i agree

let's send THEM ALL away. like the 'family' research council says, let's send the HOMOsexuals away. after that, we can send THE blacks away. after THEY are gone, let's get THE jews out! yeah! when THEY are all kicked out, let's drag off THE buddhists. then we can concentrate on getting rid of THE catholics. when THEY are finally all rounded up and gone, we can start in on THE ones with brown eyes. when THEY are gone......................

f**k 'em (by the 'em i mean the 'family' research council. FAMILY MY BIG FAT ASS)
Republican-tied Group Calls for "Exporting Homosexuals"
For Immediate Release Contact: Zaheer Mustafa, Communications Coordinator office: 212.714.2904 /cell: 516.448.9559 email:Zmustafa@immigrationequality.org From Immigration Equality

New York, March 20, 2008 - Peter Sprigg, vice president of policy at the Family Research Council, discussed the group's opposition to the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) saying "I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society." The following is Immigration Equality's official response to Mr. Sprigg's inflammatory statement. Statement by Rachel B. Tiven, Executive Director Immigration Equality "Unfortunately, the Family Research Council's preference to export lesbian, gay, bisexual and trangender (LGBT) Americans prevails. This policy continues to separate people who love each other, but of course Mr. Sprigg's group doesn't care about that. ...................

was it innocent curiosity?

me? i don't think so
Ex-Inspector General: 'Nefarious political purpose' behind Obama passport file breach?
David Edwards
The State Department says it is trying to determine whether three contract workers had a political motive for looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport file.
Two of the employees were fired for the security breach and the third was disciplined but is still working, the department said Thursday night. It would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined or the names of the two companies for which they worked. The department's inspector general is investigating.
Clark Kent Ervin, a CNN security analyst and former State Department Inspector General, told CNN that the facts surrounding the breach of Obama's passport files point to a political motivation..........
.............Ervin continued, "According to the state department, senior managers learned about this from a reporter and the fact that the dates in question all have some political significance, as you just pointed out suggests to me there was a political motivation for this."
Ervin was replaced by the Bush Administration in 2004, after he "issued many critical reports about the mismanagement and security flaws at the Department of Homeland Security," ABC reported.............

another wow

let's hear it for chris wallace. he ACTUALLY has a moral compass AND a sense of fairness too

Chris Wallace to Fox hosts: Two hours of Obama-bashing is enough
David Edwards and Mike Sheehan
Veteran journalist Chris Wallace admonished Fox & Friends over their characterization of a comment in which Obama referred to his grandmother as a "typical white person."
"I love you guys, but I want to take you to task if I may respectfully for a moment," Wallace began. "I have been watching the show..., and it seems to me that two hours of Obama-bashing on this 'typical white person' remark is somewhat excessive, and frankly, I think you're somewhat distorting what Obama had to say." As the F&F hosts began grinning and shifting around in their seats, Wallace continued, "What he said was, 'The point I was making was not that my [grandmother] harbors any racial animosity--she doesn't--but she is a typical white person...,'" which is where you generally have clipped it."..............

wow

another one left the darkside and came into the light!
Dick Cheney's Error
It's Government By the People
By Mickey Edwards
For at least six years, as I've become increasingly frustrated by the Bush administration's repeated betrayal of constitutional -- and conservative -- principles, I have defended Vice President Cheney, a man I've known for decades and with whom I served and made common cause in Congress. No longer.
I do not blame Dick Cheney for George W. Bush's transgressions; the president needs no prompting to wrap himself in the cloak of a modern-day king. Nor do I believe that the vice president so enthusiastically supports the Iraq war out of a loyalty to the oil industry that his former employer serves. By all accounts, Cheney's belief in "the military option" and the principle of president-as-decider predates his affiliation with Halliburton.
What, then, is the straw that causes me to finally consign a man I served with in the House Republican leadership to the category of "those about whom we should be greatly concerned"? .......

more kbr in the news

NOT good news as usual. no 24 year old us service member should die in iraq. no 24 year old us service member should die in iraq because he or she WAS ELECTROCUTED WHILE SHOWERING
i don't know about you, but i had not heard this before
href="http://rawstory.com/news/mochila/Soldier_electrocutions_probed_in_Ir_03202008.html">Soldier electrocutions probed in Iraq
House Panel Investigating Electrocutions in Iraq, Including Pa. Soldier Killed While Showering
RAMESH SANTANAM
A U.S. House committee chairman has begun an investigation into the electrocutions of at least 12 service members in Iraq, including that of a Pittsburgh soldier killed in January by a jolt of electricity while showering. Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Wednesday he has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to hand over documents relating to the management of electrical systems at facilities in Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, died Jan. 2 of cardiac arrest after being electrocuted while showering at his barracks in Baghdad.
Also Wednesday, Maseth's parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Allegheny County Court against KBR Inc., the Houston-based contractor responsible for maintaining Maseth's barracks.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages and costs, alleges that KBR allowed U.S. troops to continue using electrical systems "which KBR knew to be dangerous and knew had caused prior instances of electrocution."........

that's right

if you ignore the numbers, they'll go away. if you pretend 3,992 people didn't die, well then, they didn't die

on my way home from work the other day, i heard a mom being interviewed. her son was killed in action in iraq. the interviewer asked what she thought of the war, if we should stay there, ete.

the woman said she supported us being there and wanted us to stay until we won. she went on to say we BELONGED there because of 9-11. we BELONGED there so we could sleep safely at night. while i am so very sorry for her loss, i just wanted her to realize iraq had NOTHING NOTHING AND NOTHING to do with 9-11. iraq had NOTHING to do with wanting to attack us (THEN, now it's a different story. wouldn't YOU want to attack a country who invaded US without any reason?).

what are we fighting for?
Bellingham war dead billboard brings praise, threats
By ROB PIERCY / KING 5 News
BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Nearly five years after putting up a controversial billboard that keeps a running tally of U.S. soldier deaths in Iraq, the owner says it's staying up despite vandalism and threats.
Each morning starts with a grim ritual for Rob Queisser, looking at the number of soldiers killed – a number that, according to polls, fewer and fewer Americans can name.
"I just don't know how you can overlook that everyday," said Queisser.
So, he made it his duty to keep people informed by building the homemade billboard in his yard that he updates daily.........

kettle kettle kettle!!!

look who's calling someone else A F**KING HATE-MONGER. what stones
hey sally, GO BACK UNDER TO WHEREVER YOU CRAWLED OUT FROM
Anti-gay Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern retains legal counsel
by Nick Langewis
In an escalating public battle over anti-gay comments made at a secretly taped speech, the conservative Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Michigan announced on Wednesday that it has agreed to represent Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern in any legal cases arising from the controversy.
"Representative Kern expressed her concern that the homosexual agenda was destroying our nation, and that young school children were being indoctrinated into believing that the homosexual 'life style' is normal," said a Thomas More Law Center news release on Wednesday. "Her comments caused some of the nation’s largest homosexual groups to target her for political annihilation."
"Representative Kern will not back down, regardless of the attempted hate-mongering intimidation by these national homosexual advocacy groups," added the firm's President and Chief Counsel Richard Thompson of the "courageous Christian woman." "Their actions are right out of a play-book developed by radical homosexual activists in the 1980s to manipulate and intimidate the majority of Americans into accepting the normalcy of the homosexual life style. (sic)"..........

on the off chance you've not seen (well HEARD) the video, i've re-posted it

boo!!!

just saw this on the news and i'm not the least bit surprised
The Dog Who Helped A Boy To Speak
After Six Years Of Silence, Marc Met Boo And Opened Up
CBS) Every kid in Penny Weiser's first-grade class is capable of making noise. Marc Oliviere had just chosen not to. "Lovely little guy. Seemed, you know, happy to be in school. And he was not talking," Weiser told CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman. It's actually not uncommon for some kids to clam up at school. It's called "selective mutism." But this was different. "How was school? Nothing," Marc's mom, April said. He didn't talk at home, either. "Where would you like to go today? Nothing," she said. Not ever. For six years. It was six years and barely a peep, even though doctors could find nothing medially wrong with the child. Everyone was at wit's end, until one day last December when Marc came home from school looking like he was about to burst. "So I look at little Marc and I say, 'Marc, do you want to tell me something?'" his mom said. "And out comes, 'Boo!'" That's right. "Boo." ...........

thursday humor

well not exactly funny in a ha ha way, but sure as shite funny in the OTHER way. again, it's not so much that this happened (and IS happening as i write this), what gets me the maddest is, NOW WE ALL KNOW this is happening
1) are we going to fire these epa scientists with DIRECT TIES to big bid-nez/chemical companies
2) are we going to allow this to CONTINUE
3) are we going to hold someone's hand to the flame on this?

no
no
no
most likely

Lawmakers Probe EPA Conflicts
By H. JOSEF HEBERT –
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee opened an investigation Monday into potential conflicts of interest in scientific panels that advise the Environmental Protection Agency.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the case of eight scientists who were consultants or members of EPA science advisory panels assessing the human health effects of toxic chemicals while getting research support from the chemical industry on the same chemicals they were examining.
In two cases, EPA advisers were employed by companies that made or worked with manufacturers of the chemicals being evaluated. the committee said.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, said such conflicts appear to be in stark contrast to EPA's decision last summer to remove a public health scientist and expert in toxicology, from a panel examining the health impacts of a flame retardant because of critical comments she made about the chemical.
The American Chemistry Council, the industry trade group, had called for the removal of Deborah Rice, a toxicologist from Maine, as chairman of an independent EPA panel assessing the health risks from "deca", a flame retardant in electronic equipment, after she urged the Maine state legislature to ban the chemical.
"The routine use of chemical industry employees and representatives in EPA's scientific review process, together with EPA's dismissal of Dr. Rice raises serious questions with regard to EPA's conflict of interest rules and their application," said Dingell in a letter Monday to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.
Rice, an employee of Maine's Department of Health and Human Services, was never alleged to have any monetary interest associated with deca and her dismissal "seems to argue that scientific expertise ... is a basis for disqualification," the letter continued.
"We will be reviewing the letter and we will respond appropriately," said EPA spokesman Timothy Lyons.......

...........Among the appointments questioned:
_ An employee of Exxon Mobil Corp., who served on an expert panel assessing the cancer-causing potential of ethylene oxide, a chemical also made by Exxon Mobil.
_ A participant in a panel examining the risk to humans from a widely used octane enhancer in gasoline, who was employed by an engineering company working with makers of the chemical and major oil and chemical companies.
_ A scientist who served on a panel examining the health impacts of ethylene oxide, a component in various industrial chemicals, who received research support from Dow Agro, one of the chemicals' manufacturers........

linda milazzo is right on the mark

the media is ALL OVER roger clemens testimony. they're all over certain celebutards EVERY move. they are ALL over who is zooming who. if you walk down a busy street full of pedestrians and you ask them
1) do you know who anna nicole was?
and then you ask them
2) do you know what winter soldiers are all about

they will say YES to one of them and give you a blank stare at the other.

what the f**k is wrong with us?

Corporate Media Ignored Winter Soldier. Senators Biden & Kerry - Will YOU??
Corporate owned networks and cable TV are private for profit enterprises driven by MONEY -- not by truth. Network and cable "news" is private for profit infotainment driven by MONEY -- not by truth. Delivering truth and educating viewers are not the goals of corporate media. Increasing viewership, attracting advertisers, and cronyism are. Even when reporting the invasion of Iraq, corporate media mitigates or inflames the story to advance its selfish goals.
Were presenting the truth and enlightening the populace the intent of corporate media, the March 13th through March 16th Winter Soldier Tribunal would have been televised. Instead, it was ignored. Were it not for independent media like Free Speech TV and Pacifica Radio (which broadcast the original Winter Soldier tribunal in 1971), and internet streaming via the Iraq Veterans Against the War website (ivaw.org), there would have been a total blackout of the live testimonials of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. If corporate media had employed the professionalism and integrity of New Media, it would have broadcast Winter Soldier, whereby a larger audience would have witnessed revelatory testimony by over 100 impassioned heroes.................

my NEW favorite song, ken lee

from bulgarian idol (note: i am PROUD to say i've NEVER watched american idol. NEVER, not once. i am in pain because i cannot get the feed for bulgarian idol, which, i would watch 24/7 IF I COULD). also note, SHE'S SINGING IN ENGLISH



(hat tip to bifurcated rivets

if you were wondering what the big dick is up to

here it is
Asked about two thirds of Americans' opposition to war, Cheney says, 'So?' - Vice President fishing on Oman sultan's yacht Wednesday
John Byrne
On the fifth anniversary of President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, President Bush said he has no doubts about waging the unpopular war despite the "high cost in lives and treasure."
Vice President Dick Cheney had a different message. Informed during a Good Morning America interview broadcast Wednesday that two-thirds of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, Cheney said: "So?"
"So you don't care what the American people think?" ABC's Martha Raddatz asked.
He added: "I think we cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations of the public opinion polls. There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That's a huge accomplishment."..........
....................The Vice President is in Oman. Today, he went fishing in the waters between Oman and Iran, borrowing the Sultan of Oman's 60-foot royal yacht.
A Cheney spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the vice president, his wife Lynne, and daughter, Liz, a former State Department official who is traveling with her father as a private citizen, headed out under sunny skies into the Gulf of Oman on "Kingfish I," owned by Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
Cheney has had a personal relationship with the sultan going back to the time when the vice president was defense secretary, but the sultan did not go along on the fishing trip...............

just wanted to post the lead article in today's wapo

because i sit here in disbelief. not that it was written and published, but because we allowed a bunch of madmen (and CONTINUE to allow them) to do this to not only us, but millions of others including innocents
On War's Anniversary, Bush Cites Progress
'Strategic Victory' Is Near, He Asserts

By Dan EggenWashington Post Staff Writer
President Bush sought yesterday to convince a skeptical public that the United States is on the cusp of winning the war in Iraq, arguing in a speech at the Pentagon that the recent buildup of U.S. forces has stabilized that country and "opened the door to a major strategic victory in the war on terror."
Vice President Cheney said separately that it does not matter whether the public supports a continued U.S. presence in Iraq, and he likened Bush's leadership to that of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
After a reporter cited polls showing that two-thirds of Americans oppose the Iraq war, Cheney responded: "So?"
"I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls," he added in an interview in Oman with ABC News. "There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better."
The confident remarks came on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, marking a concerted effort by the administration to highlight progress at a time when most Americans remain opposed to the venture. .........

makes TOTAL sense to me

if you don't count 'em, THEY DON'T COUNT

What is the real death toll in Iraq?
The Americans learned one lesson from Vietnam: don't count the civilian dead. As a result, no one knows how many Iraqis have been killed in the five years since the invasion. Estimates put the toll at between 100,000 and one million, and now a bitter war of numbers is raging. Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg reportInteractive: Iraq - five years on
Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian,
Wednesday March 19 2008

Lieutenant General Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan during his time as head of US Central Command, once announced, "We don't do body counts." This blunt response to a question about civilian casualties was an attempt to distance George Bush's wars from the disaster of Vietnam. One of the rituals of that earlier conflict was the daily announcement of how many Vietnamese fighters US forces had killed. It was supposed to convince a sceptical American public that victory was coming. But the "body count" concept sounded callous - and never more so than when it emerged that many of the alleged guerrilla dead were in fact women, children and other unarmed civilians.
Iraq was going to be different. The US would count its own dead (now close to 4,000), but the toll the war was taking on Iraqis was not a matter the Pentagon or any other US government department intended to quantify. Especially once Bush had declared "mission accomplished" on May 1 2003 - after that, every new Iraqi who died by violence would be a signal that the president was wrong, and would show that a war conducted in the name of humanitarian intervention was exacting a mounting humanitarian toll of its own.
But even though the Americans were not counting, people were dying, and every victim had a name and a family. Wedding parties were bombed by US planes, couples driving home at night were shot at checkpoints because they missed a flashlight warning them to stop, and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were killed for no legitimate cause. In just the last three weeks of April 2003, after Saddam's statue and his regime were toppled, US forces killed at least 266 civilians - a pattern of overeager resort to fire which has continued to this day. .......

his words

hoodoo voodoo

nope, it's NOT a leon russell song. it's the song of an ELECTED united states congresswoman. what does she think? she thinks global warming is a myth. we elect 'em. we deserve what we get

Bachmann on: McCain, global warming and the media
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Stillwater, opened up to the West Sherburne Tribune on Saturday on a host of subjects.
On Republican presidental candidate John McCain:
"He is not my man," she said. "Our candidate was chosen by the media. But there are other races out there."On the "global warming hoax":
"The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It's all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax," Bachmann said. "The tax cap and trade system for limiting emissions is just another tax on businesses. By 2012, incandescent light bulbs will be no more. Fluorescent bulbs are more polluting because of their mercury content. We are working on the light bulb bill. If the Democrats can hose up a light bulb don't trust them with the country." ........

from pbs on march 24th

bush's war

from

frontline
From the horror of 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq; the truth about WMD to the rise of an insurgency; the scandal of Abu Ghraib to the strategy of the surge -- for six years, FRONTLINE has revealed the defining stories of the war on terror in meticulous detail, and the political dramas that played out at the highest levels of power and influence.
Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga unfolds in the two-part FRONTLINE special Bush's War, airing Monday, March 24, from 9 to 11:30 P.M. and Tuesday, March 25, 2008, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings). Veteran producer Michael Kirk (The Torture Question, The Dark Side) draws on one of the richest archives in broadcast journalism -- more than 40 FRONTLINE reports on the war on terror. Combined with fresh reporting and new interviews, Bush's War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation's history.

arthur c. clarke - open the pod bay doors HAL

a man. a visionary. a writer
Arthur C. Clarke; Sci-Fi Writer Foresaw Mankind's Possibilities

By Patricia Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer
Arthur C. Clarke, 90, the world-famous science-fiction writer, futurist and unofficial poet laureate of the space age, died of a respiratory ailment March 18 at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Mr. Clarke co-wrote, with director Stanley Kubrick, the screenplay for "2001: A Space Odyssey," which is regarded by many as one of the most important science fiction films made. A prolific writer, with more than 100 published books, he was praised for his ability to foresee the possibilities of human innovation and explain them to non-scientific readers.
The most famous example is from 1945, when he first proposed the idea of communications satellites that could be based in geostationary orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground. ,,,,,,,,,,,,

Arthur C. Clarke: The Wired Words

By Lewis Wallace

Arthur C. Clarke, the award-winning sci-fi writer and futurist most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, died Wednesday in Sri Lanka. He was 90.
His writing, both fiction and nonfiction, established Clarke as a visionary during the last half of the 20th century. In a paper titled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?" published in 1945, Clarke floated the idea of using geosynchronous satellites for communications long before such technology changed our world. (Geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke orbit.)
That's just one of the many innovative concepts Clark is credited with unleashing. From the electrosecretary transcription machine to the space elevator, Clarke laid out his visionary ideas in more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books.
Despite his track record as a futurist, Clarke remained humble about his work when he was interviewed for a 1993 Q&A with Wired magazine. Over the years, the writer and his bold ideas were featured several times in the publication.
"I've never predicted the future," Clarke said in that first interview. "Or hardly ever. I extrapolate. Look, I've written six stories about the end of the Earth; they can't all be true!"...........

Top Photo: Arthur C. Clarke holds a copy of his book Exploration of Space at a home in Washington, D.C., in this 1952 AP file photo.

clueless

NO, NOT the movie. our king. he's clueless. it would be funny if people weren't hungry and freezing.

(he says unemployment is low? didn't i just read a major airline is offering 30,000 of it's employees severance? yes, i did)

Bush Maintains Cautious Optimism on Economy
President Emphasizes Low Unemployment, Flexible Markets


By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., March 18 -- President Bush urged Americans on Tuesday to keep in mind the "anchors" of low unemployment and flexibility in the U.S. economy, even as the Federal Reserve announced a historic rate cut in another bold attempt to stave off a possible market crisis.
Stopping at the Jacksonville Port Authority between Republican fundraising stops in Florida, Bush continued to sound a theme of measured concern amid the events that have shaken financial confidence in recent days. He acknowledged "challenging" times but insisted that "we're going to be just fine" in the end.
"The key is to recognize problems and to act early, which is what we've done," Bush said, adding later: "If there needs to be further action, we'll take it." .............

act EARLY? yeah, just like acting EARLY on global warming. i guess it doesn't matter if we all are up shite's creek. the world is going to implode anyway

we the people

WASHINGTON - MARCH 18: Anti-war activists from the group Code Pink and affiliated organizations protest outside the U.S. Capitol March 18, 2008 in Washington, DC. The protest highlighted an "Action Day to Take Back the Constitution", one day before the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) (Win McNamee -- Getty Images)

the nutmeg grater: Raymond Bechard, connecticut cool person of the week#links#links

the nutmeg grater: Raymond Bechard, connecticut cool person of the week#links#links

the big dick in iraq

as rome baghdad burns
Cheney cites 'phenomenal' Iraqi security progress as bombing kills 40
By Hannah Allam and Qassim Zein McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD — Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday made a surprise visit to Baghdad, where he pledged that U.S. forces would "not quit before the job is done" and said that a massive troop buildup had achieved "phenomenal" improvements in security.
At sunset Monday, however, a female suicide bomber killed at least 40 people and injured more than 50 when she blew herself up in a crowded pedestrian area near a Shiite Muslim shrine in the southern holy city of Karbala, according to government and hospital officials. Among the victims were several Iranian pilgrims who'd come to worship at the Imam Hussein shrine, one of Islam's most sacred sites.
And the U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers who were killed Monday when their Humvee struck a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, bringing the number of American troop deaths to at least 3,990 since the war began.
Cheney told a news conference in Baghdad that the invasion of Iraq five years ago this week was a "difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor." However, he said that obstacles remain and that the decision on whether to begin reducing forces depends on political reconciliation and the ability to preserve the hard-won security gains of the past year.........

the truth, the whole truth

and nothing BUT the truth. it's NOT what we're getting mind you

kristol-issues-a-correction-i-regret-the-error

In his New York Times column today, Bill Kristol asserted that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) “was in fact in the pews” when pastor Jeremiah Wright blamed the “arrogance” of the “United States of White America” for much of the world’s suffering. As Marc Ambinder pointed out, this claim was false; Obama was on his way to campaign in Miami. Kristol has now printed a (misspelled) correction in the online version of his column:
In this column, I cite a report that Sen. Obama had attended services at Trinity Church on July 22, 2007. The Obama camapaign [sic] has provided information showing that Sen. Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error.
This is the second time that Kristol has had to issue a correction to his NYT column since it began in early January..........

pick up the latest issue of the new yorker

(i haven't read one in AGES i must admit). in the march 24th issue you'll find an article on abu ghraib

it states things we already know. things we won't admit though. (the WE in this part is king george and his administration and all else who ALLOW them to get away with crimes against humanity).
i've said it a MILLION times. when OUR prisoners are mistreated we call their jailers and torturers savages and much worse. when WE do it, we're patriots? no. WE'RE savages just like THEY are. it's NOT the 'little people' the army reservists that are guilty here (well yes but they are MINOR players). it's the BIG BOYZ. we must have justice. we must have truth. we must remain HUMAN BEINGS.
New Yorker: Abu Ghraib abuses were 'de facto US policy'
Nick Juliano
Photographer wanted to expose 'what the military was allowing to happen'
Some of the most iconic images of the Iraq war came not from photojournalists on the front lines, but US soldiers carrying point-and-shoot digital cameras. In its latest issue, the New Yorker profiles the woman who snapped many of the photos depicting abuse at Abu Ghraib prison that the same magazine revealed nearly four years ago.
Like many of the soldiers in charge of the detained Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, Sabrina Harman had little experience running a prison. As Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris report, she and others in her Army Reserve unit didn't stick out at the prison, "where almost nothing was run according to military doctrine."
The low-ranking reservist soldiers who took and appeared in the infamous images were singled out for opprobrium and punishment; they were represented, in government reports, in the press, and before courts-martial, as rogues who acted out of depravity. Yet the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy. The authorization of torture and the decriminalization of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of captives in wartime have been among the defining legacies of the current Administration; and the rules of interrogation that produced the abuses documented on the M.I. [Military Intelligence] block in the fall of 2003 were the direct expression of the hostility toward international law and military doctrine that was found in the White House, the Vice-President's office, and at the highest levels of the Justice and Defense Departments.............

uniform standards?

my big fat ass! we not only DEMAND uniform standards, we DEMAND innocent people be left off that list. we DEMAND our constitution right to privacy. we DEMAND no warrantless wiretaps. we DEMAND truth, justice and the AMERICAN WAY

we DEMAND those responsible for our loss of rights and the shredding of our constitution be brought up on charges
Reports Cite Lack of Uniform Policy for Terrorist Watch List

By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer
Almost seven years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government is still struggling to establish a uniform procedure to put people on its master watch list of known or suspected terrorists, according to two government reports out this month.
The reports' findings come after criticism from privacy advocates that problems with the watch list hamper the government's ability to identify terrorists and do not ensure that innocent Americans are not included.
A inspector general's report for the office of the Director of National Intelligence found that "the nomination processes and procedures vary across the intelligence community, causing inconsistencies and disproportionate responsibilities in making nominations," according to spokesman Ross Feinstein.
A report issued yesterday by the Justice Department's inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, came to much the same conclusion regarding the FBI and six partner agencies. ......

i was running around yesterday morning

doing a few errands before going to my regular sunday brunch with friends. i was only in my car a few minutes here and there.

i didn't hear the WHOLE story but on npr i heard something that boiled that anger up in me again. the reporter/announcer was telling the story of a WOUNDED iraq vet. he was wounded by an ied while trying to rescue others who were also wounded by an ied. the shrapnel came up through his vehicle into his tailbone and part of his spine and intestinal tract. he had to have part of his intestines removed. want to know what happened? the military classified him as NOT BEING DISABLED ENOUGH BECAUSE HE ONLY HAD AN ULCER. yes, i'm serious.

the npr story was on attorneys, private attorneys VOLUNTEERING to help iraq vets fight the military to get THE BENEFITS THEY DESERVE. here's a link to the audio of the story (which i'm going to finish listening to) as well as a couple of other stories

Private Attorneys Fight for Disabled Veterans
by Ari Shapiro

yup, it's working all right

the surge, the invasion, everything. it's working BUT ONLY IN THE MINDS OF A BUNCH OF F**KING MADMEN
Bleak picture of Iraq conditions
Millions of Iraqis have little or no access to clean water, sanitation and healthcare, five years after the US-led invasion, according to the Red Cross.
The Swiss-based agency says Iraq's humanitarian situation is "among the most critical in the world".
It warned that despite better security in some areas, millions had been left essentially to fend for themselves.
Some families spend a third of their average monthly wage of $150 (£75) just buying clean water, the report found.
'Worse than ever'
An even worse humanitarian crisis in Iraq will only be averted if much more attention is paid to the everyday needs of Iraqi citizens, the report by the International Committee of the Red Cross said. Healthcare in Iraq was "now in worse shape than ever" and the services that are available are too expensive for many people, the report said. ......

Welcome to Pottersville: An “Outstanding Job”: Forty Years Later

Welcome to Pottersville: An “Outstanding Job”: Forty Years Later

here is a link

to the stories of the winter soldier in iraq

Winter Soldier: America Must Hear These Iraq Vets' Stories

If America listens to what they say, the war would be over tomorrow.

a commenter left the following link

on oil. thanks media mentions

A Crude Case For War?
By Steven Mufson
It's hard to miss the point of the "Blood for Oil" Web site. It features one poster of an American flag with "Blood for oil?" in white block letters where the stars should be and two dripping red handprints across the stripes. Another shows a photo of President Bush with a thin black line on his upper lip. "Got oil?" the headline asks wryly.
Five years after the United States invaded Iraq, plenty of people believe that the war was waged chiefly to secure U.S. petroleum supplies and to make Iraq safe -- and lucrative -- for the U.S. oil industry.
We may not know the real motivations behind the Iraq war for years, but it remains difficult to distill oil from all the possibilities. That's because our society and economy have been nursed on cheap oil, and the idea that oil security is a right as well as a necessity has become part of our foreign policy DNA, handed down from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush. And the war and its untidy aftermath have, in fact, swelled the coffers of the world's biggest oil companies.
But it hasn't happened in the way anyone might have imagined. .............

cheap housing

Newspaper House

London, England, United Kingdom, March 8, 2008—Passersby inspect a home made of newspapers in London's Gillett Square. The structure, an art installation called "Newspaper House," is the handiwork of a group of artists who wanted to demonstrate the waste created by the city's voluminous free-newspaper circulation. The artists erected a frame for the construction and then invited citizens to contribute their used newspapers.

i like THIS version better

(shout out to boing boing

oil

it's why WE'RE there (one of the reasons. one of the MAIN reasons. weapons of mass destruction is not even on the list of reasons. another reason we're there is our king holds grudges. long and bad ones. he's a madman) - and it's why THEY are there too
NYT: Stolen oil profits keep Iraq's insurgency running
While many US officials and politicians routinely point to jihadism or Islamofascism as key motivating factors for Iraq's insurgency, a growing number of officers on the ground are blaming economic conditions instead, according to an article slated for the front page of Sunday's New York Times.
Richard A. Oppel Jr. reports that "there are officers in the U.S. military who openly question how much a role jihadism plays in the minds of most people who carry out attacks. As the U.S. occupation has worn on and unemployment has remained high, these officers say the overwhelming motivation of insurgents is the need to earn a paycheck."........
and the nyt article
Iraq Insurgency Runs on Stolen Oil Profits
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
BAIJI, Iraq — The Baiji refinery, with its distillation towers rising against the Hamrin Mountains, may be the most important industrial site in the Sunni Arab-dominated regions of Iraq. On a good day, 500 tanker trucks will leave the refinery filled with fuel with a street value of $10 million. The sea of oil under Iraq is supposed to rebuild the nation, then make it prosper. But at least one-third, and possibly much more, of the fuel from Iraq’s largest refinery here is diverted to the black market, according to American military officials. Tankers are hijacked, drivers are bribed, papers are forged and meters are manipulated — and some of the earnings go to insurgents who are still killing more than 100 Iraqis a week.
“It’s the money pit of the insurgency,” said Capt. Joe Da Silva, who commands several platoons stationed at the refinery.
Five years after .........

this story takes place in maryland

but it's the same in connecticut. my 82 year old father got an oil (heating) bill for $728.00. how are people (working families and like my father, the elderly and retired) supposed to pay that? his electric bill went way up as well.

how can we all afford 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 utility bills? how much longer do you think this is going to go on? i mean how much longer before we all STOP paying our bills because we CANNOT.
(king george has to pay his bills for the crawford ranch, no? doesn't he see we're all f**ked?)
The Power Drain
THE PINCH AT HOME Many Residents Stung By High Cost of Utilities

By Kirstin Downey Washington Post Staff Writer
George Mann, an $18-an-hour grocery store clerk in Waldorf, found himself trembling last month as he wrote the check to pay his $644 electricity bill. Still financially recovering from a $549 electricity bill in January, Mann said he noticed he was "shaking" as he paid the bill, full of anxiety about how he would find the money to pay other household expenses for the three-bedroom rambler where he lives with his wife and four children.
"When they deregulated the market, there was supposed to be competition and prices were supposed to go down," he said. "But why did the bills go in the opposite direction?"
That is a question being echoed in households across the region, particularly as heating bills rise in the coldest months of the year. .............