boy am i stupid (yeah i know i stepped into that one)

i didn't know shooting wolves with a high powered rifle from the comfort of an airplane was one of the CORE REASONS this country was founded. boy do I FEEL FOOLISH NOW (special shout out to rep miller on this one!)

Lawmaker seeks to ban all wolf hunting from aircraft

By Erika Bolstad McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Alaska hasn’t done its part to observe a 35-year-old federal ban on hunting wolves from aircraft, said a California lawmaker who has filed legislation that will end the practice.
With an Arctic grey wolf named Atka at his side, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., introduced a bill Tuesday that bans wolf hunting from planes or helicopter. The legislation will close a loophole in the 1972 Airborne Hunting Act that has allowed the state of Alaska to issue permits to shoot and kill nearly 700 wolves from airplanes over the past four years, Miller said. ...

..........“This bill is another deliberate attempt by radicals to federalize our country and defy the core principles upon which it was founded,” Young said. “States have the inherent right to manage their own wildlife populations. For the federal government to step in to one particular state is on par with a selective dictatorship, and as a population, we should be fearful that those in power are actively working to make this a reality.”.......

picture: www.hickerphoto.com/.../40/arctic_wolf_sc5.jpg

ratso rizzo OUT

well that's no fair to fatso. i LIKED him

White House Drops Choice for CIA Lawyer

By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House withdrew its nominee to become the CIA's top lawyer on Tuesday after Democrats raised concerns that the agency's interrogation techniques may be illegal.
The president sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee informing it of the decision to withdraw the nomination of John Rizzo to be the CIA's general counsel. The panel had been expected to consider Rizzo's nomination at a hearing Tuesday afternoon.
Rizzo, currently serving as the CIA's interim general counsel, told a Senate panel in June that he did not object to a 2002 memo authorizing interrogation techniques that stop just short of inflicting pain equal to that accompanying organ failure or even death.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who led the opposition to Rizzo, called him the wrong man for the job. .........

dumbass

but then again we all knew that already. and we're not doing a damn thing about it either

Bush's UN Speech Full of Fone-eh-tick Pronunciations for World Leaders
ABC News' Ann Compton and Jennifer Duck report: Never before has the White House released a draft version of the President's speech to the annual United Nations General Assembly.
But this year, a glimpse of how the President sees his speeches was accidentally placed on the UN website along with the speechwriters' cell phone numbers.
Pronunciations for President Bush's friend French President Sarkozy "[sar-KOzee]" appeared in draft #20 on the UN website. Other pronunciations included the Mugabe "[moo-GAHbee] regime" and pronunciations for countries "Kyrgyzstan [KEYRgeez-stan]" and "Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a]." Most leaders submit a text in advance, especially to help the many translators who simultaneously turn the speeches into more than half a dozen languages. The teleprompter also needs to be loaded with a copy of the President's words so it will appear on glass screens in front of the lectern.
The Bush White House is unaccustomed to providing advanced texts suitable for reporters to publish before he actually speaks. ...........

thank you oh great goddess

i'm shocked BUT in a GOOD way. i never thought in a million years, he'd be convicted (i didn't know who a jury of his 'peers' were). this man HAS to pay. he's NOT god nor a MESSENGER of god either. he's nothing more than a madman

US polygamist sect leader guilty of rape charges

The leader of a polygamist sect in Utah was on Tuesday found guilty of rape charges stemming from the marriage of a 14-year-old girl against her will to a cousin.
Warren Jeffs, 51, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which broke from the Mormon Church because of differences over polygamy, was convicted on two charges of acting as an accomplice to rape.
Jeffs, a self-proclaimed prophet whose followers believe he is descended from Jesus Christ, was arrested in August last year outside of Las Vegas after being included on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list.
Prosecutors at his trial in St. George, Utah, 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City, said Jeffs was guilty because he had ordered the girl to get married and have sex with her cousin despite her objections........

seems like on top of everything else

the guns we supply our troops aren't functioning as they should. why?

PBS: Weapons of US soldiers in Iraq 'plagued with problems'
David Edwards and Greg Wasserstrom
The M-16, the choice rifle of the United States Armed Forces, turns 50 years old this month and is still plagued by many of the same problems it had half a century ago, putting American troops in Iraq at a severe disadvantage when it comes to small arms combat, the PBS program Newshour reported tonight.
"That AK-74 outhits the M-16 by two to one on full automatic," said Jim Sullivan, referring to the Russian-made assault rifle, now in its third generation. "And the reason there were 100 million AK's made wasn't to equip the Russian army - it was to give [to] our Third World opponents. The United States can't win ground wars anymore."........

rep waxman, you are surprised

ccoonnddii is interfering with your investigation into corruption? you're surprised the white house is too? i like you rep waxman. i like your stones (see previous story). i like your chutzpah. i like your mind. but c'mon, you're shocked THEY are like a cat and trying to cover up their shite? c'mon.....

House Panel Says Rice Is Hindering Its Work
Blackwater, Corruption in Iraq at Issue


By Karen DeYoungWashington Post Staff Writer
An ongoing battle between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a House committee investigating Iraqi government corruption and the activities of the Blackwater security firm erupted into another skirmish yesterday as Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) accused Rice of interfering with the committee's work and preventing administration and Blackwater officials from providing pertinent information.
In the latest of a series of exchanges, Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote Rice to urge that she "reconsider the unusual positions you are taking." Congress has a "constitutional prerogative" to look into the issues, he wrote, and she is "wrong to interfere with the Committee's inquiry."
State Department spokesman Tom Casey cited a "misunderstanding" on Waxman's part. "All information requested by the committee has been or is in the process of being provided," he said. ...........

npr has stones

why don't our congress and our senate? i can't answer that. i CAN vote though

NPR Rebuffs White House On Bush Talk
Radio Network Wanted To Choose Its Interviewer

By Howard Kurtz Post Staff Writer
The White House reached out to National Public Radio over the weekend, offering analyst Juan Williams a presidential interview to mark yesterday's 50th anniversary of school desegregation in Little Rock.
But NPR turned down the interview, and Williams's talk with Bush wound up in a very different media venue: Fox News. Williams said yesterday he was "stunned" by NPR's decision. "It makes no sense to me. President Bush has never given an interview in which he focused on race. . . . I was stunned by the decision to turn their backs on him and to turn their backs on me." ......

repent, do your duty

even though you are only 14 or 15 (or goddess knows how YOUNG), spread your legs for your new (AND OLDER) 'husband'.

jeffs and everyone like him need to be locked up for good. taken off of the streets. it hasn't happened yet. whole towns are run by people with these beliefs. mayors and law enforcement and owners of hardware stores.....................

well after all it's ONLY a grrrl child isn't it?

Polygamy and Forced Sex in the Name of God

By Ellen Goodman, Washington Post Writers Group.

............To hear the alleged victim, known only as Jane Doe, describe her marriage is to be as deeply saddened as the jury was. After resisting Jeffs' order to marry her 19-year-old first cousin, she found herself at the altar, head hanging, forcing out the words, "OK, I do." After refusing sex, she went back to Jeffs for counsel and was told to "repent," to "do your duty," and be "obedient." And so the girl who didn't know what sex was or where children came from says she was forced to submit to her husband.
Did this teenager make her own choice? We forget how the rules governing consent have changed. Conflicting state laws now navigate between a girl's sexual maturity and her vulnerability. In many states, including Utah, a girl can marry with her parents' permission at a younger age than she can have sex.
But this case raises a different question about consent. How much power did the religious leader wield over the 14-year-old? If you refused to marry the chosen husband, Doe testified, you would "lose your chance at salvation." How could she refuse to obey the husband who was "my ticket into heaven"?...............

ok, i have an idea for king george

how to at least give social security a jolt. it isn't rocket science (by the way, i almost 'had relations' with a rocket scientist a while ago. it didn't work out. not to worry, HE'S fine)

no increase in taxes, no social security cuts (how can the elderly LIVE on what they're getting now especially if there is no pension money involved too????). and the king wants to CUT FUNDS? no no no. i know where we can snip some dollars...........
BRING OUR MEN AND WOMEN HOME FROM IRAQ. STOP SQUANDERING OUR MONEY ON COMPOUNDS IN IRAQ. STOP SQUANDERING OUR MONEY ON NEFARIOUS GROUPS LIKE BLACKWATER AND HALLIBURTON.

Bush administration urges Social Security cuts
Treasury: Fix requires benefit changes, tax increases, which Bush opposes
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said in a new report Monday that Social Security is facing a $13.6 trillion shortfall and that delaying needed reforms is not fair to younger workers.
A report issued by the Treasury Department said that some combination of benefit cuts and tax increases will need to be considered to permanently fix the funding shortfall. But White House officials stressed that President Bush remains opposed to raising taxes.
The Treasury report put the cost of the gap between what Social Security is expected to need to pay out in benefits and what it will raise in payroll taxes in coming years at $13...............

What Is Iraq Costing You?
By Larry Beinhart, AlterNet
The War in Iraq has cost about $453 billion to date. That's pretty hard to grasp. Especially on my income and probably on yours. Let's bring that home and make it a little more understandable.
The War in Iraq has cost about $453,000,000,000 (four hundred and fifty-three billion dollars) to date.
That's pretty hard to grasp. Especially on my income and probably on yours. Let's bring that home and make it a little more understandable.
I live in Ulster County, New York. Our share of that is $372,000,000 (three hundred and seventy-two million dollars).
If you live in Los Angeles, your bill is $4,823,000,000 (four billion, eight hundred twenty-three million). Savannah, Georgia, $144,000,000. Little Rock, Arkansas, $339,000,000. That's how much you're putting in so far. It keeps ticking away at two billion dollars a week. If you live somewhere else and want to know how much it's costing your city or county, go to costofwar.com.
You might also want to do what they suggest. Imagine what could have been done with that much money. The schools, bridges, medical care, playgrounds.
What did we get for our money?........

tuesday humor posting

sometimes we just need a little laughter in our lives, no?

Vitter secures $100K for Louisiana anti-evolution group
Nick Juliano
Religous conservatives receiving funds have political ties to embattled senator
In a move ostensibly aimed at providing "better science education" in Louisiana schools, Sen. David Vitter has secured $100,000 in taxpayer dollars to fund an anti-evolution effort spearheaded by a religious group politically connected to the alleged prostitute-soliciting Republican.
Vitter secured an earmark in an upcoming labor, health and education financing bill for the Louisiana Family Forum, which The New Orleans Times Picayune reports has "taken the lead in promoting 'origins science,' which includes the possibility of divine intervention in the creation of the universe.".......

talk about people

who SHOULD be on a NO FLY list........

why was THIS dude allowed into our country when innocents cannot come here?

Live From New York, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Unreality Show
By Dana Milbank
"For hundreds of years, we've lived in friendship and brotherhood with the people of Iraq," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the National Press Club yesterday.
That's true -- as long as you don't count the little unpleasantness of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when a million people died, some by poison gas. And you'd also have to overlook 500 years of fighting during the Ottoman Empire. But never mind that: Ahmadinejad was on a roll.
"Our people are the freest people in the world," said the man whose government executes dissidents, jails academics and stones people to death.
"The freest women in the world are women in Iran," he continued, neglecting to mention that Iranian law treats a woman as half of a man. ..........

you know

whether you shoot someone in the head OR spray bullets all over their body, THEY ARE STILL DEAD. how absurd this is (well that comes well after tragic)
a MANUAL telling us what KIND of dead someone is? NO NO AND NO

What Defines a Killing as Sectarian?
U.S. Military Teams Analyze and Tally Each Civilian Death

By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer
On Sept. 1, the bullet-riddled bodies of four Iraqi men were found on a Baghdad street. Two days later, a single dead man, with one bullet in his head, was found on a different street. According to the U.S. military in Iraq, the solitary man was a victim of sectarian violence. The first four were not.
Such determinations are the building blocks for what the Bush administration has declared a downward trend in sectarian deaths and a sign that its war strategy is working. They are made by a specialized team of soldiers who spend their nights at computer terminals, sifting through data on the day's civilian victims for clues to the motivations of killers. The soldiers have a manual telling them what to look for. Signs of torture or a single shot to the head, corpses left in a "known body dump" -- as the body of the Sunni man found on Sept. 3 was -- spell sectarian violence, said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Dan Macomber, the team leader. Macomber, who has been at his job in Baghdad since February, rarely has to look it up anymore. .............

please note: the following is from may/june 2006 mother jones......
Dead Reckoning: Counting Iraq's Civilian Dead
News: Meet the men behind the Iraqi casualty numbers.
By Adam Shemper
When Hamit Dardagan leaves his flat in central London, he often feels that the people he sees around him aren’t living in the real world. “It is very strange that we are involved in a war, and things go on as if everything were normal,” he said recently. For Dardagan, a normal day is spent in a tiny home office in front of a computer screen, counting dead Iraqi civilians.
“It’s a bit like the movie Groundhog Day,” he said, his voice weary. “It just keeps repeating over and over and over. There might be new governments, new parliaments, new democracy in Iraq, but the violence just continues.” Three years ago, Dardagan, now 45, quit his job teaching computing and dedicated his nights and weekends to sifting through reports from more than 150 news sources, from Fox News to Al Jazeera, trying to determine how many innocent Iraqis were dying in the American invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. By his most current count, more than 37,000 Iraqi civilians have died since March 2003........

cool teacher

shout out to christine noah

Messages of Peace Are Blowin’ In The Wind: GMS students plant ‘Pinwheels for Peace’

by Jeff Gill
Gainesville Middle School art students spent this week learning about peace, love and understanding.They participated in an international art and literacy project, “Pinwheels for Peace,” that featured them making, then planting the windmill-like paper crafts at a fence near a school parking lot

“I wanted to teach the children about character and that it’s OK to be nice to each other,” said art teacher Christine Noah.
Students in sixth through eighth grades took part in the project, which culminated with International Day of Peace on Friday.
The students planted the pinwheels Tuesday and Wednesday, as Noah was concerned about a rainy forecast toward the end of the week.
Eighth-graders in her Visual Arts I class spent Friday morning plucking rain-splashed pinwheels out of the ground and shrubbery and off a chain-link fence.......

mary shaw has a GRAND idea

no r&r for our troops, NO R&R FOR CONGRESS

A Challenge to the U.S. Senate: If the troops must forego R and R, so should you.

by Mary Shaw
Last November, the American people voted for change. We were fed up. So we sent more Democrats to Washington with the expectation that we would finally see some positive change, some real efforts to reverse the direction in which this country has been led (and misled) over the past six years.No such luck

And now they've outdone themselves.All along, Congress has been rubberstamping Bush's misguided Iraq war policy. They fear that if they don't, they'll be accused of not supporting our troops.So now what do they do? They block legislation that would support .....

we hear what we want to hear

we listen with one ear closed. we are afraid to say the emperor has no clothes.

and i don't undestand why

Wash. Post's Murray cited flawed poll, repeated GOP claim that "the public has grown more patient on Iraq"

Summary: In a Washington Post article, Shailagh Murray wrote: "GOP Senate offices circulated the results of a Gallup poll released this week that showed 54 percent of those surveyed think [Gen. David] Petraeus's plan for removing troops is the right pace, or even too quick." However, this poll question did not explain to respondents how many troops Petraeus' plan called for removing or over what period of time this withdrawal would take place. Other polling shows that when respondents are told specifically what Petraeus recommended, the results are dramatically different.
In a September 22 Washington Post article, staff writer Shailagh Murray asserted that "Republicans sounded emboldened" during the September 21 Senate debate on the Iraq war and that they argued "[t]he public has grown more patient on Iraq ... after a report last week from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus."...........

can we say conflict of interest?

can we say illegal? can we say shady (at best)? can we say blood for oil? i know i can

Iraq Oil Deal Gets Everybody's Attention
By Michael A. Fletcher
The oil deal signed between Hunt Oil and the government in Iraq's Kurdish region earlier this month has raised eyebrows, in no small part because it appears to undercut President Bush's hope that Iraq could draft national legislation to share revenue from the country's vast oil reserves. Making the deal more curious is that it was crafted by one of the administration's staunchest supporters, Ray Hunt.
Hunt, chief executive of the Dallas-based company, has been a major fundraiser and contributor to Bush's presidential campaigns. He also serves on the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, putting him close to the latest information developed by the nation's intelligence agencies. If Hunt is signing regional oil deals in Iraq, critics ask, what does he know about the prospects for a long-stalled national oil law that others don't?
Since the deal was made public, it has drawn the ire of the Iraqi national government, which has called the agreement illegal. ......

once again it looks like

the big boys get off scott free and the soliders following ORDERS get nailed. how ugly is this?

V E R Y
do we want these sorts of actions committed? what if a child or an innocent picked up the bait? it's MORE than possible.
what are we turning into? the longer this goes on and the more we find out the more disturbed i become.
AND
the more angry i become no one is stopping this shite

U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With 'Bait'
Snipers Describe Classified Program

By Josh White and Joshua Partlow Washington Post Staff Writers
A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of "bait," such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.
The classified program was described in investigative documents related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.
"Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy," Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. "Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces." ..........

the truth about the numbers

did the msm pick this up? NOT that i saw

Exclusive: Petraeus' Sectarian Death Count Methodology
By Spencer Ackerman
In the debate over the surge, there have been a number of questions raised within the government about an important metric for understanding whether the U.S. military's strategy is succeeding -- how Multinational Force-Iraq calculates sectarian violence.
Earlier this month, David Walker of the Government Accountability Office testified that he could not "get comfortable" with General David Petraeus' methodology for determining sectarianism, considering it too inferential to be reliable. His report, echoing objections from senior intelligence officials, instead tabulated the pace of attacks on civilians and found the surge didn't appear to have a significant effect on civilian-targeted violence. However, relying on data interpreted through the MNF-I methodology, Petraeus testified that sectarian violence had fallen in Iraq to mid-2006 levels.
The actual methodology MNF-I employs has remained unknown. Until now.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request I filed two weeks ago, MNF-I has provided TPMmuckraker with its criteria for identifying ethnic and sectarian violence. We've added the methodology to our Document Collection, and you can read it here. ........

this is how i feel

and steven d said it in booman tribune better than i ever could. i just rant and rave. he writes


Some Questions for Our Democratic Leaders

by Steven DSun Sep 23rd, 2007 at 07:21:45 AM EST
I don't mean to be rude, but what the hell is going on? No impeachment proceedings, despite the Kucinich Impeachment Articles languishing in the House? A refusal to make the Republican Senators filibuster the Webb amendment that would have required a mandatory year’s rest between deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan (which wasn’t even an antiwar bill, but one crafted specifically to support the troops)? Twenty two Democratic Senators voting to condemn Moveon.org for exercising their right to free speech? No strategy for ending this war other than a vain hope to “peel away” a few “moderate” Republicans? Mealy mouthed explanations for why nothing gets done?
I'd like to support the Democratic leadership in the Senate and the House, I really would, but so far I see nothing that I can in all honesty point to as a significant action by our leadership in support of a progressive agenda. Indeed, I see the tacit acquiescence by Democrats in the suppression of voices of dissent. For example, we watched the other day as a nonviolent black peace activist (Rev. Yearwood) was brutalized by Capitol Hill Police and arrested ( and other peace activists arrested with him) merely for trying to attend an open hearing on General Petraeus' testimony without any cause or justification, and I find it hard to believe that Dem leadership could not have done something to prevent that abuse by law enforcement. We have the spectacle of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer calling out Rep. Moran and demanding he apologize for merely stating, in an interview granted to a the Jewish publication Tikkun Magazine, that AIPAC has far to much influence and power over Democratic Congressional members, influence it exercises through raw intimidation.............

you don't get it

he was VERY WELL LIKED. the fact that he killed his ex-grrrlfriend (then himself) was JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS.

her family is suffering and his family (while suffering too i'm sure), contributes to a memorial plaque for HIM

where is morality?

Paper Runs Photo of Plaque Honoring Murderer -- Protest Erupts
ERSKINE, Minn. -- Family members of a woman shot to death in 2005 by her ex-fiancee, who then killed himself, were upset to learn that he's been honored with a plaque in a city softball park.The plaque reads, "In loving memory of David DeFrang, whose love and devotion to our children is greatly appreciated." It was placed in Erskine's Athletic Park about two weeks ago.DeFrang was a coach of youth basketball and baseball teams in this northwestern Minnesota town, and a longtime supporter of and worker at the city softball park, said Patty Morrison, who coordinated the effort to put up the plaque.But, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, on Jan. 23, 2005, DeFrang, 44, shot 39-year-old Tina Gerving to death with a small-caliber handgun, then turned it on himself. Gerving had broken off their engagement about two weeks earlier.Gerving's aunt, Linda Emerson, who lives in Waubun, wasn't happy to learn about the plaque."Yeah? Why don't they make one for Charles Manson, too?" she told the Grand Forks Herald.........