Killing Civilians over there, so we don't have to Kill them Here.

The Guardian:

Air strikes in the British-controlled Helmand province of Afghanistan may have killed civilians, coalition troops said yesterday as local people claimed that between 50 and 80 people, many of them women and children, had died.

In the latest of a series of attacks causing significant civilian casualties in recent weeks, more than 200 were killed by coalition troops in Afghanistan in June, far more than are believed to have been killed by Taliban militants.

The bombardment, which witnesses said lasted up to three hours, in the Gereshk district late on Friday followed an attempted ambush by the Taliban on a joint US-Afghan military convoy. According to Mohammad Hussein, the provincial police chief, the militants fled into a nearby village for cover. Planes then targeted the village of Hyderabad. Mohammad Khan, a resident of the village, said seven members of his family, including his brother and five of his brother's children, were killed.


“As for catching Osama, it’s irrelevant. Things are going swimmingly in Afghanistan.”

-Ann Coulter, Republican Spokeswoman


-Diane

Australia: "Buh-bye"

"one of the most closely guarded secrets in top levels of the bureaucracy".



um, not anymore.


-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

4 Non Blondes, enjoy.

-Diane

RoguePlanet

The Best Damn Cat Blogging this side of the Mississippi!


-Diane

The House that Blood and Oil Built

The Bush compound, formally Walker's Point, is the summer home of 41st President of the United States George H. W. Bush. Located adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean in southern Maine, near the town of Kennebunkport, the property has been a family retreat for more than a century.

The estate was first purchased by St. Louis banker George H. Walker in the late 19th century, who built the mansion in 1903. The estate was later sold to his daughter Dorothy Walker Bush and her husband Prescott Bush, and has remained in the Bush family since.

Olbermann on the horror of Rupert Murdoch.

-Diane

Olbermann: Republicans and the pets they abuse.

-Diane

Compassionate Conservatism

Via Media Matters:

On the June 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck commented on a mock ad -- produced by subscribers to his website known as "Insiders" -- depicting a "giant refinery" that produces "Mexinol," which, according to the ad, is a fuel made from the bodies of illegal immigrants from Mexico. Beck read from the ad: "At Evil Conservative Industries, we know four things for certain. The country needs cheap, alternative fuel source. Two, the human body is 18 percent carbon. Three, carbons can be turned into hydrocarbons. Four, we have a buttload of illegal aliens in our country."

Beck continued to read from the ad: "Evil Conservative Industries is proud to present the fuel of the future, Mexinol. A clean-burning, cheap alternative to gasoline, Mexinol's future seems unlimited in its potential. There are other gasoline alternatives available such as ethanol. However, Mexinol has certain advantages from corn. Corn has to be grown, harvested, and processed. With Mexinol, raw materials come to you in a seemingly never-ending stream. Go ahead and purchase that boat-sized SUV. There's plenty of Mexinol for everyone."

Beck introduced the discussion by saying, "Sometimes the Insiders go too far," and later said, "I don't think we need to make the illegal aliens into fuel." Beck also said, "That would be evil conservative, yeah. I don't even know if that's conservative. That would be ... [p]sychotic, perhaps? Sociopathic, perhaps?" Beck's executive producer and head writer, Steve "Stu" Burguiere, added, "Just evil, pretty much." However, as of June 29, the ad was posted on the front page of Beck's website under the title "Picture of the Day," with a caption that described the "ad" as a "brilliant creation."

A "brilliant creation"? I agree with the 'psychotic, sociopathic' commentary, but apparently Beck was just using that line to cover his racist ass on the air.

-Diane

Michael Moore was denied entry into the NYSE this week for an interview that was to take place there with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo. The interview continued -- outside -- but interesting to note that when Michael asked if anyone else had ever had access to the NYSE for an interview denied, Maria won't answer him and quickly changes the subject. I think Michael has probably seen every trick in the book by now.

-Diane

Surged

THE US military said it had uncovered 35 to 40 bodies in a mass grave south of Falluja, in Iraq's Sunni dominated Anbar province.

A Falluja hospital source said 35 bodies had been retrieved and were being finger-printed to establish their identity.

The military said the killings were relatively recent and the bodies had been bound and bore gunshot wounds.



This is much smaller than Saddam's mass graves, therefore, this must be progress.
So don't be ungrateful, Iraq, you're freeeeee!

-Diane

-Diane

Lil' Bush goes to Market

(CNN) — Normally VIP visits to Iraq are kept under wraps, at least until the day of the trip. But Senator John McCain Friday night said he’s going to Iraq next week.

Responding to a question in Chicago about whether the Iraq strategy can succeed, the Republican presidential candidate said, “I understand the sorrow of the American people. I visit the wounded quite often at Walter Reed and Bethesda. I’m going to Iraq on Monday. And I’m going to be proud. I would rather spend the 4th of July with the men and women in Iraq than anywhere else in the world.”



Trip to Baghdad #6. Who's paying for 'em, and more importantly, who won't have security on Monday because they're guarding his ass?

Oh, the picture? I googled McCain, and there it was.

-Diane

WTF News Item of the Day

DALLAS — A black bag found in a middle school girls' locker room contained rotten oranges and not a human fetus, the Dallas County medical examiner reported today.

A janitor doing end-of-school cleaning Thursday at Ben Franklin Middle School found what appeared to be a human fetus in a trash bag inside a locker, police said.

The janitor called the police, who found it difficult to determine the contents of the bag, Dallas police spokeswoman Sr. Cpl. Janice Crowther said.

Police then turned over the bag to the Dallas County Medical Examiner.


The dead fetus alert for the Dallas area is now cancelled, repeat, the dead fetus alert is now cancelled. Please go about your business, and try to act normal.

-Diane

"Psst, you there, you got the keys?"

-Diane

If it's Ben Harper, you know it's all good. :)

-Diane

Anglers, eh?

It looks as if Daddy and Junior Shrub had to take someone along to bait their hooks for 'em. Figures.

U.S. President George W. Bush (R) and his father, former U.S. President George Bush (C), wave from their boat as they go fishing off the coast of Kennebunkport, Maine, June 29, 2007. At left is a fishing guide. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)

-Diane

Olbermann: So much for fighting terrorism in Iraq so it doesn't 'follow us home' after the bombs that were discovered today in London. Keith speaks with Larry Johnson, former CIA and counter-terrorism officer.

-Diane

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski refuses to cover another Paris Hilton story, but Joe Scarborough runs the video clip anyways...damnit.

-Diane

Statements from Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on their desire to continue to fight to bring an end to the war in Iraq, and to improve healthcare for Veterans.

Senator Reid mentions hearing on a talk radio show that Iraqis now 'celebrate' death by natural causes, because it's becoming so rare compared to the death by violence from the war. He also mentions that we're coming up on the end of the most deadly 3 month period since the start of the 2003 invasion, and sounds deeply disturbed, and sincere in his comments.

Pelosi sounds angered by the continued disturbing news out of Iraq, angered that it's been such a struggle to bring about an end to the war, and mentions the Iraqis being afraid to eat the fish in the Tigris River because of all of the dead bodies contaminating the waters.

-Diane

The 'other' war.

Another air raid in Afghanistan leaves 17 'suspected' militants dead. The military is certain they weren't civilians, as such a thing could never happen.

-Diane

Dem Debate: Gravel Vows to end the war on drugs if elected in 2008

The former senator from Alaska says that drugs are "a public health issue, not a criminal issue."

Raw Story has more from last night's live-blogging of the debate.


-Diane

Bush'd!

BAGHDAD - Five American soldiers were killed and seven wounded in a coordinated attack in southern Baghdad involving a roadside bomb and rocket-propelled grenades, the U.S. military announced Friday.

The soldiers were on a combat patrol when a roadside bomb exploded near them on Thursday, the military said in a statement. Shortly after the blast, insurgents attacked with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, it said.

All seven wounded soldiers were evacuated to a military hospital, and one has since returned to duty, the military said. The victims' names were withheld pending family notification.

The deaths brought to 99 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq this month, according to an Associated Press count. The toll for the past three months — 329 — made it the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.


Last throes, indeed.

-Diane

3577

The Toll.


-Diane

-Diane

This is a great campaign ad. Via Atrios. :)

-Diane

Late night.

-Diane

Michael Moore talks SiCKO with Rolling Stone

Video here.


-Diane

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Whoa...

I've always heard that wingnuts eat their own.




-Diane

She's baaaack. Coultergeist via phone on MSNBC this morning calls Elizabeth Edwards a "Harridan."

The column that Ann refers to as "one of the greatest columns ever written" is the one where she suggested that John Edwards was politically exploiting his own son's death and using it like a "bumper sticker."

Coltergeist calls people fags, mocks their dead children, publicly says she wishes they would be murdered, and when someone responds with 'hey, um, you're kinda mean' she blows her top.

For a little background on the republican party's spokeswoman, here's a bit from Media Matters:

Ann Coulter is a syndicated columnist for Universal Press Syndicate, a legal affairs correspondent for the conservative newspaper Human Events, and a frequent pundit and guest on Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and CNN. She is often billed as a "constitutional attorney," apparently based on her University of Michigan law degree and membership in the conservative Federalist Society (a chapter of which she founded while attending the University of Michigan Law School).

Coulter first came to national prominence as a legal correspondent and pundit for MSNBC, which fired her for insulting a Vietnam veteran. The conservative National Review dropped her column after she responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by stating that America should "invade their [terrorists'] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." In an interview with The New York Observer, Coulter stated that "[m]y only regret with [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building." USA Today also removed Coulter as a columnist covering the 2004 Democratic National Convention after she referred to the gathering as the "Spawn of Satan convention."


The msm should be ashamed for parading this lunatic out in public. For more of Coultergeist's lies, and deranged behavior, visit here at Media Matters.


-Diane

"Argh, who let Ann Coulter in here??"

(AFP/DDP/Marcus Brandt)

-Diane

Wax on, Wax off

They're part of the executive branch again, via Raw Story:

The White House, under attack from Congress for allegedly firing federal prosecutors based on political affiliation, asserted executive privilege Thursday and said they could not turn over documents that could shed light on the prosecutors' firings.

In a letter to the chairmen of the the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, President George W. Bush's attorney asserted that White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor.

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding wrote. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion."


Let the contempt citations fly.

-Diane

Indeed.

From Thersites:

Oh fuck you, Obi-Wan. What the fuck is this, "know hope"?


-Diane

How bad is racism in America?

We can always use Katrina as a guage, and then there's this.


-Diane

DoD: Money to Burn?

June 25, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Creative scientists have until next week to submit proposals for creating a shape-shifting military robot that can shrink and then reconfigure itself to normal height and shape.

The description of the robot, at a high level, is somewhat reminiscent of the villainous liquid-state cyborg of the sci-fi movie Terminator 2 -- except that this robot would be dispatched to save lives on the battlefield. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is accepting proposals for building the so-called Chemical Robot (ChemBot) from researchers until July 2.

According to the Department of Defense unit's request for proposals, potential developers should avoid using hard materials that can't "rapidly traverse arbitrary size/shape openings whose dimensions are much smaller than the robot itself and are not known a-priori."

The RFP suggests using technologies like gels, thickening fluids and shape memory materials that can return to an original shape after completing a mission. DARPA acknowledges that some technologies may still be in the research labs of submitters.

Ultimately, the agency said it hopes the ChemBot can provide "the ability to safely and covertly gain access to denied or hostile areas and perform useful tasks," and provide help to soldiers "over a broad spectrum of military operations."

DARPA describes ChemBot as a soft and flexible device that can squeeze through apertures and then reassemble to do its job. The agency is looking for the ChemBots to be capable of traveling distances, transforming in all three dimensions and carrying their own power source.



A week to come up with this? I guess if they can do it in the movies...

-Diane

How 'bout we just stop the killing?

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld turned special operations forces into a “giant killing machine,” said Douglas Macgregor, a former Army colonel and frequent critic of the Defense Department.

Now, with Rumsfeld gone and Navy Vice Adm. Eric Olson about to take control of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), Macgregor anticipates a return to the fundamentals drilled into Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other specially trained troops.

“The emphasis will be on, ‘If you have to kill someone, then for God’s sakes, kill the right people,”’ Macgregor said. “In most cases, you’re not going to have to kill people and that’s the great virtue of special operations. That’s been lost over the last several years.”


Well this explains much. If you call every person killed by the US a member of al-qaeda, they instantly become 'the right people.' Gee, that's so different from the Rumsfeld strategery. *rolls eyes*

-Diane

Relatives cry as they transport the bodies of policemen on a police vehicle in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad June 27, 2007. Four policemen were killed during clashes with suspected insurgents in Kirkuk on Wednesday, police said. Picture taken June 27, 2007. REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed (IRAQ)


-Diane

Rush Hour

BAGHDAD - Twenty beheaded bodies were discovered Thursday on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, while a parked car bomb killed another 20 people in one of the capital's busy outdoor bus stations, police said.

The beheaded remains were found in the Sunni Muslim village of Um al-Abeed, near the city of Salman Pak, which lies 14 miles southeast of Baghdad.

The bodies — all men aged 20 to 40 years old — had their hands and legs bound, and some of the heads were found next to the bodies, two officers said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Meanwhile, a parked car bomb ripped through a crowded transport hub in southwest Baghdad's Baiyaa neighborhood at morning rush hour, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 50, another officer said on the same condition.

Many of the victims had been lining up for buses, awaiting a ride to work. Some 40 minibuses were incinerated in the explosion, police said.

Associated Press Television News video showed an open square strewn with smoldering car parts and charred bodies with clothes in tatters. Bystanders, some weeping, gingerly loaded human remains into ambulances.

A pickup truck rumbled slowly away from the scene, with two pairs of legs — the dead bodies of victims — dangling out of the back.




-Diane

-Diane

Lawyers, guns, and money, enjoy.

-Diane

Elizabeth Edwards calls in to Hardball to ask the spokeswoman of the repug party to stop with the hate speech.

-Diane

"That's just how it is in Michigan"

More Metro Detroiters are struggling to pay their hospital bills, a troubling side effect of the region's prolonged economic slump and health insurance plans that have shifted more medical costs to patients.

At least five Metro Detroit health systems have seen their bad debt from unpaid patient bills rise by millions of dollars in the past several years.

The increase in delinquent bills, which is expected to get worse, is coming even as many local health systems are providing more free treatment or charity care to patients.

Tyanne Lavigne, 30, of St. Clair is among those feeling the pinch from higher out-of-pocket medical costs.

She worked out a payment plan three times in as many years with Beaumont Hospital in Troy to settle her debt. Although Lavigne is insured through a PPO and she and her husband both work, the medical bills stemming from the birth of her son and two surgeries for the baby were too much to handle at once.

"It's hard. We live paycheck to paycheck. That's just how it is in Michigan," she said.

The mounting debt not only is a strain on local health systems, but also can have serious consequences for patients left with huge bills and damaged credit.

Local hospitals -- reluctant to turn late-payers over to collections agencies -- often are willing to work out payment arrangements.

"We do everything we can along the way to prevent that," said James Connelly, chief financial officer of Henry Ford Health System, which saw its bad debt rise from $36.9 million in 2003 to $42.2 million in 2006.

Hospitals are trying to offset the increase in unpaid bills in numerous ways, including by quickly identifying uninsured patients who qualify for programs such as Medicaid; collecting more payments at the time of service; and informing patients beforehand about their share of the cost of planned medical procedures.


I wonder how that 'informing patients beforehand about their share of the cost of planned medical procedures' goes? "Hello, Mrs. Smith? I see you're scheduled to come in to have that bad kidney removed on Monday. Do you realize that your portion of the bill -- after insurance payments -- will be $25,000.00? Would you like to set up a payment plan now to settle that? Sure, I'll hold while you take your pain medication..."

I just don't envision anyone facing an unexpected major surgery (or what about serious emergency room trips? 'Hi Mr. Jones, do you realize that heart monitor you're hooked up to is going to run you about $1000.00 an hour? Have you thought about payment plans for that debt?') to be prepared for these discussions.

It seems just cruel that when your health, or your life are in jeopardy, that you can't just focus on yourself and getting well at that time. In a perfect world. Or, at least a country with socialized healthcare.

-Diane

Wednesday Monkey Blogging

-Diane

An Iraqi hospital worker inspects the bodies of victims of violence at a hospital in the restive city of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. US and Iraqi troops are conducting a major operation in the city of Baquba.(AFP)

-Diane

-Diane

Olbermann's Worst Person ~ Coultergeist!

-Diane

Unca Dick

The last installment of Becker and Gellman's "Angler" is up at the WaPo:

In Oregon, a battleground state that the Bush-Cheney ticket had lost by less than half of 1 percent, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to be cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. Federal biologists said the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake.

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.

Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.


Over thirty thousand fish -- some up to three feet long -- stretched out over 36 miles upstream of the Klamath.

I wonder if Unca Dick eats salmon now without skipping a beat, or is he just a blood raw read meat kinda guy?

-Diane

-Diane

June 26, 2007 Honor Roll.


-Diane

Toy fight : Employees of Japan's Sega Toys let the toy Triceratops (L) and Tyrannosaurus (R) fight by remote control during a press preview for the four-day Tokyo Toy Show, which will kick off 28 June, in Tokyo.(AFP/Toru Yamanaka)


-Diane

Do I hear 3?

WASHINGTON -- Sen. George Voinovich said Tuesday the U.S. should begin pulling troops out of Iraq, joining Richard Lugar as the second Republican lawmaker in as many days to suggest President Bush's war strategy is failing.

He said the Iraqi people must become more involved and "I don't think they'll get it until they know we're leaving."

The Ohio senator's remarks followed similar comments by Lugar, R-Ind., the previous night. The two GOP senators previously had expressed concerns about Bush's decision to send 30,000 extra troops to Iraq in a massive U.S.-led security push in Baghdad and Anbar province. But they had stopped short of saying U.S. troops should leave and declined to back Democratic legislation setting a deadline for troop withdrawals.



I know of two who are certain to stay on and go down with the ship. Will the others take the door opened by Lugar and Voinovich?

-Diane

Wounded

More than 3,500 Americans have died in Iraq, but tens of thousands more are coming home, some tragically wounded. This week The Associated Press begins the first of an occasional series that looks at those who survived, the scars that they bear and what their long-term care will mean.

More than 800 of them have lost an arm, a leg, fingers or toes. More than 100 are blind. Dozens need tubes and machines to keep them alive. Hundreds are disfigured by burns, and thousands have brain injuries and damaged minds.

These are America’s war wounded, a toll that has received less attention than the 3,500 troops killed in Iraq. Depending on how you count them, they number between 35,000 and 53,000.



Another head hangs lowly,
Child is slowly taken.
And the violence caused such silence,
Who are we mistaken?



-Diane

Five-year-old girl Tran Huynh Thuong Sinh, who was born without eyes in the Binh Dinh province of Vietnam, is fed breakfast by a nurse at the 'Peace Village' center at Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Friday, May 25, 2007. Officials at the hospital suspect that the dioxin in Agent Orange blocks the receptors in a developing fetus, preventing the hormones that would normally instruct the cells to form eyes from doing so. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)


-Diane

What a horrific site. The Angora Fire burns above Lake Tahoe in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., early Monday, June 25, 2007. (AP Photo/Nevada Appeal, Brad Horn)

-Diane

Oh nooo.

I missed it. MSNBC broadcast the release of Paris live. Whatever shall I do?



-Diane

Run Al, run. This is priceless, from the Draft Al Gore for 2008 group.

-Diane

This has been the wettest June in all of recorded history for the UK, with even more rain forecasted for the region.

-Diane

Monday, June 25th's "Honor Roll"

-Diane

-Diane

No Child Left Untouched.

BAGHDAD -- Marwa Hussein watched as gunmen stormed into her home and executed her parents. Afterward, her uncle brought her to the Alwiya Orphanage, a high-walled compound nestled in central Baghdad with a concrete yard for a playground. That was more than two years ago, and for 13-year-old Marwa, shy and thin with walnut-colored eyes and long brown hair, the memory of her parents' last moments is always with her.

"They were killed," she said, her voice trailing away as she sat on her narrow bed with pink sheets. Tears started to slide down her face. As social worker Maysoon Tahsin comforted her, other orphans in the room, where 12 girls sleep, watched solemnly.

Iraq's conflict is exacting an immense and largely unnoticed psychological toll on children and youth that will have long-term consequences, said social workers, psychiatrists, teachers and aid workers in interviews across Baghdad and in neighboring Jordan.

"With our limited resources, the societal impact is going to be very bad," said Haider Abdul Muhsin, one of the country's few child psychiatrists. "This generation will become a very violent generation, much worse than during Saddam Hussein's regime."

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes, half of them children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. Many are being killed inside their sanctuaries -- at playgrounds, on soccer fields and in schools. Criminals are routinely kidnapping children for ransom as lawlessness goes unchecked. Violence has orphaned tens of thousands.

Marwa copes by taking care of her sisters Aliyah, 9, and Sura, 7, Tahsin said. Marwa helps them with their homework and bathes them. On the playground, she keeps careful watch.

"She's trying to substitute for the role of their mother," said Tahsin, who has been a social worker for 15 years. "But even as she tries to fill this gap, she is in deep need for emotional support as well."

...

He and other child specialists say as many as 80 percent of traumatized children are never treated because of the stigma attached to such ailments.

"Our society refuses to go to psychiatrists," said Abdul Sattar Sahib, a pediatrician at Sadr General Hospital in Sadr City.

Many children live in remote or dangerous areas, sliced off from Baghdad by insurgents, bombings, and checkpoints. "Some parents just call me by telephone, and I try to advise them," Abdul Muhsin said.

At Sadr General, as many as 250 children arrive for treatment every day, nearly double from last year. "We only treat the first 20 children who arrive and then we run out of drugs," Sahib said. There is no child psychiatrist on staff.


I don't know how many years it takes for some people to realize that you're doing more harm than good. If we ever get out of Iraq, will we end up at war with it's people again someday because of a child's rage after living through this hell?

-Diane

Waterloo: A Musical for the Bush era.

-Diane

Oy.

“World Awaits Paris Hilton’s Return.”




-Diane

Rock on.

-Diane

Tweety talks to Rhambo about cutting the executive branch funding for Preznit Cheney as he claims not to be a part of the executive branch.

-Diane

John Dean discusses the Cheney Presidency with Keith Olbermann.

-Diane

The Supremes are rolling out new rulings today. So far, all in favor of the White House, and one that sides with the anti-choice crowd.

I'm shocked and awed.

-Diane

Next up.

Coming up in a moment, CNN covers today's Supreme Court rulings.

-Diane

(Video via Watertiger)

A zoo worker holds two-month-old snow leopard cubs at a zoological park in Darjeeling, about 80 km (50 miles) north from the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri June 21, 2007. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri (INDIA)


-Diane

Oh, the suffering.

First lady Laura Bush smiles as she is acknowledged by President Bush during an event at Ford's Theatre, Sunday, June 24, 2007, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)


-Diane

The worst wounded soldier:
Eva Briseno comforts her son, Joseph Briseno Jr., as he lies in bed at the James A. Haley Veterans Hopital in Tampa, Fla. in this March 21, 2007 file photo. Briseno was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range in a Baghdad marketplace. His spinal cord was shattered, and cardiac arrests stole his vision and damaged his brain. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, file)



-Diane

Weekend discussion on CSPAN, The Washington Journal, on the series that began over the weekend on Dick Cheney in the Washington Post,"The Angler."

If you've been busy over the weekend, this will be a 'must-read' to catch up. You see, it seems that George Bush is not the decider, afterall.

The first video is 9 minutes, and the second is 7 minutes, including the show taking some comments from callers.

-Diane

Birth Pangs

BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bomber who penetrated layers of security blew himself up in the busy lobby of a leading Baghdad hotel on Monday, killing at least nine people, including a U.S.-allied tribal sheik, police reported.

The attack, in which 16 others were wounded, was just one in a surge of five suicide and other bombings Monday that killed at least 29 people across Iraq.

In an equally deadly attack, a suicide truck bomber targeted an Iraqi police station shared with U.S. troops in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, killing nine people. There were no American casualties in that blast, the U.S. command said.

The bombing at the high-rise Mansour Hotel, on the west bank of the Tigris River in central Baghdad, struck at about noon as the lobby bustled with members of news media organizations headquartered at the hotel and other guests, witnesses said.

A man wearing a belt of explosives walked into the lobby, approached the reception desk and detonated his bomb, police reported.

"It was a great breach of security because there are three checkpoints, one outside and two inside," said hotel worker Saif al-Rubaie, 28, who witnessed the blast and said all the casualties were Iraqis, most employees in the reception area.

Police said the dead included Fassal al-Guood, a Ramadi tribal sheik and former governor of Anbar province who was a leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, which has partnered with U.S. and Iraqi officials to fight al-Qaeda influence in Anbar. A noted Iraqi poet, Rahim al-Maliki, also was killed, said Iraqi Media Net, the government organization on whose television network al-Maliki appeared.

The Mansour, which also houses the Chinese Embassy and is the Baghdad home for a number of Iraqi parliament members, is just a half-mile from the heavily fortified International Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices are situated.

The attack was the fifth in a string of suicide and other bombings Monday morning, from Mosul and Beiji in the north to Hillah in the south. Two were aimed at U.S. targets, but no U.S. casualties were reported.

Besides nine dead, the truck bombing at the Beiji wounded at least 21 others, police and medical officials reported.

American troops share the post with the local police, on the main road in central Beiji. One wounded man said random gunfire came from the building after the blast.



The one small comfort -- no one suffers more through this than Pickles and the President.

-Diane

-Diane

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

Angler Part II:

But the "torture memo," as it became widely known, was not Yoo's work alone. In an interview, Yoo said that Addington, as well as Gonzales and deputy White House counsel Timothy E. Flanigan, contributed to the analysis.

The vice president's lawyer advocated what was considered the memo's most radical claim: that the president may authorize any interrogation method, even if it crosses the line of torture. U.S. and treaty laws forbidding any person to "commit torture," that passage stated, "do not apply" to the commander in chief, because Congress "may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield."

That same day, Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public. According to a source with direct knowledge, that opinion approved as lawful a long list of specific interrogation techniques proposed by the CIA -- including waterboarding, a form of near-drowning that the U.S. government classified as a war crime in 1947. The opinion drew the line against one request: threatening to bury a prisoner alive.

Yoo said for the first time in an interview that he verbally warned lawyers for the president, Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that it would be dangerous as a matter of policy to permit military interrogators to use the harshest techniques, because the armed services, vastly larger than the CIA, could overuse the tools or exceed the limits. "I always thought that only the CIA should do this, but people at the White House and at DOD felt differently," Yoo said. The migration of those techniques from the CIA to the military, and from Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib, aroused worldwide condemnation when abuse by U.S. troops was exposed.

On June 8, 2004, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell learned of the two-year-old torture memo for the first time from an article in The Washington Post [Read the article]. According to a former White House official with firsthand knowledge, they confronted Gonzales together in his office.

Rice "very angrily said there would be no more secret opinions on international and national security law," the official said, adding that she threatened to take the matter to the president if Gonzales kept them out of the loop again. Powell remarked admiringly, as they emerged, that Rice dressed down the president's lawyer "in full Nurse Ratched mode," a reference to the ward chief of a mental hospital in the 1975 film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Neither of them took their objections to Cheney, the official said, a much more dangerous course.



As this series unfolds, I've become so distrustful of the msm, and the current administration, that I'm only left wondering where some of the intricate details that are being revealed have come from. What's the source, and why are we being told now?

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Daughtry: "Home"

-Diane

Too Ironic

A 35-year-old Iraqi journalist was shot to death Sunday on her way home from work in Mosul, officials said, the second female journalist to be killed in the northern city this month.

The attack against Zeena Shakir Mahmoud occurred about 3:35 p.m. in the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Intisar in eastern Mosul, police Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim al-Jubouri said.

Today marked the first observance of 'Journalist's Day' in Iraq.

-Diane

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

Who's the deadliest of them all?



-Diane

Displaced Sudanese children stand at their school in the Otach Displaced Persons camp in the city of Nyala, in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, 22 February 2007. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Paris Sunday to take part in an international conference on Darfur, hoping to secure "concrete" results to end violence that Washington has termed "genocide."(AFP/File/Mustafa Ozer)


-Diane

Iraq: House to house blood bath. When did the insurgents become 'al qaeda insurgents'?

-Diane

Time for another Lynching for Democracy

Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hasan Al-Majid known as ' Chemical Ali' stands in court as he listens to his verdict being pronounced by Chief Judge Mohammed Oraibi Al-Khalifa, unseen, during the verdict trial session in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 24, 2007. Ali Hasan Al-Majid knowni was sentenced to death along with two other former regime officials by hanging for their roles in the use of chemical weapons in an offensive said to have killed some 180,000 people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. (AP Photo/Joseph Eid/pool)

-Diane

-Diane

Fall Out Boy "Thks Fr Th Mmrs"

(Just a note, fans of Wednesday's Monkey Blogging will *love* this.)

-Diane

Women stand near the body of a relative outside a hospital morgue in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, June 23, 2007. Three bodies with gunshot wounds were found on a road in Baquba, police said. (Helmiy al-Azawi/Reuters)

-Diane

Politics TV highlights the top ten videos of the week.

-Diane

Olbermann's World Worst: Glenn Beck

-Diane

King George

Declares self exempt from oversight. Afterall, if it's good enough for Unca Dickie...


-Diane

-Diane

Olbermann on Countdown, Thomas the Train covered in lead paint, made in China.

-Diane

Now the feds are going after the 9-11 rescue workers who went to Cuba with Michael Moore to get medical treatment. Pathetic.

-Diane

Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

Enjoy.

-Diane

Gitmo

Biden: 'Close it! Close it now!' From CNN today with Wolf Blitzer.

-Diane

In Defense of Carl Levin

I've seen a lot of shit slung at Senator Levin -- and others -- today after his vote against increasing the government CAFE standards. All other issues aside, I need to speak up in defense of his vote. First, the senate vote:

WASHINGTON -- Auto companies and Michigan lawmakers were regrouping Friday in the wake of the approval Thursday of a Senate bill that raises corporate average fuel economy mandates by 40 percent by 2025.

Passage of the bill was a huge blow to Detroit's automakers, which had lobbied hard against the new rules. They had backed a compromise proposed by Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Christopher Bond, R-Mo., among others, that would have raised CAFE mandates, but less dramatically than the Senate bill.

Nearly the entire Michigan congressional delegation met this morning for 45 minutes to discuss how to proceed in the wake of the loss.

"The bill would mean the death of Michigan," said U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, D-Brighton. "We owe it to a lot of families who rely on the auto industry to get this right."

Added Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee: "You think things are bad now in Michigan? You haven't seen anything yet if that bill became law."

Stupak and Rogers said automakers need to emphasize their advanced technology efforts and push for more assistance to make vehicles like the Chevy Volt a reality.

But Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid used harsh language to say that senators didn't find automakers credible suggested auto companies "misrepresented the facts" at time.

"We don't believe you anymore,'" Reid said. "The answer is we've had enough. It's time the American automobile manufacturers join with the rest of the world in recognizing that people want to buy more fuel efficient cars."


What exactly did the increase in the CAFE standards do? Automakers have to produce cars that meet the new recommended level of fuel efficiency *OR* they will pay stiff fines to the federal government. Does this ruling do anything to encourage the use of alternate fuels? No. Will Big Oil now make ethanol available at all gas stations across the country? No. Will increased CAFE standards reduce the use of fuel consumption? Not necessarily, and if you look at the track record of the effects of the CAFE standards, you'll see that actually just the opposite has taken place.

What will happen? Well, the future for the traditional "Big Three" has been looking bleak for some time, along with all those corporations that supply them. Do they now have to build more fuel efficient vehicles? No. Do any of the automakers have to build more fuel efficient vehicles? No. My home state of Michigan has been on life support during these dark Bush-Rovian years, and this is essentially pulling the plug.

What won't happen? Big oil won't lose a dime. Big oil won't see to it that alternate fuels that are less harmful to the environment are available to you.

I thought we were struggling to make changes that improved -- or at least did less -- harm to air quality? Senator Levin(and others) wanted to go after Big Oil, and save his home state. He did his job well, as well as he could.

-Diane

Cross posted at Michigan Liberal

If you believe...

Clap harder, Dana.




-Diane

Leave of absence for Romney aide.

An ever-present aide to Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney took a leave of absence Friday after he became the subject of investigations in two states for allegedly impersonating a law enforcement officer.

His attorney denied the charges.

Jay Garrity, who serves as director of operations and is constantly at the side of the former Massachusetts governor, is accused of leaving a lengthy message with the answering service of a plumbing company on Mother's Day, identifying himself as "Trooper Garrity" of the Massachusetts State Police and complaining about erratic driving by a company driver.

The district attorney in Boston is investigating the call, which was tape recorded by an after-hours operator. Impersonating an officer is a misdemeanor charge carrying a fine of up to $400 and one year imprisonment.


While Romney's aide denies placing the call, or owning the cell phone that the call was placed on, and is demanding a voice analysis:

Meanwhile, Garrity also has been accused of telling a New York Times reporter who had been following Romney's motorcade in New Hampshire last month that he had run the license plate of the reporter's rental car, and that he should break away from the caravan.

The New Hampshire attorney general's office is investigating that incident after the reporter, Mark Leibovich, recounted the May 29 events in a story about Romney last weekend. New Hampshire law prohibits citizens from accessing the state's license plate database.


I'm kinda seeing a pattern here...


-Diane

Memories

Via the Great Orange Satan, the family of Steve Gilliard is planning to gather and publish his work.

An enormous undertaking that I'll certainly be looking forward to.

-Diane

Caption this.

-Diane

Them Bombs

Some 25 civilians have died during aerial bombing by foreign forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, local residents and senior police say.

...

Speaking to the BBC's correspondent in southern Afghanistan, people from the village of De Adam Khan, near the town of Gereshk in Helmand, said heavy bombings of the area had resulted in the civilian deaths.

They said nine women and three children were among those killed.

The accounts were backed by the district police chief, and the provincial police chief, Mohammed Husain Andiwal.

Mr Andiwal said Taleban fighters attacked Nato forces first.

"Last night, around 01:30, Nato forces bombed the village... as a result of the bombing 25 people were killed. They included women, three babies between 6 to 10 months one, one mullah of a mosque and other elders."

Mr Andiwal alleged that foreign forces had launched air strikes on the village without consulting with their Afghan counterparts.


The Islamic extremists hate us for our freedoms.

-Diane

Without a Trace

This five-acre lake located in southern Chile has scientists baffled when it was discovered in May that all that remains is a 130 foot deep crater in the ground. It had only been two months prior that the lake was last seen.


SANTIAGO, Chile -- The melting of nearby glaciers or cracks in the ground caused by an earthquake were proposed by scientists Thursday as possible causes for the disappearance of a five-acre glacial lake in southern Chile.

The disappearance of the lake in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park was discovered in late May by park rangers, who were stunned to find a 130-foot-deep crater where a large lake had been just two months earlier, when they last visited the area.

Officials said the answer to why the lake vanished would likely not be known until experts visit the remote region in Chile's southern Andes.

Juan Jose Romero, head of Chile's National Forest Service in the region, said by telephone that it would take geologists and other experts about two or three weeks to reach the remote area 1,250 miles south of Santiago.

But, based on pictures from the site, experts were already discussing hypotheses related to global warming and seismic activity.

Gino Casassa, a glaciologist at the Center for Scientific Studies, said the cause may have been a phenomenon known as glacial lake outburst floods.

As glaciers retreat, glacial lakes form behind natural dams of ice or moraine, earth and stones pushed up by a glacier. These relatively weak dams can be breached suddenly, causing the lake to drain. Possible causes for the dam to be breached include a sudden input of water into the lake, an earthquake or avalanches of ice or rock.

Casassa said the Chilean lake was fed by two glaciers, the Bernardo and the Tempano, "and both are receding."


One glaciologist is already convinced that global warming is to blame for the missing body of water, and says the water could lead to the formation of new lakes, or lead to the disappearance of even more water sources.

-Diane

Last night's Countdown with Olbermann, is Gitmo closing?

-Diane

-Diane

Bloombergmania!

-Diane

Preznit Cheney not a part of the executive branch?

-Diane

Take America Back took Max's Movie.

Max and his camera went to the Take America Back conference.


-Diane

Rock on.

-Diane

3545

The Toll.


-Diane

This scares me.

President Bush sits in the control room as he tours the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)



















-Diane

How Low can he Go?

In 19 months, George W. Bush will leave the White House for the last time. The latest NEWSWEEK Poll suggests that he faces a steep climb if he hopes to coax the country back to his side before he goes. In the new poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday nights, President Bush’s approval rating has reached a record low. Only 26 percent of Americans, just over one in four, approve of the job the 43rd president is doing; while, a record 65 percent disapprove, including nearly a third of Republicans.


Just three more points to tie Tricky Dick.


-Diane

-Diane

Dead.

14 more US soldiers.

-Diane

Compassionate Conservatism Alert

As the nation struggles to improve medical and mental health care for military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, about 1.8 million U.S. veterans under age 65 lack even basic health insurance or access to care at Veterans Affairs hospitals, a new study has found.

The ranks of uninsured veterans have increased by 290,000 since 2000, said Stephanie J. Woolhandler, the Harvard Medical School professor who presented her findings yesterday before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. About 12.7 percent of non-elderly veterans -- or one in eight -- lacked health coverage in 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, she said, up from 9.9 percent in 2000. Veterans 65 and older are eligible for Medicare.

About 45 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population, were uninsured in 2005, the Census Bureau reports.

"The data is showing that many veterans have no coverage and they're sick and need care and can't get it," Woolhandler said.


What can I say other than this is completely unacceptable. Perhaps I could discuss it with my senator, Carl Levin. [That's an inside joke for those who got the letter.]

-Diane

Wanker of the Day

Tweety. On Hardball yesterday, during the lead in to David Schuster's interview with Michael Moore to discuss his documentary "SiCKO" -- Tweety explains that SiCKO is a documentary on the state of healthcare -- he then says "and certainly, that's a fat[emphasis mine] target."

Matthews[aka Tweety] continues "David Schuster caught up with him on capitol hill. It's not too hard to catch up with that guy, he's a big guy."[again, emphasis mine]


Of all the points to be made on "SiCKO"...or even any of the controversial events surrounding the film, Tweety focuses his little pea brain on Michael Moore's size.

But, perhaps I should just be greatful that he didn't launch a diatribe on how Michael smells.

-Diane

"Sickos"

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A transit agency chief apologized Wednesday to the family of a lesbian teenager who was kicked off a bus when a passenger complained about her kissing another girl.

"Removing the girls from the bus was not consistent with our policy," said TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen. "I want to reiterate that we welcome all riders on our system."

The 64-year-old bus driver will face disciplinary action for removing the two 14-year-old girls during a June 8 incident aboard his bus, TriMet officials said. But no details about the discipline were released.

The driver, an 11-year veteran, violated several agency procedures and policies, officials said.

The girls said the driver called them "sickos" after a female passenger complained about their kiss. He then stopped the bus along the street and forced them off.


Whose kids would Jesus kick off a bus?

-Diane

Stuff that doesn't matter to Bill O'Reilly.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide truck bomber struck the city hall in a predominantly Sunni area in northern Iraq on Thursday, killing at least 13 people and wounding 70, an Iraqi commander said.

Several mortars or rockets slammed into the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, raising fresh concerns about the thousands of Americans who live and work in the heavily fortified area in central Baghdad.


Status quo in Bushraq.

-Diane

-Diane

Olbermann hits back at O'Reilly's slams against other networks for covering the Iraq war. A look at what qualifies as 'news' to O'Reilly. Guest Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post.

-Diane

Don't fear the reaper!

-Diane

Michael Moore speaks up for health care execs and their fiduciary obligation to make profits for their shareholders. Then he has a bit of advice for them...

-Diane

Olmert says jump, congress says 'how high?'

-Diane

While you wait for the opening of SiCKO...

One of Michael Moore's earlier, brilliant works, "Funeral at an HMO" from the film "The Awful Truth."

-Diane

Women mourn near empty coffins as they wait to claim the bodies of relatives killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad's Sadr City June 20, 2007. (Kareem Raheem/Reuters)

-Diane

Pass the Freedom Fries.

Pregnant Iraqi women who have been forced from their homes by worsening violence are obtaining illegal abortions because they are unable to get medical care for themselves and their unborn, according to a new report by a national humanitarian group.

A record number of Iraqis -- most of them women and children -- are fleeing their homes to escape the bloodshed of sectarian violence and anti-U.S. attacks, according to a new report by the Iraqi Red Crescent organization, the largest aid group operating in Iraq.

Health care is inadequate and difficult to access for those people, according to the IRC report.

"Pregnant women, infants and children are unable to get...required medical care," states the report, which was translated from Arabic, "and criminal abortion became [sic] the norms."

Rape, theft and drug addiction have also become "commonplace" among the displaced, who live in government buildings, at relatives' homes, tents, or squat in abandoned homes or makeshift huts on empty land, according to the report, which was first noted on the Iraq news site Iraqslogger.com.

I think I hear some fundie heads exploding now.

-Diane

Welcome to the soldier's nightmare.

Today's WaPo:

At least 40 percent of State Department diplomats who have served in danger zones suffer some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, Steven Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, said in congressional testimony yesterday.



I bet at least they don't have as difficult a time getting psychiatric help, but then again, the profession is probably highly overloaded about now.

-Diane