so, who was the one who found the GAY PORNO

in the first place? and is it someone's particular job to scan the net for gay porno featuring military (alleged) members? do they volunteer for that tough assignment? what would happen if they found military members on NON GAY porn sites, the same thing? would it cause the same ruckus?

i say:
DON'T ASK
DON'T TELL (unless you WANT to)

Army to Investigate Gay Porn Allegations
By ESTES THOMPSON
Press Writer January 27, 2006, 10:32 PM ESTRALEIGH, N.C. -- Army officials are investigating allegations that members of the celebrated 82nd Airborne Division appear on a gay pornography Web site, a spokeswoman said Friday. Authorities at Fort Bragg have begun an inquiry into whether the paratroopers' actions violated the military conduct code. Division spokeswoman Maj. Amy Hannah declined to say how many paratroopers are involved or identify their unit within the division. A defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said up to seven soldiers are involved. Hannah said soldiers questioned will be allowed to seek legal assistance, but she declined to say if any one had been charged. ................

maybe he had to pee

from think progress via buzzflash

VIDEO: Bush Mine Safety Administrator Walks Out of Senate Hearing

On Monday, the Bush administration’s top mine safety official, David Dye, appeared before a Senate subcommittee to explain the administration’s response to the Sago mining disaster. Specifically, senators wanted to know why mine safety has been consistently underfunded under President Bush, and why regulations have been rolled back or weakly enforced.

Unfortunately, David Dye has a busy schedule. After an hour of questioning, Dye announced he had “some really pressing matters” to attend to, and asked to leave the hearing. Committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) urged him not to: “Your presence will be required here for at least one more hour.”

But Dye insisted:

We have been diverted, dealing with these matters. We were happy to prepare for the hearing, but we really need to get back and attend to all this. There’s 15,000 mines in the United States, and we’ve got some really pressing matters.

The New York Times describes what occured next:

After Mr. Specter added, “That’s the committee’s request, but you’re not under subpoena,” Mr. Dye got up and walked out.

“I can’t recollect it ever happening before,” Mr. Specter said of the departure. “We’ll find a way to take appropriate note of it.”

Watch the video. (click on the think progress link above to watch the video)

............

when the hell will people learn?

i keep telling them vegetarians and vegans are NOT nice people. as a matter of fact, they're evil. they're terrorists, they don't stop at red lights, they spit on the old and infirm, they wear rubber shoes (well some DO get off on that don't they?), they don't call their elderly parents on sunday afternoon, they don't like football, they burn babies in their basements, yes, they worship the devil, they all like stevie nicks and yanni (is he still around i wonder), none of them own a tv, they all drive ten year old saabs. i never met one i liked OR trusted. oh wait a moment, i AM one!

so i have NO problems with the fbi, homeland security, the nsa and all of the OTHER agencies of this type spending their time spying on vegans and vegetarians because they are a threat to the united states instead of the agencies spying on oh let's say the followers of osama

ACLU Releases Government Photos

The ACLU of Georgia released copies of government files on Wednesday that illustrate the extent to which the FBI, the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security and other government agencies have gone to compile information on Georgians suspected of being threats simply for expressing controversial opinions. Two documents relating to anti-war and anti-government protests, and a vegan rally, prove the agencies have been "spying" on Georgia residents unconstitutionally, the ACLU said. (Related: ACLU Complaint -- PDF file) For example, more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County. An undercover DeKalb County Homeland Security detective was assigned to conduct surveillance of the protest and the protestors, and take the photographs. The detective arrested Childs and another protester after he saw Childs approach him and write down, on a piece of paper, the license plate number of his unmarked government car."They told me if I didn't give over the piece of paper I would go to jail and I refused and I went to jail, and the piece of paper was taken away from me at the jail and the officer who transferred me said that was why I was arrested," Childs said on Wednesday..................

hell, i would have done it for HALF the price!

(and my number is; beechwood 4 5 7 8 9 - you can call me up and have a date, any old time......)

this is ONE expensive photo! let's face it the bushwhacked administration could piss on the constitution (literally, they're already doing it figuaratively) and no one would raise an effing eyebrow it seems.

Studio that scrubbed Abramoff/Bush photo earned $140,000 from 2004 campaign
01/26/2006 @ 4:48 pmFiled by Ron Brynaert
A photograpy studio which admitted to scrubbing at least one photograph of President George Bush and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was paid more that $140,000 by the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2004, RAW STORY has learned.


Reflections Photography president Joanne Amos told Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo that a "business decision" led the company to remove a photograph taken in late 2003 that is believed to

Another blog reported that Amos donated $2,000 to President Bush. The studio owner also gave $4,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004. Steven Amos, vice president of Reflections, has contributed $2,000 to Bush and $4150 to the RNC. According to Political Money Line, each gave the RNC $750 on the same day last April.
A press release from July of 2003 shows that the photography studio was awarded a contract with the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign. "We are, of course, extremely pleased about this contract," said Joanne Amos in the press release. "This is an incredible opportunity for our company."
Two years ago, The Washington Post reported that the studio was paid over $140,000. feature Bush and Abramoff together. According to Amos, the photograph is "not relevant.".......

my grandfather had a name for it

a newsbag. that is to say someone who minds everyone else's bid-nez BUT their own. remind you of anyone? hint: the bushwhacked administration.

once again i ask thee, how the HELL can you determine how old someone is who looks at porn online from search engine records? the answer is YOU CANNOT. GET THE EFF OUT OF MY PRIVATE LIFE

another story from the nation

by Robert Scheer

You've Got Jail
[posted online on January 25, 2006]
In case someone in the Justice Department is reading this, let me hasten to explain why I just clicked on the Victoria's Secret online catalog photo featuring a certain "Very Sexy Lace & Mesh Garter Belt." AOL made me do it.
Yes, the very same AOL which, like Yahoo and MSN, but not Google, has readily agreed to let you government snoops scrutinize the search words and results from their online search engine data archives. If AOL is going to let the government know where I've been, they should admit they entrapped me!
(Honestly, officer, I heard that perky voice say, "You've got mail," and then this ad popped up, and there was this lady in her undergarments, and anyway it was just research.)
OK, so for the time being, the Bush Administration claims that it won't try to connect my name, or yours, with the massive bits of raw data they are demanding from the companies with the most popular search engines. Apparently they are seeking evidence to prove that online porn is very popular and easily accessible as part of a last-ditch lawsuit to implement the Child Online Protection Act blocked by the courts.
I'm not sure that proving the popularity of pornography is going to make the case for censoring it, but the point here today is my extreme discomfort with the Justice Department's cozy relationship with online giants like Microsoft and AOL, companies that already know way, way too much about how we as individuals use the Internet. Why should I trust the Justice Department any more than I trust the NSA bugging phone calls and scanning e-mails without warrants, or Homeland Security looking for terrorists by scrutinizing bookstore purchases and library check-outs?
Bottom line is these guys in the Bush Administration are obsessed voyeurs, poking their noses into everyone's business, whether the excuse is squelching pornography or preventing terrorism. They simply do not believe civil liberties and privacy are important. It is an executive branch power trip, and completely anti-democratic. ...........

i too have this very same question

this from medea benjamin for the nation asks the same question i ask: When Will US Women Demand Peace?

by MEDEA BENJAMIN
[posted online on January 24, 2006]
Whenever I travel to international gatherings to talk about the war in Iraq, economic development and women's rights, the question I get asked most frequently is: "Where are the women in the United States? Why aren't they rising up?"
I hear it from women in Africa, who have lost funding for their health clinics because of the Bush Administration's ban on even talking about abortion; from Iraqi women, who are suffering the double oppression of occupation and rising fundamentalism; from European women, who wonder how we can tolerate the crumbling of our meager social services; and from Latina women opposed to unresponsive governments that represent a tiny elite.
The question is variously posed with anger, contempt, curiosity or sympathy. But always, there is a sense of disappointment. What happened to the proud suffragettes who chained themselves to the White House fence for the right to vote? What happened to the garment workers, whose struggles for decent working conditions inspired the first International Women's Day in 1910? What about those who emulated Rosa Parks, risking their lives or livelihoods to confront the evils of racism? Given their tradition of activism, why aren't American women today rising up against a government that dragged them into war with lies, that spies on their peaceful activities and diverts money from their children's schools or their mothers' nursing homes to pay for an immoral war? ........

who better to serve our nation, than those who have served our nation?

THE NATION
New PAC to Back Antiwar Veterans
The group will work to elect candidates who can promote a change of strategy for Iraq.By Ronald BrownsteinTimes Staff Writer January 26, 2006 WASHINGTON —

An organization of veterans disillusioned with President Bush's handling of the Iraq war plans to launch a political action committee today dedicated to electing antiwar veterans to Congress.The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America PAC hopes to raise as much as $10 million this year to support veterans seeking House and Senate seats on platforms promoting a change of strategy in Iraq, said Jon Soltz, the group's executive director."These are people we want to send to Washington to articulate a better understanding of the war," said Soltz, who served as an Army captain with the 1st Armored Division in Iraq. "We need credible knowledge inside Washington to change the course of this war."So far, eight Iraq war veterans are seeking House seats as Democrats in various states, including Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland.Paul Hackett, a Marine reservist who served in Iraq, is seeking the Democratic Senate nomination in Ohio. The seat is held by Republican Mike DeWine, who is seeking reelection. Hackett narrowly lost a special election for a House seat to Republican Jean Schmidt last year.One Iraq veteran, Van Taylor, is seeking a House seat in Texas as a Republican. Although the leaders of the new PAC say it will support candidates from both parties, their pedigree and agenda lean strongly toward Democrats......

i have been called many things including a traitor

and i'm sick of it. because i do NOT support this (unjust) war does NOT mean i'm anti-american or a traitor or a terrorist or a fan of osamas (osama is NOT in iraq people). so i've decided to put a link to

an open letter to chris mattews on my sidebar. it calls for an APOLOGY from him for comparing someone who has politics similar to mine, to osama.

and this from seeing the forest - for the trees

January 25, 2006
The Chris Matthews "Democrats=Terrorists" Fight Escalates
At the Open Letter To Chris Matthews blog there is a new push, asking readers to contact MSNBC, and a few of their advertisers, asking Chris Matthews for an apology for comparing people like us to Osama bin Laden.
This Frequently Asked Questions post expains why we are so upset, what Matthews said, what we want, and how readers can help pressure for an apology.
6. What will it take for you to call off your protest?
Chris Matthews and the senior management of MSNBC need to publicly apologize for comparing American critics of the war in Iraq to terrorist Osama bin Laden, and both must commit to stop functioning as an adjunct of the right-wing noise machine and to start acting like objective journalists. We are trying to stop this "Democrats = Terrorists" mantra now, before it becomes even more dangerous. ..................

uh oh (but no one SHOULD be surprised WHEN this happens, not if, WHEN)

this talk was at MY town hall and i had NO idea it was going on nor did i have any idea the group west hartford citizens for peace and justice existed (i'm going to cross-post this on my connecticut blog the nutmeg grater

Arms Expert Sees Iran War Ahead
By TOM PULEO Courant Staff Writer January 25 2006
WEST HARTFORD -- Weapons expert Scott Ritter said Tuesday that President Bush is using the Iraq conflict to rush the nation to war with Iran."The Bush administration has its sights set firmly on Tehran," Ritter told a group of more than 200 people. "The same deception is taking place right before our eyes and most Americans remain blind. It is going to happen. It is happening as we speak."A former U.S. Marine officer and ballistic missile expert, Ritter said only a reinvigorated U.S. Congress can stop Bush from going into Iran. The Bush administration has said in recent days that Iran is using an energy program as a cover for developing atomic weapons - something Ritter said is not borne out by the facts on the ground. Iran has insisted its uranium enrichment research will be used only to produce electrical power."Unless we can find a way to get people elected to Congress who respect the Constitution," Ritter said, "we're headed to war in Iran, ladies and gentlemen."Ritter received a prolonged standing ovation after his one-hour talk in the town hall auditorium sponsored by West Hartford Citizens for Peace and Justice.Ritter called Bush an "imperial president" who holds himself above the law in a misguided attempt to spread U.S. influence in the Middle East. Ritter said Iraq is not better off today than before the 2003 invasion."It's worse off economically, educationally, with health care, and worse off because 138,000 American citizens are illegally occupying a sovereign state.".....

why would they (well it's really US) spend money on an inquiry

we know they f**ked up, we know they'll blame everyone but themselves, we know they'll continue to f**k up and we know that BROWNIE DID A HECK OF A JOB!
(tell me why they don't use every single bit of money they have on helping the displaced victims of katrina? yet another thing i just don't get)

White House slowing Katrina inquiry, senators say
By Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press Writer January 24, 2006
WASHINGTON --The White House is crippling a Senate inquiry into the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina by barring administration officials from answering questions and failing to hand over documents, senators leading the investigation said Tuesday.
In some cases, staff at the White House and other federal agencies have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators, said the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In addition, agency officials won't answer seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House, the senators said.
A White House spokesman said the administration is committed to working with separate Senate and House investigations of the Katrina response but wants to protect the confidentiality of presidential advisers.
"No one believes that the government responded adequately," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. "And we can't put that story together if people feel they're under a gag order from the White House."
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the committee's Republican chair, said she respects the White House's reluctance to reveal advice to President Bush from his top aides, which is generally covered by executive privilege........

more bullshite

except it appears SOME of these students are NOT buying the party line.......
(do you remember when the people of the ussr weren't allowed to talk to the press, were being spied upon, were jailed for no reason................) back in the ussr, ya don't know how lucky you are boy..........back in back in back in the ussr


Gonzales Says Criticism of NSA Misleading
Gonzales Defends Warrantless Surveillance, Says Critics and Media Mischaracterize NSA Program
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the Bush administration's domestic spying program Tuesday and suggested that some critics and news reports have misled Americans about the breadth of the National Security Agency's surveillance.
Gonzales said the warrantless surveillance is critical to prevent another terrorist attack within the United States and falls within President Bush's constitutional authority and the powers granted by Congress immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
At a Georgetown Law School Forum, Gonzales said the nation needs "to remember that ... it's imperative for national security reasons that we can detect reliably, immediately and without delay" any al-Qaida related communication entering or leaving the United States.
As he spoke, more than a dozen students stood silently with their backs turned to the attorney general. Outside the classroom where Gonzales was to speak, a pair of protesters held up a sheet that said, "Don't torture the Constitution."
Gonzales cautioned his listeners about critics and journalists who have mischaracterized details about the program. "Unfortunately, they have caused concern over the potential breadth of what the President has actually authorized," he said.
The attorney general's appearance at the law school is part of a campaign by the Bush administration to overcome criticism, often by attempting to redefine the program..........

i know this YOU know this, even THEY know this

THEY just won't say it aloud or admit it. if we pretend it's ok then it WILL be ok.....
NOT
remember that song from back in the day, 'where have all the flowers gone?' (when will they ever learn, when WILL THEY ever learn?)

Study: Army Stretched to Breaking Point


By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer Tue Jan 24, 6:43 PM ET
Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.
Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.
As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army's 2005 recruiting slump — missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 — and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.
"You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue," he said in an interview. He added that the Army is still a highly effective fighting force and is implementing a plan that will expand the number of combat brigades available for rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 136-page report represents a more sobering picture of the Army's condition than military officials offer in public. While not released publicly, a copy of the report was provided in response to an Associated Press inquiry.
Illustrating his level of concern about strain on the Army, Krepinevich titled one of his report's chapters, "The Thin Green Line."
He wrote that the Army is "in a race against time" to adjust to the demands of war "or risk `breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment.
Col. Lewis Boone, spokesman for Army Forces Command, which is responsible for providing troops to war commanders, said it would be "a very extreme characterization" to call the Army broken. He said his organization has been able to fulfill every request for troops that it has received from field commanders..........

how the F**K does an eight year old get his hands on a loaded gun stuff it in his backpack and bring it to daycare and shoot a seven year old girl?

it happened this morning and the article is in the washington post

way to go brownie!

Report: Gov't Forewarned Of Potential Katrina Damage
POSTED: 7:40 pm EST January 23, 2006
WASHINGTON -- There is more documentation that the federal government knew in advance of the catastrophic potential Hurricane Katrina could have in New Orleans.
New documents released Monday show the Homeland Security Department was warned a day before Katrina struck that the storm's surge could breach levees and leave New Orleans flooded for weeks or months.
The Aug. 28 report was produced by the department's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center. It concluded that a category 4 or 5 hurricane would cause severe damage in the city and a direct economic hit of up to $10 billion for the first week. The report called those estimates "conservative."

moon over the capital

i couldn't quite capture it in pictures but the crescent moon over the capital this morning was stunning. (if you peek through the bottom branches of that tree to the left, that tiny white dot is the moon)

hats

just fooling around with some hats. lower left is noro yarn (love that stuff) lower right is me experimenting with two colors knit as one and top is a hat for baby sofia - which i've yet to give to her

and now for something completely different

wow, i am sitting here enjoying a bowl of annie chun's udon soup (a noodle bowl meal). it is VERY good. you can actually recognize HUNKS of vegetables and the noodles are thick and good. it's a nice sized serving too.

the three best parts are;

it only takes a couple of minutes in the microwave
the bowl (which looks and feels like plastic) is mostly made out of corn starch and is biodegradable
AND
the broth is NOT salty (you know how every quick broth really isn't broth, it's JUST pure salt and water ewwwwwwwwwww)

it's GOOD, VERY GOOD

are you automatically a terrorist if you are an islamic egyptian?

the real answer is OF COURSE NOT. i don't know if these men did anything to get 'detained' other than be egyptian muslims. could be they did, as i said, i don't know. HOWEVER, they were detained for MONTHS after being declared NON-TERRORIST or NON-TERRORIST THREATS. why?

Deported Muslims return to sue US govt for abuseMon Jan 23, 2006 01:38 PM ET By Claudia Parsons
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Muslim man detained for months without charge after September 11 and then deported to Egypt gave a deposition in New York on Monday in a suit against the U.S. government for unlawful imprisonment and abuse.
Yasser Ebrahim was one of four Muslim men who are being allowed to return to participate in the case under strict conditions including confinement to their hotel rooms for the duration of their stay.
The men, who were cleared of any connection to terrorism, say they suffered inhumane and degrading treatment in a Brooklyn detention center, including solitary confinement, severe beatings, incessant verbal abuse and a total blackout on communications with their families and attorneys.
Ebrahim's attorneys said the men will be deposed over the next two weeks in a class action suit against the government over the treatment of more than 1,200 Muslim and South Asian men rounded up after the September 11 attacks blamed on al Qaeda.
The Center for Constitutional Rights -- a civil rights group handling the case -- said the conditions for their return to the United States include a ban on their speaking to anybody outside the case and confinement to their hotel room.
Ebrahim's brother Hany Ibrahim was due to arrive in New York on Monday, CCR legal director Bill Goodman said, and the other two would arrive at some point in the next two weeks.
Goodman said the restrictions on the four men were highly unusual in a civil case and a sign of what he called government "paranoia over Muslim and Middle Eastern men."
They are among eight named plaintiffs in the case that names former Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, immigration officials and prison officers among the defendants. The suit, originally filed in 2002, seeks compensation and punitive damages......

a portrait of william as taken by his roommate jean

a wonderful read from frank rich

from the nyt via buzz flash
it goes from oprah's book club to the wizard of oz to a supreme court nomination. man, i wish i could write!

Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito
by Frank Rich The New York Times January 22, 2006

IF James Frey hadn't made up his own life, Tom Wolfe would have had to invent it for him. The fraudulent memoirist is to the early 21st century what Mr. Wolfe's radical-chic revelers were to the late 1960's and his Wall Street "masters of the universe" were to the go-go 1980's: a perfect embodiment of the most fashionable American excess of an era.
As Oprah Winfrey, the ultimate arbiter of our culture, has made clear, no one except pesky nitpickers much cares whether Mr. Frey's autobiography is true or not, or whether it sits on a fiction or nonfiction shelf at Barnes & Noble. Such distinctions have long since washed away in much of our public life. What matters most now is whether a story can be sold as truth, preferably on television. The mock Comedy Central pundit Stephen Colbert's slinging of the word "truthiness" caught on instantaneously last year precisely because we live in the age of truthiness.
At its silliest level, this is manifest in show-biz phenomena like Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, juvenile pop stars who merchandised the joy of their new marriage as a lucrative MTV reality series before heading to divorce court to divvy up the booty. But if suckers want to buy fictional nonfiction like "Newlyweds" or "A Million Little Pieces" as if they were real, that's just harmless diversion. .........

.......The selling of Samuel Alito is a perfect illustration of how our world works. From the moment Judge Alito emerged from Harriet Miers's penumbra, his supporters' story line was clear: he'd be presented as a humble exemplar of American values too mainstream to be labeled "out of the mainstream" by his opponents. In his first courtesy calls on Capitol Hill in November, we learned, Judge Alito often cited his father as a proud immigrant who instilled in him empathy for minorities and the poor - an empathy not remotely apparent in the judge's legal record. A particularly poignant anecdote had it that his father had once defended a black basketball player from discrimination in college. ........

even if this story was NOT true (but i believe it is), why aren't we putting up a stink about halliburton being in iraq?

isn't it UNETHICAL because of the chaney ties? even if it isn't they have a HORRID track record and that should be enough of a reason to boot their sorry asses not only out of iraq, BUT HERE TOO

AP Enterprise: U.S. troops exposed to contaminated water in Iraq, Halliburton documents say
WASHINGTON (AP) - Troops and civilians at a U.S. military base in Iraq were exposed to contaminated water last year and employees for the responsible contractor, Halliburton, couldn't get their company to inform camp residents, according to interviews and internal company documents. Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, disputes the allegations about water problems at Camp Junction City, in Ramadi, even though they were made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails. "We exposed a base camp population (military and civilian) to a water source that was not treated," said a July 15, 2005, memo written by William Granger, the official for Halliburton's KBR subsidiary who was in charge of water quality in Iraq and Kuwait. "The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River," Granger wrote in one of several documents. The Associated Press obtained the documents from Senate Democrats who are holding a public inquiry into the allegations Monday. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who will chair the session, held a number of similar inquiries last year on contracting abuses in Iraq. He said Democrats were acting on their own because they had not been able to persuade Republican committee chairmen to investigate. The company's former water treatment expert at Camp Junction City said that he discovered the problem last March, a statement confirmed by his e-mail the day after he tested the water.....

is it really VITAL to national security

to spy on TEN people passing out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a form of (legal) protest? i'm guessing there was no lsd in those sandwiches or the protesters would be in jail.......

The Other Big Brother
The Pentagon has its own domestic spying program. Even its leaders say the outfit may have gone too far.

..............Last Thursday, Cheney called the program "vital" to the country's defense against Al Qaeda. "Either we are serious about fighting this war on terror or not," he said in a speech to the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. But as the new information about CIFA shows, the scope of the U.S. government's spying on Americans may be far more extensive than the public realizes................

oh not me, i KNOW it's extensive and overreaching....


By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
Jan. 30, 2006 issue - The demonstration seemed harmless enough. Late on a June afternoon in 2004, a motley group of about 10 peace activists showed up outside the Houston headquarters of Halliburton, the giant military contractor once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. They were there to protest the corporation's supposed "war profiteering." The demonstrators wore papier-mache masks and handed out free peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to Halliburton employees as they left work. The idea, according to organizer Scott Parkin, was to call attention to allegations that the company was overcharging on a food contract for troops in Iraq. "It was tongue-in-street political theater," Parkin says..............

i'm not the biggest michael moore fan, but this IS funny

"I find it the safest course of action to always let Osama have a strike, even when he throws a gutter ball."

(and there's more on the website - link above in post title)

the madness of dictator

george .............................
and this from intervention magazine
George Bush is promising security and protection in exchange for our freedom and civil rights. By Michael Coblenz

Most Republicans have been curiously silent about the recent news
reports that President Bush has engaged in warrant-less eavesdropping on
American citizens. This is surprising given their general hostility towards
government power, and stands in stark contrast to their outrage over the Supreme
Court’s Kelo v. City of New London decision this past summer. That case held
that the government could take private property for use by other private
entities as long as the government determined that there was some public
benefit. After the Kelo ruling, prominent Republicans took to the floor of
Congress and demanded immediate action to prevent such an egregious usurpation
of individual rights. The contrast between the Republicans’ furor over the
Supreme Court’s eminent domain decision and their nonchalance towards President
Bush’s (possible) misuse of power is bizarre. It’s almost as if Republicans
believe that dictators rise to power and strip citizens of their rights through
zoning decisions. It's almost as if they never read any history.

favorite bumpersticker:

from media matters via daily kos WAY more facts and figures on both of those sites. give them a read ..................We've been over it all again and again here in blogotopia. Using the Oval Office to having extramarital, consensual sex trumps using the Oval Office to falsify intelligence to take the country to war. It trumps using the Oval Office to engineer the outing of CIA operatives. And now we also know it trumps using the Oval Office to orchestrate the illegal, warrantless wiretapping of thousands of American citizens. Well, gee. I think we just really need to work on getting our priorities straight.................

what ARE credible threats?

are the quakers? are the catholic workers? are peace activists? are liberal college professors? are YOU? am I? no, i'm not a terrorist. i disagree with almost everything bushwhacked's administration has done and is proposing to do, but no, i'm NOT a terrorist OR a crebible threat. i've said it before and i'll say it again. i work, i pay my taxes. i do jury duty when called (i was called AGAIN for the seventh or eighth time but i got notification yesterday i do not have to serve, since my last service was within the past year). my car is registered and it is insured. hell i don't even call in sick to work and unlike someone else i have NOT had a vacation in over four years. are some of these groups being 'spyed' on because they are called credible threats? YOU BET THEY ARE and if you deny it you are so very blind to reality. U.S. accused of spying on those who disagree with Bush policies BY WILLIAM E. GIBSON
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
WASHINGTON - While the White House defended domestic surveillance as a safeguard against terrorism, a Florida peace activist and several Democrats in Congress accused the Bush administration on Friday of spying on Americans who disagree with President Bush's policies.
Richard Hersh, of Boca Raton, Fla., director of Truth Project Inc. of Palm Beach County, told an ad hoc panel of House Democrats that his group and others in South Florida have been infiltrated and spied upon despite having no connections to terrorists.
"Agents rummaged through the trash, snooped into e-mails, packed Web sites and listened in on phone conversations," Hersh charged. "We know that address books and activist meeting lists have disappeared."
The Truth Project gained national attention when NBC News reported last month that it was described as a "credible threat" in a database of suspicious activity compiled by the Pentagon's Talon program. The listing cited the group's gathering a year ago at a Quaker meeting house in Lake Worth, Fla., to talk about ways to counter military recruitment at high schools.
Talon is separate from the controversial domestic-surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency. Bush has acknowledged signing orders that allow the NSA to eavesdrop without the usual court warrants, prompting an outcry from many in Congress.
Bush plans to tour the NSA on Wednesday as part of a campaign to defend his handling of the program.
"This is a critical tool that helps us save lives and prevent attacks," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Friday. "It is limited and targeted to al-Qaida communications, with the focus being on detection and prevention."..............