after they're done bombing abortion clinics

and denying people basic human equal rights and yelling FOR the death penalty, some die-hard christians need a way to just kick back and relax!
(please note: this ALLEGEDLY happened)
2 Accused Of Dragging Girl Behind Van
Girl Allegedly Dragged At Christian Boot Camp

BANQUETE, Texas -- Two officials at a Christian boot camp in Texas are accused of tying a 15-year-old girl to a van with a rope and dragged her after she fell behind during a run.
The two officials with Love Demonstrated Ministries face aggravated assault charges for the June incident.
Authorities said Charles Flowers ordered camp worker Stephanie Bassitt to run alongside the girl after she fell behind.......

Pastor accused of dragging girl behind his vanA trainer also faces charges in incident at boot camp
By JEORGE ZARAZUASan Antonio Express-news

A San Antonio pastor and an employee of his Christian boot camp were arrested Friday on aggravated assault charges, accused of dragging a girl behind a van after she failed to keep up during a running exercise.
Investigators with the Nueces County Sheriff's Office arrested Charles E. Flowers, 46, shortly before noon at the Faith Outreach Center in northwest San Antonio, said Brad E. Bailey, a spokesman for the Schertz Police Department.
Bailey said boot camp trainer Stephanie Bassitt, 20, was later arrested without incident at her home in Kirby.
Flowers and Bassitt each were being held on $100,000 bail at the Nueces County Jail in Corpus Christi.
Girl alleges second assault
Authorities said both Flowers and Bassitt restrained the girl June 12, tying her to the back of a van with a piece of rope before dragging her on her stomach at the Love Demonstrated Ministries' boot camp in Banquete, about 10 miles west of Corpus Christi.
Schertz police assisted Nueces County authorities in the arrests because the camp's orientation sessions are held in Schertz, and the 15-year-old girl claimed she was assaulted there, too.....

he's right

they're NOT there as guests. they ARE there to AX questions. someone has to have the stones to ask king george SOMETHING. ANYTHING

If he’s so smart, how come you lost Congress?’

When the president and Karl Rove delivered brief statements at the White House yesterday, reporters were not allowed to ask questions. One spoke up anyway.
As Karl Rove embraced President Bush today following an emotional farewell announcement on the South Lawn, the solemnity of the moment was shattered by Bill Plante of CBS, who bellowed to Bush: “If he’s so smart, how come you lost Congress?”
Now, I consider myself a fairly polite guy, and if the president had just made a statement regarding something truly solemn — about, for example, war casualties — I can understand reporters showing some restraint. Under truly somber circumstances, the press corps almost certainly shouldn’t shout cheeky questions.
But Karl Rove is a controversial, nearly-indicted, currently-subpoenaed political advisor. His departure is not “solemn.” The White House seems to have trained much of the press corps not to disrupt the president’s preferred media dynamic — reporters are to spoken to, not heard from — but why should they play along? What’s so awful about Plante trying to get a response from officials after public remarks at the White House?...............

see?

didn't i just say this a couple of posts ago? and i'm just a rose is a rose. i'm not even a us comptroller general!

Senior US official likens challenges facing America, Roman Republic

John Byrne

The US comptroller general David Walker issued a report last week in Chicago in which he likened the present situation in the United States to the Roman Republic or an organization that fails to adapt and "may not survive."
Nobody reported it. The first report of the speech came today in London's Financial Times.
Walker, who heads the Congressional, nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has offered dire forecasts for the United States in the past. In interviews with 60 Minutes and NPR, he's said that he believes the US cannot continue to live at such levels of prosperity indefinitely, since much of current prosperity is erected upon debt.
"Throughout history, many great nations have also failed to survive," Walker told an audience in Chicago last week. "I should point out that the longest standing republic and the major superpower of its day no longer exists, and that's the Roman Republic.".........

this is comforting

NOT

Gonzales to Get Power In Death Penalty Cases
Rules Would Expand Fast-Track Authority


By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, under political siege for his handling of the U.S. attorney firings and other issues, is to get expanded powers to hasten death penalty cases under regulations being developed by the Justice Department.
The rules would give Gonzales the authority to approve "fast-track" procedures by states in death penalty cases, enabling them to carry out sentences more speedily and with fewer opportunities for appeal if those states provide adequate representation for capital defendants.
Such powers were previously held by federal judges, but a provision of the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill approved by Congress last year hands the authority to the attorney general........

talk about balls, or stones, or nerve. this to me is absolutely SHOCKING. although with what king george and his court are getting away with, i should no longer be surprised at anything. wtf? why does gonzo need THIS power? next thing you know, he's going to be lining us ALL up at the gallows (and i'm not even kidding)

they are going to have to

pry my polly pockets from my cold dead hands!

Mattel Recalls More Chinese-Made Toys
Lead-Based Paint, Design Flaws Prompt Second Action in Two Weeks

listen, here's my take on all of this shite. the tires, the toys, the toothpaste and on and on. you get what you pay for. you send all the jobs over to other countries where you can pay the workers pennies (give or take) a day. we STILL have to pay top dollar for the goods though. why? i'll tell you. once again, to line the pockets of a few good ol' white boys. the execs MUST get their kazillion dollars. they MUST. no, one million isn't good enough. they want MORE MORE MORE. who pays? we ALL pay - one way or another

i hope everyone realizes

how very close to the brink we are. we're teetering on the edge. we're going to start world war iii (well i think we already started it) and we are all doomed. i think the rapture IS right around the corner. congress and the senate are sitting on their asses. not taking action. our men and women are dying. THEIR men and women are dying. now, we're going after iran. no turning back
(once again i will say, i am ALL for defending our nation against terrorists. DOMESTIC ones too. let's not forget the abortion clinic bombers in this group as well. at any rate, iraq wasn't bothering us. no terrorists from iraq bombed the world trade center, the pentagon or took a plane in pennsylvania. WE invaded iraq to line the pockets of a bunch o' good ol' white boys. now they're ALL coming after us)
Iranian Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist'
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard


By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer
The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said..........

the nutmeg grater: let's hear it for russ feingold#links#links

the nutmeg grater: let's hear it for russ feingold#links#links

wikipedia. we knew what was happening

now thanks to virgil griffith, it can be PROVEN
(click on the link to see SOME of the spin jobs. who is doing the spin? well some corporations and of course on political entries, oh, the nsa, the justice department.....)

Vote On the Most Shameful Wikipedia Spin Jobs
By Kevin Poulsen

Caltech graduate student Virgil Griffith just launched an unofficial Wikipedia search tool that threatens to lay bare the ego-editing and anonymous flacking on the site. Enter the name of a corporation, organization or government entity and you get a list of IP addresses assigned to it. Then with one or two clicks, you can see all the anonymous edits made from those addresses anywhere in Wikipedia's pages.
Griffith's work is a neat example of what can be uncovered just by reorganizing public information. Wired News writer John Borland has the full story here.
THREAT LEVEL predicts a lot of sad, embarrassing secrets will emerge from this project once netizens dive into it -- and we'd like to be a part of that. So visit the Wikipedia Scanner and do some sleuthing. Post what you find here on our wall of shame, where you can join other Wired News readers in voting submissions up or down. We've seeded the list with a few finds of our own. Happy hunting!..........

oh my goddess NO NO NO

say it isn't TRUE

what is THE WORST thing that could happen in the ENTIRE universe? that's right -

Pipe Cleaners, Googly Eyes Cut From Elementary School Arts Budget

i'm apt to believe this over king george's sources

i don't think i care about the real reason as long as there are less deaths. of course there should be NO deaths. that's a given.

a rose by any other name........
(war is war and there is NO reason we invaded iraq. NONE. well, save for lining the pockets of a few already rich white men)
The Real Reason Why Fewer U.S. Soldiers Are Dying in Iraq

By Robert Parry, Consortium News.

Mindful of the political fallout from the rising American death toll in Iraq, the U.S. military has pulled back from widespread use of aggressive tactics with ground troops this summer.
The number of U.S. military fatalities declined to 80 in July after three months of a death toll in the triple digits (104 in April, 126 in May, and 101 in June). The lower death toll has been cited by some U.S. commanders in Iraq and Bush administration supporters in Washington as a sign that President George W. Bush's "surge" of U.S. troops is working.
But the sources told me that the lower death toll reflects not some impending victory but just a slowdown in the U.S. ground offensive after the early phases of the surge, which poured more than 20,000 additional troops into Iraq. The sources cited a variety of factors contributing to the decline in U.S. casualties.
One U.S. military source said the American troops have not pushed as far from their forward operating bases as the U.S. news media has been led to believe. When Bush unveiled the surge, a key goal was to get American forces out of their secure bases and into small police outposts in Iraqi neighborhoods.............

get a warrant

it's EASY. what the f**k is the problem here? better yet, if you want to read MY emails (and they do at work by the way. they keep them on file - has to do with nasd or something or other. please don't even get me started on what we have to do for the PATRIOT ACT. i work in the insurance/financial industry. if you only knew the kinds of problems and the work - YES I PERSONALLY HAD TO DO- the patriot act caused. you'd tap me on the shoulder and say, 'there there a rose is a rose. is there anything i can do?) ASK ME. if i'm in a decent enough mood (ok ok, that's rare), you never know. i MAY say oui. then again, i may not. GET A WARRANT

oh and one more thing. i'm NOT a terrorist or a spy or a traitor or an ugly american. i do NOT cheat on my taxes (really), i don't steal. i try not to lie and i'm watching out for both my elderly father AND my elderly landlord.
Lawsuits May Illuminate Methods of Spy Program


By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer

In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician. It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States, the former employee says in court filings.
What occurred in the room is now at the center of a pivotal legal battle in a federal appeals court over the Bush administration's controversial spying program, including the monitoring that came to be publicly known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program..........

here's a cute headline

Rove: Departure Unrelated to Investigations

#1 - i wonder who's buying this shite? unrelated? bullshite. it's ALL related

#2 - NO need for any of king george's court to worry about any f**king thing. they can ALL testify. they can ALL admit to ANY and ALL crimes they've already committed (or are GOING to commit) and NOTHING will be done to them. they'll all be safe in their sweet mama's arms again.

the democrats have NO spines. crimes have been committed. the guilty must be charged AND brought to justice

bye

of course i'm overjoyed on one hand. on the other, king george and his court will NEVER be charged therefore not convicted of their crimes against the united states of america AND humanity

Top White House aide Rove resigns

Top White House aide Karl Rove has said he will resign at the end of August.
"I just think it's time," Mr Rove said in an interview for the Wall Street Journal, adding that he was quitting for the sake of his family.
Mr Rove is a senior political adviser to President George W Bush and has worked with him for more than a decade.
As Mr Bush's chief strategist, he is seen as instrumental in delivering two presidential and several congressional election victories for the Republicans. ........

(please note where i got this. THE BBC. none of the american papers had it - yet. well of course wsj did but you have to be a subscriber)

i think we found some of those missing weapons

and they're not being used to play games either

they're not just in iraq either.

and tell me, WHO, just WHO is accountable? who is going to come to justice? if anyone, it will be some lower level stooge they offer up. we all know who SHOULD come to trial. for this AND for crimes against humanity

Iraq's Arms Bazaar
How firearms intended for Iraqi security forces are winding up in the hands of extremists across the region.


By Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - On the afternoon of Feb. 5, 2006, at a small church in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon, Father Andrea Santoro was kneeling in prayer when a bullet from an Austrian-made Glock 9mm pistol hit him in the back and pierced his heart. The soft-spoken 60-year-old Italian priest, who lived in poverty ministering to the city's tiny Christian community, slumped to the floor, and the killer squeezed off another round. "Allahu akbar!"—"God is great"—said the shooter, a 15-year-old boy with a grudge against the West..............

.....There are many more where those came from. At least three U.S. government agencies are now investigating the massive "disappearance" and diversion of weapons Washington intended for Iraqi government forces that instead have spread to militants and organized gangs across the region. The potential size of the traffic is stunning. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last month showed that since 2004, some 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols, bought with U.S. money for Iraqi security forces, have gone missing.............

haven't we pissed off the iraqis enough?

haven't we f**ked up the lives of our men and women deployed in the middle east enough?

yes and yes

and here is MORE on 'faith' in the military

Holy war! Game tests troops' rapture readiness

BY ZAY N. SMITH Sun-Times Columnist As If We Weren't Putting Our Brave Soldiers Through Enough (cont'd):
The Defense Department at www .americasupportsyou.mil is endorsing an Iraq tour by Operation Straight Up to offer "faith-based entertainment" there.
It does not mention that Operation Straight Up views its entertainment tours as a "holy crusade" to convert soldiers and Iraqis to fundamentalist Christianity.
The entertainment includes the distribution of packets with religious tracts printed in both English and Arabic, along with a rapture video game, "Left Behind: Eternal Forces," in which the player is assigned to convert or kill the unbelievers left behind after the rapture.
The game's virtual character shouts "Praise the Lord!" every time a nonbeliever is killed.
The Bush administration knows what our soldiers in Iraq need -- additional holy wars......

i am shuddering. what the heck kind of god do these people believe in? it's SICK

from 1994

the lovely and talented dick cheney on why bombing iraq would lead to a quagmire (video at the link)

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

the nutmeg grater: that's right da liebs wants to see#links#links

the nutmeg grater: that's right da liebs wants to see#links#links

a day in the life...

this is NOTHING. wait until 5, 10, 15 years from now. those that actually survived are going to need a LOT of treatment (and it DAMN WELL better be forthcoming from the va). king george and his court will be long gone by the time the real shite hits the fan. and guess what? THEY DON'T CARE. they don't give a flying yoo hoo about our deployed troops NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY.

can you imagine the tens of thousands of cases of ptsd in the future?

Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq

Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis

Peter Beaumont in Sunday August 12, 2007 The Observer

Lieutenant Clay Hanna looks sick and white. Like his colleagues he does not seem to sleep. Hanna says he catches up by napping on a cot between operations in the command centre, amid the noise of radio. He is up at 6am and tries to go to sleep by 2am or 3am. But there are operations to go on, planning to be done and after-action reports that need to be written. And war interposes its own deadly agenda that requires his attention and wakes him up.


When he emerges from his naps there is something old and paper-thin about his skin, something sketchy about his movements as the days go by.
The Americans he commands, like the other men at Sullivan - a combat outpost in Zafraniya, south east Baghdad - hit their cots when they get in from operations. But even when they wake up there is something tired and groggy about them. They are on duty for five days at a time and off for two days. When they get back to the forward operating base, they do their laundry and sleep and count the days until they will get home. It is an exhaustion that accumulates over the patrols and the rotations, over the multiple deployments, until it all joins up, wiping out any memory of leave or time at home. Until life is nothing but Iraq..............

merv

i am of the age where i grew up watching the merv griffin show. merv and the staid arthur treacher. i thought that the oddest combination ever (even at a young age i thought that). yet, it WORKED. (at least for a while)

i saw everyone on merv. people i'd never heard of but fell in love with. jack douglas and meiko or keiko (i can't quite remember her name). politicians, actors, comedians.

totie fields, monte rock iii, mrs miller, jackie vernon, moms mabley and oh so many more!

the ONLY thing that pained me a GREAT deal was merv's singing. and sing he did. every show if i remember correctely. the WORST was when he'd attempt to interpret a rock n' roll song. TORTURE.

The Host Who Was Everyone's Guest


By Tom ShalesWashington Post Staff Writer

Merv Griffin had friends in the right places, and for the 20 years that "The Merv Griffin Show" aired on television, in one form or another, those places included millions of American homes.
He was fun to have around, and so the news of his death yesterday, at 82, was poignantly dispiriting. Especially considering he was that form of celebrity unique to television: a professional personality, someone whose singing (despite a big-band career in the '40s) was unexceptional, whose dancing was limited to ballrooms at haute blowouts, and whose major talent may have been his prowess at dealmaking behind the scenes.
Though members of post-boomer generations may seldom or never have seen Griffin perform -- impishly interrogating the famous and infamous who joined him on his talk show -- they may still be aware of his presence in pop culture. Nearly everyone knows he invented the game shows "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune" and hugely profited from them, while continuing to gambol and scamper across the pop landscape as gadfly and entrepreneur.........

Merv Griffin, Television Innovator, Dies at 82

By RICHARD SEVERO and EDWARD WYATT

Merv Griffin, a big-band singer who became one of television’s longest-running talk-show hosts and formidable innovators, creating some of the medium’s most popular game shows before becoming a major figure in the hotel and gambling businesses, died yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 82.
His death, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was caused by prostate cancer, according to a family statement issued by Marcia Newberger, a spokeswoman for Mr. Griffin’s companies. Mr. Griffin had been treated for the disease more than 10 years ago but was recently hospitalized after a recurrence.
Mr. Griffin, as a singer with the Freddy Martin band, had a hit in 1950 with the recording, “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” but had traded in singing for acting in movies, served as game-show host and filled in for Jack Paar on late-night television. Then, in 1962, NBC gave him his own daytime show, “The Merv Griffin Show.” ..........

i'm ALL for it!

spying on terrorists or even suspected terrorists. one has to do what one has to do. IF those suspected terrorists are american citizens, one MUST get a warrant. there is a special process for that and from what i understand only two or three cases in the past 20 (give or take) years have been rejected. GET A WARRANT. this is AMERICA. we are AMERICAN CITIZENS.

i expect our agencies charged with 'certain duties' to protect us. i'm not an idiot. i know all sorts of underground activities go on. YET i do not want our constitution to be ripped apart when it comes to the citizenry of the united states of america. there is NO need

oh and to the democrats - stop it. take your vaginas out of your mama's handbag RIGHT NOW

How the Fight for Vast New Spying Powers Was Won


By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writers
For three days, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, "that makes my blood pressure rise."
McConnell viscerally objected to a Democratic proposal to limit warrantless surveillance of foreigners' communications with Americans to instances in which one party was a terrorism suspect. McConnell wanted no such limits. "All foreign intelligence" targets in touch with Americans on any topic of interest should be fair game for U.S. spying, he said, according to two participants in the Aug. 2 conversation.
McConnell won the fight, extracting a key concession despite the misgivings of Democratic negotiators. Shortly after that exchange, the Bush administration leveraged Democratic acquiescence into a broader victory: congressional approval of a Republican bill that would expand surveillance powers far beyond what Democratic leaders had initially been willing to accept..........