This reminds me of the video footage of JFK Jr. as he saluted his father's casket at the funeral. An eight year old becomes the head of the family. Gotdamn, you, George Bush.

-Diane

3351

The Toll.

In this undated photo provided by the U.S. Army, on Monday, April 30, 2007, Sgt. Michael R. Hullender is shown. Hullender, 29, was killed by a roadside bomb while he was foot patrol Saturday, April 28, 2007, in Iskandariyah, Iraq, Capt. Richard C. Hyde said in a statement. Hullender, 29, of Little Falls, N.J., was a medic who joined the Army in September 1998 and was assigned to Fort Richardson in May 2005. (AP Photo/U.S. Army)


-Diane

Rock on.

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Baaaah.

Many will recall that on July 8, 1947.....

witnesses claimed that an unidentified object with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident that many say has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and the federal government. However, what you may NOT know that in the month of March 1948, exactly nine months after that historic day, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Condolezza Rice, and Dan Quayle were all born. See what happens when aliens breed with sheep. This piece of information may clear up a lot of things. -Diane

Another Journalist Targeted in Iraq

BAGHDAD — One of Iraq's most beloved broadcasters was wounded in an assassination attempt Sunday, the latest target in a string of attacks against journalists here.

Amal Mudarris, 58, a Baghdad radio veteran who began her career in 1962, suffered serious head injuries when she was shot several times outside her Baghdad home Sunday morning. Doctors said later in the day that her condition had stabilized and she was expected to recover.



She should've gone shopping for rugs instead.

-Diane

Surge, ho!

BAGHDAD — Five U.S. troops were killed in separate attacks in the capital this weekend, including three in a single roadside bombing, the military said Monday, pushing the death toll past 100 in the deadliest month so far this year.



The administration has already put the cya mode into operation with the statements in the media recently that there will continue to be an increase in deaths before the surge can work. If you recall, that's the same bullshit they've spouted for years now, along with the we-just-need-another-6-months line.

If this occupation is to continue, why not reinstate the draft, only draft family members of the idiotic 28% who still support this lunacy?

-Diane

28%

WSJ:

President Bush's approval rating slipped to new lows in the most recent Harris Interactive survey, but he's not alone: For the first time since the series began, all of the political figures and institutions included in the survey have negative performance ratings.

Of the 1,001 American adults polled online April 20-23, only 28% had a positive view of Mr. Bush's job performance, down from 32% in February and from a high of 88% in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The current rating is his weakest showing since his inauguration.

Time for Rasmussen to claim there's a bounce.

-Diane

Happy Mission Accomplished Day

Where's the flowers? The confetti?

-Diane

A section of highway lies burned and crumbled in Emeryville, Calif., after a tanker carrying gasoline exploded on Sunday, April 29, 2007. In the resulting blaze, a section of freeway that funnels traffic onto the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed. The truck's driver walked away from the scene and called a taxi, which took him to a nearby hospital with second-degree burns. (AP Photo/The Oakland Tribune, Noah Berger)

-Diane

-Diane

This isn't the original video, but I really like the song.

-Diane

Uh oh.

WaPo:

In a serious rebuff to U.S. diplomacy, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has refused to receive Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on the eve of a critical regional summit on the future of the war-ravaged country, Iraqi and other Arab officials said yesterday.

The Saudi leader's decision reflects the growing tensions between the oil-rich regional giants, the deepening skepticism among Sunni leaders in the Middle East about Iraq's Shiite-dominated government, and Arab concern about the prospects of U.S. success in Iraq, the sources said. The Saudi snub also indicates that the Maliki government faces a creeping regional isolation unless it takes long-delayed actions, Arab officials warn.

For the United States, the Saudi cold shoulder undermines hopes of healing regional tensions between Sunni- and Shiite-dominated governments and producing a new spirit of cooperation on Iraq at the summit, to be held Thursday and Friday in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the sources warn.

It seems like only yesterday we thought Bush and the Saudi King were BFF. The King seems to be a very wise man. He doesn't care to waste his time listening to empty promises from sock puppets. I doubt the King will suffer another date with the Shrub, either.

Failure, failure, failure...

-Diane

Morgue workers look at the bodies lying on the ground outside a morgue in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad April 29, 2007. About 10 bodies with gunshot wounds were found in a village near Baquba, police said. REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi (IRAQ)

-Diane

Bush'd

Uh, ewww...

No way, I don't want that job!" Condoleezza Rice had told her Birmingham girlfriend Deborah Carson. And yet here she was, three days after Bush's re-election, the president asking her to take that job: to replace Colin Powell as secretary of State. Rice laid to rest the rumor that what she really wanted was Donald Rumsfeld's post at Defense. She didn't. "The question for me is not where I go," she told Bush flatly that afternoon at Camp David. "I'll go where you want me to go. The question is do I stay. And that's what I have to grapple with."

It wasn't the first time Bush had asked Rice to do something she had decided not to do. During the 2000 campaign, she had planned to advise Bush informally; instead, Rice ended up leading his foreign policy team. "In a political sense, I think he kind of courted her," said Carson. "He really went after her. He's very charming."

And Rice was drawn to Bush. "First of all, I thought he was wonderful to be around," she recalled, sitting on the couch in her State Department office. "He was warm and funny and easy to be around. I thought he had just an incredibly inquisitive mind ... You could barely finish an explanation before he was digging into it."

Bush was also a bad boy. And Rice, according to friends and family, had a thing for bad boys. That was why, as a 20-year-old grad student, she preferred her second Fighting Irish football player boyfriend to her first, said Jane Robinett, Rice's best Notre Dame friend: John "Dubie" Dubenetzky, cocky and handsome with wavy blond hair, was less deferential than Wayne Bullock, the sweet fullback who had moved Condi's boxes into Lewis Hall.

Rice's friends insisted the attraction to Bush was platonic, but Brenda Hamberry-Green, her Palo Alto hairdresser, who had spent years commiserating with Rice over how hard it was for successful black women to find a good man, noticed a change when Rice started working for Bush. "He fills that need," Hamberry-Green decided. "Bush is her feed."

Okay, I'm nauseous...


-Diane

-Diane

Bill Moyers

Catch the interviews with Josh Marshall, and Jon Stewart online.

-Diane

Asha Hagi Elmi, a politician, talks about the genocide in Somalia being committed under the pretext of "War on Terror".

Somalia BBC Newsnight 26/04/07

-Diane

Nelly Furtado: Say it Right.

-Diane

3346

The Toll.


-Diane

Something in the Air

No, I've not decided who I'm supporting yet for '08, but this photo is just so damn adorable that I just had to discuss it a moment.

Here you've got a Dem couple, married, in love and completely devoted to each other obviously. This sort of thing scares the ever-lovin' bejeezus out of repubs. Don't let them fool you with the 'gays are the biggest threat to marriage' crap. Happily married people is the stuff of their nightmares. I think this will become more evident as the campaign season heats up.

Be ready.

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Surgin' Saturday

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A parked car exploded Saturday near one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines in the city of Karbala as people were headed to the area for evening prayers, killing about 30 people and wounding dozens, officials said.

The explosion took place in a crowded commercial area near the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, officials said. At least 30 people were killed and 50 wounded, said Salim Kazim, the head of the Karbala health department.


There doesn't seem to be much of any evidence of any benefit at all to the increased security presence in and around Baghdad.

It also seems that the only reason for our continued occupation of Iraq is to appease the crowd that actually believes the Iraqis will 'follow us home' if we don't stay there to distract them. The same mentality that got us into this mess in the first place.

-Diane

-Diane

Late night.

-Diane

Extended Tour of Duty

JIM THORPE, Pa. (AP) - A soldier from Penn Forest Township in Carbon County has died in Iraq.

The Defense Department (website) says 24-year-old Jeremy Maresh died in a non-combat related incident Tuesday in Baghdad.

Lieutenant Colonel Chris Cleaver, a Pennsylvania National Guard spokesman, says Maresh "died from an apparent suicide."

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


-Diane

Oh my.

Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation.

Tobias, 65, director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had previously served as the ambassador for the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief.

A State Department press release late Friday afternoon said only he was leaving for "personal reasons."

On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the "Pamela Martin and Associates" escort service "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." Tobias, who is married, said there had been "no sex," and that recently he had been using another service "with Central Americans" to provide massages.

Methinks there's a blue dress out there some where.

-Diane

Real Progress...

BAGHDAD - An active duty U.S. Army officer has taken the unusual step of openly criticizing the way generals have handled the Iraq war, accusing them of failing to prepare their forces for an insurgency and misleading Congress about the situation here.


"For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces, and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq," Lt. Col. Paul Yingling wrote in an article published Friday in the Armed Forces Journal.

"In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends an even wider and more destructive regional war," he said.


Public criticism from an active duty officer is rare and may be a sign of growing discontent among military leaders at a critical time in the troubled U.S. military mission here.

An anti-war group, Appeal for Redress, says about 2,000 active duty personnel and veterans have signed a petition calling for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

"The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship," said Yingling, who has served two tours in Iraq as well as in Bosnia and the 1991 Gulf War.

Yingling said he believes that no single civilian or military leader has caused what he regards as the current failure in Iraq.

Instead, he argued that Congress must reform and better monitor the system for selecting and promoting generals. The Senate confirms promotions to general officer rank and should use that power to hold officers accountable for their performance, he said.

"We still have time to select as our generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policy makers on the preparations needed for our security," he wrote.


Me thinks this is a very brave guy, I hope he doesn't get fragged...

~SSquirrel

They keep lying, kids keep dying...

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said U.S. and Iraqi forces had reduced violence in the long-volatile Sunni province. The progress in Anbar has been "almost something that's breathtaking," he told reporters.


Three Marines died yesterday while conducting combat operations in Iraq's Anbar province, the U.S. military announced today.

A statement from Camp Fallujah said the deceased Marines were assigned to the Multi National Force-West unit. No details were given about the attack.


Being full of shit means never having to say you're sorry...

More blood for the glory of Bush!

~SSquirrel

Strangely Reassuring...

Mike Penner

"During my 23 years with The Times' sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. Tennis writer. Angels beat reporter. Olympics writer. Essayist. Sports media critic. NFL columnist. Recent keeper of the Morning Briefing flame. Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation.

"As Christine. I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them.

"That's OK. I understand that I am not the only one in transition as I move from Mike to Christine. Everyone who knows me and my work will be transitioning as well. That will take time. And that's all right. To borrow a piece of well-worn sports parlance, we will take it one day at a time."


As long as he doesn't turn into Ann Coulter I wish him well. I would stay away from basketball locker rooms though, not allot of tolerance there.

~SSquirrel

Caption this.

-Diane

CNN on George Tenet's new book.

-Diane

TGIF

They're baaaack...


-Diane

-Diane

'Bye Bob, RIP.

-Diane

Bush vs. Bush

-Diane

River speaks

You listen.



-Diane

Justin Cole Writes Letters.

Er, make that sends email. Go read, spread the word: DeLay lied, claims that George Soros funds Media Matters corrected by Politico.


-Diane

Very busy outside-the-blog week for me, plus, I'm not on the winning end of winter cold meets spring allergy season yet. Posting will continue to be sporatic through the weekend. Maybe the guest-bloggers will visit...


-Diane

Place your bets

Will Chimpy veto before the weekend, or aft?



-Diane

Must be one helluva shoe sale in Norway.

I wasn't aware that subpoenas came with a rejection option.


-Diane

An Iraqi man mourns next to the body of his relative outside a morgue in Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 26, 2007. The bodies of four Iraqi farmers were found dumped on a street. (AP Photo/Adem Hadei)

-Diane

Olbermann's special comment from last night.

-Diane

-Diane

Reality Bytes

WSJ:

The backdrop for the Democratic horse race, fueling partisans' hopes for recapturing the White House next year, remains deep discontent with President Bush and the Iraq war. Mr. Bush has vowed to veto the war-funding bill that Democratic House and Senate leaders are preparing to send him, which would establish Oct. 1 as the beginning of a withdrawal of U.S. forces.

But in the showdown between the White House and congressional Democrats over establishing a timeline for a troop drawdown, the poll shows, most Americans side with Congress by a lopsided 56% to 37%.

Supporting that judgment is widespread pessimism about the course of the conflict. Three months after Mr. Bush announced a new policy to stabilize violence by sending more troops, just 12% see evidence of improvement; 49% say conditions in Iraq have gotten worse, while 37% say they have stayed the same. Two-thirds disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq; his overall job-approval rating remains at 35%.

And though Republicans criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in recent days for suggesting that the war in Iraq is "lost," the survey suggests the American public is reaching a similar conclusion. A 55% majority says victory in Iraq is no longer possible; 36% say victory remains within reach.



Why does Michelle Malkin hate the American public?

-Diane

What bodies?

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.

Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn't include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. "If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory," he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.


I've read and listened to this man's bullshit for far too long. Honest to jeebus, I can see the administration sitting around Karl and one of his power point presentations coming up with this one. The uncontrollable, raging violence means failure, so they simply won't acknowledge it. They all probably congratulated Karl, and called him a genius. Makes ya laugh nervously, and cry bitterly all at the same time, doesn't it?

-Diane

Enjoy.

-Diane

The Spokeswoman for the Republican Party

Ohmahgawd.

-Diane

TDS

-Diane

-Diane

Again...

NO ONE suffers more than Pickles and her shrub.



-Diane

Supporting the Troops

Skippy has a note from Marine widowed by her Marine spouse.


-Diane

Sometimes, I got nothing, but this is a great day for toons.

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

-Diane

Laura Bush's message to America: "Shut up, Shut up!"

NO ONE suffers more than Pickles and her Shrub, got it?


-Diane

This video has made the rounds on the net, but if you haven't listened to Pat Tillman's mother's testimony during the hearing of The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform yesterday, please do so. If you ever had any doubt that the people in charge shouldn't be, this will erase them. There are people who should be held directly accountable for not only the death of Pat, but for the subsequent callous treatment of his family.

-Diane

Bush's Media Manipulation

From PBS Frontline. Remember "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."?

-Diane

Wednesday Monkey Blogging

Today,it's snow monkeys.

-Diane

-Diane

'Bob'

The soldiers called him Bob, and for the past several weeks, until Tuesday morning, he was the biggest obstacle to the success of an important mission in a small but crucial corner of the Iraq war.

"We can't get anybody to get Bob out. No one wants to do it," Army Maj. Brent Cummings, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, said with worry one recent morning as Bob's story began unfolding. Cummings was looking at an aerial photograph of an area in east Baghdad called Kamaliya, where there was an abandoned spaghetti factory with a hole in the courtyard, a hole in which some of his soldiers had discovered Bob.

Bob: It's shorthand for "bobbin' in the float," Cummings explained.

Float: It's shorthand for "two to three feet of raw sewage," he further explained.

Bobbin' in the float is shorthand, then, for yet another lesson in the comedy, absurdity and tragedy that is any moment in this war.

Bob was found as a result of the new strategy of trying to secure Baghdad by temporarily increasing the number of troops and moving them into neighborhood outposts. After the soldiers identified the spaghetti factory as the best place from which to secure poor, rough, dirty, insurgent-ridden Kamaliya, they began clearing the factory in order to move in.

One day, in one area, they found 16 rocket-propelled grenades, three antitank grenades, 11 hand grenades and 21 mortar shells. Another day, they found 14 more mortar shells. Another day, they found the makings of three roadside bombs. Another day, they found a square metal cover in the courtyard that they thought might be booby-trapped. Ever so carefully, they lifted it and found themselves peering down into the factory's septic tank at Bob.

The body, floating, was in a billowing, once-white shirt. The toes were gone. The fingers were gone. The head, separated and floating next to the body, had a gunshot hole in the face.

The body, it was quickly decided, would have to be removed before the 120 soldiers could move in. "It's a morale issue. Who wants to live over a dead body?" Cummings said. "And part of it is a moral issue, too. I mean he was somebody's son, and maybe husband, and for dignity's sake, well, it cheapens us to leave him there. I mean even calling him Bob is disrespectful. I don't know. It's the world we live in."

He paused.

"I'd like to put him in a final resting place," he said, "as opposed to a final floating place."

But how? That was the problem. No one wanted to touch Bob. Not the soldiers. Not the Iraqi police. No one.


As only the recounting of a tale of the Bush war would have it, the saga at the spaghetti factory twists and becomes even more tragic, and of course at the expense of innocent Iraqi civilians.

I can only envision a heap of sand at the end of this occupation, with a sign stuck in the middle saying 'Here lies liberated Iraq. We meant well.'


-Diane

Happy Springtime,

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

A mosaic of the extreme ultraviolet images of the sun captured from NASA's STEREO telescope taken on December 4, 2006. These false color images show the sun's atmospheres at a range of different temperatures. Clockwise from top left: 1 million degrees Centigrade ,1.5 million Centigrade, 60,000-80,000 Centigrade, and 2.5 million Centigrade. REUTERS/NASA/Handouts (UNITED STATES).

-Diane

Oh my.

WASHINGTON — Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.

But the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.

The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.

First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.

"We will take the evidence where it leads us," Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. "We will not leave any stone unturned."


Somehow, I suspect liberals will still be blamed for this new, and hotter spotlight focused on Rove. But, that's okay, let the games begin. Get yer popcorn ready.

-Diane

Earth Day 2007

-Diane

An Honorable Soldier, A Nation's Shame

Bob Woodruff: Where is the accountability?

April 23, 2007 — On July 4, 2003, Carol and Richard Coons had planned to welcome home their son Master Sgt. James Coons, a career soldier who had seen action in Iraq in 2003 and during the first Gulf War. Instead, they found out James was dead.

He had committed suicide in his room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and was found hanging from a bed sheet just inside his room in an outpatient hotel. Walter Reed staff did not find him until at least two days after his death, and only then at the insistence of his family, who were desperate to locate their son.

In their first network television interview since their son's death, Carol and Richard Coons sat down with me to talk about their family's anger and quest for answers. "They didn't take care of my son. They just didn't take care of him," Carol said.

Just a few days earlier, Coons, 35, had been evacuated from a base in Kuwait because he had overdosed on sleeping pills. An Army doctor at a combat hospital labeled the action a "suicidal gesture," according to Coons' medical records.

Coons told medical personnel that he had visited a morgue on the base to pay his respects to the fallen soldiers and had been haunted by one of the faces — that of a Navy corpsman who had been badly burned and disfigured by an IED.

His parents knew from talking to him on the phone that he was troubled — they say his voice began to sound different, and they could tell that he was under a lot of strain. "He said, 'The things that I've seen are really bothering me,'" said Carol. "He would see demons and he was trying to control his demons," added Richard.


I don't recall ever seeing ABC covering anything as gritty or disturbing as this report on the fate of Master Sgt. Coons. Peace to his family, and friends, and may they find all of the answers they are looking for, instead of continued non-response from this administration.

-Diane

Captain Michael Breen, Veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan

Capt. Breen shares his thoughts on disagreeing with the administration, supporting the troops, and Iraq.

-Diane

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.


-Diane

3332

The Toll.

Including 9 US soldiers killed today, the same day as 45 others perished in violence throughout Iraq.

-Diane

Letterman's top 10 George W. Bush moments from the CSpan Correspondent's dinner.

-Diane

Shiver me Timbers

Pirates of the Caribbean parts 1 and 2 in 30 seconds.


-Diane

A Bush and His Gonzo

WASHINGTON — President Bush gave embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a strong vote of confidence on Monday despite scant support for him among key Republicans.

"This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence," Bush said.

The president said that Gonzales' testimony before skeptical Judiciary Committee senators last week "increased my confidence" in his ability to lead the Justice Department. Separately, a White House spokesman said, "He's staying."

Once again, 'screw you', America.


-Diane

Iraq'd

Car bombs rock Ramadi, at least 19 dead. Developing...


-Diane

Update: Car bombs have rocked the Iraqi city of Ramadi, killing 20 people, the latest in a string of attacks during the day that have caused dozens of casualties.

Three cars exploded in quick succession near a restaurant and market in the western district of al-Taamim.

Witnesses said there was a heavy police presence in Ramadi because of reports that there were explosives there.

Earlier blasts hit Baqouba and Mosul, and near where the new US envoy was giving his first briefing in Baghdad.

Equality between Men and Women?

Not when it comes to equal pay for equal work, according to new research:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A dramatic pay gap emerges between women and men in America the year after they graduate from college and widens over the ensuing decade, according to research released on Monday.

One year out of college, women working full time earn 80 percent of what men earn, according to the study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, based in Washington D.C.

Ten years later, women earn 69 percent as much as men earn, it said.

Even as the study accounted for such factors as the number of hours worked, occupations or parenthood, the gap persisted, researchers said.

"If a woman and a man make the same choices, will they receive the same pay?" the study asked. "The answer is no.


There you have it, it's 2007, yet still the struggle continues.


-Diane

Lara Logan talks to the people of Baghdad.

-Diane

'Get used to it.'

BAGHDAD (AP) — Three suicide bombers launched attacks in different parts of Iraq on Monday, killing at least 27 people and wounding nearly 60 on Monday, police and politicians said.

A parked car bomb also exploded outside the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, killing one civilian, and a drive-by shooting wounded two guards at Tunisia's Embassy in the capital, police said.

Monday's first suicide car bomb attack occurred near the northern city of Mosul at 10:10 a.m. when a suicide attacker detonated his car in front of an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, an official with the group said. At least 10 people were killed and 20 wounded in the attack in Tal Uskuf, a town nine miles north of Mosul, said Abdul-Ghani Ali, a KDP official.


You've been Bushed.

-Diane

-Diane

Steven Tyler at the Church of Today in Detroit, Michigan last May.

-Diane

The band that could never be dead no matter what Mister Atriosdotblogspotdotcom says.

"Jaded"

-Diane

Sunday Night Decompression Chamber

It's Sunday night and I'm live-streaming another edition of The Decompression Chamber. If you like mellow, ambient, sexy music you'll probably dig The Decompression Chamber. I've been updating the catalogue and there's plenty of ambient, Middle Eastern, Brazilian, Acid Jazz, Lounge-y, sexy music. (Seriously - I could do a year's worth of 3 hour shows.)

It's 9:05PM to Midnight Central. Go to The Zen Cabin and click on the Subliminal Radio link in the sidebar.

Thanks to Diane for reminding me to post it here.

Rip -

Sidewalk Art

-Diane

Baby Steps

This is great news, but it's also sad to realize that 2007 is the first year for a high school prom that isn't segregated by race in a town in the US.:

For the first time, the faces of students at the Turner County High School prom were both white and black.

Each year, in spite of integration, the school's white students had raised money for their own unofficial prom and black students did the same to throw their own separate party, an annual ritual that divided the southern Georgia peanut-farming county anew each spring.

That all changed Saturday as horse-drawn carriages and stretch limousines carried young couples around the downtown streets to a single prom.

"I couldn't be more proud of these young people," said Ray Jordan, the county's school superintendent. "The changes needed to come from the student body."

At the start of the school year, Turner County's four senior class officers had told principal Chad Stone they wanted an official prom and they wanted everyone invited.

Stone spent $5,000 of his discretionary fund to put together the county's first school-sponsored prom. Another $5,000 came from supporters after news stories about the plan spread across the nation.

"Tonight, it's a fresh start," said James Hall, the black senior class president who led the charge for the integrated prom.


As great as this move is, old habits die hard:

Still, traditions die hard. Only about two-thirds of the school's 160 upper-class students purchased tickets for the prom, blacks still easily outnumbered whites at the dance, and many whites still attended their own private party a week earlier.



-Diane

Not another Brick in the wall

CAIRO, Egypt -- Iraq's prime minister said Sunday that he has ordered a halt to the U.S. military construction of a barrier separating a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shiite areas in Baghdad after fierce criticism over the project at home.

...

In his first public comments on the issue, al-Maliki said Sunday that he had ordered the construction to stop.

"I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop," al-Maliki said during a joint news conference with the secretary-general of the Arab League. "There are other methods to protect neighborhoods, but I should point out that the goal was not to separate, but to protect."

He did not elaborate but added "this wall reminds us of other walls that we reject, so I've ordered it to stop and to find other means of protection for the neighborhoods." He wasn't more specific but apparently was referring to the Berlin Wall during the Cold War and Israel's construction of a barrier in the West Bank to keep out suicide bombers.

Sadly, it's seemed for years now that our leaders haven't learned anything from the past.

Will stopping the wall really be as simple as al-Maliki saying 'stop'?

-Diane

Rest in Peace

Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Calif.), 68, who'd taken leave from Congress after being diagnosed with cancer, died Sunday, a congressional source said.

Condolences to her friends and family.

-Diane

3323

The Toll.


-Diane

Top Brass Lowers the Bar in Iraq

'Suicide bombings, learn to live with 'em.'



-Diane

The Ghost of Statements Past.

-Diane

Happy Earth Day.

-Diane

Faux News sends in the Clown.

Today it's Bill Kristol...


-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Relatives pray next to the coffin of Fallujah city council chairman Sami Abdul-Amir al-Jumaili, who was gunned down by attackers in a passing car Saturday, April 21, as he was walking outside his home in central Fallujah, 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 22, 2007. Al-Jumaili, a critic of al-Qaida who took the job after his three predecessors were assassinated, was killed in the latest blow in a violent internal Sunni struggle for control of an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. (AP Photo/Mohammed Khodor)


-Diane

Weekend update: Really?

-Diane

Bush: "So far, the operation is meeting expectations."

BAGHDAD (AP) — Two suicide car bombers attacked a police station Sunday in western Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding 82, police said.

The bombs exploded as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki arrived in Cairo on the first stop of a four-nation regional tour aimed at winning Arab support for his embattled government.

The first driver raced through a police checkpoint guarding the station and exploded his vehicle just outside the two-story building, police said. Moments later, a second suicide car bomber aimed at the checkpoint's concrete barriers and exploded just outside them, police said.

The blasts collapsed nearby buildings, smashing windows and burying at least four cars under piles of concrete. Metal roofs were peeled back by the force of the explosions. Pools of blood made red mud of a dusty driveway.

An unidentified man with wounds to one eye and his hands staggered through the wreckage.


Lowered the bar again, I see.

-Diane

Them gorey details.

-Diane

Jazz Brunch

Something mellow to help you start your Sunday.

Acoustic Alchemy - The Beautiful Game



The Rippingtons - Gypsy Eyes




Happy Earth Day!

Rip -

Eight-year-old Laxmi, dressed in bridal finery, waits with her family members, unseen, prior to her marriage ceremony, outside the Jalpa Mata temple in Rajgarh, about 155 kilometers (96 miles) northwest of Bhopal, India, Friday, April 20, 2007. Ignoring laws that ban child marriages, hundreds of children, some as young as seven years old, were married in a centuries-old custom across central and western India this week, according to news reports. (AP Photo/Prakash Hatvalne)

-Diane

Sam Stone, John Prine.

-Diane

Children are seen as US soldiers patrol in Sadr City. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will begin a regional tour on Sunday to drum up support for next month's international conference in Egypt aimed at quelling the raging bloodshed in Iraq.(AFP/Wissam al-Okaili)


-Diane

omg, you mean political and diplomatic methods work?

Sheik Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi walks through his home in Ramadi, Iraq, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad, Wednesday, March 21, 2007. The 36-year-old sheik is leading a growing movement of Sunni tribesmen who have turned against al-Qaida-linked insurgents in Anbar province, a dramatic shift in alliances that may have done more in a few months to ease daily street battles and undercut the insurgency here than American forces have achieved in years with arms. (AP Photo/Todd Pitman)


-Diane

3319

The Toll.


-Diane

It's Saturday!!

[Actually, it's Friday nite. But I'm having some pretty serious back pain, so I'm giving up the beer for a Tylenol 3. Posting it now, so your morning is more... magical. Yeah, magical!]

Wakey wakey, kids! There's a beautiful weekend out there, and it's ours for the taking! What's on your agenda? Kids, movies, museums, strip clubs... share your weekend with us!


Commodores - Sail On



The men's version of 'I Will Survive'. But you know we'll still call you when we're drunk, ladies.


Haircut 100 - Love Plus One



Girls in binkinis and British guys in sweaters... hmmm... sexy, yet disturbing... or should I say disturbing, yet sexy...?


Chris Rea - Fool If You Think It's Over



Love sucks when you're young - then it gets worse...

Pablo Cruise - Whatcha Gonna Do (Live)



I have a thing for Pablo Cruise, from my childhood - cant' explain it, but I love their music. Oh yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Yes, you...

Enjoy your weekend, kids! I can't do it for you.


Rip -

Missing

Where's Condi?



-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Know your Enemy

President Bush said Friday that his revised military strategy was taking hold in Iraq and "the direction of the fight is beginning to shift," even as he acknowledged "horrific" bombings that killed more than 200 people in Baghdad this week.

"So far, the operation is meeting expectations," Bush said of the boost in U.S. troops he ordered and the new focus on improving security in Baghdad neighborhoods.

The president said the number of sectarian attacks in the capital had declined by half since the stepped-up efforts began.

But Bush also said, "We have seen some of the highest casualty levels of the war."

And he cautioned that as more troops arrive to conduct more military maneuvers, "we can expect the pattern to continue."

In taking note of the deadly Baghdad bombings on Wednesday, Bush suggested a link between the violence and Al Qaeda terrorists.

While conceding there was no specific intelligence tying the bombings to Al Qaeda, he said, "the men who attacked Iraqis … swear allegiance to the same network" that assaulted the United States on 9/11."

"This was hardly a random act of murder," Bush said of the explosions in Baghdad. "It has all the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda attack. The terrorists bombed … at rush hour with a specific intent to kill as many people as possible."

His remarks echoed controversial assertions he made during the walk-up to the war in Iraq more than four years ago, when Bush and his aides spoke of ties between the government of dictator Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

Bush has since said there was no evidence of such connections.

Bush's speech was his second sustained effort in two days to rebuild flagging support for the war by making his case in Republican communities where he has found friendly audiences.

On Thursday, he spoke in Tipp City, Ohio, a small town represented in Congress by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner.


If Bush's intelligence on the war isn't to be trusted(WMD's) why would anyone trust his non-intelligence?

As for the 'hallmarks' of an al-qaeda attack, if you recall 9/11 -- and who doesn't -- the attacks did not take place at a time when the buildings were at maximum capacity, with many workers not having yet arrived for work that day.

If you look at Okalahoma City for comparison, the 'homegrown' terrorist attack, that did occur with the building at capacity for maximum casualties. It seems fair to say that any planned attack would do the same, and Bush himself admits there is no evidence at all to suggest al-qaeda's involvement in Iraq.

As for his(Bush) chosen audience, groups of his supporters meeting at various high schools; talk about your well planned attack! High school students -- young people perhaps easily swayed -- who must listen via televisions in their classrooms broadcasting the events, and then targets for military recruiters who have access to their contact information if their schools wish to receive any federal funding,that was tossed into the no child left behind act for good measure.

-Diane

-Diane

Iraq will follow us home, alright.

A veteran of the war in Iraq attending Martin Luther College has been detained in a psychiatric ward in New Ulm after police found two pipe bombs in a campus parking lot Friday morning.

New Ulm Police Chief Erv Weinkauf said one of the pipe bombs was found in a box inside the student’s pickup truck, while another was found in the trunk of a vehicle belonging to his roommate. He said it was the roommate who first alerted authorities about the bomb.

A bomb squad from Bloomington detonated one of the devices and the other one was rendered inactive.

The morning began when the suspect woke his roommate up at about 4 a.m. The roommate brought the suspect to the hospital and returned to campus. He then went to the suspect’s truck, removed what Weinkauf said were four guns and brought them to his own vehicle.

That’s when he found the first pipe bomb, Weinkauf said, at about 8 a.m.

Classes at Martin Luther, a private college with about 700 students, went on Friday, though students were moved across campus, Weinkauf said. Several hundred children were also on campus for a play.


Stop the madness, and let's begin to heal those left who have suffered years of reckless disregard for human life.

-Diane

Futility

Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds, -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?


--Wilfred Owen




-Diane

Enjoy.

-Diane

'Supporting the Troops'

After an hour of bench-pressing a log weighing several hundred pounds during Army Special Forces selection training in February 2006, five soldiers lying on their backs at Fort Bragg, N.C., reacted quickly to the next order:

“Drop back!”

So quickly, in fact, that when they dropped the log, it landed on Spc. Paul Thurman’s head.

“I shook for a moment, and then went limp,” Thurman told Military Times. “I was unconscious for a minute or two, and then I went back to training.”

An MRI later showed that Thurman had lesions on the right parietal lobe of his brain, a condition that led to a “don’t deploy” order — which the Army violated, according to Thurman. Worse, rather than providing compassionate understanding of the symptoms associated with traumatic brain injury, he said leaders at Fort Carson, Colo., have harassed him, refused him medication and pushed for an Article 15.

Thurman stepped forward Friday as one of the 18 soldiers whose cases were cited by six senators in a letter to the Government Accountability Office requesting a review of alleged improper handling of traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder and ungrounded personality disorder discharges.

The letter was sent after an Army surgeon general investigation into the cases said the soldiers were handled properly — but the soldiers involved said no one from the surgeon general’s office ever talked to them in the course of that investigation.

...

It gets worse . . .

Meanwhile, a former Fort Carson officer has come forward to denounce the treatment of a soldier diagnosed with pre-existing personality disorder, rather than PTSD and traumatic brain injury, after reading about the case of Spc. Jon town in Military Times.

Town was discharged for a pre-existing personality disorder even though he had no history of mental health problems until after he returned from Iraq — a prerequisite for a personality disorder diagnosis.

Edward Kaspar said he served as Town’s lieutenant and was a witness to the incident in which a rocket exploded above Town’s head in Iraq, causing his brain injury.

“I was pretty shocked to hear about his problems now,” Kaspar said by e-mail. “This personality disorder thing just doesn't make sense. I'm not a trained medical professional, but I can say that in the years he served as one of my soldiers, he definitely had it together. … I relied on him to get the job done and he never failed me, both in peacetime and in war.”

Andrew Pogany, who has been investigating soldier complaints at Fort Carson, said that though he is no longer surprised by the stories, he is particularly angry about Thurman’s case.

“He has a profile that says he can’t always understand orders because of his brain injury — but they’re giving him an Article 15 for disobeying orders,” Pogany said. “This kind of treatment is very pervasive across the board.”

Thurman said a civilian lawyer — a former military attorney — may take his case pro bono.

After his initial brain injury during Special Forces selection training, Thurman tore a bicep muscle and had to drop out because he couldn’t move his arm. He went back to Fort Carson, where his unit was preparing to deploy to Iraq.

“My profile said I was undeployable because of the thing in my head,” Thurman said. “I also have melanoma skin cancer, and couldn’t deploy because of that.”

He said he mentioned his profile to his chain of command, but said the doctor and his commander cleared him to go to Iraq anyway.

Once in Iraq, Thurman said, he was told he would head to Germany for a follow-up MRI to make sure his brain was OK, even with the already-existing lesions.

But before he got a chance to go to Germany, he said, he was injured again during a training exercise in Iraq.

“We were doing convoy training, and somebody told us to clear a medevac helicopter,” he said. “I heard somebody yell out, ‘Grenade!’ I turned around to see a new private picking up a really big IED simulator.”

Thurman said he dived for the ground as the private threw the simulator, but the device landed three inches from his head.

“I could feel a huge concussion wave, and then I couldn’t hear anything,” Thurman said. “I told my sergeants my ears were hurting and that I felt really weird. My vision was acting all strange.”

Soon he was having dizzy spells, was losing his balance and couldn’t sleep.

His company sent him to Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center in Germany, where the doctors, he said, told him he shouldn’t have been deployed to Iraq. They forwarded him on to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where he said he spent “eight hours with the USO ladies eating cookies” before being packed off to Fort Carson. He said he was not examined while at Walter Reed.

Since the injuries, Thurman said he blacks out, has seizures that last up to 40 minutes, has short-term memory loss and maintains a constant headache. Once, in front of his Army lawyer, he started throwing up and having a seizure, he said.

For that reason, his doctors told him to take depakote, which he said leaves him drowsy. At Fort Carson, he’s attached to a rear detachment unit because his company is still in Iraq.

In January, the company had a health-and-welfare inspection at 2:30 a.m. As dogs searched the barracks for drugs, the soldiers reported to the company area for a drug urinalysis. But standing in formation, Thurman said his face and arm began to go numb, and he could tell he had a seizure coming on. He realized he needed his medication, and said he asked a staff sergeant if he could go. He was told no. He said he asked the first sergeant, and was told no. He said he asked the company commander, and was told no.

Finally, dizzy and disoriented, he walked away from the formation to get his medication.

“Someone yelled, ‘Private! Get back in formation!’ ” Thurman said. “But I’m a specialist, and I was already pretty disoriented, so I kept walking.”

His medical profile states that Thurman sometimes can’t follow orders because he can’t comprehend them. He was being processed out of the Army for a medical disability. Next, he said, a staff sergeant yelled at him to get back in formation.

“I said, ‘F--- you,’ I’ve got to get my medication,’ ” and kept walking,” Thurman said. “I ended up having a seizure right there. Then they took me to do a urinalysis.”

His expletive, he said, led to an Article 15 — but the write-up, Thurman and Pogany say, doesn’t say anything about Thurman cursing only after being denied permission to get his anti-seizure medication. His urinalysis came up clean.

His profile also states he can’t drive because of the seizures. But this month, he received a bad counseling statement, he said, for refusing to attend an 80-hour driving course.

“All my counseling statements in the past have been great. They say things like ‘esprit de corps’ — that’s top-notch. I was always volunteering. I attended like 15 different schools.”

Now he’s pushing for a court-martial, rather than the Article 15, to make sure someone higher in the chain of command sees what’s happening to him.

“That’s my right,” he said.

Pogany agrees with other critics who have noted that injured troops separated from service with bad-conduct discharges and diagnoses of pre-existing personality orders have no shot at disability retirement benefits — which holds down the military’s costs to pay those benefits.

Defense and service officials have repeatedly denied that budget concerns play a role in such cases, but Pogany doesn’t buy it. “It’s just sick,” he said. “The pile is really starting to stink.”


This administration doesn't even do a good job of pretending to 'support the troops.' This article is from the Army Times, and I've forwarded it on to key members of the Senate and the House. Let's hope someone pays attention.


-Diane