a mom (whose blog i read because she is a knitter)

writes a letter to her daughter amanda, on the occasion of amanda's 18th birthday

it's a PHENOMENAL letter

and stephanie & amanda.............GRRRLS KICK ASS!

Dear Amanda

On this day 18 years ago, I was feeling pretty cocky. You were born and I sincerely thought I was equipped. I really did. Even though you were my first, I knew my way around babies and I wasn't afraid of them, and I was even pretty sure that I had fantastic baby tending skills. Moreover, this parenting thing seemed to me like it was going to be pretty straightforward.
I mean, I knew it would have its challenging moments, but overall, I thought I was going to be really good at it, and that it would be something I excelled at. I was pretty sure that with all of the books I had read and how much research I had done that I would have a great grip on it. I thought that those parents who were losing it all over the place were just not working hard enough at it. I was going to be a relaxed mother.
I think, darling girl, that we can both agree that I have been the exact opposite of relaxed in every way that there is to be not relaxed, and I now I really don't know whether to apologize or demand thanks for that. I don't know what went wrong with my plan, my plan for how easy it was all going to be, but when you screamed your way through your first night on this earth, despite everything the midwife and I could do to comfort you, I started to wonder if I hadn't received a standard issue baby. .............................

i'm not making this story up

it's true.

delay is LESS of a sodomite than eye of newt who of course is LESS of s sodomite than clinton.

yeah, right



DeLay: My Adultery Was Less Immoral Than Newt’s

In his book, “No Retreat, No Surrender,” Tom DeLay, the indicted former House Majority Leader, admits that in the days when he was drinking as many as 10 martinis a day, he engaged in extramarital affairs:......

..........In the book, DeLay attacked his former colleague, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, for having an affair while he was leading the impeachment of Pres. Bill Clinton because he committed perjury when asked under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. DeLay says Gingrich’s adultery was worse than his — due to the implicit hypocrisy:...............

.........“I was no longer committing adultery by that time, the impeachment trial. There’s a big difference … Also, I had returned to Christ and repented my sins by that time.”..............

hey delay guess what? JESUS DOES NOT LOVE YOU (newt either for that matter)

it's june 1st

and all of our men and women can come home now! whew

because why you ask?

well because late last year iraqi prime minister nuri al-maliki said THEY (the iraqis) would be able to handle things in their OWN country from june on out! yippeeeeeeeeee


so dear king george BRING OUR MEN AND WOMEN HOME NOW

Tonight's the Night: Iraq's Leader Had Told Reporters U.S. Could Start Pullout By June 1

By E&P Staff Published: May 31, 2007 4:30 PM ET
NEW YORK Last November 30, as the Iraq Study Group was about to release its report -- and talk of a U.S. escalation still a few weeks off -- the press gave a lot of weight to the words of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki when he vowed that his country's forces would be able to assume security command by June 2007, which could allow the United States to start withdrawing its troops."I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007," Maliki told ABC television after meeting President Bush in Amman, Jordan..........

mind boggling

this is the stuff of legend i tell ya!

Baghdad embassy plans appear on Internet

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Detailed plans for the new U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad appeared online Thursday in a breach of the tight security surrounding the sensitive project.....

......The images were removed by Berger Devine Yaeger Inc. shortly after the company was contacted by the State Department.....

it was

20 40 YEARS AGO TODAY

sgt pepper taught his band to play.........

this is kinda cool but at the same time, i'm of the mind, FORGET THE MUMBO JUMBO AND JUST LISTEN TO THE MUSIC

Experts discuss hit Beatles album

Forty years since the Beatles released iconic album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a group of academics are meeting to discuss its cultural impact.
The album, released in the UK on 1 June 1967, is regarded by critics and fans as the most influential album ever.
Experts will gather at the University of Leeds to analyse the album later this month.
Event organiser Simon Warner said the album was a "ground-breaking moment for popular music".
He added: "It's the most important album by the most important group. ............

this is what we did to one of our heros

he got a purple heart for his service in iraq

for asking a question (or two) about 9 - 11 to OTHER MILITARY PEOPLE, he lost his security clearance, he was demoted, he was fired from his job and MY personal favorite, he was ordered to have a psychiatric exam

Friendly Fire
Raising questions about 9/11 gets an Army sergeant demoted for “disloyalty.”

By STEPHEN C. WEBSTER
These days, Donald Buswell’s job is not as exciting or dangerous as it once was. For the past few months, his working hours have been spent taking care of some 40-plus wounded soldiers at San Antonio’s Fort Sam Houston medical center. The work is sometimes menial, even janitorial, but he doesn’t mind. After all, Buswell has been where these men are — three years ago, he too was recovering from wounds received in a battle zone in Iraq.
“I truly consider this an honor,” Buswell told his dad not long ago.
Still, it’s not exactly where Buswell expected to be after 20 years of well-respected service in the Army.
Since joining the Army in 1987, he had risen to the rank of sergeant first class, serving in both Gulf Wars, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Korea. He ended up with shrapnel scars and a Purple Heart and, back in the U.S. after his last tour in Iraq, a job as intelligence analyst at Fort Sam Houston.............

...........As if all that weren’t enough, Fort Sam Houston’s chief of staff penned a letter accusing Buswell of “making statements disloyal to the United States.”
His father, Winthrop Buswell, said that his son “is one of the most patriotic people I know.”
“Donald saw something that his conscience led him to dispute,” he said. “That’s just the type of man he is.”
For his dissent, Donald has paid a heavy price............

i guess we really DO want an army full of robots. forget don't ask, don't tell. it's now DON'T THINK, DON'T TALK

ANOTHER in the big ol' long list of he shurrrrrrrrre ken pick 'em!

yup king george does one thing well. his picks for positions are absolutely ASTOUNDING

here's YET ANOTHER

Senators Should Reject Bush’s Latest Nominee to 5th Circuit

President Bush has nominated Leslie Southwick to fill a seat on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Bush previously tried to fill the seat with Charles Pickering and then Michael Wallace, both of whom faced significant opposition due to their disturbing legal records, especially on civil rights.“Regrettably, Southwick also has a troubling record and appears to be cut from the same cloth as the others,” said Ralph G. Neas, President of People For the American Way. “First Pickering, then Wallace, and now Southwick – Bush has completely struck out on the Fifth Circuit.”............

......In 1998, Southwick joined a ruling in an employment case that upheld the reinstatement, without any punishment whatsoever, of a white state employee who was fired for calling an African American co-worker a “good ole nigger.” The court’s decision effectively ratified a hearing officer’s opinion that the slur was only “somewhat derogatory” and “was in effect calling the individual a ‘teacher’s pet.’” The Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously reversed the decision...........

......In 2001, Southwick joined a ruling that upheld a chancellor’s decision to take an eight-year-old girl away from her mother and award custody to the father, who had never married the mother, largely because the mother was living with another woman in a “lesbian home.” Southwick went even further by joining a gratuitously anti-gay concurrence which extolled Mississippi’s right under “the principles of Federalism” to treat “homosexual persons” as second-class citizens........

please read this

A soldier in Iraq asks in despair: Why are we here?

.....After watching his roommate fatally wounded in a roadside bombing, an Army private wonders why the lives of good men are being lost when the Iraqis pose no threat to us and don’t want us there.
BAGHDAD, May 12 — My name is Donald Hudson Jr. I have been serving our country’s military actively for the last three years. I am currently deployed to Baghdad on Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where I have been for the last four and a half months.
I came here as part of the first wave of this so called “troop surge”, but so far it has effectively done nothing to quell insurgent violence. I have seen the rise in violence between the Sunni and Shiite. This country is in the middle of a civil war that has been on going since the seventh century.
Why are we here when this country still to date does not want us here? Why does our president’s personal agenda consume him so much, that he can not pay attention to what is really going on here?............

this would be wicked funny

if thousands of people weren't dead and tens of thousands weren't displaced and if we didn't create a whole new wave of terrorists by illegally and immorally invading a country that DID NOTHING TO US

this is EFFING INSANITY AT IT'S HEIGHT

The Colossus of Baghdad: A Mammoth New American Embassy in Iraq

By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com.

The U.S. is building an embassy in the heart of Baghdad's embattled Green Zone that will be the largest embassy on the planet -- big enough to embody the Bush administration's vision of an American-reordered Middle East.

Of the seven wonders of the ancient Mediterranean world, including the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes, four were destroyed by earthquakes, two by fire. Only the Great Pyramid of Giza today remains.
We no longer know who built those fabled monuments to the grandiosity of kings, pharaohs, and gods; nowadays, at least, it's easier to identify the various wonders of our world with their architects. Maya Lin, for instance, spun the moving black marble Vietnam Memorial from her remarkable brain for the veterans of that war; Frank Gehry dreamt up his visionary titanium-covered museum in Bilbao, Spain, for the Guggenheim; and the architectural firm of BDY (Berger Devine Yaeger), previously responsible for the Sprint Corporation's world headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas; the Visitation Church in Kansas City, Missouri; and Harrah's Hotel and Casino in North Kansas City, Missouri, turns out to have designed the biggest wonder of all -- an embassy large enough to embody the Bush administration's vision of an American-reordered Middle East. We're talking, of course, about the still-uncompleted American embassy, the largest on the planet, being constructed on a 104-acre stretch of land in the heart of Baghdad's embattled Green Zone, now regularly under mortar fire. As Patrick Lenahan, Senior Architect and Project Manager at BDY, has put it (according to the firm's website): "We understand how to involve the client most effectively as we direct our resources to make our client's vision a reality."............

to da liebs: "WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET OUT OF HERE"

liebs, WAKE THE EFF UP. we do NOT want our men and women in iraq and THEY sure as SHITE do NOT want to be their either. GET THEM HOME NOW

Lieberman talks to troops in Baghdad

By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.
The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.
He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:
"When are we going to get out of here?"
The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather? .............

PROGRESS MY BIG FAT ASS

a liebs posting on my connecticut blog today where he says we're 'making progress'

picture: Sen. Joe Lieberman walks with Maj Gen. Joseph Fil Jr., commander of U.S. troops in Baghdad, left, at a Joint Security Station in southeast Baghdad.

as i say

lining the pockets of the good ol' white boy network. of COURSE big bid-nez profits from war and torture and mayhem.

may their souls burn (figuratively. i don't wish anyone harm in reality. i DO wish they would discover what morals are though)

ACLU to sue Boeing subsidiary in alleged torture cases

The lawsuit says that Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. provided 'substantial' support to a secret CIA program.
By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer

The American Civil Liberties Union announced this morning that it would sue a Boeing subsidiary in San Jose federal court today, alleging that the company helped the Central Intelligence Agency with "the forced disappearance, torture and inhumane treatment" of three men the government suspected of terrorist involvement."This is the first time we are accusing a blue-chip American company of profiting from torture," said ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner, who spoke about the case at a news conference in New York.Mike Pound, a spokesman for Jeppesen, said: "There isn't really anything I can say with the exception that I am aware of the suit. We have not been served. I can't talk specifics about any customers that we might have or the services we might provide for them."Timothy Neale, a spokesman for Chicago-based Boeing, said, "We have not gotten the lawsuit yet, so we are not commenting on it. We are not confirming the reports that Jeppesen did work for the CIA. The services Jeppesen provides are provided on a confidential basis for all its customers."........

insane lunatic ass who is threatening us with no more COLA

just like the rest of 'em. they really ARE insane.

what the f**k are we doing allowing him to be for ONE SECOND in america? he's a representative of despots. GET HIM THE F**K OUT and let's send our troops over to sudan to help save THOSE people

Denying Genocide in Darfur -- and Americans Their Coca-Cola

By Dana Milbank

The Iraq war gave us Baghdad Bob, the Iraqi information minister who, while American troops patrolled nearby streets, held a defiant news conference to proclaim that there were no U.S. forces in the city.
Baghdad Bob, whose real name is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, earned a place among the ranks of colorful propagandists such as Hanoi Hannah and Tokyo Rose. Now, the genocidal Sudanese government has an entry in this category. Let's call him Khartoum Karl..........

..............Genocide in the Darfur region? "The United States is the only country saying that what is happening in Darfur is a genocide," Ukec shouted, gesticulating wildly and perspiring from his bald crown. "I think this is a pretext."
Ah. So what about the more than 400,000 dead? "See how many people are dying in Darfur: None," he said.
And the 2 million displaced? "I am not a statistician."...........

............I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola...........

no name

no face, no charges (that WE know about), no lawyer, no rights, BUT HE'S STILL DEAD

question: how long do you think YOU'D last at gitmo?

Death of Guantanamo Detainee Is Apparent Suicide, Military Says


By Josh WhiteWashington Post Staff Writer

A Saudi detainee at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was found dead in his cell from an apparent suicide yesterday afternoon, military officials said. He would be the fourth detainee to take his own life at the facility in the past year.
Military officials at U.S. Southern Command did not release details about the death or identify the detainee, who was among about 80 Saudi Arabians in custody. Attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based law group that represents many Guantanamo detainees, said they had learned no details as of last night and did not have independent confirmation that the death was a suicide..........

hasn't ANYONE else noticed the similarities?

between this and this

scotty to kirk:

Admiral, there be whales here

Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn

car wash for peace

jimmy is donating 100% of HIS profits from this song (download-able at itunes) to fisher house " a charity that supports America’s military by providing “a home away from home” that enables family members to be close to a loved one during hospitalization for an illness, disease, or injury"

car wash for peace

(there's a link to itunes on the link above)

on imdb in the movie/tv news section for today (30 may) they had this quote from young mr fallon:

"I wanted to do something for the troops and I don't really know anything about politics so I made this joke song."

ya gotta LOVE that!

this judgement DOES undermine women

but who gives a flying yoo hoo? women were only created to amuse men anyway. they're not equal. PLUS the rapture is coming any day now so it REALLY doesn't matter how we treat our women, does it?

Over Ginsburg's Dissent, Court Limits Bias Suits


By Robert BarnesWashington Post Staff Writer

A Supreme Court once again split by the thinnest of margins ruled yesterday that workers may not sue their employers over unequal pay caused by discrimination alleged to have occurred years earlier.
The court ruled 5 to 4 that Lilly Ledbetter, the lone female supervisor at a tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., did not file her lawsuit against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in the timely manner specified by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964..........

...........The decision moved Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to read a dissent from the bench, a usually rare practice that she has now employed twice in the past six weeks to criticize the majority for opinions that she said undermine women's rights.
Speaking for the three other dissenting justices, Ginsburg's voice was as precise and emotionless as if she were reading a banking decision, but the words were stinging...............

i pray EVERY day that god tells these people

to STOP BEING ASSHOLES

but god so far, hasn't answered my prayers

Mag: Many Republicans no longer interested in Rove's theories

.............Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who resigned under indictment on campaign finance-related charges in Texas, also has grown dissatisfied with the president's stewardship of the conservative movement. DeLay told Goldberg that in coming years, when he is not fighting the Texas indictment, he plans to build a conservative grass-roots movement to rival MoveOn.org, insisting that divine inspiration brought him to that quest.
"God has spoken to me," DeLay said. "I listen to God, and what I've heard is that I'm supposed to devote myself to rebuilding the conservative base of the Republican party, and I think we shouldn't be underestimated."..............

the other day i was listening to npr in my car (lil' pi is her name)

my car's name that is

anyway, i don't know if it was a local show or national. a man was taking phone calls from people about memorial day. a woman called in and was greatful to all those who had served prior and were serving now. she mentioned her husband had served in iraq. she kept on talking and the more she talked, the more broken up she became. she was crying but continued to talk. finally, the host asked if her husband was killed. she said, no, he wasn't killed but the man who came back was SO different, he really wasn't her husband. my heart, hearing the pain in her voice, was ripping apart

The casualties continue to mount after they come home ...

Posted by Guest Blogger

Penny Coleman: It is only recently that I have come to think of myself as a war widow.


A rose for their graves ...
David Fickel, a 25-year-old Minnesotan honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after serving in Iraq, used a shotgun to take his own life on Memorial Day, 2006
Linda Michel, a 33-year-old Navy medic from Albany, who served at a U.S.-run prison near Baghdad, returned to her husband and three children last October and, two weeks later, shot and killed herself
Jonathan Schulze, a 25-year-old from New Prague, MN, asked to be admitted to a VA hospital on January 11 because he was thinking of killing himself. Told he was No. 26 on the waiting list, he hung himself at his parents' farm, leaving behind his pregnant wife and a young daughter
Michael Bramer, a 23-year-old from Boston who had served with the Army's 82d Airborne Division, turned up the surround sound on his television on January 17 and took his own life
Jessica Rich, a 24-year-old Army Reservist and mother of a 7-year-old son, despaired of leaving behind her nightmares and flashbacks of Iraq. On February 8, she drove her car into oncoming traffic on I-25 outside of Denver and died
Chris Dana, a 23-year-old Iraq war veteran from Helena who friends said wore his uniform and boots for weeks at a time, even to sleep, shut himself in his bedroom in March, put a blanket over his head, and shot himself
It is only recently that I have come to think of myself as a war widow. When my husband Daniel came home from Vietnam in 1970, the relationship between combat-related stress and suicide was officially unrecognized. When Daniel took his own life, it never occurred to me to blame the war. I thought that if only I had been kinder, more patient, more vigilant, I might have prevented his death. The shame and guilt on top of my grief were a terrible burden. It was decades before I could find some compassion and forgiveness for that young woman who had no idea what she was up against. .................

a scary shady kind of dude

but the BEST part of the story is the dude has a dog, a 'small staff' AND a cook. so what you say? well THE DUDE IS IN PRISON IN AFGHANISTAN

American convict opts to remain in Afghan jail

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- An American citizen imprisoned in Afghanistan for running a private jail for terror suspects has a new passport. His dog has been vaccinated for overseas travel. But two months after being freed by presidential decree, Jack Idema remains in his Afghan cell.
The reasons why, like most of Idema's dramatic personal story, are murky and complicated. They include a visa dispute and a compensation claim by one of his victims.
They also involve documents that Idema says would finally prove his claim that he was a hired mercenary hunting al-Qaeda suspects on a mission sanctioned by U.S. counterterrorism officials -- a claim that American authorities have denied.
Idema's Afghan lawyer and prison officials say Idema could be just days away from leaving the country. But Idema, a former Green Beret from Fayetteville, North Carolina, has appeared in no hurry to quit a prison cell that by local standards is top of the line.
His self-described prison "suite," has its own kitchen, a private bathroom, couches, rugs, TV, Internet access and a small staff. He is also friendly with prison guards aligned with the Northern Alliance, the coalition of anti-Taliban militias that helped the U.S. drive the hardline militia from power in late 2001.............

'they help us during the day

they turn around at night and try to kill us'

how can we allow this to continue? our men and women are not safe. our men and women are NOT saving the world or even a little part of it. our men and women are NOT making a difference (over all).

speak out. get them home NOW

With allies in enemy ranks, GIs in Iraq are no longer true believers

By Michael Kamber

BAGHDAD: Staff Sergeant David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.
"In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place," he said. "There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome."
But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber's body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.
"I thought, 'What are we doing here? Why are we still here?' " said Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. "We're helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.".........

.............But in Safstrom's view, the American presence is futile. "If we stayed here for 5, even 10 more years, the day we leave here these guys will go crazy," he said. "It would go straight into a civil war. That's how it feels, like we're putting a Band-Aid on this country until we leave here."....................

next year

we have to add ten more to our remembrances (if only it was going to be ten more, BUT, it isn't going to be, is it?)

kidnappings, deaths, torturing. and we think this is ok? do we think we have a chance to mend what we cut open? the longer we stay, the more pain we cause. both to families HERE and to families THERE

bring our men and women home NOW


10 American Soldiers Killed in Iraq
Memorial Day Casualties Make May Deadliest Month for U.S. in 21/2 Years


By John Ward Anderson Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, May 29 -- The U.S. military announced Tuesday that 10 American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Memorial Day, making May the deadliest month for U.S. troops in 2 1/2 years, as insurgents continued attacks on government and civilian targets.
Gunmen dressed in police uniforms staged a well-coordinated kidnapping at Iraq's Finance Ministry and abducted five Britons. Two vehicle bombings in Baghdad killed at least 44 people and injured 74. And the bodies of 32 men -- all shot and tortured, some handcuffed and blindfolded -- were found in two locations north and south of the capital on Tuesday, a senior Iraqi security official said............

this is SO right on - Help the bombardier!

it hurts

Not to See the Fallen Is No Favor

By DAVID CARR

On this Memorial Day, thousands of United States men and women are engaged in untold acts of bravery and drudgery on behalf of what our leaders have defined as vital American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But even as the flags wave to honor soldiers past, much of the current campaigns go on without notice, because while troop numbers are surging, the media that cover them are leaking away, worn out by the danger and expense of covering a war that refuses to end.
Many of the journalists who are in Iraq have been backed into fortified corners, rarely venturing out to see what soldiers confront. And the remaining journalists who are embedded with the troops in Iraq — the number dropped to 92 in May from 126 in April — are risking more and more for less and less.
Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited..........

the article even mentions joseph heller (you can't go wrong with that!)

Dr. 'Doc' Daneeka: Sure. Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat isn't really crazy, so I can't ground him. Yossarian: Ok, let me see if I've got this straight. In order to be grounded, I've got to be crazy. And I must be crazy to keep flying. But if I ask to be grounded, that means I'm not crazy anymore, and I have to keep flying. Dr. 'Doc' Daneeka: You got it, that's Catch-22. Yossarian: Whoo... That's some catch, that Catch-22. Dr. 'Doc' Daneeka: It's the best there is.

i wonder if alabama also lists anti-abortionists

as terrorists too

after all some of THEM blow up clinics and shoot doctors and maim people

what is a terrorist if not someone like that? (mr uhl for example)

Alabama site classifies environmental activists, gay rights supporters as possible terrorists

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security has taken down a webpage that listed environmental, anti-war, and gay rights groups as possible terrorists, according to a report from the Associated Press.
"The director of the department, Jim Walker, said his agency received a number of calls and e-mails from people who said they felt the site unfairly targeted certain people just because of their beliefs," the AP reported. "He said he plans to put the Web site back on the Internet, but will no longer identify specific types of groups."
The site described the various groups as "single-issue terrorists" who include "people who feel they are trying to create a better world."........

those bama-ins sure do like 'em some football though

just a tiny litte tale: my new best friend is a stripper

well ok, she's NOT my BEST friend but she is an acquaintance. i met her a few times before. we have a mutual friend acquaintance in common. i met her through him.

so yesterday, i was minding my own bid-nez as i am KNOWN for doing. i stopped by my favorite pub for brunch. i was chatting with the bartender (i always sit at the bar) who happens to be a dear friend of mine. she is having a rather rough time of late and i just wanted to listen and support her. after a while the stripper (whom i shall call ms s) comes in. i know she is a stipper because the last time i saw her i asked what she did for a living and she told me.

we nodded hello to each other. she sat a few seats down the bar and there were people in between us. after a bit, i went out to have a butt and as i passed her she asked if our mutual acquaintance had been in. i told her no, not that day. i thought he may have been at work. (he works some weekends). when i came back in i saw her on the phone. turns out it was the bartenders phone. ms s was using it because she went to some brazilian party (there is more of a story here but to tell you the truth, i never did get the whole gist of it) and somehow her phone got lost or misplaced or stolen. the bartender's phone was losing it's juice so i offered ms s the use of my phone. i had just charged it earlier that morning. since i rarely use it, i knew i had a lot of minutes left. plus it was the weekend and you get extra minutes anyway, PLUS i have carryover minutes which i'll never use. all she was doing was trying to track down HER phone. nothing untoward. ms s decided to come sit next to me. i always put my 'stuff' (i travel with a LOT of stuff. one never knows, does one???) on the chair next to me so no assholes have a chance of getting in my personal zone (it doesn't always work though. i attract 'em like flies to shite. if they can't sit NEXT to me they stand next to me, they stand in back of me, they lean over me, they breathe MY air). anyway, in a friendly gesture (which was sincere i might add), i removed my 'stuff' from the chair and i made it available to ms s. she plopped her moneymaker right on down. she was using the phone and every time she put it down, it would ring. she'd ask me if it was ok if she answered (i liked that she was polite enough to ask. manners mean a GREAT deal to me) each time. she made and received TONS of calls. i can't wait until some of those people start calling ME, perhaps thinking it was HER phone number. we'll see. could make for some classic moments in a rose is a rose's history.

ms s had on one clingy stretchy halter top showing the big tattoo on her lower back. the ONLY reason i did notice that was it is the part of her i saw each time i got up to have a butt and each time i came back in to my seat. i think she had shorts on but i can't be certain. i will say ms s has beautiful exotic eyes. i never really checked out her whole body though.

from my perspective the prior few times i had seen her, it looked to me like she was ALL OVER our mutual acquaintance. i thought she was hot for him. he is an attractive man. i don't know too much about him. i've known him for a while but we don't hang in the same circles. when i DO run into him, he's always decent to me so i've always been decent to him. he has issues (one of them is he can be VERY loud and rather frightening but if you tell him to knock it off, he will IMMEDIATELY stop) but then again we ALL have issues. my curiousity got the better of me (aw c'mon we all know it ALWAYS does. the mindin' my own bid-nez is just a load o' crap. i NEVER mind my OWN bid-nez) and i asked ms s what the deal was between her and our mutual acquaintaince. she asked me if i really wanted to know - OF COURSE I REALLY WANT TO KNOW, dang. so then she told me something that knocked me back. holy shite, i never saw it coming a mile away. it's nothing bad, it was just that i can ususally discern this about a person and i sure had NOT about him. that is if ms s was telling me the truth. i don't know, i don't know, i don't know. i'm still pondering it. in the same breath she also told me our mutual acquaintance wanted her to be his grrrlfren'. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (that is NOT exactly the message i got from him the last time i saw him but he never came right on out and said anything one way or another)

anyway, i hope ms s tracks her phone down

i hope i get more scoop on ms s and the mutual acquainance

i hope i get some amusing phone calls today

i personally wouldn't use the words moral OR ethical

in the same sentence that had big dick's name in it. that's just me

when we see what some nations do to their prisoners it turns our stomachs. we think they are no more than thugs, barbarians, savages and torturers.

do WE want to become them?

Cheney criticizes the Geneva Conventions in Military Academy commencement address

Michael Roston

Vice President Dick Cheney criticized the notion of applying the Geneva Conventions to individuals captured in the course of the war on terrorism in a Saturday commencement address at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.
"Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States," the Vice President said in the Saturday morning speech. "Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away."
Cheney delivered the remarks in the context of moral and ethical lessons that the graduating cadets at West Point had learned in the course of their study............

andrew j bacevich tells us how much his son was worth

no, not to him and his family and the tens of thousands of other families with sons and daughters serving in the middle east. he tells us how much he was worth to the king and his court (his court now includes most democrats by the way), to the oil companies, to the ceos of big companies and to the rest of the good ol' white boy network

well mr bacevich, i don't think for one second you contributed to your son's death. my thoughts and prayers are with your family. i am so very sorry for your loss

and i do thank you for speaking from your heart

I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty

By Andrew J. Bacevich

Parents who lose children, whether through accident or illness, inevitably wonder what they could have done to prevent their loss. When my son was killed in Iraq earlier this month at age 27, I found myself pondering my responsibility for his death.
Among the hundreds of messages that my wife and I have received, two bore directly on this question. Both held me personally culpable, insisting that my public opposition to the war had provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Each said that my son's death came as a direct result of my antiwar writings...................

i couldn't have chosen a better word than

"murky" myself. the article uses it in the context of blackwater employee's legal standing but i'm using it ALL AROUND. they are "murky". the company is "murky", the individuals are "murky", their purpose in the universe is "murky". what sort of man (i'm guessing 99.9% of those deployed by blackwater are men. i could be wrong but i don't think so) wants to be a soldier of fortune? the answer is i don't know. i DO know i don't want to share a bed with one of 'em

(whose fault is it if blackwater's actions are ummmmm less than above board? well ultimately it's the king and his court. but as we all know they're made of teflon and shite and NOTHING sticks to them)

U.S. Security Contractors Open Fire in Baghdad
Blackwater Employees Were Involved in Two Shooting Incidents in Past Week


By Steve Fainaru and Saad al-Izzi Washington Post Foreign Service

Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.........

...........Blackwater's security consulting division holds at least $109 million worth of State Department contracts in Iraq, and its employees operate in a perilous environment that sometimes requires the use of deadly force. But last week's incidents underscored how deeply these hired guns have been drawn into the war, their murky legal status and the grave consequences that can ensue when they take aggressive action.............

a shout out to umass

(where, back in the day, a lot of my friends went. MAN is it a giant campus)

Hundreds boo former Bush chief of staff at University of Massachusetts commencement ceremony

Adam Doster


.....Andrew Card, President George W. Bush's former Chief of Staff, was showered with a chorus of boos and catcalls from students and faculty of the University of Massachusetts while receiving an honorary degree Friday. Protesters, who caught the embarrassing scene on video, attached anti-Card signs to their robes and drowned out Provost Charlena Seymour's remarks about Card's "public service." Even faculty sitting on stage joined in on the action, screaming their disapproval while holding signs that read "Card: No Honor, No Degree."

Card, obviously shaken by the commotion, managed a slight grin while Seymour spoke. He later raised his hand in recognition but sat down without speaking at any length.........

let's continue to raise our voices. let them know all of their shite MUST STOP