifts or while they are driving to work. Many of the victims, however, tend to be passers-by on their way to work in the early-morning rush hour.

"Around 10am, things calm down and we have a break until one in the afternoon when the biggest wave of car bombs and explosions often happens," says Ta'ie. "By that time most of the patients have to lie on the floor. And then nothing until 9pm, when sectarian assassinations flare up, mixed with a couple of drunken fights."

There are usually four to five doctors and a couple of medics assigned to each shift. After each wave of patients, two workers, dressed in blue factory overalls, come in and start collecting the plastic sheets from the beds. One of them brings a bucket of water and the other a grey rope mop, and with the sheets done, they start cleaning the floor. Sometimes they have to use a piece of cloth to remove a difficult bloodstain.

I was in ER one morning in September when we heard ambulance sirens. The doctors came from behind their counter into the middle of the room as a medic entered. He was pushing a gurney on which a girl lay unconscious. "Shrapnel wounds in her arm and chest from a mortar that fell on their house," he said.

Two of the doctors took her to the female section and pulled the curtain closed. The girl's mother, a huge woman dressed in a black abaya, her headscarf in disarray and her hair falling over her face, stood in the middle of the room wailing as a young female doctor - given the job of filling in the usual forms - tried to question her.

A few minutes later a big man ran into the room. "Where is Saneya?" He was looking for his sister. One of the doctors assured him that she was fine, but that she had needed to go to another hospital where they had specialist brain surgery equipment - "just for a routine check".

"Our biggest fear is when someone dies because then the family and relatives will start beating us," one doctor told me quietly.

What's even more frightening for these doctors is that they get casualties in from "commando" units, part of a feared paramilitary group with links to a Shia militia, which has a base a few hundred metres from the Yarmouk hospital.

One night when I was about to leave the ER there was a burst of gunfire - heavy machine guns roared at the entrance of the hospital. The doctors started running around urging patients, if they were well enough, to clear out. Moments later, a group of masked young men in army fatigues and black T-shirts burst into the ward. Two went to where people had gathered in the hallway, pointing guns at them and telling them to look away. Three others carried between them a piece of cloth in which one of their comrades, badly injured, was lying. They placed him on one of the plastic-covered beds.

"Save him," said one of the men in black T-shirts. One of the commandos took off his mask and began weeping. The others laid their machine guns against the walls and lit cigarettes, trying to stay calm.

A doctor asked me to go. "If they find you are here, they will kill you," he said. Outside, some commandos were holding up the traffic with bursts of gunfire. I crouched between cars until it was safe to go. The doctors were lucky that day; the injured commando didn't die. But twice in the past few months the doctors have gone on strike, protesting against commandos and army soldiers beating them up and kicking patients out of their beds to make space for their casualties. After each strike they get assurances from the ministry of interior that no armed men will be allowed into the ER. But it keeps on happening."

The biggest fear for the doctors working in these nightmarish conditions is the sectarian violence from the sectarian militias. The biggest fear, and there is absolutely nothing that our military presence in Iraq can do about it. Nothing. Saddam had a way of dealing with it, but, our troops are there so these people can [freely]kill each other. Mission accomplished, Dub.

Deserves a repeat.

Cheney and the Howard Stern Show.

~more monday music

John Mellencamp: To Washington

No Escape

Dumbya does Asia

We are the children.

November 20, 2005 Kashmiri children warm their hands over a fire in Drangyari, 81 miles northwest of Srinagar. Quake-stricken Pakistan heaved a sigh of relief on Sunday after world donors pledged almost $6 billion, and vowed in return to account for every cent as it distributes the aid to survivors of last month's huge tremor.
[Photo: Fayaz Kabli / Reuters]

War no More

November 20, 2005 Organizers estimated that 20,000 people participated in the annual School of the America's protest outside of Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. Above, one of the members of the street theater component stands in front of a makeshift memorial for victims of torture in Latin America.
[Photo: Rebecca McNeice]

~Southern Michigan Stuff: Red Cross Blanket Days

The eighteenth annual American Red Cross Blanket Days for the Homeless campaign, presented by Rock Financial and WJBK-FOX 2, will kick off Monday, November 21 and continue through December 31. The campaign benefits people in homeless shelters and victims of disaster throughout Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.

The Red Cross Blanket Days campaign, presented by Rock Financial and WJBK-FOX2, along with supporting sponsors DaimlerChrysler, the Detroit Pistons, Hot 102.7FM, and 105.9 Kiss FM, and long-time partner World Medical Relief, will help thousands of people in southeast Michigan through the gift of warmth this winter. To participate in the campaign that begins on November 21, for more information on how you can help, or to locate a drop off site location and map visit www.semredcross.org/blanketdays or call (313) 494-2744.

~Music

10,000 Maniacs: Because the Night

Yo, Benny

It seems your anti-gay dogma hasn't done a damn thing to keep pedophiles out your church.

D'oh. How long will it take you to figure out where you went wrong?

Enough!

An Iraqi man holds a child killed in a shooting while the family was on the way to the town of Baquba, November 21, 2005. Witnesses and the Iraqi police said U.S. troops opened fire on a crowded minibus north of Baghdad on Monday, killing five members of the same family, including two children, and wounding four others. [Photo:REUTERS/Hilmi]


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops fearing a car bomb attack fired on a crowded minivan and killed at least three civilians including a child north of Baghdad on Monday.

The U.S. army's 3rd Infantry Division said its troops had opened fire after first trying to wave the minivan to a stop and then firing warning shots.

"These tragedies only happen because Zarqawi and his thugs are out there driving around with car bombs," said Major Steve Warren, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baquba, in reference to the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Two men and a child were killed and three people were wounded, Warren said. Survivors disputed the military's account, insisting that five family members, including two children, died and four were wounded as bullets tore through the van.

One of the survivors told Reuters the family had been driving from Balad, a town about 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, to Baquba for a funeral and had tried to move over to make way for a U.S. patrol when they were shot at.

Reuters television footage showed two children's bodies in a Baquba morgue and relatives kissing another body on a morgue trolley. One child's head appeared to have been blown off.

"They are all children. They are not terrorists," shouted an unidentified relative.
"Look at the children," he said.

I know it's 'war', but seriously . . . they couldn't have just shot a tire out first?

Nation's most Dangerous City

Camden, N.J.:

Police are now using computers to try to track crime trends, and more officers are patrolling the city's neighborhoods.

Authorities say that has helped drive down the most serious crimes by 18 percent in the first 10 months of 2005 compared with the same period a year earlier.

Some residents say their neighborhoods feel a bit safer.

"I haven't heard that many gunshots," said Gracy Muniz, 22, a mother of three who lives in North Camden.


Um, maybe I best stop whining about the crime in Detroit now.

Digby

On Torture.

Jeebus!

It's the pull-things-outta-your-ass-and-make-it-up-as-you-go-along administration.

Ouch

30,000 jobs gone.

Honor after the Fall

[Photo:TODD HEISLER / ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS]

Clinging to Major Beck, Katherine Cathey of Brighton, Colorado, breaks down at the sight of the coffin of her husband Jim, a second lieutenant killed by a booby trap in Al Karmah. She cursed Beck when he arrived to deliver the news, and wouldn't speak to him for an hour. But by the time they reached the airport, she wouldn't let go.













Katherine Cathey weeps on her husband's casket at the Reno airport as Major Beck comforts her. She clung to it for several minutes, refusing to move. "I know Jim's going to be with me in so many ways," she said later. "And there will be so many people who will teach his son about his father"













On the eve of the funeral, Katherine insisted on sleeping next to Jim's body, so the Marines arranged a bed and offered to stand guard through the night. She fell asleep to music she and Jim had planned to play at their formal wedding celebration when he returned.

A Time photo essay

Meet John Rendon, the Man who Sold the War

From the Rolling Stone, by James Bamford, the best-selling author of "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies" (2004) and "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency" (2001):


As the CIA official flew back to Washington with failed lie-detector charts in his briefcase, Chalabi and Sethna didn't hesitate. They picked up the phone, called two journalists who had a long history of helping the INC promote its cause and offered them an exclusive on Saddam's terrifying cache of WMDs.

For the worldwide broadcast rights, Sethna contacted Paul Moran, an Australian freelancer who frequently worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "I think I've got something that you would be interested in," he told Moran, who was living in Bahrain. Sethna knew he could count on the trim, thirty-eight-year-old journalist: A former INC employee in the Middle East, Moran had also been on Rendon's payroll for years in "information operations," working with Sethna at the company's London office on Catherine Place, near Buckingham Palace.

"We were trying to help the Kurds and the Iraqis opposed to Saddam set up a television station," Sethna recalled in a rare interview broadcast on Australian television. "The Rendon Group came to us and said, 'We have a contract to kind of do anti-Saddam propaganda on behalf of the Iraqi opposition.' What we didn't know -- what the Rendon Group didn't tell us -- was in fact it was the CIA that had hired them to do this work."

The INC's choice for the worldwide print exclusive was equally easy: Chalabi contacted Judith Miller of The New York Times. Miller, who was close to I. Lewis Libby and other neoconservatives in the Bush administration, had been a trusted outlet for the INC's anti-Saddam propaganda for years. Not long after the CIA polygraph expert slipped the straps and electrodes off al-Haideri and declared him a liar, Miller flew to Bangkok to interview him under the watchful supervision of his INC handlers. Miller later made perfunctory calls to the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, but despite her vaunted intelligence sources, she claimed not to know about the results of al-Haideri's lie-detector test. Instead, she reported that unnamed "government experts" called his information "reliable and significant" -- thus adding a veneer of truth to the lies.

Her front-page story, which hit the stands on December 20th, 2001, was exactly the kind of exposure Rendon had been hired to provide. AN IRAQI DEFECTOR TELLS OF WORK ON AT LEAST 20 HIDDEN WEAPONS SITES, declared the headline. "An Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer," Miller wrote, "said he personally worked on renovations of secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in underground wells, private villas and under the Saddam Hussein Hospital in Baghdad as recently as a year ago." If verified, she noted, "his allegations would provide ammunition to officials within the Bush administration who have been arguing that Mr. Hussein should be driven from power partly because of his unwillingness to stop making weapons of mass destruction, despite his pledges to do so."

It's difficult now not to believe reports of Top Secret executive orders when it comes to the occupation of Iraq, and the corruption, perversion, and abuse of our intelligence communities, our government, and even our media. A startling look at why so many within the Bush administration may have been willing to suborn treason to discredit Joe Wilson's report on what he didn't find in Africa.

Bill Hicks: Creationism

"Say, Brother, can you spare $8,087,969,546,405.47?"

[Associated Press Photo]

testing . . .

Just playing with this Glitter Graphics site.