the voice does lieberman

seems like i'm picking on joe-joe these days. i'm not really. he just happens to be in the news a lot these days. i have a stinking suspision he'll be in the news a lot in the FUTURE as well

Joe Lieberman: Republican Posterboy
Out with Rumsfeld, in with the senator from Connecticut?
by James RidgewayDecember 9th, 2005 5:28 PM

Washington, D.C.—If Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld retires and gets replaced by Democratic senator Joe Lieberman—the hot speculation here this week—what would America get out of the deal? Well, another hawk who never went to war, for one thing.
And what would President Bush get? A wedge to keep the Democrats from uniting behind Representative John Murtha against the war in Iraq. Here's a look at Lieberman, Republican posterboy:
Nickname: The Senator
A/K/A: "Trent Lott and Tom DeLay's favorite Democrat,"—Lott spokesman to John Czwartacki
Home: New Haven, Connecticut
Family: Married to Hadassah Lieberman. Three children
Career profile:
1970: wins Connecticut state senate seat
1983-88: state attorney general
1988: Becomes U.S. senator, defeating Lowell Weicker by 50-49. Re-elected three times
Chair of Democratic Leadership Conference
Committee assignments:
Chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee
Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee
Chair of its subcommittee on Clean Air, Wetlands, and Private Property
Armed Services Committee
Chaired subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Key Positions:
For abortion rights
For welfare reform
For cutting the capital gains tax
For environmental programs
For both Gulf wars
For using force to take out Manuel Noriega
For free trade with China
Author of five books, including "The Power Broker," a biography of the late Democratic Party chair John Bailey, and "The Scorpion and the Tarantula," which deals with nuclear proliferation. ............

the ringmaster spying on peta

i have mentioned this before. i WAS a member of peta, but i left quite a while ago. i didn't like SOME of their tactics (i DO like what they stand for in general and i DO like MOST of their programs). however, hiring a former cia operative to spy on them, to undermine them, is NOT a good thing. oh, and i don't go to a circus that has animals in it.

Spies under the big top?
Lawsuit: Circus owner spied on animal rights groups
FAIRFAX, Virginia (AP) -- The trial of a lawsuit accusing the owner Ringling Bros. Circus of spying on animal rights groups begins Friday in Virginia.
On Thursday, a judge issued sanctions against the circus for filing late and incomplete documents in the lawsuit.
The judge also ordered Kenneth Feld, chief executive and president of privately held Feld Entertainment Inc., to disclose his net worth and his most recent tax returns to PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
PETA sued Feld Entertainment more than four years ago, claiming that he ran an extensive corporate espionage campaign against it and other animal-rights groups. According to PETA, Feld -- which produces the Ringling circus, Disney on Ice and other shows -- paid a former CIA operative to help run its spy operation.
PETA attorney Philip Hirschkop said one of the documents was mostly blacked out before it was turned over..............

a 73 year old nun

dies by someone's hand who is claiming self defense. SHE was defending against the raping of the rain forest. will he get off as all the others have? there have been only EIGHT convictions for 534 murders.

Self defense claim in nun slaying
BELEM, Brazil (AP) -- The man accused of killing the American nun and rain forest defender Dorothy Stang told a jury Friday that he acted in self-defense after mistaking her Bible for a gun.
Rayfran das Neves Sales is accused of killing Stang, 73, with six shots from a .38-caliber revolver on Feb. 12 on a muddy road deep in the heart of the Amazon rain forest.
Stang was killed in Para state, which is notorious across Brazil for corruption and land-related violence that in the past 20 years has claimed the lives of some 534 people. Only eight killers ever have been convicted, and many see the trial as a test of whether Brazil is serious about prosecuting land-related killings.
Sales testified he and Stang had an argument over who owned the land he was working, and that Stang threatened to "finish him off" with the help of some 150 people living on a sustainable development reserve she was trying to establish.
"She said, 'The weapon I have is this,' and reached into her bag," Sales said. "I didn't know what she was going to pull out of her bag, so I shot her."
Prosecutors allege that Vitalmiro Moura, a rancher, offered Sales and his co-defendant Clodoaldo Carlos Batista $25,000 to kill the nun, who spent the last 30 years of her life defending poor settlers in the rain forest. The prosecution contends that she was reading her Bible when she was shot at close range................

let's keep these brave people in our thoughts and prayers

cover ups, police action, being forced to sell land by the government, mmmmmmmmm i used to be able to think, 'it couldn't happen here'. now i'm not so sure. these people didn't deserve to die. we don't either for that matter

Witnesses: Chinese village sealed
Officials reportedly offering money to conceal shooting deaths
BEIJING, China (AP) -- Officials were reportedly trying to cover up police shootings of protesters in a Chinese village by offering money for victims' bodies, and villagers said they were blocked from leaving the area Saturday -- four days after the incident.
Residents say police killed up to 20 people Tuesday when they fired on demonstrators in Guangdong province's Dongzhou village, northeast of Hong Kong.
The villagers had been protesting allegedly inadequate payments for land taken for use in building a power plant.
If the toll of 20 is confirmed, it would be Chinese security forces' deadliest known use of force against civilians since the killings around Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The Dongzhou protest reflects rising tension in rural China over land seizures for factories, power plants, shopping malls and other projects.
Farmers often say they are paid too little. Some accuse officials of stealing compensation money.......

first, do no harm

i never understood the presence of a doctor at a state execution either.

The Silence of the Doctors
by JONATHAN H. MARKS
[from the December 26, 2005 issue]
It was called the "water cure." But it was dosed out liberally to those who weren't sick. Unfortunate recipients were held by the neck beneath a water tank. The tap was turned on, and they were forced to swallow the gushing stream--or to choke within an inch of death while trying. Another variation used tubing to siphon water from a kerosene can into a detainee's nostril. Sworn testimony records the use of this tactic in the presence of a doctor. It was, after all, a "cure." When the detainee still refused to talk, the doctor would ratchet up the treatment, ordering a second tube to be placed in the detainee's other nostril and a handful of salt to be thrown into the water. Anyone who's ever had sea water up his or her nose will know just how pleasant that would have been.
This interrogation tactic comes not from the "war on terror" but from the war in the Philippines more than 100 years ago. There too the abuses were justified by the need to combat troublesome local "insurgents." The enemy was "not civilized" and did not deserve to be treated according to the rules of civilized warfare. The water cure is, of course, the precursor to a more recent interrogation technique known as "waterboarding." And the participation of the physician is an early example of American medical personnel being co-opted into an egregious and unlawful military mission. The doctor's presence did not restrain the interrogator's excesses; on the contrary, he actively fueled them.
After 9/11 some American healthcare personnel were once again asked to step into the breach and help Army interrogators conduct aggressive interrogations. They have, among others, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller--former camp commander at Guantánamo Bay--to thank for this. Miller considered the participation of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams--known colloquially as "Biscuits"--to be an "essential" part of the interrogation process. Having introduced the first Biscuit to the Guantánamo facility in late 2002, Miller urged the deployment of a similar team at Abu Ghraib in late 2003. These Biscuits were staffed at various times by psychologists and/or psychiatrists...........

the (new) celestial bodies of the universe

Expanding Universe
By Frederick Clarkson Illustration By Peter Hoey
from mother jones

today's snow and crows

the crows are from another day. the snow shots are from my back door today

"who gave those civilians the right to shoot?" (indeed!!!)

U.S. Military Probing Video Of Road Violence British Contractors Appear To Shoot at Iraqi Civilians
By Jonathan Finer and Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, December 9, 2005; A01
BAGHDAD, Dec. 8 -- A silver Mercedes swings into the passing lane when a machine gun opens fire, sending the car smashing into a taxi, whose terrified occupants scatter. Moments later on the video, posted on the Internet and apparently recorded in Iraq, a white sedan is riddled with bullets as it accelerates on an open highway.
Framed as if on a movie screen by the outline of a sport-utility vehicle's rear window, those scenes and others show what appear to be private security contractors firing on Iraqi civilians. The video footage has prompted an investigation by the U.S. military, a spokesman said Thursday, and by the company linked to the incidents. It even has a soundtrack: Elvis Presley's upbeat "Mystery Train."
Details about the origin of the video clip and the location shown in it are unknown. It was originally posted last month on a Web site maintained by former employees of Aegis Specialist Risk Management, a London-based company that has a $293 million U.S. government contract to provide security services in Iraq. The video has since been removed from the site.
"Aegis has established a formal board of enquiry, in cooperation with the U.S. military authorities, to investigate whether the footage has any connection with the company and, should this prove to be the case, under what circumstances any incident took place," the company said in a statement about the incident.
A public relations representative for Aegis said the company's findings could come within the next week.
"An investigation has been initiated, but we do not have any details at this time," Army Capt. Bill Roberts, a U.S. military spokesman, said in an e-mail message Thursday.
There are more than 25,000 private security contractors working in Iraq, according to industry estimates. In an effort to limit the number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, the military employs private contractors to handle jobs that would otherwise be performed by troops. But the conduct of security contractors has occasionally come under scrutiny, and Iraqi civilians and military commanders have charged that they shoot indiscriminately and flout local laws with impunity.
The companies, whose employees have been frequent targets of insurgent attacks and perform some of the country's most dangerous jobs, such as guarding highway convoys, maintain that they use force only when necessary for protection. The rules of engagement "allow for a structured escalation of force to include opening fire on civilian vehicles under certain circumstances," Aegis said in its statement about the video..............;

............"At least the police and army are recognized in the street, and they have the right to shoot because they are security forces," said Qasim Muhammed, 44, a Baghdad taxi driver. "But who gave those civilians the right to shoot?"..........................

cute couple of the week award: shays and lieberman

By DAVID LIGHTMAN
Washington Bureau Chief
December 9 2005
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., under fire from members of his own party for his Iraq war stance, got a boost from a fellow Connecticut member of Congress Thursday - Republican Christopher Shays.Shays, in comments made at the end of an hour-long breakfast with national reporters, said, "Joe Lieberman is one my heroes." Shays, who faces a difficult re-election race, went on to say he was "giving serious consideration" to supporting Lieberman, who shares Shays' view that the Iraq war is a just cause and that the United States is making significant progress.Later, Shays explained: "I admire the man tremendously. He is an excellent senator. We're truly indebted to him for his strong position on the sentinel issue of our time. No other issue is more important...........

#1) what planet are THEY living on?
and
#2) where is my barf bag?

and the lieberman plot THICKENS

or slickens


Rummy exit expected; Lieberman eyed for job
BY THOMAS M. DEFRANK and KENNETH R. BAZINETDAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - White House officials are telling associates they expect Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to quit early next year, once a new government is formed in Iraq, sources said yesterday.
Rumsfeld's deputy, Gordon England, is the inside contender to replace him, but there's also speculation that Sen. Joe Lieberman - a Democrat who ran against Bush-Cheney in the 2000 election - might become top guy at the Pentagon.
That's not as farfetched as it might first appear.
The Daily News has learned that the White House considered Lieberman for the UN ambassador's job last year before giving the post to John Bolton, a Bush adviser said.
"He thought about it for a week or so and finally said no," the adviser recalled.............

jon stewart - worse than the grinch. most evil enemy of christmas (NOT)

a GIANT thank you to my personal favorite blog skippy for pointing me to the brad blog for a link to a monologue with a 'holiday' theme from the daily show. i needed this laugh! and thanks to you too jon. you are too wicked funny!

missy comley beattie is nicer than i am

i would have torn the letter writer a 'new one'. she didn't. she took the high road. why is it when one says they think this war is WRONG and we don't BELONG IN IRAQ we are called traitors or anti-american or worse? isn't america a place where we CAN speak our mind? where we CAN disagree? isn't that why we FOUGHT for our independence? this war IS wrong on so many levels. our sons and daughters and husbands and wives and neighbors are being killed or maimed over what? so the rich can get richer? NOT good enough for me my dears. NOT HARDLY GOOD ENOUGH (yeah saddam had to go, don't get me wrong, but WE cannot run the world. WE should just run our OWN country)

December 7, 2005
Hate-mail from a Proud Right-Winger
Since I've been writing political articles, I've received plenty of responses from readers. I've replied to most of them, especially those who've asked a question. There is, though, one exception--someone who wrote something filthy even in the subject line of the e-mail. I never should've clicked read. But I just couldn't help myself. You see, I'm a curious person. I ask lots of questions. I eavesdrop. I love to listen to the conversations of others and have actually used snippets of these in fiction pieces. I am fascinated by my species.The amazing thing about the hate e-mail is that the person signed his name. He also wrote, "Sincerely, Proud Right-Winger." As I said earlier, I am fascinated by my species. No matter how much I disagree with a person's politics, I would never write, "Surrender doesn't work you stupid bitch." Nor would I refer to Islam as "pisslam." Both were part of his text. Certainly, I might think any person still supporting Bush couldn't possibly be using his noggin, but I wouldn't under any circumstance write a hate letter.I cannot understand someone who believes George W. knows what's best for America and the rest of the world. I simply can't understand why people don't realize that to Muslims, our occupation of Iraq is perceived as a war against their very essence. I simply can't understand why people don't realize that since our soldiers weren't presented flowers when they arrived to liberate grateful Iraqis in a "cakewalk" that would take only three days, more didn't, immediately, move away from the Dark Side. Still, I wouldn't tell any of these people who continue to believe Bush-Push to "get out" of our country which the internet user suggested to me. I eliminated two words between the get and the out but you can use your imagination. He followed with: "Why don't you go to France and see where your 'progressive' faggotry leads?"This, at least, tells me I'm not preaching to the choir. ..........

does coulter really have a penis? annie can't get through her speech at uconn.....aw poor poor baby

and i don't mean the one (or two) she keeps in her nightstand drawer

Blind on Blonde? Ann Coulter Heckled, Cuts Short Speech By E&P Staff Published: December 07, 2005 11:35 PM ET
STORRS, Ct. Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session. "I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium. Coulter's appearance prompted protests from several groups, including Students Against Hate and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center. They criticized her for spreading a message of hate and intolerance. Nearly 100 students gathered inside the Student Union for a rally against Coulter. About a half-dozen people held protest signs outside the auditorium. After a book signing following her appearance, Coulter called the audience's reaction "typical." Coulter, originally from New Canaan, Conn., has a history of bashing Democrats in best-selling books, frequent television appearances and speeches. Harding University in Arkansas dropped her from its lecture series in September, citing her abrasive image. Last April, the president of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota denounced a speech on the campus by Coulter, calling it hateful. In October 2004, University of Arizona police arrested two men who ran on stage and threw custard pies at Coulter; one of the pies glanced off her shoulder. ......................

alito vs. the grinch???????

VERY amusing transcript from the lovely keith olbermann and mo rocca. tons of typos but they are from msnbc, NOT moi

MSNBC.com
Mo Rocca takes on the anti-Christmas crowd Comedian gives straight answers about the season to MSNBC's Olbermann
STORY
MSNBC
Updated: 10:15 a.m. ET Dec. 7, 2005
Whether it is a made-up controversy or not, you can't turn the channel without seeing a story on whether there is an attack on Christmas.
Is there, as widely made up on what is more or less another cable news network, a real attack on Christmas?
For answers, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann welcomed television personality and Christmas anti-attack analyst Mo Rocca to Tuesday's 'Countdown.'
To read an excerpt from their conversation, continue to the text below. To watch the video, click on the "Launch" button to the right.
KEITH OLBERMANN: I'm having it hard finding evidence of this attack on Christmas given I live near five minutes from the Rockefeller Center Christmas trees and all the stores are selling Christmas cards and the first recorded claim of an attack on Christmas was made by Henry Ford in about 1920 and I think the last 85 Christmases happened as scheduled. Am I missing something?
MO ROCCA: Well, Keith ... what you have is a lot of people in the media that are constantly emphasizing the non Christian origins of the things that we associated with Christmas. They will tell you that the Christmas tree was originally a pagan symbol of worship. They'll tell you the cross was originally a T square used by architects and carpenters. Which it was. Just ask Mike Brady, Ty Pennington or Jesus.
But the real story here for any who are willing to look for is worse than secularization, it is something I've written about extensively. I call it the drag queening of Christmas. The victims here are the trees. Innocent conifers that are uprooted and brought into people's homes and then they're decorated with baubles - really, jewels I call them and wrapped in garlands, which are basically boas and some people on the bottom put a little skirt. This is just ungodly. It's far from anything you'd ever find in the New Testament. It's virtually pagan.
OLBERMANN: And the trees wind up looking like Dame Edna.
ROCCA: Yes, exactly. To Wong Foo, thanks for nothing. We want our Christmas back.............

this is a sad post/article indeed

i really did well up when i read it.

A Soldier's Last Impression
After Son's Death, Angry Mother Joins Lawmakers to Ease Citizenship Process
By Sudarsan RaghavanWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, December 7, 2005; Page B01

RANDALLSTOWN, Md., Dec. 6 Army Spec. Kendell K. Frederick's U.S. citizenship plaque is not proudly displayed on his parents' wall. Instead, it's buried in a pile of military and immigration documents they find difficult to read. It's dated Oct. 19, 2005. But that's not when the 21-year-old Trinidad native took part in a citizenship ceremony. It was the day he was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. The sole reason Frederick, a generator mechanic, was on that road was to give his fingerprints to become a U.S. citizen. It was only his second convoy outside the gates of Forward Operating Base Speicher in Tikrit. "To me, it was just a slap in the face," his mother, Michelle Murphy, said yesterday, referring to the plaque that arrived on the family's doorstep two weeks ago. Murphy says her son should never have been on the road. As a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq, Frederick was eligible to become a U.S. citizen within two or three months after immigration officials began processing his application. But a series of errors by immigration officials, Murphy says, delayed action for months..................

wtf is up with the italian court system?

i am ASTONISHED by not only THIS verdict but some of the others mentioned further on in this article. day - um!

By Gavin Jones
ROME (Reuters) - Calling a foreigner a "dirty negro" in Italian is not necessarily a racist insult, Italy's highest court has ruled.
The verdict, relating to a case where a group of Italian men punched and insulted some women from Colombia, caused deep unease at a time when Italy is struggling to contain racism.
The court on Monday ruled in favor of one of the men, who argued he was not being racist when he launched the assault with the words: "Sporche negre -- cosa ci fanno queste negre qua?" ("Dirty negroes -- what are these negroes doing here?")

Most Italians would have no doubt that calling someone a "dirty negro" was a racist insult. The term is seldom heard and is considered no more acceptable in Italy than it would be in Britain or the United States.
However, an insult should be judged racist "only if it is motivated by real hatred," or is likely to cause racial hatred in others or lead to "discriminatory behavior for reasons of race, ethnicity, nationality or religion," the court ruled.
On the other hand, the crime of racism is not constituted by expressions of "generic dislike, intolerance or rejection based on race, ethnicity or religion," which appeared to fit the case in question, the court said.
Politicians across the political spectrum criticized the ruling and said it could not have come at a worse time. ................

another diss at lieberman (and georgie) from an unexpected source!

"I support the troops. I do not support the commander in chief."
- Former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.

Weicker Targets Bush, Lieberman, Iraq War
POSTED: 5:17 pm EST December 5, 2005
UPDATED: 5:21 pm EST December 5, 2005
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. said Monday that Sen. Joe Lieberman deserves a stiff challenge in next year's re-election campaign, though he said he would not take up a grudge match against the Democrat who ousted him from the U.S. Senate in 1988.

Speaking at a luncheon of the Rotary Club of Hartford, Weicker took numerous swings at Lieberman and President George W. Bush over the Iraq war.
"I have seen this country propagandized into war," Weicker said. "It's now a second wave of propagandizing, with the president taking the stump, joined by persons like Sen. Joe Lieberman.".............

was the flying spaghetti monster behind this attack?

flying spaghetti monster itself!!!

although, this story really is NOT funny


Kan. Professor Attacked Along Rural Road

Dec 5, 11:25 PM (ET)

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - A college professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he derided Christian conservatives said he was beaten by two men along a rural road early Monday.
University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said the men referred to the class when they beat him on the head, shoulders and back with their fists, and possibly a metal object, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.
"I didn't know them," Mirecki said of his assailants, "but I'm sure they knew me."
Messages left by the Associated Press on Mirecki's cell phone were not immediately returned.
Sheriff's Lt. Kari Wempe said Mirecki reported the attack just before 7 a.m.
The professor said he confronted the men after they were tailgating his vehicle along a road south of Lawrence. "I'm mostly shaken up, and I got some bruises and sore spots," he said.
Mirecki planned to offer a spring course called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies" after the Kansas Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in science standards for elementary and secondary students.............

what would make someone think god actually WANTS them to kill

( Virginie Lefour/Agence France-Presse--Getty Images
Muriel Degauque, suicide bomber from the coal fields of Belgium. )


and they would go to paradise if they did so? what makes a woman cover her body from head to toe thinking it evil NOT to do so? what makes a man think a woman MUST be covered from head to toe, a woman must eat separately from a man, pray separately from a man and on and on and on???????????? from today's nyt

December 6, 2005
Raised as Catholic in Belgium, She Died as a Muslim Bomber
By CRAIG S. SMITH
MONCEAU-SUR-SAMBRE, Belgium, Dec. 5 - Muriel Degauque, believed to be the first European Muslim woman to stage a suicide attack, started out life as a good Roman Catholic girl in this coal mining corner of Belgium known as the black country. She ended it in a grisly blast deep inside Iraq last month.
Ms. Degauque, 38, detonated her explosive vest amid an American military patrol in the town of Baquba on Nov. 9, wounding one American soldier, according to an account received from the State Department and given to the Federal Police in Belgium.
Her unlikely journey into militant Islam stunned Europe and for many people was an incomprehensible aberration, a lost soul led astray. But her story supports fears among many law enforcement officials and academics that converts to Europe's fastest-growing religion could bring with them a disturbing new aspect in the war on terror: Caucasian women committed to one of the world's deadliest causes.
European women who marry Muslim men are now the largest source of religious conversions in Europe, the experts say. While a vast majority of those conversions are pro forma gestures for moderately religious in-laws, a small but growing number are women who willingly adopt the conservative comportment of their fundamentalist husbands.
Most of those in the conservative ranks are motivated by spiritual quests or are attracted to what they regard as an exotic culture.
But for some, conversion is a political act, not unlike the women who joined the ranks of South American Marxist rebels in the 1960's and 1970's.
"They are people rebelling against a society in which they feel they don't belong," said Alain Grignard, a senior official in the antiterrorism division of the Belgian Police. "They are people searching through a religion like Islam for a sense of solidarity."
He said there were many such women married to the first wave of Europe's militant Islamists a decade ago, and some of them followed their husbands to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. But while they supported their husbands' militancy, he said, they never acted themselves. "This was the first," said Mr. Grignard, "and it's clear there could be others."
French antiterrorism officials have been warning for several years that female converts represent a small but increasingly important part of the terrorist threat in Europe.
As early as May 2003, France's famed antiterrorist investigating judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière, warned that European terrorist networks were trying to recruit Caucasian women to handle terrorist logistics because they would be less likely to raise suspicion.
He said then that it was only a matter of time before the women moved on to more violent acts.
Ms. Degauque was born in the small suburb of Charleroi, a gritty coal and steel town where her father operated a crane at the sprawling smelter, according to neighbors and friends.
She grew up doted on by her mother, Liliane, who worked as a cleaner and monitor at the local elementary school.
"Her mother spoiled her," said Jeannine Beghin, who has known Ms. Degauque's mother since childhood. The women had sons born a year apart, and they were in the same hospital when their daughters were born within 10 days of each other.....................

please note

how i have avoided posting ANY articles about neil bush following "reverend" sun myung moon about - here and there (and NOWHERE)

manchester (connecticut), my kind of town (and lieberman needs MORE than a letter)

Manchester Democrats consider chastising Lieberman
MANCHESTER -- With several members upset with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's stance on the war in Iraq, the Democratic Town Committee plans to hold a special meeting to discuss the issue.
At the meeting, which likely will be held this month, the committee will decide whether to send Lieberman's office a formal letter stating its displeasure and opposition to the senator's stance.

Complaints about Lieberman and his public support for the war were brought up by Joseph Rafala at the end of Thursday's town committee meeting.He said he wanted to send a letter from the committee, stating that "as Democrats, we don't like what he's doing and we want him to know it."Instead of maintaining a Democratic antiwar position, Rafala said, Lieberman was becoming an example for Republicans as a Democrat for the war.............

coincidentially i was speaking to someone earlier today

who uses the va on a regular basis. my dad does as well. i have heard horror stories about va hospitals here and there, but i'll tell you so far, they've NOT done my popi wrong. more and more soldiers coming back from this UNJUST war are going to be needing the services of their local vas. we cannot let the powers that be get away with f**king THEM up too

December 4, 2005
Bush VA Appointees Diverted Healthcare Funds for Illegal Studies
by Larry Scott
Funds were diverted from veterans’ healthcare to pay for studies on outsourcing jobs and closing VA hospitals – The dismantling of the VA is leading to privatization
By Larry Scott
One of the maxims of the Bush administration is: Never let the law get in your way. The political appointees who run the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) certainly know how to play by those rules.Between 2001 and 2004 the VA illegally diverted funds earmarked for veterans’ healthcare to pay for studies on outsourcing jobs at VA facilities and to fund other studies on closing VA hospitals. The report detailing the VA’s misdeeds was released last week by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). (The full GAO report is available here -- http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06124r.pdf) The VA officially denies any wrongdoing. VA Secretary Jim Nicholson argued, "Congress clearly did not intend to preclude all manner of cost analysis necessary for the day-to-day administration of our health-care system …” However, Congress did pass legislation in 1981 that prohibits the diversion of funds appropriated to VA medical care accounts for studies on the cost of keeping work in-house versus that of contracting it out.During the time VA officials were misappropriating funds they were working with Republicans in Congress to try to change the 1981 law that they were breaking. Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, introduced legislation (S. 1182 Sec 7) to do away with the prohibition and allow the VA to spend healthcare funds on outsourcing studies........

why did you get bigger breastseseseesessesees?

because it made me feel more like a woman. WHATTTTTTTTTTTT THE F**KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK?????????????? someone actually said that to me and it was NOT a transgendered mtf either. she was a born female. how can you expect to be taken seriously when you are worried about your cup size? perhaps you don't care about being paid an equal wage. getting an equal education. being treated as an equal instead of a second class citizen (i remember LONG ago, someone, (i'll call him 'rolf') asked how to spell a particular word. i chimed in first and spelled it for him. 'rolf' then asked a MALE in the crowd if i was correct (yes i was or else i wouldn't have chimed in with the answer). it wasn't anything other than my gender he was questioning. belive me. i can't tell you how many times i have yelled at individuals and said, 'hey you, i'm talking with my MOUTH, NOT those things. LOOK UP AT MY FACE'. and i'm not even hot (well by some standards i'm not. by my own, i'm JUST fine) so i can only imagine.


listen if you have a vagina, you ARE a woman no matter WHAT size your breasteseseseesseeessssesesees are.

December 5, 2005
Do Our Daughters Really Need Breast Implants? We Can't All Be Pamela Anderson.
by Dawn Worthy
Cultures tend to encourage conformity. They fail to see the growth of society and population health is attained through diversity of mind and body. Family trees with limited branches don’t thrive. (See the Hapsburgs) Our daughters must learn to sculpt their minds and appreciate their bodies.When did it happen? When did common sense die? In all fairness, I have been on the business end of the statement, “You have book smarts but no common sense,” more times than I want to remember. So when I can see that common sense is dead, it died a horrible, gruesome and spectacular death. Today, I offer you an autopsy.We spend an inordinate amount of time, money and pain on the “makeover.” Why? We are told that we do it to improve ourselves. Is that really true? Aren’t many of the things that are supposed to “improve” lives things that just distract us from the real issue? Recently, I have become aware of parents financing breast augmentations for their teenage daughters. Come on now. What teenage brain is developed enough to correctly identify when the source of their problem is cup size? Parents that support this idea often consider themselves as indulgent parents. They consider themselves as their child’s friend. This is actually two issues: at what point did we stop telling our children that it is who they are that is important and who in their right mind thinks it is more important to be a friend to your child than a parent?..................

liar liar pants on fire

December 5, 2005
Iraq-- UnDeniable Parallels to the Vietnam War
The Bush administration's claim that we cannot compare the Iraq War to the Vietnam War is, quite simply, an absurd statement and not worthy of even passing belief.
By Stu Steinberg

It now seems clear that the majority of people in the US have come to understand what the rest of the civilized world knew a long time ago: the Bush administration are liars. Worse, yet, they lie about virtually everything. And either they really are idiots, or they’re just plain stupid. Let’s see…there is no such thing as global warming; drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve will solve our energy problems; Wal-Mart is not run by complete cretins; God talks to George Bush; Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and supports al Qaeda; and we can win the Iraq War.One of the surest signs that the current administration are either liars, complete idiots, just plain stupid, or, as seems to be the case, all of the above, lies in fact that they deny things are true when everyone with half a brain knows that they are. For instance, the Bush administration's claim that we cannot compare the Iraq War to the Vietnam War is, quite simply, an absurd statement and not worthy of even passing belief. To the contrary, other than the locations of these two wars, the similarities are irrefutable and the end result in Iraq will be the same as the end result of the Vietnam War, despite our soldiers’ best efforts. It doesn’t matter whether you’re fighting tree-to-tree in the jungle, or house-to- house in a town in the Iraqi desert. When the war has no front, no back, no sides and is fought in a 360-degree configuration, it is the same war, no matter where it is fought.....

proposed legislation (keep a barf bag at the ready)

over at the daily kos they have the five WORST bills before the senate. take a gander.

The Most Egregious Republican Bills in the US Senate's Queue
by formalist
Mon Dec 05, 2005 at 04:32:32 PM PDT
If you are not convinced of the importance of gaining a majority in the Senate in 2006, I hope the following will urge you to reconsider your position. Below are printed five peices of legislation proposed by Senate Repubicans. I provide brief explanations of the legislation, and I also list each bill's cosponsors. As you read the legislation, you will notice certain patterns, which I will explain below. You will also notice how aggressive these bills are in furthering George Bush's agenda. In many ways, this diary is meant to disgust, upset and mobilize the readers of DailyKos. Although some of this may not be very surprising, it can provide us with more ammunition during the 2006 midterm elections............

i want to scream PUT DOWN THAT CRACK PIPE

another from media matters

Robertson falsely claims Americans United's Lynn has said Constitution prohibits fire department from saving a burning church
On the November 30 edition of Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club, host Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition of America, falsely claimed that Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AU), has said, "if a church is burning down, the local community could not send the fire engine to put the fire out because that would violate, quote, separation of church and state." Robertson's comments came during a segment with Fox News' John Gibson, in which they were discussing the so-called "war" on Christmas and a perceived anti-Christian bias toward acknowledging the holiday.
On numerous occasions over the past several years, Robertson has accused Lynn of claiming that the Constitution prohibits a locality from sending fire trucks to burning churches (see here and here). But in a November 2002 "Memo to Pat and Jerry" written in Church and State, AU's official publication, Lynn denied the charges:
Robertson, for example, continues to tell national television audiences that I believe that a public fire department can't go to a burning church without violating the separation of church and state. He apparently uses this "anecdote" to demonstrate my radical, wacky beliefs.
Trouble is (for him), I never said it and don't believe it. Journalists who have heard the claim and bothered to research the point fail to find evidence of me saying it. The reason is that fictional attributions don't show up in Internet news databases.
Even the religious organization, Focus on the Family, has noted that this claim is false. ..................

this woman may have done one too many hits of acid

how else can you explain her 'tude? it's ok for HER to spew hate and advocate violence. and i DO mean ugly vindictive hurtful things come out of that creatures mouth.

from media matters
Coulter to O'Reilly on Media Matters: "little Nazi block watcher[]" website that "want[s] to keep me off" of CNN
On the December 1 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly invited right-wing pundit Ann Coulter on the show to discuss "far-left smear websites." O'Reilly introduced the segment with a declaration that "we are closely watching far-left smear websites to make sure they are held accountable for damaging people," but he noted that "our policy is not to name the websites, because, well, they're beneath contempt."
He then claimed that "smear sites" "intimidate people with whom they disagree. ... They really want to just bludgeon anybody with whom they disagree." Coulter agreed but admitted that "one thing that perplexes me is why they want to keep me off only CNN." Media Matters for America has urged its supporters to ask CNN to stop featuring Coulter due to her history of false, misleading, and inflammatory statements.
After mentioning Media Matters President and CEO David Brock, Coulter attacked such websites, calling them "little Nazi block watchers," stating: "They tattle on their parents, turn them in to the Nazis."
She complained that several conservative pundits have security details when going to speak at college campuses and stated, "No liberal has to have security. Though I'd like to change that." She also claimed, "I think what mostly encourages violence is [liberals'] incapacity to formulate an argument." As Media Matters has documented, Coulter has said, "I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days" to talk to liberals......................

mama mia

Barbara Bush and the wretched Mr. Cheney
One of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak news week was an oddball account of Barbara Bush going ballistic over the way her boy-George has been abused by other members of the administration. Huh?Apparently, Lady McBush got it into her steely-blue helmet-head that Dick Cheney and Co. have “undermined” the commander-in-chief and are responsible for his plummeting popularity. According to Steve Clemons of “The Washington Note” the First-mother is on the war-path and may “call on Nancy Reagan to get a refresher lesson on how she took on and kicked out then Chief-of-Staff Donald Regan”.“Cut-throat Nancy?”Normally, this type of “he-said, she-said” story is only moderately interesting, but the prospect of Nurse Ratchet unloading on Dick Cheney is bound to put a jolt in anyone’s pacer. Is this the “last throes” of the sneering V.P.?The Texas matriarch has plenty of reason to be irritated, too. Sure, she doesn’t waste her “beautiful mind” on the wretched minutia of Washington chitchat, but, don’t kid yourself, she knows what’s going on. She’s seen Cheney and his spectral-twin Donald Strangelove, dressing up junior in flannel shirts or navy flight-jackets and packing him off him to pitch the war to the wary public. She’s read the shocking reports from Colin Powell’s ex-chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, claiming that Bush was kept out of the policy-making loop prior to the invasion of Iraq. She knows her boy has been duped, manipulated, and dragged through the Washington mud by some real pros..................

the diddly awards

from mother jones

News: The Jimmy Swaggart Award for God Abuse
By Jack Hitt
December/January 2006 Issue

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) appeared at a prayer breakfast just after the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 240,000 people. DeLay read a passage from Matthew about a nonbeliever: "…a fool who built his house on sand: The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined." Then, without comment, he righteously sat down.
Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) sponsored the Constitution Restoration Act of 2005, which mandates the "acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government"—i.e, the Bible could trump even the Supreme Court, which according to some observers, could allow judges to impose biblical sentences such as the stoning of homosexuals instead of common-law sentences......


they get better and a winner is named, so click on the link

just a question

doesn't untreated syphilis drive one mad? not casting any aspersions, just asking
hey bill, aren't christians supposed to be ALL forgiving and ALL understanding? is it me, or are you an asshole?

O'Reilly brought Christmas war to Cavuto

On the November 30 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Bill O'Reilly continued his campaign to promote use of the holiday greeting "Merry Christmas" in retail stores. His effort to combat retail stores he believes are replacing "Merry Christmas" with the nondenominational "Happy Holidays" is part of his broader mission "to rescue" the Christmas holiday from "secular progressives."
To lead the segment, Cavuto aired O'Reilly's November 28 advice to corporate America that "[e]very company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born." O'Reilly then estimated that 15 percent of the country was not Christian and, of those, "maybe 1 percent are totally insane ... They're the ones who are offended." When Cavuto countered that some businesses were trying to be more inclusive, O'Reilly rebuked, "This is insulting to Christian America."
O'Reilly recently advanced his theory that an organized "secular progressive" movement is implementing a "very secret plan" against Christianity in America. He reiterated his concern -- which he previously discussed on the November 18 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor -- about the secular progressive agenda:
O'REILLY: [T]hey [secular progressives] don't want any message of spirituality or Judeo-Christian tradition because that stands in the way of gay marriage, legalized drugs, euthanasia, all of the greatest hits on the secular progressive play card.
O'Reilly then pointed to progressive financier George Soros as "the moneyman behind it" and declared, "I say, fight back."
From the November 30 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
CAVUTO: Well, you know, on Monday night my colleague Bill O'Reilly said something so simple, controversial, but so dead-on accurate. I want you to listen to this. Take a look.
O'REILLY [video clip]: Every company in America should be on their knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable. More than enough reason for business to be screaming "Merry Christmas."..............

i just found an interview with joe dante

director of the previously mentioned showtime's master of horror episode, homecoming

found it on king of zembla via buzzflash

"Anyway, when I introduced the film at the Turin Festival, I told them it was a horror story because all the main characters were Republicans"

Friday, December 02, 2005
Interview With the Maestro
Many years ago, during an especially misspent portion of our misspent youth, we emerged in a state of lycanthropic bliss from the Brooklyn theatre where we had just seen The Howling and thought to ourselves: That Joe Dante! Now there's a guy we wouldn't mind hanging out with over a couple of double Manhattans. In the intervening decades Mr. Dante went on to make such witty, entertaining, and sneakily subversive films as Gremlins (parts I and II), Explorers, Matinee, The Second Civil War, and Small Soldiers -- while we, as you know, assumed the throne of a distant northern land and all the niggling responsibilities that go along with it, and were forced to set our boyish dream of boozing with Dante aside.But the story does not end there! On the eve of the premiere of his remarkable "dissident-zombie" film, "Homecoming" (on Showtime's Masters of Horror series -- 10 PM EST/PST tonight, 10:30 tomorrow), Mr. Dante finally consented to meet us for that long-delayed conversation, and we are pleased to report that we found him every bit as amiable, gracious, engaging, and brainy as his splendid body of work had led us to imagine. That is, once the liquor loosened him up:

KoZ: We were quite thrilled when we discovered that you had left a comment here not long ago. Apart from King of Zembla, are there any blogs you read on a regular basis?DANTE: Well, yeah, pretty much all the usual suspects--but y'know you can't visit all the blogs you'd like to, there just isn't time. And each blog you do visit has its own list of recommended blogs! So I hit the ten or so I've gotten to know, and if there's time I go to more. Always good to check out the Opposition, too, to see what lies they're supporting/disseminating/defending.KoZ: We ask because “Homecoming” seems deliberately conceived as a Blogger’s Delight, touching upon a vast number of left-wing talking points from WMD lies to VA benefit cuts to election irregularities in Ohio and Florida. (We half-expected Kurt Rand to meet his fate in a kitchen sink.) Are there any additional hot-button issues you would like to have addressed, if you’d had more time?..........................