Whether you're talking to troops over there at the moment or citizens around the world, there seems to be a common consensus: the Iraq War was not a good idea, we're in danger, and we need to get outta there as soon as possible. For our first bit of evidence, I turn your attention to a worldwide poll showing 60% feel more in danger than the did before the United States's 2003 invasion of Iraq. "Though the Bush administration has framed the intervention in Iraq as a means of fighting terrorism all around the world, most people view it as having increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks," Steven Kull, Director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland told the B.B.C. "The near-unanimity of this assessment among countries is remarkable in global public opinion polling." Just shy of 42,000 people in thirty-five countries were polled, with more people even saying we shouldn't have removed Saddam than saying we should have. That's pretty surprising to me, since most of the war-opposers over here still concede that we should have taken Saddam out of there. It makes me wonder how that opinion started on our side. Part of me believes that there are people who want to say we shouldn't have removed Saddam but are afraid to do so for fear of looking like left-wing loonies. I would also venture a guess that those who say we shouldn't have removed Saddam are not saying it was a good thing for Iraq to have the man in charge, but that aside from us not having the right to take him out we totally screwed things up along the way. Such is my opinion on the matter, so perhaps I'm supplanting my own beliefs onto everyone else. Okay, so that's what the world is thinking, what about our own troops? Funny you should ask that, since it seems that 70% of US troops think we should get out in 2006. The number is split between branches to a small degree, with "only" 60% of Marines expressing this sentiment and around 90% of Coast Guard and reservists thinking so, with the Army sitting at a moderate 70%. However, one paragraph of this one made me outright laugh: However, there is considerable confusion about the reason for the invasion. According to the poll, 85 percent of the survey respondents said the U.S. mission is mainly "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," and 77 percent said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was "to stop Saddam from protecting al-Qaida in Iraq." Maybe it's just me, but I think that goes a long way in explaining the mindset of the great bulk of war supporters. They're still holding onto this false belief that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. I wonder if that's a downshot of the war. They're not in a position to see what's actually going on back on American soil and are out of the loop. It might also explain why so many vets of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" are coming back and turning democrat within a few months. Not a lot of war vets come back angry at having gone in the first place. Even those from Nam are mostly angry at their public image at the time. The world feels like they're in danger, and the vast majority of American troops think we need to get out of Iraq, at the latest, within a year. And they're saying that still under the belief that they're responding to Iraq's involvement with the 9/11 attacks. Imagine what they'd be saying if they were told that " President George W. Bush acknowledged in 2003 that Iraq was not directly involved in the terrorist attacks." I love America, I hate the people running it.

Take that one, Intelligent Design people. In what even surprised me, Utah shot down an Anti-Darwin bill. The most stereotypically religious and republican state that I can think of, with a republican majority no less, shot down the bill in the House. The Origins of Life bill, in its initial form, would have required teachers to issue a disclaimer to their students saying that not all scientists agree about evolution and the origin of species. It did not mention any alternative theory to Darwinism, but was viewed by some supporters and opponents as part of the drive to encourage the teaching of intelligent design, which says that life is too complicated to have evolved without an architect. As I mentioned in my first article here, it's always evolution. There are an uncounted number of theories out there that are never contested by any of these groups. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints never seems to come out and demand that gravity be delivered with a disclaimer. I haven't heard about atomic theory being refuted. Naw, it's always evolution. And it's being shut down almost universally. Science is winning folks, accept it. The Bible is fine for morality, fine to live your life by its rules if you want, but nothing in it has any bearing on science. Who do you trust for medicine? A doctor or a priest? The answer's pretty obvious, and it makes the soul I don't believe I have smile to see that the country's catching onto that. "If the creationists can't win in a state as conservative as Utah, they've got an uphill battle," [a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Joe] Conn said. Damn right.

Sometimes you get smacked with a pair of stories and have to immediately start writing even if you didn't plan on it. Here we have people from the US saying the risk of civil War is over in Iraq. Despite a brief mention of an Al Qaeda representative being caught, the bulk of the article is about this issue, including this quote: "I think the country came to the brink of a civil war, but the Iraqis decided that they didn't want to go down that path, and came together," the ambassador told CNN. "Clearly the terrorists who plotted that attack wanted to provoke a civil war. It looked quite dangerous in the initial 48 hours, but I believe that the Iraqis decided to come together." I must admit that does sound pretty encouraging. As I wrote in an earlier article about the Iraqi violence, the prospect of civil war started to look pretty serious. Over 140 people were listed as dead in only a few days. Later in the article that hops to over two hundred. Sunni leaders accused the Shiite-dominated police and army of standing by as Shiite militiamen sprayed their mosques with machine-gun fire and took over some of them. More than 200 people were reported killed in sectarian violence. But, as the article states, the violence apparently calmed down. It's sad that so many people died, but the number was fairly low and we can go back to working toward a democracy, right? Well, no, not really. As it turns out, the number of deaths in Iraq was off by a factor of ten, as over 1,300 Iraqis have died in Sectarian violence since last Wednesday. The Statistics Department of the Iraqi police put the nationwide toll at 1,020 since Wednesday, but that figure was based on paperwork that is sometimes delayed before reaching police headquarters. The majority of the dead had been killed after being taken away by armed men, police said. This is not a small roadbump. I'm as glad as anyone that the violence has calmed down, but I don't believe that we're talking about a "roadbump" here. Over a thousand people don't die in under a week of riots only to be followed by immediate peace. These attacks will continue. Let's just all pray the government will work hard to keep it from turning into an all out war.

Once again I really wish I could be surprised by this kind of thing. Eighteen democrats banded together and proposed a special counsel to investigate the president's Illegal Domestic Spying program (I think that's what they should officially call it, myself). In a completely predictable move, the White House rejected the idea. Even more painfully predictable was Scott McClellan's reasoning for the rejection: "I think that where these Democrats who are calling for this ought to spend their time is on what was the source of the unauthorized disclosure of this vital, incredible program in the war on terrorism,"White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "I really don't think there is any basis for a special counsel. ... But the fact that this information was disclosed about the existence of this program has given the enemy some of our playbook." I've been screaming this for the longest time and never gotten an answer: how does knowing about the program give the enemy some of our playbook? What good is that going to do al Qaeda to know that spying exists? More importantly, what does knowing that spying occurs do to help them evade it? The White House has been hiding behind this for as long as the issue has been at hand, and still no one seems to be buying into it. Plain and simple, the only people that will benefit from knowing what's happening with the NSA are the American public. Al Qaeda could know everything about the program and it wouldn't make a bit of difference, because knowing that your phone calls and emails are tapped isn't going to help you send emails and make phone calls without them being tapped. Some may argue that it means they can find other ways of communication, but they've already been tagged for appropriate spying so it really doesn't make a difference. This bit got to me as well: Congress' investigative arm, the General Accountability Office, similarly declined to open a review, noting the administration would be expected to designate the necessary documents as foreign intelligence materials and limit access to them. The extreme level to which the administration is hiding their actions should just scream to everyone that it isn't legal. Look at how this has gone so far. First they lied that warrants would be issued. Then they denied the program. Then they told us the program was legal. Then they wanted to change the laws. Now they won't let us see what they've done so far, blocking any ability for the other branch to touch 'em. All the while they hide behind the Constitution, specifically that the powers Congress granted him, give him the ability to do this. First of all, I have found nothing that would suggest this is true in reading the appropriate articles of the Constitution, and as far as I can tell no amendments pertain to the issue. The president is in charge of the Army and Navy (as well as "militias"), that's his status as Commander-in-Chief. The truly strange issue is that, when you look at it, he's withholding information from Congress because, he claims, Congress gave him the power to do so. Think about that one again. Bush and his cronies are withholding information from Congress and defending it by saying they let him do it. It's almost like he's sticking his tongue out at the legislative branch and saying "if you wanted to see this you shouldn't have granted me these powers! Nyah!" Congress handed over some powers, he claims, and now they can't get it back. The framers of the Constitution clearly wanted the legislative branch to have the most power. These were men who escaped from a king, with a president who refused the title of king. They did not want one man to hold all of the power. Congress is a great number of people who can vote on issues, rather than one man deciding all by himself. They can grant powers, which is a big indicator. If the Constitution was intended to give the president unilateral power at ANY time, he wouldn't need to get permission from another branch. It's simple logic. This is an issue that needs to get resolved rather quickly. It's transcended, by this point, the simple matter of spying. We're fighting against a stormcloud of tyranny, and democrat or republican, no president should have this kind of power.

Well that's a relief. You know, we've had doctors working on this issue for however long, but fortunately we've got the Pope to say when embryos have rights, thus efficiently quieting any debate in the medical community. Speaking in Italian, the Pope said the Church had always proclaimed the "sacred and inviolable character of every human life, from its conception to its natural end." He added: "This moral judgment is valid from the start of the life of an embryo, even before it is implanted in the maternal womb." My question is: why? Who cares what the Pope has to say about anything concerning science these days? I understand, religion is important to a lot of people, the religious community wants to hear what he has to say about things. But the problem is that nothing he says is based in anything remotely educated. I would take a Pope's humanitarian proclamations, look through history and popes help a lot in the world. A pope's scientific knowledge is coming from the Bible and gut feelings. By almost definition, any scientific evidence that contradicts the Bible is going to get thrown out unless a serious revolution happens a la Copernicus and Galileo. I have a respect for the Pope, the dedication and the fact that our last one was amongst the best men ever to walk the planet as far as I'm concerned. But I'd take medical advice from a tree stump as soon as I'd take it from that guy.

I was mulling this over last night while writing about the UAE port deal and my feelings on Iran, Hamas, and the UAE. It struck me as odd that suddenly in early 2006 these countries which have for decades been violently militant regions are suddenly switching gears to looking at the roads of peace. It's pretty uncharacteristic for TWO such nations to go that route. Hamas maybe you could understand all on its own thanks to the elections, but Iran, too? Then the answer struck me, the only thing that's changed. The United States entered Iraq. The entire purpose of the occupation in Iraq, after the president conceded that WMDs were as likely to be found as a unicorn, was to liberate the Iraqi people from under the stronghold of Saddam. We were told we'd be liberators, that the people there would thanks us and everything was going to be awesome as soon as they got an election. What happened instead? 30,000 or so civilians are dead and now there's a civil war brewing. Mosques are being destroyed and the only way to keep peace is to make a curfew. So is Iraq a beacon of hope for the rest of the world to be inspired to follow? No, but they sure as hell are a good inspiration for other countries to do what they can to make sure the United States never comes in to "liberate" them. It's like watching your dad try to fix the car and completely destroy it. You're going to do everything in your power to make sure you take great care of your car so he never, EVER comes over to "help". See, that was the idea all along. Instead of being inspired by the success, people are terrified by the destruction. It's almost a tailor-made SNL sketch. BUSH: So... Iran, you sure everything's okay? Don't need our help? IRAN: Oh I'm quite sure! It's all juuuust fine! BUSH: Really? We did a good job with Iraq, did you see that? IRAN: Um... yes, I'm watching it on the news right now. Ah... good job, George! BUSH: Thanks! So, you're SURE you do- IRAN: NO HELP, thanks. BUSH: Rea- IRAN: REALLY. So George succeeded exactly where he wanted to. He wanted to fix the Middle East and by God that's what he's doing. Sure a few tens of thousands of civilians died along the way as well as uncountable cities being destroyed, but this a big omelette, so you gotta break a lot of eggs. Anyone can liberate a nation, but the problem with that is it'll make other countries want you to liberate them, too. You know as well as I do that we can't be parading around fixing every country in the world, that'll take forever. But we what we can do is screw up a country so badly that other countries will shape up ASAP. See? Bush truly is a genius. Teach a man to fish, as they say. Or, more accurately, show a man that you gouged out another guy's eyes trying to teach him how to fish, and he'll teach himself.

This one showed up on Countdown with Keith Olbermann (great show, by the way, 8pm/12am EST on MSNBC), but I didn't want to write about it unless I was sitting with the article in front of me. Well, it finally showed up. Remember all the talk about how it's six ports the Dubai Port World company was going to take? Seems that ain't quite true, the deal is for twenty-one US ports for the Dubai company. Now, at this point, what's starting to bother me more than anything else isn't the purchase itself any more, it's what's happening around it. It's the exactly same deal as Cheney's hunting accident. What would initially have looked like a fairly benign, if suspicious, deal has turned into a full-blown fiasco thanks to the way it's been handled. Information came out slowly, ties were hidden, the president was claimed to have been uninformed, and now it turns out they've been lying about the number of ports all the while. P&O (the company to be bought out) is the parent company of P&O Ports North America, which leases terminals for the import and export and loading and unloading and security of cargo in 21 ports, 11 on the East Coast, ranging from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida, and 10 on the Gulf Coast, from Gulfport, Miss., to Corpus Christi, Texas, according to the company's Web site. This isn't the kind of thing people forget. You aren't talking about what ports are going to be handed over and forget fifteen of the twenty-one. This is the kind of thing that is consciously kept quiet. But why? Why would something like the number of ports to be put under UAE control be undershot like that? It just screams of "downplay it as much as possible", and looks to be another instance where the media (and thus the population) will only be given as much information as the administration is literally forced to give. At the same time, finally, the administration is accepting a port-deal review over security concerns in the issue. In six pages of documents sent earlier in the day to the White House, Dubai-based DP World asked for a 45-day investigation of plans to run shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. Uh-oh, looks like no one told anyone there about the other fifteen ports. Hopefully they'll make it into the investigation now that we've mentioned 'em. Now, I know I might look rather hypocritical in my discussion of the UAE because, admittedly, they seem to be on the right track: Since the terrorist attacks, [the UAE] has cut ties with the Taliban, frozen just over $1 million in alleged terrorist funding, and given the United States key military basing and over-flight rights. At any given time, there are 77,000 U.S. service members on leave in the United Arab Emirates, according to the Pentagon. Thus, why am I saying the UAE doesn't deserve our trust but Hamas and Iran do? It's a pretty murky issue, I'll agree. In the case of Hamas and Iran, it's progress I see. Hamas was a previously militant "kill all of the Jews" group who is now offering a truce if a few (what I consider to be reasonable) conditions are met. With Iran, they're being totally open about their operations and are also working with Russia. A far cry from the crazy nation that wanted to blow the world up at any cost that we'd previously considered them. Hamas is looking for something that helps their own country establish peace, Iran is aiming for independence. The UAE, on the other hand, seems more in the middle of doing something in order to get something. They play nice for a little bit in order to get access to the country where they'll be in control. Iran, if the deal comes through as it might, is going to be placed under UN inspection and will be doing things on a minor scale. The UAE is taking control of an already disgustingly insecure station, and doing so with what will amount to no oversight as reports are speculating. More than that, it's HOW it's happening that's making me wonder. When Hamas protested peacefully or went to talk to the United Nations, when Iran started up its nuclear operations and went to the UN, everything was out in the open. It wasn't found out by some sneaky inspector that Iran started up its 10 centrifuges, they showed the world. Hamas is being public as well. Maybe I'm being naive, but when something appears to be out in the open, as long as nothing else has been found and it's not just someone SAYING things, I tend to think that's a genuine gesture. When something is hidden, though, it seems shady. As Bush keeps saying, innocent people don't hide things. This is another story that's being taffy pulled out as long as he can manage. And when details slowly emerge, you start to wonder what else is happening and if what we're being told is genuine. When did those funds get frozen? When did the UAE cut its ties with the Taliban? How do we know that? I just don't trust it. And that's ignoring Bush's unprecedented change of heart. With this president, it's a safe bet that if he's doing something that doesn't make sense, he's got something to be gained by it.

I'll tell you, the more this whole scene plays out, the more I start to wonder why we consider the terrorists who they are and the poor victims who they are. Israel's killed a bunch of Palestinians recently and Hamas responds with peaceful protests. And now we find that the incoming Hamas chief is proposing a truce with Israel. Haniyeh was quoted by The Washington Post in its Sunday edition as saying Hamas would establish "peace in stages" if Israel would withdraw to its 1967 boundaries before it captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The "peace in stages" part is important. It's not a truly peaceful agreement, but it is a truce. Really, though, what do we care between a formal peace agreement and a truce? The end result is going to be a lack of violence between the two regions, but they aren't going to be friendly to each other. I know there are a lot of people who are going to want Palestine to recognize Israel, but that's not only unrealistic but unfair to Palestine to force them to like Israel. What's strangest in all of this is how completely resistent to negotiations Israel is. Hamas has some provisions to the truce talks, but Israel will have none of it. They refuse to move out of Gaza and the east half of Jerusalem and will not accept anything less than Hamas's full recognition of Israel as a sovereign nation. Israel says it will refuse to deal with a Hamas government unless the group recognizes the Jewish state, disarms and accepts past peace accords with Israel. Until Hamas meets these conditions, "everything else is empty words," said Cabinet Minister Roni Bar-On. Which side seems irrational to you folks? Don't forget we've also got Israel calling the Palestinian president "irrelevant". Isn't that nice? Who's refusing to accept who, now? Let's give a quick background on things. Prior to 1900, there was no such thing as Israel. It was all Palestine, and it was occupied by Palestinians. At the time, Palestinians were all kinds of religions. Muslims, Christians, etc. These people lived in that area for centuries. Around the turn of the century, Zionists started to emerge, and Jewish immigration caused the Jewish population to go from 2% to over 30% in the nation over the next 47 years. Shortly after that, roundabout 1947, the United Nations split the country up (thank you, Harry S Truman), giving 55% of the country to the 35% minority, with the remaining 45% going to the native population. Naturally, Palestine was incredibly unhappy with that. Unfortunately, things were going to get worse for 'em. Over the next 20 years, Israel would destroy many Palestinian villages and make refugees of the people there. In the process, it would expand its borders. In 1967 Israel took more of the West Bank and Gaza "officially" and put up numerous blockages to keep Palestinians out of the regions entirely. Not on the roads, not in any villages, nothin'. Along the way the border of Jerusalem, which had been previously split in half between the two nations, started to get moved until it was almost entirely a part of Israel, where they quickly put their capital. Any Arab opposition to Jewish settlements in Arabian territory was considered wrong by the United Nations. Imagine, for a second, if the United Nations suddenly turned the south half of Texas, Florida, and California over to the Hispanic population and considered it a crime to be anti-Hispanic. And then South America started giving them weapons. Does Israel have a right to be in the area? Sure they do. They live there. They can still live there. Is it fair for them to have annexed as much of Palestine away from a population that had lived there centuries prior? Hell no. The pre-1967 map still gives Israel half of Palestine and over half of the nation. It's not a completely logical looking map, but it's something Palestine is willing to concede, which is impressive since a scant century ago they had the entire thing. The bizarre part is how demonized Palestine is to the general American public. They're taught that Israel is the victimized nation and the evil Palestine is running around blowing them up and killing babies just to watch them bleed. Hamas is a bunch of terrorists who want to cause death simply out of their own sadism. The idea of them being a reactionary group is never even brought to the table. They went from being a militant underground group to the elected officials, a bloodthirsty militia to a group willing to make truce talks and conducts peaceful protests. Some will call it an "impossible deal". I think that's bullshit, m'self. It's been unfair of the United Nations to force Palestine to accept so much of the border changes. At this point we should be impressed they're even holding out a hand of truce and that Hamas is willing to go back on their "destroy Israel" statements. Can't keep expecting them to have to do all of the "compromising". It's progress with Hamas no matter how you slice it, and I think they deserve some credit for it.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that in the midst of everything else going on in the world we've still got that domestic spying program to worry about. I'd mentioned in an earlier article about the White House's refusal to brief on the NSA that Specter said he was going to draft a bill to modify the NSA rules. At the time I wasn't too convinced, since it was Specter who said Alberto Gonzales didn't need to be sworn in before his laughable "testimony". Well, color me corrected, because Specter actually proposed the NSA bill, and I'm mildly impressed with it. Under this proposal, the NSA would be under the jurisdiction of the FISA courts. Now, if you've been following this issue with even moderate attention, chances are you're aware that this is the crux of the entire issue. What really confused me in this article was this passage: Specter's plan could put him at odds with the administration, which has praised a rival proposal that would exempt the NSA program from the surveillance law. Okay, first we're being told that the program is legal because the NSA doesn't need the same permissions the FISA requires. The other side is saying that, no, the NSA does need to get permission from the FISA courts and, as they haven't, the program is breaking the law. Yet here we are with two proposals, one of which would force the NSA to get permission from FISA courts, one that would exempt it from doing so. So... which is it? Is the NSA under FISA's umbrella or isn't it? One of these laws is superfluous and the other is in direct contradiction to it. Simple logic could tell you that much. It's like we're in some kind of legal limbo with the NSA where it somehow managed to evade all previous legislature. If there isn't any clause in the NSA's lawbook that says it doesn't need FISA's approval, then it does. It's as simple as that. That's the problem with this whole issue. We simply aren't being told what is and isn't true under this program. Either that or, quite likely, the program was written with such loose language that they could do whatever they wanted in the hopes that no one would pick up on it. Whoops. Of course, there are still complaints about the verbiage: Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil rights group, said the bill's language is alarmingly broad. "It's not limited to al-Qaeda or even terrorism," she said. Those who communicate with "foreign powers" could include a vast array of innocent people, Martin said. That's fine by me. As it's currently written, the FISA says this of foreign powers: 1) a foreign government or any component thereof, whether or not recognized by the United States; 2) a faction of a foreign nation or nations, not substantially composed of United States persons; 3) an entity that is openly acknowledged by aforeign government or governments to be directed and controlled by suc hforeign government or governments; 4) a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor; 5) a foreign-based political organization, not substantially composed of United States persons; or 6) an entity that is directed and controlled by a foreign government or governments. Okay then, that's how it's written. That's what a foreign power is, and as far as I'm concerned that's a pretty good definition. Read the rest of that to get an idea of what kind of rules are required to get a warrant under the FISA courts. It's not going to be some random guy calling a friend in Germany. Under FISA's rules you need to be able to make a solid case that no one innocent will get caught up in it. If the language wasn't so limiting, Bush wouldn't be trying to circumvent it. Specifically, you need to prove that the communication is solely between agents of foreign powers and there is no "substantial likelihood" that an innocent party will be tapped. What's rather hilarious is how adamantly against this proposal supporters of the program are. You'd think that supporting this law would be a no-brainer. But once again, we find the Bush administration fighting laws that would make illegal what they're telling us they aren't doing.

First we had Abu Ghraib out in Iraq, then Gitmo starts to look bad, and now there's Bagram in Afghanistan to worry about. As if things weren't looking bleak enough for the way we're handling this "war" business, a third prison has emerged to let us know the problem is bigger than we initially thought. Bagram shares a lot of the same traits as Gitmo, lots of prisoners that are coming in faster than they're going out, conditions that don't quite match up to what you'd consider "humane", and people being held without knowing what they're there for. What sets Bagram apart is that, in addition to just being there and not knowing why, they don't even get a chance to make a case for themselves. The two sets of panels that review the status of detainees at Guantánamo assign military advocates to work with detainees in preparing cases. Detainees are allowed to hear and respond to the allegations against them, call witnesses and request evidence. Only a small fraction of the hundreds of panels have concluded that the accused should be released. The Bagram panels, called Enemy Combatant Review Boards, offer no such guarantees. Reviews are conducted after 90 days and at least annually thereafter, but detainees are not informed of the accusations against them, have no advocate and cannot appear before the board, officials said. "The detainee is not involved at all," one official familiar with the process said. The conditions in the prison itself were terrible before, but are apparently not as terrible now. While in the past detainees were being chained by the arms to their ceiling and had their legs beaten or terrified with dogs a la Abu Ghraib, some of these tactics have slowed down. Which of course isn't to say any of us would like to stay there. They're kept in wire cages and many use a bucket for a toilet. Even worse, many are kept for years without really knowing why. Here's a part that jumped out at me: Other military and administration officials said the growing detainee population at Bagram, which rose from about 100 prisoners at the start of 2004 to as many as 600 at times last year, according to military figures, was in part a result of a Bush administration decision to shut off the flow of detainees into Guantánamo after the Supreme Court ruled that those prisoners had some basic due-process rights. The question of whether those same rights apply to detainees in Bagram has not been tested in court. I'm not really sure that's too difficult to figure out. The Supreme Court says prisoners at A have some rights, so they start getting shipped to B. It doesn't really take a Mensa member to figure out that chances are those guys at B are indeed not being afforded the same rights as those back at A. What's most bothersome about this is that we might not have any idea how many Bagrams and Gitmos there are around the world that the United States is running. These "black sites" may be greater in numbers than anyone knows, and as you can see nothing gets changed until they're found and forced to. Abu Ghraib was strolling along for a while until those pictures came out, Gitmo was cool until the courts stepped in, and now Bagram. In the future, prisoners may be sent out, but officials say the prison will still be functional and take in anyone captured by the US and NATO operations, particularly amusing since the vast majority of the prisoners there were apparently picked up during American operations back in the Spring of '04. That's three prisoners violating human rights in three separate non-US countries. Any bets on how many more are out there no one's found out about yet?

Well, I can't say this is entirely unexpected. Whether you look at it as a middle finger to the rest of the world or a genuine effort to show that their intentions are peaceful, Iran is now working on uranium enrichment. Only a month after Iran defied Europe and the International Atomic Energy Agency and declared it would restart what it termed research on enrichment, it has put 10 centrifuges into operation at the vast uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, according to the officials. As the article states (as well as others), however, that it would require thousands of such centrifuges a few years to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a single bomb. What is interesting is that these operations happened in full view of nuclear inspectors. These weren't secret operations that were found via hard investigations, Iran started them right up for the world to see. Are they showing defiance or are they showing that they really are only interested in nuclear power? The answer to that question is going to come after diplomats meet with inspectors in Tehran. On Thursday, a senior diplomat in Vienna told Reuters the Iranians had promised the deputy director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Olli Heinonen, information about a shadowy uranium-processing project that Western intelligence has linked to possible atom bomb work. What I'm noticing as per these articles is an interesting trend. While Iran is starting up these operations without permission, they are being incredibly agreeable about it. As I said, it's in full view of the world and now they're going to answer any and all questions concerning it this weekend. The centrifuges are out in the open and the project, the "Green Salt Project" isn't being hidden. It's the opposite of Iraq going here. No one's being turned away in this. Of course, any mentioning of this would be incomplete unless our Mighty Leader chimed in. "A nontransparent society that is the world's premier state sponsor of terror cannot be allowed to possess the world's most dangerous weapons," [President Bush] said in a speech defending his strategy in fighting terrorism. Talk about an empty answer. Look, no one wants the world's premier state sponsor of terror to have a nuclear warhead. He makes no mention of this event and is taking the same attitude he's becoming famous for in his discussion about Palestine. He's got his viewpoints and that's all there is to it. He thinks Iran is a bunch of terrorists and it doesn't matter what they do, they're going to stick with that label from now until the end of time. It's also worth mentioning that Saudi Arabia is most likely the #1 sponsor of terrorism. That's where fifteen of the 9/11 highjackers came from, that's where Osama and Idi Amin hid for a while, and that's who gave the Taliban 200m pounds in "protection money" a bit ago. I wonder if anyone's going to ask Bush why we're holding Iran to different standards than we do other countries. Me, I'm going to hold out on firm judgement, but I don't see this as any indication that Iran is preparing to blow us up with a nuke.

In the interest of showing that I look at things that aren't just about the Bush administration and Iraq (and it's taking effort, those are the stories filling up my feeds), I just have to tackle the fact that South Dakota's House approved an abortion ban. Not only that, but the ban would only be allowed in cases where it was saving the woman's life, with no clauses for rape or incest. The governer, Mike Rounds, is now going to be given the bill and has already said he's inclined to sign it, being pro-life himself. Now the thing is, most people aren't out there saying abortions are good things. People aren't saying we should all run around killing babies as soon as they happen. The support for abortion is in the case of rape, incest, health, failed contraception, emergencies that require it. But, of course, the supporters of this law tend to see things a little differently: Leslee Unruh, president of the Alpha Center, a Sioux Falls pregnancy counseling agency that tries to steer women away from abortion, said most of the abortions performed in South Dakota do not stem from rape or even failed contraception, but are simply "conveniences." Yes, that's right. Convenience. As it turns out, having an abortion is more convenient than doing anything else. You can just knock one out whenever you'd like. I wasn't aware. You see, women really don't like to take birth control. Generally, they prefer to spend $350-700 on an abortion, spend three to six hours at the hospital for the procedure, deal with the physical symptoms of pregnancy, deal with the physical complications of the operation as well as the emotional trauma afterwards. The pro-life crowd wants to make it look like you can take a Mr Garrison on South Park approach to abortion and just walk into the clinic, hop on a table and get a quick abortion, then make it to the movies and not have to worry about peeing halfway through thanks to that damn fetus resting on your bladder. Like it's some casual operation that womenfolk do in their free time when they're partway through the pregnancy and just don't feel like being pregnant any more. They aren't free and around 73% of them are paid for out of pocket. Does anyone believe that's preferable to a quick pill? Keep in mind it's not a national law, this will only apply to South Dakota. It's a state law, since obviously it can't be a federal law right now (I throw on the "right now" qualifier out of concern for what'll happen in upcoming years). So what's the result going to be? One of a few things: either you're going to have women travelling out of state to get abortions, you're going to have them going to shady and incredibly unsafe "clinics", or worse still the coat hanger will come back. Can you imagine the fiasco that will happen when a 13 year old girl gets raped by her uncle and she can't legally get the kid aborted? I don't WANT people to have abortions. In an ideal world all kids would be born and have great, fulfilling lives and their parents would be proud of them and they'd all die of old age after watching their own children grow up with equally great, fulfilling lives. In an ideal world all pregnancies would be wanted and then all children would be loved. In an ideal world no child would ever be told "you're only alive because I wasn't allowed to abort you". Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world.

You know, I'd wondered what the response from our Mighty Leader was going to be after these attacks started, and I finally got my answer. Today Bush said this is a "moment of choosing" in Iraq, and pleaded with everyone over there to try and be peaceful. Nice sentiments and all, I certainly want peace as well, but the White House managed to do it with typical political flair. Immediately following a comment from "independant analysts" that while the violence puts pressure to take the troops out, it also means they have to stay because Iraq is too "unstable" to be left to its own devices, we run into this little gem: Speaking in Washington to the American Legion, Bush blamed the violence on insurgents intent on disrupting Iraq's democratic progress, and he predicted the violence is likely to continue. This is what I love most about Bush. Any time an attack comes, it's never even a possibility that it is one faction of people fighting against another faction of people, no. It's some small group that's fighting democracy, or fighting freedom. You see, people in Bush's world don't fight each other. In Bush's world, everyone gets along perfectly well and it's horrible evildoers who are trying to actually get rid of happiness around the world. The man sees things the way those political cartoons and low-budget movies show them, with purely good and purely evil people. Even a six year old could ask "how can someone actually hate freedom?", but that kind of talk has no room in the world as seen through Bush-colored lenses. It's black and white, with us or against us, and if you aren't siding with everything he says then you're one of the demons whose sole purpose in life is to run around the world spreading misery for no good reason except your inexplicable hatred for human joy. Or, at the very least, you're siding with those types of people. Then this comment came out and totally threw me for a loop: "The question is, can this crisis also be an opportunity for bringing some Iraqi political leaders to their senses and encouraging cooperation," said James A. Phillips, of the conservative Heritage Foundation. "In a logical world that may be the case, but this is the Middle East." Yes, you read that right. Apparently the Middle East and the "logical world" are separate entities. The Middle East and logic don't go together according to this man from a (surprise!) conservative group. See, that's the other half of this whole issue. The Middle East really is another world and another set of people to a lot of folks on this side of the lake. The concept that they are different people, that they are in the middle of some serious conflicts, or that they just might have their reasons for not liking us are simply unacceptable. No, they hate freedom and they don't live in the "logical world". You want to know why they don't like us? You just read it.

Okay, all of my hopes of getting out of the Middle East ASAP? Well don't worry, that ain't happening soon. You see, the United States is planning long-term occupation in the area. In an exclusive interview today with U.S. News, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the Centcom director of plans and strategy, said it is important for America to begin to think about what size force will be needed to fight "the long war" against Islamic extremism after the U.S. leaves Iraq. Yep. We need to think about how many US troops are going to need to be in Iraq after the US leaves Iraq. I guess that's the way Bush is going to sneak that one on us. See, the first Iraq War was a "short war", we need to worry about a "long war" now. Right now it's "his war" but as soon as it gets really bad, he'll leave in 2008 and it'll be "somebody else's war".

Well in addition to the peaceful protesting Hamas did in reaction to the Israeli killing of a few Palestinians, now they've got a new gameplan. That's right, Hamas is talking to the UN in order to get Israel to stop attacking. The terrorist organization is appealing to the United Nations for a diplomatic solution and our friends are killing them. Lovely. WAFA, the Palestinian news agency, quoted [Palestinian leader Mahmoud] Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdenehas saying that the Palestinian leader asked the Security Council and the so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators the U.S., U.N., European Union and Russia to press Israel to stop its military strikes. Abbas warned that the military operations would endanger a cease-fire that has been in effect for a year, WAFA reported. Some will say that this is unreliable in one way or another, that words of peace are one thing and we should look at Hamas's actions. Which is, really, what I'm doing here. I'm looking at the fact that Hamas is protesting peacefully and negotiating with the United Nations and others instead of straight up attacking back. Some are crying for such things, but so far it isn't happening and the leaders are doing all in their power to find other channels of solution. Now, I know the United States isn't going to leap to Hamas's aid in this situation. Unless they do something completely unexpected like agree to share the country with Israel (which, honestly, I don't believe Israel would accept) then the US is going to stick to the "Hamas is a bunch of terrorists" guns. I just don't see it that way. It may have been true years ago, but in recent times, particularly now, it looks to me like the group is aiming for pure peace. Not a peaceful and happy agreement, but a solution that will keep a cease-fire going. Israel, meanwhile, looks like an angry child spitefully attacking Palestine for who they elected. What really struck me, also, was Israel's explanations for these deaths: Early Friday, the army killed two Palestinians it said were planting bombs along the border fence separating Israel and the coastal area. ... [T]he military's five-day sweep in the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, the military said, was aimed at militants involved in planning or carrying out attacks on Israel. ... The army also launched an airstrike early Friday at a group of Gaza militants who it said were firing rockets at Israeli targets. ... [F]ive Palestinians killed Thursday in Balata. The army said those shot had fired at troops or thrown firebombs. See? In every single incident the Israel military was actually on the DEFENSE. That Palestinians are the only casualties from all of these incidents is pure coincidence. They were the good guys. Seriously. It's also pretty impressive that Hamas even considered talking to the US. Especially when you realize that, as of 2002, the United States has given Israel over$1.6 trillion, and then asked Palestine for $50 million back in aid because it might go to Hamas. You want to know what a huge problem Hamas has with Israel? There it is, right there. We're pumping trillions into that country that keeps them stocked up with weapons that end up killing Palestinians. Wonder why they suicide bomb? Because the Middle East doesn't support Palestine like we do Israel. It's people with hand me down weapons fighting new US military supply. They attack how they can. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying why. Take away Israel's shiny multi-million dollar helicopters and they'll have bombs strapped to their chests as well. Just because they're Israel doesn't mean they're more civilized than their neighbors. From what recent events have shown, the opposite is true. At this point, I think the best thing the United States could do is just open up to the possibility that Hamas is genuine with these efforts. You never know, they might turn out to be serious about these peace talks. An underdog group can bomb and attack, but when they're leading the country, that requires a change in attitude. Seems like that's what happened.

Really, I'm not sure I can handle any more. The UAE, the NSA, DeLay, Gitmo, Abramoff, the Iraq war, Libby, Katrina, and now it seems he may have authorized leaking of classified documents for Bob Woodward's book. As Senator Rockefeller wrote in a letter: In his 2002 book Bush at War, Bob Woodward described almost unfettered access to classified material of the most sensitive nature. ... I wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures contained in Bush at War. The only response I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration. Isn't that awesome? Our president is authorizing the leaking of classified information simply because it's going to be in a book that paints him in a positive light (scroll to the end of the linked page for how he's listed in the contents). It's just too much. I can't handle this many scandals. Off the top of my head that's now eight scandals all running concurrently, none of which are benign "lying about sex" type scandals that hit Clinton. These are all, every single one, concerning our security and/or our civil liberties. They're starting to blend into one another into a giant mass of corruption that is truly defining this administration. It's not a blemish on an otherwise solid presidency. Immediately he was taking vacations, then he slept on warnings of an attack, started a war elsewhere, somewhere along the lines started spying on people, leaked information to make himself look good, dealt with shady people, and gave high-ranking positions to family friends. If there were just two or three at least we, and more importantly the media, could concentrate on them and get something done about them. Instead our effort is split over eight separate fiascos and counting. It's impossible to keep up with new information as it comes out. While I'm writing about one thing another slew of information will come out about something else. It all becomes headlines scrolling along. The man's reign (and that's what it is, a reign) will be almost entirely defined by the incredible number of scandals going on. Every president makes bad decisions, Clinton made a whole lot. Only Bush is out there putting the country in danger for purely political reasons. He can't possibly think these are good ideas. Of course, he might not know. He didn't know about 9/11, he didn't know about Katrina, he didn't know Cheney shot a guy, and he didn't know about the UAE port deal until he caught it on TV. Whether stupidity or pure corruption, I think in 2008 everyone who voted for Bush last year should be required to individually apologize.

As this story plays out it truly amazes me how many people thought we were right in going in there. When Bill O'Reilly says we need to get out then that's a pretty good hint things are going in a poor direction. What's going to be hilarious is when the right side starts to agree (as they already do about the ports) and then try to find a reason to say that they're still on the moral high ground. Well, while we were told about how horrible Iraq used to be and how much better things must be now, it seems even the Iraqis are stunned by the violence that's been going on. The violence on Wednesday was the closest Iraq had come to civil war, and Iraqis were stunned. ... Everything felt different on Thursday morning. A Shiite newspaper, AlBayyna al Jadidah, used unusually angry language in a front-page editorial: "It's time to declare war against anyone who tries to conspire against us, who slaughters us every day. It is time to go to the streets and fight those outlaws." This is not a minor scuffle. This is not a little roadbump on the path to everlasting peaceful democracy. This is the closest Iraq has come to an all-out civil war. The death toll in two days is climbing to 200, mosques are being destroyed. And this isn't a tyrant taking them out like Saddam's Al-Anfal anti-Kurd campaign. This is Shiites destroying Sunni mosques, this is Sunnis destroying Shiite mosques. This is the population fighting itself, and I can't imagine how Bush thinks he can stop that. From the moment the "operation" was titled Iraqi Freedom we were told our goal was to get the Iraqi people out from under the thumb of the cruel Saddam, after which we would be greeted as liberators from the united Iraqi people. We were shown the purple fingers as proof positive of this. All the banners and set-up elections in the world aren't going to cover up the fact that with or without Saddam, Iraq is a divided country, and one divided on deeply-rooted religious beliefs that have evolved into a cultural canyon. Our involvement in Iraq is not going to fix this, and we need to leave now and let the country deal with itself. It's ugly, but all our presence can possibly do is, at best, stave off the violence until a later date. At worst, we could get caught in the middle. Personally, I want to see our troops live in case we need them to die for causes concerning OUR safety and well-being. Our president is in a really tough spot right now. Bill Frist and others are saying the UAE purchase is a bad idea, Bill O'Reilly is saying we need to get out of Iraq, and republicans in Congress are saying they don't believe the domestic spying is legal. The president's approval rating is sitting at under 40% and his baby, his defining legacy as a president, is about to erupt in a civil war. Meanwhile the country he is accusing of being run by terrorists is staging peaceful protests after the country backed by our military attacked them. If I was Dubya right now, I wouldn't be worried about going down as a "great" president, or even a "good" president. I would be mostly worried about going down as the worst president.

Take that, Bush. In response to an Israeli military strike, Hamas led a peaceful protest in Palestine. Ismail Haniyeh [the man who has been tapped to be the next Palestinian prime minister] led the throngs to the Palestinian parliament to voice opposition to the Israeli military attack. The demonstration ended without incident. And we're still considering Israel the good guys and Hamas the terrorists. Perfectly logical. The money goes back to the US without incident and now a thousands-strong peaceful protest. What a terrorist group, no?

When I said a bit ago that I considered religion to be the worst thing to happen to humanity, I was concerned I may come across as too much of an inflammatory jackass. I figured many would read it and consider me to be taking out a personal vendetta against the Church via a meaningless little blog post (which is untrue, I have no such vendetta). Some might also say that it's unfair to lump religion in that entirely, that it's only Islam these days. Well that may seem true, since in addition to the cartoon riots, over 130 people have died in Iraq because of the mosque bombing yesterday. Despite the best wishes of the clerics for peace, the people just wouldn't accept that. In roughly 24 hours these bodies have piled up. Unsurprisingly, the US manages to sound stupid as hell concerning the issue. "The only people that want a civil war in Iraq are the terrorists like Zarqawi," [Condoleeza Rice] told reporters. "The Iraqi people are working under extremely difficult circumstances to bridge sectarian differences." See, and here I thought the Shiites and Sunnis were two groups who have hated each other for centuries and were only stopped from an all out holocaust on each other because of various societal restraints. But apparently not. "There have been efforts by the insurgents to start civil war for a couple of years now, but they have not succeeded because of institutional restraints. Those restraints have begun to erode," said Joost Hilterman, an Iraq expert at the International Crisis Grou pthink tank, listing Shi'ite clerics among those holding it back. Oh. Well crap. But don't worry, folks. Islam doesn't get to have all the fun. Christians in Nigeria are rioting against Muslims for some attacks the latter did on the former, and this time we have over 140 bodies piled. Thousands of people have been killed in religious violence since the restoration of democracy in 1999. Killings in one part of the country often spark reprisals elsewhere. Ain't that a kick in the pants. These religious killings start up this bad when democracy gets put in. Bush has been telling us that democracy will immediately lead to peace, this can't be right. Maybe they just don't have the right democracy and we need to get into Nigeria and fix things up. The army's only stretched a little thin, we can afford to go elsewhere. By the way, in the "why isn't this in the news" category: over 100,000 Muslims peacefully protest in London. While the cases of 10,000 people burning and rioting are plastered all over the news, ten times that show up in London without even an injury and the mainstream media completely ignores it. Only banners and placards, distributed by the organization, are allowed and the police were on watch to make sure nothing happened. And nothing did happen. Will Ann Coulter talk about it? I doubt it. She probably doesn't even know it happened.

With Congress fighting the president's deal to give control of six ports to the Dubai Port Company and the president fighting Congress saying there's nothing wrong with the deal, it's really a bizarre situation. No one seems to be defending the president. And CNN's Clark Kent Irvin certainly isn't helping matters, saying the UAE has a mixed record on terrorism, at best. ERVIN: But on the other hand, two of the 9/11 hijackers came from the UAE. UAE was one of only three countries in the world that recognized the Taliban before 9/11. It was a trans-shipment point for the nuclear smuggling network that ultimately got components to Iran and North Korea and Libya. So this should cause concern. The first two parts are more indicative of the government, perhaps, and some are saying that the UAE and the Dubai Port Company are not intrinsically linked. I think that's a rather dubious standpoint myself, but the third point made here is the real nail in the coffin. Read it a few times and realize that those components weren't coming in through carrier pigeon or faxed messages. The other point that keeps getting parroted around constantly is that the DPC will be controlling the port, but it's the Coast Guard that controls security. Aside from the fact that stuff gets snuck into and out of the country constantly via our ports, so security ain't exactly the greatest, there's another part to the equation: ERVIN: Furthermore, it's right that the Coast Guard is in charge of port security, but all that means is that the Coast Guard is responsible for setting standards and reviewing security plans. Whether those standards are met and whether those plans are implemented is ultimately left up to the port operator. Whoops. So they're in charge of port security the way a school administration is in charge of teaching kids. That's definitely reassuring.

A fast one before I go to sleep. Seems the ol' White House made some backroom arrangements with the Dubai Port company prior to the transaction. The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries. ... It said Dubai Ports must retain paperwork "in the normal course of business" but did not specify a time period or require corporate records to be housed in the United States. Outside experts familiar with such agreements said such provisions are routine in other cases. Awesome. So now we know that aside from all of the other problems I talked about, we were basically grooming them via a different set of rules to look good for the position. I'd write out more opinions on the matter, but I really don't think anything else needs to be said. This was not a purchase where the DPC fit the bill best. This was a purchase where we made the bill custom fitted to the DPC. Someone tell me, are there ANY noteworthy cases where the Bush Clan isn't doing this?

I figured that after my just-posted article on civil war in Iraq it would be pretty apt to take a look at another region that we attempted to overhaul the government of. In this cas it would be Korea, where we were nice enough to liberate South Korea from the stranglehold of its northern half. Aside from the fact that it was considered by many to be a proxy war, sticking it to the communists in general and had nothing to do with Korea itself (which is rather appropriate, actually), it's interesting to note how things are seen today by the population. You see, kids, a recent poll of South Korean youths showed that a whopping 48% of them would support North Korea in the event of a United States attack on North Korean nuclear facilities. Did the other 52% say they'd support us? No, almost 41% said they were neutral, a scant 11.6% said they would support us. That means that nearly 90% of South Korea would not back us in a war against the communist country we liberated them from. Of course, there is a caveat: "To me, the survey does not hint at our youngster's hatred for the United States,'' Kim Soo-jin, politics professor of Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said in a telephone interview. "I interpret it as their opposition to any attempt to solve the nuclear crisis by armed force.'' No, it's not hatred for the United States, but it also does show that they don't assume that if we attack we know what we're doing and it's something to be defended. If our involvement in Korea really was that crucial and praiseworthy, the country would be at the very least mostly on our side should we decide to attack the communist neighbors to the north. You'll notice a comment down at the end that calls it a loaded question, and to an extent it is. The question is if we attacked NK without Seoul's consent what would you do. The thing is, that doesn't mean we asked to do the attack and they said no (we don't need to ask, it's a separate country), it's if we just attacked without asking them at all. To suggest it's a loaded question in that it suggests we might is just foolish and not the intention. The question is simply asking, basically, if you woke up and read that the USA attacked a facility in North Korea, what would you do? Of course, this is a translation, so I can't comment on the verbiage of the question with any kind of authority. I just found it interesting that less than an eighth of South Korea would back their liberators in an attack on they we freed them from. Imagine what Iraq will think of us in a few decades.

Offering the third attack in as many days to a Shiite community, the Golden Mosque in Samarra was bombed early this morning. Reportedly, five men in masks stormed the mosque last night and planted a pair of bombs which detonated the next morning. While there is no proof who caused the attacks, a number of attacks on Sunnis have happened in response. Shiite militants attacked more than two dozen Sunni mosques in retaliation, burning down two of them, new agencies reported. At least six people were reported killed in the violence, including three Sunni clerics. No surprises there. As much as people would like to think that the Iraqi population is one solid mass that is either with us or agin' us, they aren't. There's a Shiite majority and Sunni minority, and these two groups do not like each other. This isn't news, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it seems like people have forgotten about this little wrinkle when it comes to turning Iraq into a little brown'n'bearded version of the United States. Thankfully our Mighty Leader came out to quiet the mobs. [President Bush] condemned the bombing as a "cowardly act" and urged Iraqis to "exercise restraint" as they pursue justice under the law. "Violence will only contribute to what the terrorists sought to achieve by this act," Bush said. I... well the... I thought... okay, I genuinely don't know how Bush can say some of these things and expect anyone to take him seriously. I'm not sure when Bush, in the past few years, has responded to anything without violence or under the law, let alone both. Suppose it's another case of "do as I say, not as I do". Or in his case, "do as I say, ignore what I do". All right that's a bit of a sidetrack. The point here is the bombing, not what Bush said about it. While, surprisingly, leaders across the country are asking the people to respond peacefully and to avoid violence, there have been a small number of deaths, a bunch of injuries, and attacks on 29 Sunni mosques. However, the clerics and others are indeed pushing for a non-violent response and for the country not to erupt in civil war. That right there is rather encouraging to me. Whether or not it sticks or if it's just lip-service remains to be seen. I know history would tell me otherwise, but progress is progress, far as I'm concerned. However, I think it's a big lesson for us here in the Yoo Ess. The Middle East is just plain unstable. Going in there to remove any threat to us is just fine. But expecting to be able to march around and settle ANY internal conflict, aside from being arrogant (not to mention ignorant of our own problems), is simply naive. Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for an incredibly long time. We're not going to drop in, set up a few elections, and suddenly they're a fully-industrialized peaceful and democratic nation. It's not going to happen. It sucks, but it's true. We need to drop these pipe dreams of creating a peaceful and happy Iraq and get out of there while we still can. It's not a defeatist attitude, it's a realistic one. We got rid of Saddam, we established that there are no WMDs, it's time to go. This vague and morphing "goal" of ours that was supposedly accomplished almost three years ago is just plain dangerous to us. The country will fight itself. That's not our business, and I've been saying this for around four years now.

So our Mighty Leader is facing opposition almost unilaterally about the deal to sell the control of shipping operations at our six ports to the UAE. People who have supported the man in everything he's done so far are telling him he can't do this. Republicans are actually siding with Hillary Clinton. Basically, mass pandemonium. In response, he threatened to veto any and all legislative attempts to stop the transaction from going through. There is little, if any, support for this sale. How can Bush even attempt to get himself out of this mess? Claim he didn't even know about it until it was OK'd. "He became aware of it over the last several days," McClellan said. Asked if Bush did not know about it until it was a done deal, McClellan said, "That's correct." He said the matter did not rise to the presidential level, but went through a congressionally-mandated review process and was determined not to pose a national security threat. Can't make this stuff up, folks. The man comes out to threaten a veto over an issue he didn't even know about until it was a "done deal". Of course, as we got hints of during the Cheney shooting, any time McClellan says Bush is "gathering information" that means he's almost completely out of the loop until the media hits it. It's a little White House sneakspeak, there to make Bush seem like he's not quite so incompetent. Another interesting part is the "congressionally-mandated" review process. That seems to indicate that Congress reviewed what was going on and said it was okay, but now they're complaining. It's an attempt to drag those who are criticizing the president down. A closer scrutiny of the sentence will tell you that the review process was mandated by Congress, not that they were involved with it, but it's another case of trying to throw mud on your critics by murky language and leaving out details. Remember Al Gore supporting warrantless searches? But the best detail of the story comes in the form of David Sanborn of Virginia. You see, this guy was a senior executive of Dubai Ports World (specifically Director of Operations in Europe and Latin America), and nary a month ago the Bush Clan appointed him administrator of the Maritime Administration of the Transportation Department, the guys who are in charge of our import/export ships (Merchant Marines) and their activities. Isn't that awfully convenient? Don't worry, though: "My understanding is that he has assured us that he was not involved in the negotiations to purchase this British company," McClellan added. Well that's a relief. McClellan is pretty sure that the guy said he had nothing to do with it. That's good enough for me. So let's add up what we've got so far. Our president is threatening to veto any attempts to stop a purchase of US port-control by a company owned by a country who had involvements with 9/11 hijackers, is greatly involved with the transportation of heroin, has 10 percent of the world's oil, and all the while the man didn't know this was happening until it was a "done deal". Oh, and our brand new MARAD used to be a senior executive of said company. Someone tell me again why Bush is such a great leader?

In today's example of proving that there is a lot to hide and/or that they think checks and balances are overrated, the White House stopped an intelligence official from getting briefed on the NSA wiretapping situation. "Gen. Hayden said he was prepared to brief the full committee but our request was disapproved by White House Chief of Staff Andy Card," [Rep. Jane] Harman said in a statement issued by her office. Just like that, a quick snap of the fingers and now Congress isn't allowed to get the briefing. One guy says no, not even the president himself, and suddenly the entire intelligence committee is barred from being briefed on what the president is doing. If that doesn't blatantly smack of the executive branch saying it's more powerful than the legislative then I don't know what does. Between this and Gonzales saying the president was open to "suggestions" from Congress, as if their entire purpose is to just drop things in the box and hope Our Mighty Leader approves, I don't understand how they can even pretend to respect our Constitution. A little while ago we managed to get a briefing out of them, but now they're getting turned away. And then this little interesting tidbit cropped up: Despite yesterday's White House comments, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) announced he is drafting a bill that would "require the administration to take the program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." Arlen Specter, the guy who said that Gonzales didn't have to be sworn in when testifying a mere two days prior, says he's drafting this bill. Either he had a serious change of heart or the man is just going through the motions without actually trying to get anything done (I'm guessing the latter as there's been no more talk about this bill). There are apparently rumblings of a new amendment being passed that would make the wiretaps legal. Consider also that there are talks to change the FISA law in order to make it better fit the needs of the current world. Now any discussion of changing the laws is curious because it says three things: 1) It's acknowledged that the program in its current state is illegal. 2) The administration wants to change the laws because despite the program's illegality they want to keep doing it. 3) Somehow making something legal after doing it removes any wrongdoing in some kind of bizarre backwards ex-post-facto. That's the really bizarre part. On one hand we're being told that the program is perfectly legal. On the other hand briefings are being prevented and people who support the program want to change the laws to accommodate it. That's like having a burger joint and saying your meat is perfectly fine, but not letting anyone see how you make the food and also lobbying to have regulations changed. No sane person can look at these facts and believe that what's going on is okay.

This issue is so strange I have no idea how to best go about dealing with it. By now it's fairly common knowledge that the United States is trying to put people from the United Arab Emirates in charge of our ports. Two of the hijackers on 9/11 came from the UAE (15 from Saudi Arabia and one each from Lebanon and Egypt, so we annihilated Iraq and Afghanistan for some reason, but that's another tangent), so even a surface-level glance at the situation would leave a rational person scratching his head. The administration is insistant that this is a non-issue, that security will still be in the hands of the United States. Even accepting that, when we're in a state of the world when schoolbus drivers are being trained to deal with terrorism, what could the motivation possibly be to put six of our major ports in the hands of a company from a country that produced some of the terrorists from the event Bush relies on to rally support? What could have inspired him to choose that company? Bush isn't saying, and he's also said he'll veto any attempt to stop the transcaction. The peculiar part was this comment: "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, 'We'll treat you fairly.'" That's a cute little sentiment, but I can't believe the man was capable of uttering those words in that order without twitching. The last few years of this country has been about putting the Middle East to a different standard than the rest of the world. The Middle East isn't allowed to have uranium enrichment, the Middle East isn't allowed to get money if they elect someone we disagree with. Apparently, though, the Middle East is allowed to be in charge of major ports on our soil. A better question would be why a Middle Eastern country that did have 9/11 hijackers is being treated nicely while countries that didn't are being treated so harshly. This isn't a matter of US ports being under foreign control, it's not even a matter of US ports being under Middle Eastern control. It's a matter of US ports being under the control of a company from an incredibly volatile country that has, in the past, gotten terrorists into the country. We've been trained to fear everyone that even has an Arabian name by this administration. Now all of a sudden we're supposed to treat companies from that area as equal to British ones? Sometimes I honestly don't understand what the Bush clan is trying to accomplish. You'd almost think they WANT another attack. Of course, the last one has brought them nothing but money and power. Maybe they need a better reason to force more executive power and suspend that pesky 2008 election. (note for the slow: that was not a serious suggestion, just some idle musing)

I've been worried about what the SC would be doing with the new justices on the bench, and I've got my first glimpse of an answer. This past week it looks like the ol' Supreme Court got a lot done. Decisions on partial-birth abortion, tobacco companies who want to sue over anti-smoking ads, and even took a look at the case for a child molester who said judges shouldn't be allowed to use evidence not brought up in the case when sentencing. That last one really surprised me. That the appeal came from California didn't surprise me at all, but that they'd hear it did. I would have expected them to look at the fact that we're discussing a child molester and tell him to piss off, that he forfeited his own rights. Lo and behold, they're going to do what can best be described as a blind-to-the-case-specifics decision concerning a potential injustice. The abortion issue I'm a little hedgy on. I've seen a video on what the procedure is and it's undoubtedly a very unpleasant thing. The baby comes partway out and the skull is punctured. However, it is considered by many to be safer than the traditional method, and oddly enough it's on the basis of safety considerations for the mother that the case is being looked at. Particularly with all of the concerns about Alito's views on abortion, it's incredibly interesting that it's being looked at for reasons outside of whether abortion in general is acceptable. I often think the opposition to it is that the baby comes out. It isn't being born, they're pulling it out and doing the deed while it's out rather than while it's still in. But that's another discussion. Thumbs up to the Supreme Court today, I ran through the list and noticed that the decisions really did appear to be entirely about interpreting the laws as they existed and had no political party bias. Some stuff that will piss off liberals, some stuff that will piss off conservatives, but nothing that would piss me off. I may have to swallow my criticisms about Alito. I'm not going to be happy about it, but if he keeps going as he is I won't be too proud to admit he was a good choice if that's how things end up. I will, however, maintain my right to claim that Bush made a good choice by accident. Particularly as I can imagine his fury at seeing Alito not immediately changing abortion laws, and indeed potentially keeping them in place. Perhaps that's why he wouldn't call Roe v Wade established law, so the hardline conservatives would stay on his side. It's early, though, so while I have no particular opinion on the man in total, I approve of what's happening so far.

Well, it's been a little over a month since this blog opened up, and around two weeks since it's been the current incarnaton and I decided to keep track of visitors. In that time, as of some point this morning, the site has broken the 1,000 visitor barrier. That's 1,000 visitors by the way, not 1,000 total hits. So for anyone who's coming back with any kind of frequency, thank you. Leave a comment, say hi, I like to see who's reading. For anyone who's here for the first time and doesn't plan on coming back, leave a comment as well. Let me know what needs fixed (outside of my political bend). For anyone who's here, be it a first timer or a long timer, take a few seconds to sign up for the emailed updates with that little form on the right. This is particularly helpful for those of you only surfing through on a traffic exchange site so you don't have to worry about bookmarking or keeping another window open but are still curious about what we do here.

Busy day in the ol' news today. David Irving, a British historian who's written some books, visited Austria back in 1989 and apparently denied the genocide of the Jews while he was there. Austria doesn't find this amusing and now, 17 years later, sentenced him to three years in jail. I am a fan of people being held accountable for the stupid things they say, I am a fan of people knowing that if they say something stupid they're going to be called on it. I'm an even bigger fan of people being educated about what they say before they say it. What I am not a fan of is people being jailed or otherwise legally punished for saying uneducated, stupid things. That this man was even put on trial is absurd, much less sentenced. The verdict by a jury of eight lay jurors and three judges was harsher than some legal experts had expected. Ya think? It's times like these I'm quite glad that the men that founded this country made that damned Bill of Rights. Everyone, take a moment or two to just sit back and be glad it's still there and intact.

Because of course the best course of action when discussing a president who continually tries to eliminate the legislative branch from the political proceedings of the United States would be to give back a presidential power previously ruled unconstitutional. They gave it to Clinton and then determined it took away Congress's inherent power, and Bush is already claiming we need to give it back to him, throwing in a classic Bushism along the way: "We can tackle this problem together, if you pass the line-item veto," he said. Duh. Give the president back a power to single-handedly determine what should and what shouldn't be in a law and that's us working TOGETHER. It's a clear earmark of working together to let a president be the sole arbiter about these laws. I feel pretty stupid for not figuring that out on my own. What boggles me the most in all of this is the fact that despite that the law was indeed ruled unconstitutional back in 1998 that people are trying to help Bush in getting it pushed in. Republicans in the house, of course. The people who for some reason believe that the purpose of Congress is to just make sure the president has the shortest path possible between himself and having his policies enacted rather than being a wholly functioning branch of government. Back in 1998, the court clearly disagreed. The 6-3 ruling said that the Constitution gives a president only two choices: either sign legislation or send it back to Congress. The 1996 line-item veto law allowed the president to pencil out specific spending items approved by the Congress. The "proof" we need this comes in the form of showing that Clinton saved $2 billion one year using the line-item veto. Ignoring that in general Bush has shown no ability to control spending responsibly, there's another way of doing it. A few representatives (a bipartisan group, it should be noted) have put together a bill that would have the president send back a list of projects that he doesn't believe should be funded and Congress has 15 days to vote if it should stay alive. That's plenty. But no, it isn't enough. So now apparently we need a constitutional amendment: Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn., has proposed a constitutional amendmentto give the president clear line-item veto authority over spendingitems, saying this was the best way to rein in spending. "We need for the president, whether a Republican or a Democrat, to have the ability to cut out the junk, hold Congress accountable and keep spending under control," Kennedy said. Folks, this isn't the FISA's "limitations" because of a lack of ability to predict electronic, anonymous communications. This isn't a case of technology running away from the ability of the existing laws to control things. This is people simply wanting to re-write what the framers of the Constitution had in mind, and resorting to such because the court already decided it was against the document. So far no claims have emerged that the Constitution's handling of presidential and congressional powers are unfit to handle the way the world runs today, just that it's wrong. That's a fairly scary assertion, and it opens up the doorway to saying all kinds of checks and balances are wrong. When I was a kid in school that was the first thing our teachers would point out to us to illustrate how the checks and balances work. I remember later finding it weird to hear that a president would be allowed to just pull out parts of laws that he didn't like. Now I don't find it weird, just a little unsettling that in the middle of all of this talk of a president overstepping his bounds there are talks of a Constitutional Amendment being introduced to give him unconstitutional powers. More unsettling still that people outside of the president think it's a good idea. Maybe it's just me, but when it comes to taking what Bush wants or what the writers of the Constitution wanted, I'm going to go with the latter.

Though the idea has been on the table for a while, the fact that Iran is even willing to consider this plan is pretty big. The plan is pretty simple: Iran can do what it wants with nuclear technology, but all the enrichment and such has to occur on Russian soil. The power plants can be in Iran, but all the uranium enrichment has to be in Russia. Obviously this is to keep Iran from using the uranium to build a nuclear weapon, but at the same time it has them unhappy that they aren't going to be given the right to produce nuclear power for themselves. Not that the proposal isn't without some resistance: Analysts have said Iran would like its scientists to have access to the facility in Russia where uranium would be enriched and hope to retain the right to conduct some part of the enrichment process at home issues that could become sticking points in the talks. Ignoring the complete lack of commas that make it hard to read, it's obvious that we're going to have a difficult time (read: probably impossible) convincing Iran to give up any and all parts of the enrichment process at home. That they aren't even allowed access to the enrichment process is going to be another roadbump. However, just that they're willing to talk about it (there's going to be a meeting on March 6th) strikes me as a step forward. A Vienna-based diplomat familiar with the thinking of IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has suggested the international community might have no choice but to accept small-scale enrichment on Iranian soil as a condition for Tehran to agree to move its full program abroad. This one strikes me as one of those cases where we may have to do a little compromising as well. So far they've already ended a freeze on enrichment activities and threatened to stop allowing random inspections. Plus we've got suicide bombers to worry about as well. "Their possible attacks to [nuclear facilities of Iran] will not certainly be a ground attack — that would be, a missile attack — but they should know that they have interests in some sensitive areas which can be targeted by our suicide attackers," said Muhammad Ali Samadi, one of the movement's leaders, speaking in Farsi. I don't believe for a moment that these people are only reserving their threats for a missile attack on the facilities, but rather they'll be willing to do some form of attack on other areas if vigorous attempts are made to prevent Iran from even having nuclear facilities (which seems to be a popular opinion on this side of the lake). Iran is suggesting it only wants a very small amount of nuclear enrichment, far below the amount necessary to make a weapon. Accepting this may keep them allowing the IAEA to inspect the operations periodically. Alternately, we can put up a complete and total prohibition on nuclear capabilities in Iran and end up with hidden facilities making plenty for a nuclear weapon that the IAEA can't look at while suicide bombers attack elsewhere. I don't particularly like either situation, but finding middle ground seems to be the best chance we have at avoiding a nuclear holocaust. Sure there will be those who say acceptance of the deal is only so they can have secret facilities elsewhere that aren't under the microscope, but at least the inspectors will be allowed in. Not everything can be wrapped up in a neat little box, now and again we need to accept something we aren't entirely comfortable with to avoid a far more dangerous situation.

This one isn't as current as I'd like, but it still caught my eye. Considering the United States considers Iran a part of the Axis of Evil, it's funny that our governments agree on so many things. They both think countries that offend them should be punished by renaming foodstuffs that carry the offender's name, they both want our countries run by an official religion, and they both think gay organizations shouldn't get consultative status in the United Nations. States opposed to the two groups’ applications moved to have them summarily dismissed, an almost unprecedented move at the UN, where organizations are ordinarily allowed to state their cases. The U.S. abstained on a vote which would have allowed the debate to continue and the groups to be heard. It then voted to reject the applications. Amazing, isn't it? More so since in 2002 supported the LGBT groups' cases to be reviewed. Then we flipped around for no good reason, agreeing with an initiative Iran started. See, consultative status is how interest groups get their voices heard at the UN and there are roughly 3,000 of them there. Let's take a look at who's on here. - Arab Lawyers Union - China Care and Compassion Society - Institute for Traffic Care - World Association of Newspapers - The Sulphur Institute - International Potash Institute - International Council of Cruise Lines - European Tea Community Yes, we need the ETC to consult with the United Nations on all the important issues concerning the treatment of tea in Europe, but we can't have a few groups in there to talk about the rights of gays throughout the world. We're just going to keep Iran executing them as we've recognized they do. We're supposed to be the land of the free, and here our government is siding with these guys: Cameroon, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Awesome. Of course, all those countries are of the opinion that the sole leader of the nation can do whatever he wants. Makes sense we want to emulate them.

After Bush's proclamation that we need to get over our oil addiction, the United States took notice. Specifically, they took notice by making sure anyone with a gas-guzzling SUV would get lots of nice tax breaks. Hybrid owners get a $3,150 credit regardless of tax bracket, which ain't bad t'all. However: ...owners of small businesses who buy a Hummer, Ford Excursion or other SUV weighing more than 3 tons get a deduction of up to $25,000 if they use the vehicle exclusively for work. How much money they get back for the deduction depends on their tax bracket. The benefits don't stop there. Once they subtract the $25,000 from the cost of their 3-ton SUV,small business owners can deduct the depreciation on the remaining amount. Someone who bought a $60,000 SUV, for example, can claim the remaining $35,000 over six years. Yep, that's just ridiculous. Then this one woman has to come out and say she needs her H2's because they "look different" and she wants to make an impression. Apparently that impression is "I don't give a shit about our oil addiction". Folks, we can't just expect the government to fix things without the population doing something to help. You complain about gas prices, you complain about "no blood for oil", and you can't do that while you're driving a four-miles-to-the-gallon Escalade or Hummer. You're perpetuating the problem, and the government is going to keep this crap up as long as the population supports it.

At least that appears to be the newest idea. The best way to save us from terrorist attacks is to have the nation's schoolbus drivers on the lookout for suspicious characters. We're taking these guys to training sessions and teaching them how to spot potential threats and report them dispatchers. And why? Jeffrey Beatty, a security expert, paints a picture of a deadly plot: terrorists monitor a punctual school bus driver for weeks, then hijack his bus and load it with enough explosives to take down a building. Butan alert driver could foil that plan, Mr. Beatty told a class of 250 drivers in Norfolk. After all, bus drivers cover millions of miles of roads. They know the towns, the children, the parents. There's a statement worth dissecting. Why in the hell would terrorists need to monitor a bus driver to know its route? Has anyone ever seen a school bus and thought to themselves, "Whoa now, that there's a Ferndale district bus, what's it doing over here in Allegheny? I'd better follow it to make sure nothing nefarious is happening!" If you're driving a school bus you can go wherever the hell you want. There's no need to monitor its schedule. It's not a subway, it ain't on a fixed track. Look, if terrorists hijack a bus they can take it anywhere, it doesn't matter where it's supposed to go. A bus full of explosives could drive around town for a few hours freely and the only static that would occur would be from parents of kids who didn't get picked up that morning. Hell, why take a bus at all? People drop kids off at school all the time, take a van. What is the bus doing that makes it so crucial to getting to the school? You could be driving a tank and not be bothered by anyone. Of course, things like that are pretty irrelevant when it comes to scarin' folk: In Norfolk, Shelita Hill, a driver for 23 years, acknowledged that she never thought of her school bus as a target of terrorism until she heard Mr. Beatty speak. Neither had many others in the class. "He woke us up," Ms. Hill said. Showing the drivers the potential threat is fine, but having them on the lookout for incredibly unlikely things like "someone unfamiliar taking photographs or drawing sketches of the area" or a "person asking a lot of questions about the bus route" is putting their effort in all the wrong places. It leaves the drivers with more than just a paranoia and distrust of everyone near them, it also leaves them with the feeling of being a "gatekeeper" that can stop any potential terrorist attacks that may be planned for the school. The problem with that is it means they're going to amp up their misguided efforts. To hammer in the potential danger, Beatty refers to the Beslan school siege back in 2004 that resulted in 350 odd civilians and children killed. Unfortunately, those guys showed up in a military vehicle and a police car, not a school bus. They didn't monitor schedules and draw sketches of the area. They got a vehicle and drove to the school. Teach people to prevent that, not fill their minds with fear of a scenario that won't occur. It's not that us terrorist-sympathizing, America-hating liberals want to see people killed, it's that we want to see effort put in the proper channels. This, folks, is not a proper channel. It's the kind of wasted effort that ends up keeping our focus away from where the real danger is. Teach these people how to fend off a hijacking (busjacking?) attempt, that's all they need and that's all that's going to prove of any real use.

And I say it's about damn time. The fact that he hasn't been publically denounced before has been one of the most perplexing features about christian conservatives. A man who has publically said that people not believing in the Judeo-Christian god are unfit to hold public office, that Christianity should rule the United States, and is also the guy who said things like 9/11, Katrina, and Sharon's medical problems were all the result of an angry god. The man is damaging the reputation of Christians the world over, he's making them all look like idiots with his bullshit. Every hateful and idiotic word out of his mouth is a detriment to every person with a Bible in their home. Fortunately, more stable-minded people are trying to distance themselves from the guy: Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's ethics and religious liberty commission, has said he was "stunned and appalled that Pat Robertson would claim to know the mind of God concerning whether particular tragic events ... were the judgments of God." Look, I'm a staunch atheist and honestly believe (as per my earlier post) that religion has done more damage than any other factor in world history. Belief in a god or gods has been a source of conflict from ancient peoples in South America or the Israel/Palestine conflict. That said, I recognize that they aren't all morons like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Many Christians are decent people who just want to live happy lives and help people find some stability along the way. To these people I say "go for it". Me saying religion should be driven out of the country is no better than him saying religion should be driven into the country. People should be allowed to be Christian, be Hindu, or be atheist and the government shouldn't have any bearing on the practice of such (generally speaking, of course; can't be stoning infidels). Christians are going to want to push things into the government because they believe that it is best for the country at large. Many Christians are reasonable people who have their faith to guide them and want happiness to spread. Everything they say isn't right, everything they say isn't wrong. I fully recognize that they do some good stuff. And we need 'em to keep doing that good stuff, just without trying to shackle the world down by forcing Christianity into everyone else's faces. They deserve government money for the charities they do and the various causes they champion. And that's why they need to distance themselves from this wacko as much as they can. It's incredibly difficult to get public support when the most public face of your belief system is someone like Pat. When people attack Robertson, he wins sympathy for appearing to be an underdog, [Director of the Religious Studies Program at Virginia Tech Brian] Britt said. "It reinforces an image of Christianity as a persecuted religion, a religion that is being hounded by the secularists out of the public square, rather than a dominant and hegemonic force," Britt said. No, Pat. We aren't persecuting Christianity. We're persecuting you and your filth-spewing ilk. We're persecuting those who relish in the misery of those who don't believe in their god, who want to punish the heathens and smile at the thought of good people burning in hell simply for following a different doctrine.

The RNC, in the latest case of not really caring about people's privacy or the sanctity of that which they claim to hold sacred, are asking everyone registered republican in North Carolina to send in their church directories. I understand that the republican voter base is entirely rooted in the Christian faith (though as much as they'd like to say so, the Christian population is not solely republican), but there is something to be said for privacy and not whoring out the church in order to try and get some more votes. Of course, they're not going to use this information for any kind of nefarious purpose, right? Well... "I am requesting that you collect as many church directories as you can and send them to me in an effort to fully register, educate and energize North Carolina's congregations to vote in the 2006 elections," [the memo] said. It added that the "North Carolina Republican Party holds your church's directory in strict confidence" and will not use it "to solicit church members for any other reason." Any other reason than to try and get as many of them to vote republican as they can, of course. Any other reason than to use someone's faith as an open door to start shoving their political agenda onto them. Naturally, the church leaders were not too happy with the idea, nor were they when Bush and Cheney attempted to get churches to put advertisements in their directories and organize campaigning. More than the issue of general ethics, the fact is that this is people having their addresses and phone numbers given to the RNC for this purpose. Take a poll sometime: if you knew that your name was going to be put on a republican calling and mailing list simply because you happen to go to church, you might be less likely to go to that church. It's invasive. Not that the Busheviks saw a problem with it: Officials of the Republican National Committee maintained that the tactic did not violate federal tax laws that prohibit churches from endorsing or opposing candidates for office, and they never formally renounced it. And therein we see the problem with those people. They don't have personal morals and ethics, they won't restrain from doing something unless someone makes them. No laws against it, (or at least no one to force them to adhere to those laws)? Then no one has a problem with it. The fact that trying to use churches, where people to go to pray to their god and cleanse their sins, as a place to play politics may be considered tasteless by some means nothing. As long as they're legally allowed to do it, they will. That's kind of a scary thought, and it does start to make you realize why republicans are generally Christians, and why they're generally the Christians who violently protest gay marriage and abortion. The concept of self-morality is foreign to them. I have been asked (multiple times) why, as an atheist, I don't treat everyone around me terribly and if US law is the only reason I'm not a murdering rapist. And the question was serious. These people could not grapple with the idea that without a finger-wagging god looking over my shoulder a person can be good. It's blatant disrespect to these institutions, made all the more bizarre by the fact that these people claim to hold the church sacred above all else. It's not like you're going to see the DNC trying to collect names from the Apollo.

I really hope this is the last I say about this. I'm kinda sick of the issue but this headline in the Times just baffled me. Note the interesting phrasing. "Man in the line of fire" as opposed to "man shot by VP". The latter means the VP screwed up and accidentally shot a guy. Line of fire? Now Dick was an innocent party in the ordeal and Whittington was at fault for so carelessly walking in the way. Of course, it's a good thing he "expresses sorrow" for Cheney's troubles. Good thing, too. Doesn't this look like the face of a guilty man?

Remember when we were told that we needed to put democracy in other countries and that would fix all of the world's ills? Then Palestine had to go and act the ass by electing Hamas and just totally screw up all of Bush's rhetoric. But don't worry, just to show our support of democracies that elect people we don't like, the United States is being charitable enough to demand that Palestine give back all the aid we sent to them. "In the interests of seeing that these funds not potentially make their way into the coffers of a future Palestinian government (made up of Hamas) ... we have asked for it to be returned and the Palestinian Authority has agreed," [State Department spokesman Sean] McCormack told reporters. I wonder if it made anyone angry that Palestine agreed to give back the money. It really doesn't help the United States' case that a Hamas-led government is crazy and full of terrorists when they'll amicably return money we gave them. I've got a feeling there was an email being sent around that said "okay, we'll demand back all that money, they'll get mad and then we can start up a quick overthrow and put in someone that supports us." So here we are, the United States of America, a beacon of democracy to the world parading about planting the seeds of freedom and free elections wherever we go, and now we're openly refusing to acknowledge or help a democratic country because their leaders are someone we didn't want to be elected. More and more it's becoming obvious that our government doesn't give a shit about freedom anywhere, they just want power over the world. We say who can and who can't have weapons, we say when a country is and isn't a threat, we say when a war is and isn't warranted, we control your prison, we make our own rules and you have to follow them. Hear that Iraq? You have the freedom to do everything we say. At least if you want any help in the future. Enjoy.

In case anyone was wondering about the fact that all of this abuse seems to be going on in Cuba and Iraq, don't worry. We've got cruelty on the home front as well, the flavor of the week being a teen dying of internal hemmorhaging following a restraining and beating at a state boot camp for delinquents. "It was a natural death," Siebert said. "The trait caused red blood cells to sickle and change shape, casing a whole cascade of events that led to bleeding and hemorrhaging." Because, clearly, things like internal bleeding and hemorrhaging always crop up unexpected. The fact that the kid was tied up and being beaten was entirely unrelated. It's not like that could cause any kind of bleeding. And the bruises on his body? Oh those were from the attempts to resuscitate him. Really. Of course, there were some noticably odd injuries on him. There were also some minor cuts behind Anderson's ears, possibly as a result of efforts by guards to gain control of the 140-pound youth, Siebert said. No drugs were discovered by the autopsy. 140 pounds! That kid's a goliath! Those guards were probably fighting for their lives. Really, this kind of thing happens all the time, I hear Cheney expressed his sympathies to them on what had to have been the worst day of these guards' lives. A 14 year old, 140 pound kid with no drugs in his system dies of internal bleeding immediately following held down and beaten by guards, and they respond by saying it was his sickle cell anemia that caused it. Unbelievable.

In response to the Danish cartoon, our good friends of Iran got all mad and decided to rename the danish pastry a "Rose of the Prophet Muhammad". Bakeries across the capital were covering up their ads for Danishpastries Thursday after the confectioners' union ordered the namechange in retaliation for caricatures of the Muslim prophet publishedin a Danish newspaper. Maybe I'm crazy, that certainly wouldn't be a new thing, but the story sure seems awfully familiar...

See, that's clever because it rhymes. So the UN recently decided, based on interviews, public documents and reports and other sources, that Guantanamo Bay is doing things that amount to torture. Incredibly unsurprisingly, the US refuses to acknowledge this as anything more than just rehashing of things said years ago and that it's all the result of terrorists making false allegations. "These are dangerous terrorists that we're talking about that are there," spokesman Scott McClellan said. Unfortunately, that doesn't really seem to be the case. You see, not only are most at Gitmo most likely not terrorists, but the ones that are determined to be of not intelligence value are transported there anyway. Amongst them a 16 year old who was on his way to fight for the Taliban but changed his mind and turned around, a restaurant owner with absolutely no combat training, a man with such severe head injuries he didn't know his own name, and a pair of 70 year olds. None of the 59 met U.S. screening criteria for determining which prisoners should be sent to Guantanamo Bay, military sources said. But all were transferred anyway, sources said, for reasons that continue to baffle and frustrate intelligence officers nearly a year after the first group of detainees arrived at the facility. One of the rebuttals to the UN's claim of torture at Gitmo is that the UN decided not to accept an offer to come by and actually take a look around. At first glance that seems to make sense, how can you say that these things are so wrong if you've never looked for yourself? Well that's great but consider that the US is notorious for saying things like this: Recently discovered Iraqi documents now being translated by U.S. intelligence analysts indicate that Saddam Hussein's government made extensive plans to hide Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion in March 2003. The US is a country of repeatedly claiming that Iraq had WMDs despite weapons inspectors never finding any. Some reports say they're in Syria, some say they're in Russia, but despite all of that the end result is that we're going to say we're justified because although we didn't find physical evidence, we have reports that suggest he had them. So here the US is, saying that despite all of the reports and interviews attesting to torture at Gitmo, that isn't to be believed because they (the UN) haven't seen it for themselves. The Iraq war is entirely based on this concept and the US is saying, outright, that it's unreliable and not to be trusted. But only in this case. Prison torture isn't like nuclear weapons, folks. It's easy as hell to send a memo to the facility telling them to act good for a few days while the UN looks around. When you're a kid you can act good while mom's watching and then resume beating up your little brother as soon as she leaves. The crazy thing is that people don't understand why the world at large sees the United States in such a negative light. UPDATE: Apparently the reason the UN turned down the invitation was that they weren't allowed to interview any prisoners. Whoops. Way to leave out some details, US. "Sure, you can look around, just you can't talk to anyone relevant."

So by now Dick has shown up on Fox News to discuss the issue with the world at large. Now, I honestly don't want to assume the worst, despite my dislike of the man. I would love to listen to and read this interview and believe that I am being presented with the words of a remorseful man who made an honest mistake and the consequences of such are preying upon his soul day and night. Unfortunately, I just can't do that. It really isn't helpful that he decided to show up on Fox News. Out of all of the major networks (MSNBC, Fox, CBS, CNN, ABC), Dick chooses the one that is clearly going to go light on him. Fox is full of Bush lovers and supporters, and Brit Hume is certainly amongst them. Remember this is the guy who tried to use bizarre semantics to criticize the Washington Post's article on negative ads in the 2004 campaign, saying: The Washington Post has reported that the Bush re-election campaign is using, quote, "unprecedented negativity against John Kerry." The Post says Kerry has so far aired only 13,300 ads in major media markets, while Bush-Cheney has aired more than 49,000. But the Post is only counting ads from the period since March 4, when the Bush-Cheney '04 team began its ad campaign. The Post fails to note that more than 15,300 negative ads that Kerry ran during the primary season, which means that Kerry ran nearly 29,000 negative ads, more than twice as many as the Post noted. Of course, that also means that while it took Kerry nine months to release 29,000 negative ads, it also means that it only took Bush THREE months to release its 49,000. No matter how you slice it, that reflects poorly on Bush, but Hume wanted to dry and drag Kerry through the slop as well. And this is the guy that's going to be "grilling" Cheney on the incident. The interview is mostly Brit guiding Dick along toward the most "I know you're a victim here" path possible, even upon the issue of why he didn't talk to anyone sooner. Note: Q Well, obviously, you could have put the statement out in the name of whoever you wanted. You could put it out in the name of Mrs. Armstrong, if you wanted to. Obviously, that's -- she's the one who made the statement. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Exactly. That's what we did. We went with Mrs. Armstrong. We had -- she's the one who put out the statement. And she was the most credible one to do it because she was a witness. It wasn't me in terms of saying, here's what happened, it was -- Q Right, understood. Because, clearly, it's going to look better for a witness to report the incident than the man himself. I'm going to remember that the next time I get in a car crash and we'll see how it goes. "No really, officer, I thought it was best that we have this other person call 911." Then we get into Cheney blaming the media for selfishness because of the reaction. THE VICE PRESIDENT: I had a bit of the feeling that the press corps was upset because, to some extent, it was about them -- they didn't like the idea that we called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of The New York Times. But it strikes me that the Corpus Christi Caller-Times is just as valid a news outlet as The New York Times is, especially for covering a major story in south Texas. Of course, of course. A newspaper hardly anyone has heard of with a small circulation is JUST as valid a source to release national news to as a paper that has truly national exposure. Having someone who only witnessed the incident reporting it to a small time paper doesn't reek of an attempt to quiet the issue down, no, you were just putting the most trustworthy voice toward an equally valid news source. How silly of us all. And dammit, the media should apologize for thinking only of themselves! And finally: Q What about just coming out yourself Monday/Tuesday -- how come? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, part of it obviously has to do with the status ofHarry Whittington. And it's a difficult subject to talk about, frankly, Brit. See, we need to be more considerate of his feelings. It's been very difficult after having shot a man in the face, it's really mean of us to demand he account for himself after something like that. No one even moderately objective could watch this and think it was an honest and trustworthy interview. He went to the safest haven for his bullshit he could find and proceeded to lay it on thick to a man who wouldn't even think about questioning it. As angry as I was at Cheney, I really don't want it to be true that he'd shoot a guy in the face and be so heartless about it that he'd avoid talking to authorities and the media simply to make himself look good, but that's how it's shaping up to be. Even his coming out to take accountability was a pity plea, clearly. He made himself look the victim, that the media was selfish and he did the best he could, even saying that Whittington was concerned for HIM. Swing and a miss Mr Cheney, but fortunately for you the main viewing audience of Fox News is going to buy into your bullshit as they have for the past number of years. Unfortunately for you, that number's dwindling. Us evil America-hating liberals would really prefer that the administration's failings be on paper and in policies that can be fixed. That he'd do something like this in a situation like this is just appalling.

It's been over two years since the Abu Ghraib prison story first showed up and it's been almost two years since I've wondered why the public seemed as unconcerned with things as they were. At the time it seemed like most were willing to dismiss the torture as "just" making people stand around naked in sexual positions and wear underwear on their heads. Clearly these people have never experienced that kind of thing. It's dehumanizing, demoralizing, and honestly cruel. That said, there was also the problem of photos showing up. We didn't get to see a lot of them via the major media (mostly the point with a thumbs up and the guy in a hood), but they were out there. It was clear there was more to the issue than "just" some weird sexual psychological torture. And just recently we've got some more. I'm not going to warn about these, I'm just putting them up. These are real, and I don't believe in censoring reality. Yes they aren't all new, but many are photos that weren't shown widely. Note the burns on the man's shoulder in that last one. And yes, the man is dead and packed in cellophane and ice in the first. The rallying cry tended to be "well what Saddam did there was way worse!" Maybe so, that's difficult to deny as well as to agree with since at this point we only have a small amount of what happened under American control, not to mention it's all in a small timeframe. Saddam had the place for over a decade, we were there for nary a year and stories of rape, beatings, and murder came out. ...and we have the nerve to say it's so good we're there. But that aside, we're also running into another problem. Thanks to the growing population in the prison there are concerns that the prison is a "Jihad University" of sorts. Amongst the problems: The U.S. military has halted transferring detainees to Iraqi-run facilities until the country improves its prisoner care. But concerns about the growing detainee population under U.S. control have prompted a number of officers to stop sending every suspect rounded up to Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Now let's dissect that one for a second. We're keeping prisoners at Abu Ghraib saying that the Iraqi-run prisons aren't fit to have these prisoners. That just makes me go crosseyed, because if you think the above pictures are the full picture of what happened and it's stopped since then you're being either blindly loyal to the Administration's picture of what's going on or you're painfully naive. Secondly, we're now not sending every rounded up suspect to Abu Ghraib or "other prisons". So what's happening to these people? Many inmates might instead be released if initial questioning indicated that they were not hardened fighters. Yep, we're just releasing them if they don't seem particularly dangerous. So aside from filling up our prison by not passing any prisoners over to others, we're not taking as many in as we should because the place is overpopulated. I'm wondering how we expect to fix this problem. If you can read this and not think we need to get the hell out of there ASAP then I don't know what to tell you.

So apparently Whittington, who is not a quail as it turns out, suffered a mild heart attack thanks to birdshot lodged in his chest. But really, the true gleaming diamond buried in this story is Dick's selfless actions taken as soon as he heard about the incident: They also said the vice president had called Mr. Whittington at about 1:30 p.m., after the procedure, and had spoken with him. "The vice president wished Mr. Whittington well and asked if there was anything he needed," the statement said. You see that? Dick shoots the guy in the face, causes him to have a heart attack, and he's still willing to take time out of his busy schedule to call him and see how he's doing. He's a busy guy, he can't be doing that for just anyone. It took him a few hours to tell Bush and 12 and a half hours to get word to McClellan, I'm impressed he did this at all.

...that we're costing the country almost half a billion dollars simply to keep gay people out of the military. A University of California commission of military experts said it cost at least $363.8 million to implement the policy from 1994 to 2003. That is 91 percent more than the $190.5 million estimated a year ago by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm. Now let's think about how this works. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy states that someone can remain in service as long as "their sexual orientation remained secret" and "they refrained from homosexual conduct". As long as homosexuals never say a single thing about the sex lives they're not allowed to have they can keep their positions. Somehow this one has slipped through the "discrimination" filter of the American conscious. Supporters of the policy will claim that the idea is to remove any sexuality from their service life so no one knows one way or the other. Unfortunately, there's nothing against anyone from talking about heterosexual marriages and dating, so after a colleague goes months and years without mentioning a girlfriend, wife, or even an interest in the opposite sex then people are going to start talking and next thing you know it's an issue. Technically the person isn't allowed to tell the truth, but at the same time saying "hey, don't ask and don't tell" won't fix it. And it sure as hell ain't fair to force them to lie about it. Think back to high school. 10,000 people down in the past 11 and a half years thanks to this. So now we're firing qualified service members and, of course, have to try to replace them. There's training involved, not to mention the necessary money spent in order to find a qualified replacement. And that's taking the sunny assumption that these people "let go" for their sexuality are getting thrown out onto the street without a dime. All in order to hopefully find someone with the same qualifications as the person fired, but not gay. And that's it. That's the deal breaker. All this money spent eliminating one person and replacing them with another simply for sexuality. You have to wonder if the replacements are even as qualified as the people being replaced. Our military is already stretched pretty damn thin at this point, and we're firing qualified troops over something this stupid. Quick side note, notice how interested everyone is with Rumsfeld's speech. Riveting. It really tells a lot about our government when at a time like this they're willing to prevent people from serving their country simply because of what they like to do in their bedrooms. And then they accuse people like me of not supporting the troops.

Well it's 11:22 pm on Monday, putting just over a day and a half since news finally broke out that Dick Cheney accidentally shot another man in the face. Really there's no reason for me to go into the details, I'm pretty sure most have heard on some show by now. For those not in the know: The victim, Harry Whittington, 78, took pellets in his cheek, neck and chest when Cheney fired his shotgun while aiming for a bird during a hunt in southern Texas on Saturday, and was in stable condition at a Corpus Christi hospital. So there you have it. I'll pause for a little while to let that information sink in. Now, the issue itself isn't that Cheney shot a man, the issue is how the White House handled it. The incident reportedly happened at 5:30 PM on Saturday and news didn't break on the incident until 3 PM on Sunday. That's roughly a 22 hour gap unaccounted for. Unsurprisingly poor Scott McClellan had to come out and was thoroughly railed with questions concerning the timeline of the incident. According to Scott, it went roughly like this: Saturday, 5:30pm - Whittington Shot. (information gets gathered and important stuff happens) Sunday, 6:00am - McClellan gets the call that this incident happened. Sunday, 3:00pm - Media gets alerted to the situation. If you're noticing a little gap there as well as some vague spots, you're right. McClellan says the President was informed at some point on Saturday evening and that he was told about the incident the next morning. Despite the fact that the incident happened quite some time prior, information was apparently not available for some time because, as McClellan said, "information was being gathered." Well, either that or Dick was tending to Whittington's medical needs. That this story doesn't quite add up isn't anything I need to say out loud. Reporters pelted Scotty with questions like birdshot to Whittington's face. Though I don't know the medical system too well, nor am I too sure about how the information grapevine works with the White House, I do know that Cheney has Secret Service around him at all times (apparently who prevented the local authorities from interviewing Cheney himself). So we have a Secret Service with a direct pipeline back to the White House who could have easily reported the incident to them as soon as it happened but didn't. Now, ignoring this fact entirely that leaves us with Cheney tending to Whittington's medical needs as reason for not reporting it. Once again I'm no doctor, but I can't imagine it takes very long to tend to someone's wounds with no chance to make a phone call to someone. From my experience it only takes as long as it takes for the ambulance to get there. So unless the ambulance took upwards of 12 hours to arrive on the scene we've got some serious down-time. The other excuse is that "information was being gathered". Now this I can understand, after all, there's a lot of information to be acquired here. Cheney accidentally shot someone while hunting. To get that kind of information, especially directly from the source, can take upwards of two days. I'm surprised it happened as quickly as it did. We should be grateful the man's alive. This leaves us with a rather depressing-if-it-weren't-so-predictable conclusion: Cheney was trying to hide the incident. The most innocent reason stems from the fact that the man may not have been following all of the rules: The Parks and Wildlife Department said Cheney and Whittington will begiven warning citations for violating game law by not having an upland game bird stamp, a requirement that went into effect in September. Cheney had a $125 nonresident hunting license, the vice president's office said Monday night in a statement, and has sent a $7 check to cover the cost of the stamp. Okay, that's a pretty big stretch to say that he'd hide the incident for that long to cover for a minor offense. So that leaves us with a quagmire that may be difficult to get out of without looking too conspiracy-theorist. The most tinfoil-hat type? He was waiting to see if Whittington survived and would have buried the incident entirely in case he did. I know it's a fairly cruel thought, but if it's good enough for Clinton it's definitely good enough for Cheney far as I'm concerned. And you know Scott McClellan wouldn't say a damn thing when asked, so it's not like the information would get pulled up any time soon. I'm also not too familiar with Texas law in cases like this, but I'm willing to bet there's some laws that were broken thanks to this negligence (particularly the lack of cooperation with local officials). This is beyond carelessness. It reportedly took until the next day for McClellan to get word of it, and another 9 hours for it to get to the press. Not only did Cheney sit on this and get a full night's sleep before the media even touched it, Bush had it for almost a day and McClellan for that 9 hours. The shortest timeline between getting the information and the media hearing about it was Scott's nine hours. What was he doing all of that time? I'm not going to hold my breath for the answer, but I'll hold out hope. I'll tell you though, it just brings me back to when Cheney made fun of Kerry's hunting trip during the 2004 election season. Publicity stunt or not, at least he didn't shoot anyone.

Okay, the Oscars are climbing up on us slowly, and Brokeback Mountain is still generating controversy. Despite that such furor hasn't surrounded any of the other gay movies released in the past few years. You get a movie that portrays all gays as leather-wearing drag queens singing showtunes and no one bats an eye. But when we get a pair of relatively normal guys who happen to fall in love? Well that's that damn gay agenda at work. Brokeback Mountain is the biggest, boldest attempt yet by Hollywood to gain sympathy, if not outright support, for thosepracticing the homosexual lifestyle. As CBN News reports, it is not just an isolated effort. There is a well-planned propaganda campaign at work -- a campaign laid out all theway back in the 1980s. This campaign, by the way, is referring to a book from 1990 called After the Ball about how the media can be used to work homophobia out of America. It's a real book, written by two actual people who are outlining a media effort that would get rid of anti-homosexuality through over-saturation. There are also claims of a 1988 summit of gay "world leaders" who talked about how to make it work in the end. Keep in mind that it emphasizes just getting rid of anti-homosexuality, not forcing in pro-homosexuality. Now there are a few flaws with this book being used as an example of some evil covert agenda. The main one is that this is a book most haven't heard of. Sure there are people inspired by it, but while it's an agenda held by gays, it's not The Gay Agenda. You'd think this book would be all over the place if it were a real agenda. The second problem is that the entire purpose of the book is to make people stop caring about gay people. That's the "agenda" as written here. It's not to make people love gays, it is to make people not care one way or the other, for homosexuality to be the same as having a different color of hair or being a different religion. Benjamin Bull of the Alliance Defense Fund said, "Suddenly those who choose homosexual behavior...sodomy...are victims. It's crazy!" Looks like there's still some progress to be made. The article then proceeds to run through a whopping eight examples of homosexuality shown in a positive light in movies and television, followed by a few showing Christians negatively. It's a classic example of scraping for anything possible and portraying it as a sampling of an overwhelming phenomenon (see: O'Reilly's War on Chrismas). Following that, the article asks the question "But have homosexuals won on getting themselves seen as a persecuted minority?" Now, the obvious response would be to examine what it means to be a "persecuted minority". Turning to our handy dandy dictionary: Main Entry: per·se·cute 1: to harass in a manner designed to injure, grieve, or afflict; specifically: to cause to suffer because of belief. Main Entry: mi·nor·i·ty 3 a: a part of a population differing from others in some characteristics and often subjected to differential treatment b: a member of a minority group (an effort to hire more minorities). So in order for homosexuals to be seen as "persecuted minorities" they have to establish themselves as being harrassed in a manner to cause them to suffer because of their beliefs, and they have to be a portion of the population differing from others and treated differently. Now maybe I'm losing my mind here, but I really don't think movies are needed to push this concept across. The concept of a "gay agenda" indicates an effort from gays as a whole, and believe you me we'd know pretty swiftly if that kind of an effort was organized. There are gays with an agenda, but really that's like calling the KKK the "White Agenda". In fact it'd be pretty easy to start throwing out white supremacy books similar as "proof" that whites are organizing. What's the gay agenda? Peace. That's it. That's the end result. I guarantee you right here and now that the number of pride parades, rallies, and activism would drop exponentially if all of the bigotry didn't exist. People are hesitant to look at these things as what they are: a reaction. If you tell a person what he does is a sin and it's wrong, he's going to yell back at you that it isn't wrong, it's what he feels and what he loves. If I tell you that your belief in the Bible is a crutch for mental insecurity, you're going to try and 'throw it in my face' that it's not. Cause and effect people, it's simple. The real core of the issue is that these people aren't having their opinions affected by the Bible, they're just using the Bible to support previously existent prejudices. Next time you run into someone who says homosexuality is wrong because the Good Book says it, check and see if that's the only reason they believe it's wrong. See if they're reluctant to call it a sin, but are accepting that the Bible says it's wrong so that's how they'll look at it. I'll save you some time: that rarely happens. It's about at the same rate you'll find someone who really really wants to do some of the things the Bible says are wrong but doesn't because of said scripture. See, there's a big fat reason homosexuality is the parroted sin out there while all of the other laws nearby in the Bible are ignored. People see the book as a sampling of laws that can be picked and chosen from. They pick out the verses of the Bible that already conform to how they live and think rather than conforming their lives and actions to the book. Don't like gays? Got it covered. Think pre-marital sex is wrong? We're on it. You don't want to sacrifice animals to God? Skip that part. Enjoy shrimp? That's okay, those verses aren't that important. And really, who cares if Jesus said: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. That's Luke 19:27 if you're curious. Really, what does that matter these days anyway? It's just Jesus, Christians don't really pay attention to what Jesus says these days. Adhering to the entire Bible is hard and it means I can't do what I like! It's fine to read the Bible and tell you that you can't do what YOU like, but why should I stop doing things I enjoy? God wanted us to enjoy our lives! And by "our" lives I mean my life.

Sorry, it had to be said. Yes, religion has its good points. At least some religious people do, they're damn charitable at times and do what they can to help others. But from a pure global and historical perspective, religion has brought death and misery to the world in a way no other force can match. While imperialism would drive people to defeat armies and burn as much as necessary to take the land, religion gives itself a purpose greater than the person committing the acts and thus it starts to grow into a rather bizarre monster. It becomes not a matter of acquiring land and a matter of acquiring every single person in that land. We've got more protests going on around the world, Zionists are apparently getting pretty violent themselves, and even in our own country the religious right trying to use religious beliefs as a basis for policy, and a president using his belief in God to stop science: Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregiousabuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creatingor implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids,and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a giftfrom our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devaluedor put up for sale. ...ignoring the human-animal hybrid quote of course. It's scary to think that in 2006 a belief in the Christian god is a pre-requisite to holding political office. If someone were to have all the answers to every question, perfect economical and foreign policy, if that person didn't believe in the right god then there would be no possibility of a political career. The United States of America, the country that claims to be the most advanced in the nation, is so completely unforgiving when it comes to religious beliefs it's absurd. Religion is, truly, a debate-stopper. If someone tells you that they think whatever they do for religious reasons, that's the end of it. No debate will take the conversation any further or change anything. No evidence, no proof, no logical reasoning can change someone who believes something for religious reasons. The Muslims who believe all infidels should die, the Christians here who believe gays should be put to death, there's no convincing them otherwise. The truly scary incarnation comes with cases such as Bush where it's not necessarily biblical influence but that he believes God himself is actually whispering commands in his ear. The man can do anything and genuinely not understand why anyone can tell him it's wrong. If it were any other figure but God it would be considered a mania of some kind. If Zeus was telling me to storm the middle east and convert them to the Greek god system I'd be crazy. If I said The Great Gazoo told me I should run for president they'd lock me up. And what's even more bizarre than that is the public perception that I slightly alluded to earlier. No one questions those beliefs. Religious belief is absolute and unwavering and people simply accept it. When you say God is in you and working through you, you can get away with whatever you want. Even if it's totally wackjob, there will be a great number of people who come to your side and support you. People like to claim that "godless" is a negative thing, that it leads to amoral acts and violence. There is no proof of this at any point in history. At least in comparison to violence and amoral acts that stemmed from religion. Crusades, inquisitions, genocide, the Middle Ages, current problems in the Middle East, they're all results of religion. People die for religion, they kill for religion. You'll never find an atheist who'll kill someone to convert them to atheism. You'll never find an atheistic suicide bomber. No major wars were caused by atheists trying to torture the god out of people. I've never been handed a pamphlet telling me about atheism. The man who wanted the "under god" taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance, despite the fact that it was only put IN in the 1950s, was considered a radical and an idiot. The people who push for Intelligent Design (i.e. Creationism) to be put into science classes are considered to be doing the right thing. It's incredible. In the Middle East, we watch as Israel and Palestine tear each other apart over a little piece of land that both believe are the settings that their holy men lived. Further east the insurgents are fighting against the infidels, blowing them up in the hopes of getting salvation from Allah after they die. And in all parts of the world we have those same people fighting because of blasphemy against their prophet. Only in religion will you find this behaviour. Today we have a president who wants to fight wars in the Middle East because he believes he is doing God's work. He wants to stop medical advancements because he believes all life is a gift from God. He wants to stop gay marriage because he believes it is against God. Taking lives, taking liberties, spending the country's money wantonly. And people will sit beside him throughout it all. Why? He says it's what God wants him to do, and we can't say God's wrong, now can we?

Everyone is so cavalier to blame Bush and the government pertaining to the war in Iraq not being justifyiable. But in a small corner of the world, which i refer to as "Reality," our government is simply pure genius. the war in Iraq may be more justifyable then World War II. i know what you're thinking, and that of course is "blasphemy," because Tom Brokaw has told you that the WW2 generation is much like Mike Tyson......the Greatest. but why does everyone forget that that same generation was responsble for the war. You remember, Hitlers rise to power was a direct result of a weak German government after WW1. and why was it weak? because the massive war debt the Germans had to pay back became impossible to cover during the great depression, leaving the people in extreme poverty, and willingly open to put anyone into power that would help them feed their families...standard thinking really. So it can be easily argued that Hitler was a direct result of the Great Depression. and who do you think was responable for the Great Depression? if you guessed Don King then you're retarded, if you guessed the "GREATEST GENERATION," then you're correct. the greatest generation bankrupted the world on a thursday, making it the worst friday morning since Jesus died. here's a fun fact...Hitler, not Franklin "the D is for degenerative muscle loss in my legs" Roosevelt, ended the great depression. i mean he was Time's man of the year....then of course Hitler went crazy and killed everyone, and is prob in hell with strom thurman, having fun hating minorities. but still i have to words for all of you....cooooome oooon, stoping being naive. But getting back on track, Iraq is a pure genius move by the Government. Now i understand some of you Harpies are going to give me shit about this, but i don't even care. because the truth as Bob Ross, my favorite painter once said, "...will set you free, and looks lovely next to this barn in the forest," so just listen. this isnt about Iraq, no, not at all. Iraq is all about the money. It's about creating competition to help boost our struggling economy. if you want to enjoy the life style you have now, then it is important that you grasp the upcoming ideas. We are no longer an eonomy based on domestic goods and services so much as we are now growing into an economy that is specializing. that means we are finding what we produce most efficiently and letting other parts of the world produce what they make more efficiently. it helps keep prices down and promotes economic growth. because we are now entering the Global Market. and it is important that we use the process of neo-colonialism on smaller countries to help promote the general wellfare of the people of this country. What is neo-colonialism? neo-colonialism ain't just a river in Egypt. No friends its much more interesting...well probably not, but maybe. Neo-Colonialism refers to the economic and political dominance one country has over a smaller weaker country. The Dick-tionary gives has this to say about neo-colonialism - "A policy whereby a major power uses economic and political means to perpetuate or extend its influence over underdeveloped nations or areas." Now that we are all on the same page let me break it down. The United States can no longer be the lone superpower in the world. as economist will tell you. without competition it is hard to boost the economy. that is why since the fall of the USSR in 91', our major competetor, the economy has been spiking downward. it would be like Coke loosing Pepsi to Cancer. that is why the US is creating markets in poor countries, and forcing them to specialize. this way american companies can enjoy competition, all be it small. As you can tell, without any competition this venture seems hopeless and a gigantic waste of money, and it also has terrible negatives like outsourcing jobs. that is why the bush presidency is making our national debt look like the score of the 92 dream team vs. denmark olympic pre-lim. But there is an answer my friends. and it is the reason why we are in Iraq as opposed to North Korea (the only real threat to national security, other then Bush, at the current time). We found the future competion. the new USSR, which will help to create enough competition to choke a cammel......Enter China. That's right, our far east friends have been slated for the role of the 2nd coming. If globalization is to work then we need to help make China a superpower. That's why we have to leave north korea alone for now, we can't risk forcing china to get involved at the moment because we can economically trample china into the ground, thus killing our only hope at generating a global competetor. and making the years we spent jerking off with other countries all for nothing. But dont worry the time is fast approaching when all of the lost American jobs get recreated because China starts trying to corner markets. wait...you say it already has started? whaaaaat? oh yes, the coal industry. thought to have been more dead then ariel sharons brainwave activity, due to recent competition, has been brought back from to life by China's gigantic economic difibulator. and this is just the beginning, wait till China starts competing for Oil. You will thank our government for holding the axe over the middle east for so many years when we have access to the oil wells. Oh i almost orgasm when i think of what will happen when oil in the middle east is gone and China will have to come to us for our oil in the North. the economy booming again, all the money, the power, the big breasted women! oh how sweet it is! Sometimes at night i lay back and dream those sweet, sweet dreams of finding oil on the moon. because as you know, the US owns the moon since we got there first and are pretty much the only ones that can get there. we will all get a piece of the economic prosperity and drive our ineficient SUVs that run on gas and raw meat right up the world ass. So in closing, stop being such babies about everything. sometimes the ends justify the means. sometimes you have to kill a few people to save millions of people (both pyshically and economically). If we dont create this competition with China, and stop playing the neo-colonialist card in smaller countries then we all lose. this is a team effort, stop warming the bench, strap it on and lets roll....you know that quote those guys on that plane said right before we shot it down over somerset pa. respond to this, i dare you to make my day that much more insightful 5 fun facts everyone should know about China 1. Not only is Mandarin often mistaken for small oranges, but it is also the most commonly spoken language in the world. 2. If this really is Cat....then Cat is delious when smoothered in Duck Sauce, we should all eat Cats. 3. Kayne West does not care about Chinese people 4. While there is Big trouble in Little China, their is acctually Little trouble in Big China 5. China created gunpowder, which aided in Dick Channey shooting someone while quail hunting a few days ago

So after all this time and all the talk of photos showing Bush and Abramoff together, finally one shows up and Time Magazine has it. Take a look. Okay, it's not a great picture, but there's one thing that's immediately noticeable about it. It's not a meet and greet, it's not a staged photograph and Abramoff's presence in the room is clearly not incidental. They aren't posing anywhere, and it's obvious why Bush was so eager to keep these photographs quiet. While meet and greet pictures would look bad, it would also be quite easy to show that they were just that. However: McClellan told TIME: "The president has taken countless, tens of thousands of pictures at home and abroad over the last five years. Aswe've said previously a photo like this has no relevance to the Justice Department's investigation (of Abramoff)." This meeting, however, was a relatively small gatheringattended by some two dozen people, including Garza and another Indian tribal leader who was Abramoff's client. As we can see, though, the photograph DOES have relevance and this one was not the same as the thousands of photographs Bush has taken with random people. Abramoff was there, he was supposed to be there and Bush wanted him there. Well done, Bushie. You attempted to stonewall information in the hopes that it would result in the photographs and other information not surfacing, and now we've got emails and one published photograph, with more to follow. Hilariously enough, Scott McClellan has once again been forced to come up with a limp response: Shown the photograph, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the White House had "found no record of Abramoff's presence but confirmed that it is Abramoff in the picture," Time said. Asked to comment on the report, a White House spokeswoman told AFP:"The photo is not relevant to the Justice Department investigation" of Abramoff. Yep, that's him. We just... uh... have no records of him being there. Aside from this photo. And it's not relevant to the investigation. After all, it's just a picture of Bush meeting with Abramoff as well as his clients. Seriously, what does that have to do with anything?

Hey, I got word that the site wasn't functioning quite right with Internet Explorer. Anyone who's re-visiting the site despite the poor text formatting, thanks for coming back and I'm pretty sure I got it fixed. Any other formatting errors someone spies feel free to leave a comment. I'm a Firefox user and any tweaks I made to the look were with Firefox for checking, so I may have not noticed some things in IE.

Remember the huge number of programs Bush proposed to cut to save all this money? Well unfortunately it ain't quite that helpful. And most of them are the same programs he proposes we cut every year. Of 91 programs proposed for termination, all but 13 have been on the chopping block before. The 13 new programs would save the government $581 million - about 0.02% of the $2.77 trillion budget. Including the other 50 programs that would be cut but allowed to continue, Bush wants to save $14.7 billion overall, about 0.5% of the budget. Good work, Bushie. A lot of promises that sound really good until we actually take a look at the reality of the situation. Less than half of a percent of the budget that we simply have to cut! Meanwhile we won't touch all of the ridiculously growing costs of the ineffective war (both the one "on terror" and Iraq). Of course, it's really important, honestly. "We've got to get away from the idea that it's OK to waste just a little money," says Scott Milburn, spokesman for the White House budget office. "When you've got a $2.77 trillion budget, a lot of little problems add up to big money." Which, I suppose, is why we'll only cut a small portion of the little problems. See, this argument would make sense if Bush were cutting a lot of little problems that amounted to something, but he isn't. Over 99% of the budget is going to remain the same. It's like buying a car and saving $100 by not getting a sunroof but springing a grand for a boosted sound system.

I think I'm fully convinced of this now. Ann Coulter is actually a hardcore liberal who puts on the front of being a conservative in order to make the right look more idiotic, thus driving more towards the side of the liberal. That's the only possible explanation. She's the most quotable conservative outside of O'Reilly, and is far more idiotic in the complete nonsense she quotes. Amongst her classics are: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." Or this one about the Middle East: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Even more so than the fact that she's a complete moron, the woman's a pathological liar. In her books, she's one of the best at completely making things up and then using these previously unheard of "facts" as reasons to blast the left. The Daily Howler dissects her book incredibly well, almost page by page, and I would suggest anyone with even a passing interest in being able to expose Coulter for being a moron to read it. Amazing, isn’t it? Couric asked a single, mild question about a subject which Specter had brought up himself. She posed no follow-up question. But this is one of Coulter’s first examples—on page twoof her book—of the way “the public square is wall-to-wall liberal propaganda.” Of course, her misused readers have no way of knowing how mild Couric’s questioning actually was. Coulter—dissembling, as she does through her book—provides a phantasmagoric account of this exchange. How did Coulter describe the session? Let’s review. We’re not making this up: COULTER (page two): In this universe, the public square is wall-to-wall liberal propaganda. Americans wake up in the morning to “America’s Sweetheart,” Katie Couric, berating Arlen Specter about Anita Hill ten years after the hearings… As a description of Couric’s exchange with Specter, that is pure pathology. But then, Coulter baldly misleads her readers on virtually every page of this laughable, corrupt book. Go through the archives sequentially to get a full debunking of her book. It turns out there's almost nothing true in the entire publication. Most recently, apparently she popped up at a CPAC as the main speaker. Highlights abound, though I'm going to give my favorite: "If we find out someone [referring to a terrorist] is going to attack the Supreme Court next week, can't we tell Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalito?" Brushing past the amusing fact that "Scalito" was a nickname for Alito, not Scalia, it's around here that I'm becoming more and more positive that she can't be serious. She's too perfect to be a real person. The woman manages to say everything you would expect a typical conservative jackass to say. If it were possible to take every single stereotype of a conservative, stretch it out thin, hit it in the face with a rake a few times and put an ugly blond wig on it, you'd get Ann Coulter. That's one thing I don't get. The left isn't embracing Harry Belefonte after saying Bush is the world's greatest terrorist, in fact they're trying to step away from him. We're not applauding every anti-American moron out there, as evidenced by the fact that you can't really name a lot of totally wingnut liberals. We try to keep them quiet because we know they aren't helping. On the right, here's Coulter, Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and if they're not given their own shows then they're featured heavily on them. I have this vision of Ann Coulter walking into her little apartment, sitting down and crying for 20 minutes, trying to figure out why no one has picked up on her ruse yet. Then she just shakes her head and counts the money she's making off of all the idiots who buy into her bullshit.

You know, as time rolls along and more and more evidence piles up against the Bush administration, it really does make me wonder why more people aren't speaking up about it. It can't be party loyalty, because although I concede some people will blindly cling to a leader I don't believe the majority of supporters will put a single man higher on the importance ladder than the nation itself. It a corporation, if the CEO is corrupt you don't stick with him, you get rid of him in the interest of keeping the corporation running, but so few people seem to think that way with the government. America is often considered a young nation, and it's in that regard that I believe the public falls victim to idealism. Our first president was elected a scant 217 years ago, a long time ago no doubt, but recent enough that we are not too far past the position when, conceivably, someone could have known someone as a child who knew Washington as a child (the person, of course, not Washington). We've had 42 separate leaders over the course of these two centuries, and while some have been corrupt, some have been stupid, some have been great, but none have been what we would consider a true black spot on history. Like a six year old with a firecracker, we assume that because we haven't been hurt yet, we never will. We assume that since we are America, and that America is flawless (or at least is better than everyone else) that we are somehow invincible against the possibility of true corruption. We think that as we are a democracy that things will always go as they always have and that our leaders would never do anything to hurt us. We think that our system of checks and balances is going to save us. People forget history. They forget that in 1906, Lenin was elected to the Presidium, that a decade later in 1922 Josef Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee. They forget that in 1966 and 1969 Saddam Hussein was elected to the Deputy Secretary General of the Ba'th Party and Chairman of the Revolution Command Council, respectively. In 1921 Benito Mussolini was elected to the Parliament and through supporters in Parliament itself was able to change the system to put himself in the role of dictator. Hitler was the result of a lot of backroom dealings and corruption, so while that does tie decently well into the controversy surrounding the 2004 election I'm ignoring it for the time being. But here we have a government that came about from a 2000 election with less votes than he who he defeated, who in 2004 won an election thanks to many counties reporting more votes than voters. He is in power under false pretenses, and most people sit by and just assume that the system is flawless and that if he's in power, everything must have been right to get him there and thus we must simply deal with him. Accept that he's president and if you want to get something done, vote for someone in 2006 and 2008. "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith Corruption is all around us, but people just sit idly by and watch the events unfold. I've heard on numerous occasions, from people who agree with what I stand for, that we just need to let the Bush Administration collapse upon itself. They assume that if left to his own devices the man will simply fall apart and take all corruption with him. I'm not sure Russia and Italy would agree with us in that regard. It's also particularly ironic that we are fighting a war in a country that had a dictator-through-election while we ourselves are slowly marching down the same path. Even with the evidence in front of our faces, we see nothing. And the evidence is mounting greater by the day. Just recently we found that Cheney authorized Libby's classified information leak. More than authorized, apparently: Beyond what was stated in the court paper, say people with firsthand knowledge of the matter, Libby also indicated what he will offer as a broad defense during his upcoming criminal trial: that Vice President Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials had earlier encouraged and authorized him to share classified information with journalists to build public support for going to war. I added the bold for emphasis. There's not much more to add to this. Though I suppose this may make us wonder about when Bush said this back in 2004: "I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job. "I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things." He added that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information." This is more than just a case of a bad president that we will be rid of in 2008. This is a case of a president pushing just how much a president can do. Put in the Patriot Act and watch as civil liberties vanish. Watch as he tries to prove that we are free through constant surveillance. Those who fight against gun control often say that the problem is that today they force gun locks, tomorrow they take away our guns. Yet these same people see nothing wrong with planting the seeds of Big Brother today. We started in Afghanistan, moved to Iraq, and are now looking at Iran while we also have bombed Pakistan. We are Oceania, and we have always been at war with Eastasia. Our leader invokes fear more than any other, more than FDR in WWII (maybe this is where his comparison to the former president comes in). When his popularity ratings are low, as they have been for some time, he comes out to say that he has stopped terrorist attacks (much to the surprise of the mayor of Los Angeles). One can only wonder how long it will be before the terrorist threat is too high and elections must be 'temporarily postponed'. Don't worry, he'll just tell us Congress gave him the power to do that. Like the dictators of the past, we are faced with a man who is going to destroy our freedoms and we put him there. We have to realize that this kind of corruption can happen to us, too. What's the solution? The obvious solution is to get to vote. The biggest problem is that a lot of democrats are younger men, the type more apt to sleep through elections than actually get to the polls. That's easy to fix, simply find every friend who isn't voting and explain the issues to them, take them to the polls with you. For 2006, this is incredibly important. A democratic legislative branch could effectively blunt any further actions Bush attempts to take. But that isn't a full solution. We must also be active. Talk to senators and congressmen. Educate yourselves. Go to rallies, campaign (which does tie in to the above, I know). Email people and spread the word. Get your voice out there. Some may be corrupt, but they all aren't. When public resistance gets high enough, more people in power will be willing to do the right thing instead of staying quiet. Many democrats resisted a fibiluster because they thought it was a failed venture and there wasn't enough support, that it would be dangerous for the 2006 elections. Had the public shown their support, this would not have been the case. Doing nothing is dangerous. Often as dangerous as aiding the cause of the problem. The problem won't go away on its own, we have to help.

Near the end of that previous post, it occurred to me that Bush needs something quick to get minds off of the scandal. I also got curious about how his popularity ratings are doing. Taking a look at my favorite source, it seems our good president got zero discernable boost from his SOTU address, sitting around 40% still. That's bizarre even for him. So let's do a little roleplaying, shall we? Let's say you're president Bush. Your approval ratings aren't going up at all and there's scandal rocking through the administration. What do you do? That's right, play the terror card. When all else fails, just come out and tell us we're all in danger and only you can help us. "The terrorists are weakened and fractured, yet they're still lethal," the president said in a speech at the National Guard Memorial Building. "We cannot let the fact that America hasn't been attacked in 4 1/2 years since September 11 lull us into the illusion that the threats to our nation have disappeared. They have not." I can't believe this guy can come out here and say this with no backlash. He claims to be our great protector and there he is telling us we aren't safe. Politics of fear, to quote a friend. It has indeed been 4 1/2 years since September 11, and the president is still invoking its name to make people let him do what he does and not to question it. He may not tell us or Congress much about the NSA, but one thing he's more than happy to do is tell anyone who'll listen about how many plots he's foiled. After all, take a gander: Bush has referred to the 2002 plot before. In an address last October, he said the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al Qaeda terror network in the last four years, including plans for September 11-like attacks on both U.S. coasts. The White House initially would not give details of the plots but later released a fact sheet with a brief, and vague, description of each. Okay, granted, the reports were brief and vague, but the point is that he stopped them! That must count for something, right? It's good to know that the spying program he's been hocking all this time is actually amounting to something. Bush has been on a campaign to defend his controversial domestic monitoring program. But the White House would not say whether the 2002 plot was thwarted as a result of the National Security Agency program to eavesdrop on the international emails and phone calls of people inside the United States with suspected ties to terrorists. Bush said only that "subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations" after the arrest of the unnamed operative led to information about the plot, and to the capture of other ringleaders and operatives involved in it. ...okay, that's not quite so reassuring. So we've got brief and vague descriptions of plots that were supposedly 9/11-like that our saviour somehow stopped from raining down upon our heads. Given the article I reported earlier about how few suspects are actually caught by the NSA, I'd be willing to bet a few dollars that these people were caught via other means. Not that Bush would ever let us know if that were the case. Remember, it's not important how we got saved or even what the threats were. The point is that they were really, really scary and without him we'd all be dead.

So for the past few weeks, the Bush Administration has been saying that Abramoff didn't have any real relationship with the president, that the pictures were incidental and only the result of general meetings. Well, ThinkProgress apparently has obtained some emails from Abramoff concerning how well he knew Bush. HE HAS ONE OF THE BEST MEMORIES OF ANY POLITICIAN I HAVE EVER MET. IT WAS ONE IF [sic] HIS TRADEMARKS, THOUGH OF COURSE HE CAN’T RECALL THAT HE HAS A GREAT MEMORY! THE GUY SAW ME IN ALMOST A DOZEN SETTINGS, AND JOKED WITH ME ABOUT A BUNCH OF THINGS, INCLUDING DETAILS OF MY KIDS. PERHAPS HE HAS FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING. WHO KNOWS. Amazing. Now, what really intrigues me about all of this is not the content of the emails, what it means in terms of the case or any of that. It's how the administration will respond. Until now we've been told that whatever evidence currently exists is very minor and that's all there is. I've mentioned it before in this regard that before the pictures we were told Bush has never met him. Then the pictures arrived and suddenly he HAD met him, but it was during meet and greets which really isn't anything significant. Then we get to these emails. How can Scott McClellan possibly get in front of the nation and claim that they don't mean what they seem to? Outside of outright calling Abramoff a liar there's not a damn thing that can be said. That, sadly, is probably the most likely response. The administration is going to downplay the emails as false, fabricated, or otherwise not worth considering and then they'll slowly fade away, along with the entire scandal.

Ever since that fateful Mohammad-based cartoon showed up, there's been a storm of protest about it. I haven't seen it, but I really don't care what it is. What I'm looking at is the fact that there are still violent mobs going crazy over it. Tens of thousands of Muslims demonstrated in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, continuing to vent their rage over European newspaper cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad. Some Muslim clerics and governments called for calm, while others seemed to encourage the vengeful outpouring. Five digits of "protestors" in three regions of the world all setting fires and destroying public property over the way their prophet, not even their god mind you, was portrayed in a one-panel political cartoon in a newspaper in another region of the world. Now you have to understand, I'm one of those people who got called a "terrorist sympathizer" when I wondered what spurred on the 9/11 attacks, as well as when I said that you have to be amazed at the faith of the bombers, killing themselves and knowing in their hearts they'll be rewarded in the afterlife. People have said 'well what if Jesus was portrayed like this?' or now we have an Iranian paper asking for Holocaust cartoons to be submitted for a contest. Ignoring the clear idiocy of that (how do they know it was anyone Jewish at fault?), I honestly hope they do get a bunch of entries and they get shown all over the world. Because once they do, they're going to run into something they might not understand: no violence. At least not widespread. Some might happen as a result of peaceful protests being hit by violence resistance, but there will be nothing like this. When all that happens, I hope Islam as a whole will take this message and take it to heart: WAKE THE HELL UP. This is a faith that around the world is garnering a reputation for being unreasonable, barbaric, and violent. So when a little illustration poking fun at them crops up, what do they do? Prove this stereotype threefold. It's pathetic, and that's putting it mildly. If you want a stereotype to stop, you can't prove it right time and time again. Of course, maybe this is just a poor representation. They're not really crazy, right? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hardline president, prompted international anger when he dismissed the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel. Well, crap.

That is all.

All right, so the hearings are over and Attorney General Gonzales had a hell of a time defending himself against Feingold, Kennedy, and Pat Leahy. Of course, I have a feeling it's a bit lot easier since he didn't have to be sworn in. Good logic, republicans. We want this guy to prove we're innocent, but we're not going to make sure he's legally required to tell the truth. In fact, we're going to make sure he's NOT legally required to tell the truth. But honest injun, he's not lying. From the hearing perspective, it was a combination of most of the things I really didn't want to see. First you had Kennedy taking way too long to ask an actual question to the point that Gonzales, actually quite accurately, commenting with a chuckle that Ted "said a lot of words" and that he was going to have a hard time keeping up with it all. Numerous times I wasn't actually sure what was being asked. Add to that Gonzales's lovely tendency to not really say much aside from "9/11 9/11 this is a different war we briefed Congress all the time" and it became horribly repetitive from my end. At least with what the news networks would show, I was unable to have a live stream going. That said, from what I'm reading elsewhere I didn't miss a whole lot, and what I did miss I found there. Since Gonzales wasn't under oath, he was pretty much free to say whatever the hell he wanted and it was just an argument between himself and a questioner about what he just said. Nothing's new here, we know everything that Gonzales is going to say and that's why he was kept from being put under oath. It's a different war now, the president has the authority thanks to the constitution and we need to stop Al Qaeda. We got that part. Everyone wants Al Qaeda stopped, even the craziest democrats, no one WANTS terrorism. Much as we hate Bush, we'd rather his failings be on paper than resulting in lives lost or civil liberties shat on. What I'm curious about is the purpose of the hearing. Not under oath, nothing he says can really be considered authoritative on the subject at all so it's not like this can get much done legally as far as I can see. It's just a PR stunt. It's why Gonzales was so eager to testify and the right was so hell-bent on keeping him from being sworn in. They wanted to get him out there to talk about how legal everything is without that pesky problem of making sure everything IS legal. One argument that cropped up repeatedly was that the administration doesn't want to give anyone a "heads up". It's like when cops hide behind trees or bushes at speed traps. If the end result is supposed to be stopping the crime, why hide? You tell Al Qaeda we can get immediate surveillance on any phone calls, emails, or other correspondance and don't need a warrant for 3 days, and that FISA rejects roughly five warrants for every ten thousand, I guarantee they're going to take notice. The fact that the program doesn't get many suspects makes you wonder, though: Fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well. That step still requires a warrant from a federal judge, for which the government must supply evidence of probable cause. Boy it's a good thing this is going on. And that really makes you wonder. If that's the number of people we're catching, did they all happen thanks to Bush's warrantless wiretaps? And that brings up a greater question, how much of a positive impact has all of this had? Given our history of getting the calls but not doing anything about them in time, I can't help but wonder if this is HURTING us, since now there's a ridiculously high number of calls being tracked. How many of those calls can be properly monitored? How many are turning into stacks of paper that never get looked at? The whole ordeal just struck me as pointless. Thanks for getting Gonzales out there to say nothing new or interesting. All it is, is just bantering about the articles of the Constitution and how laws apply to them. Also amusing to watch him bring up cases of FDR and Washington. Because, of course, FISA applied to Washington and FDR. One highlight was on Abrams Report when Abrams asked why, if FISA is wrong, was nothing done to get it removed from the law? Or at least amended to fit the law more properly? All I ended up with was more questions. Here's really all that's worth getting out of the whole thing, in a handy-dandy list format: 1) The administration refuses to talk openly or under oath about what they claim is perfectly legal There you go.

So the hearings are in progress. I'm going to remain quiet on them for now, there's plenty of talk that gets into the play-by-play, I'll save my words until afterwards.

I know I said I was done for the day, but I had to do a quick change. The comment system is now on Haloscan. Sorry, all of the previous comments got deleted, I didn't realize that was going to happen. Regardless, the system works a lot better now, trust me. Also, for anyone reading, please take a second to sign up for updates on the right side there. Also also, one of my little ad lists down there, Link2Blogs, is causing the lag in the page. They should have it fixed soon, but for now things are a little stuck. I apologize.

Well, day off for me. Super Bowl, folks.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of Fox News. To be frank, the channel gives me a headache. On rare occasions I'll see something that isn't mindless propaganda for the White House or an attack on whatever poor liberal they suckered onto the show that day, but that's their bread and butter for the most part. O'Reilly may be the most well-known offender of spewing stupid, but Sean Hannity is closing in on him quick for his ability to ambush someone with complete and utter garbage. Crooks and Liars has a video of such showing cartoonist Ted Rall in a debate over the Toles cartoon. After brief actual debate, it quickly devolves into a cacophany of idiocy, with poor Ted trying his best to steer the Titanic away from the iceberg. You can see it here. I'm not able to decently quote the video due to the fact that most of it is Hannity shouting at Ralls as he tries to keep things moderately pertinent to the issue at hand. The gist of it is that Hannity has no actual arguments, even refusing to listen to Rall quote a reputable survey calling it "liberal military opinions", and unfortunately things just get worse and worse, with Hannity becoming more and more idiotic. This is a nice part, it's a little long, but watch how Hannity totally falls apart right at the end: HANNITY: The reason you have a right to be mean in your cartoons and the reason Toles has a right to be mean and insensitive in his cartoons is because of people like this that literally put their lives on the line so have the right to free expression, and you use them as props so you can make your left-wing political points. RALL: Sean you could not possibly be more wrong about the nature of this country. We do not owe our liberties to the military we owe them to the Constitution. We have civilian rule in the United States. HANNITY: No, the military preserves the Constitution, the put their LIVES ON THE LINE so that YOU have free speech. You DO owe them. RALL: The military doesn't give us free speech. Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers gave us free speech! HANNITY: NO, because if they don't defend the Constitution, you don't have the right to be so wrong in your cartoons! RALL: Who's threatening our free speech? The Iraqis? HANNITY: Threatening nothing! You can be the biggest fool you want to be, they give you the right to do it, but where is your heart at is the question? I hate doing such long quotes, but that's a good one. Hannity has no defense and thus falls apart almost immediately, offering an incredibly limp reply. Are there instances where the military has saved us from outside rule? Well, the Revolutionary War, 1812 maybe, WWII if you extrapolate the potential for what COULD have happened. But Iraq? Come on now. No one in 50 years is going to be saying "You should thank Bush, without him you'd be speaking Iraqi now and worshipping Allah." Of course it gets worse from there. Rather than discussing the Toles cartoon, what it means and why there's such a fuss about it, the entire second half of the segment is devoted to Hannity positively BLASTING Rall for his own cartoon made two years ago concerning Tillman, the football player who died in Iraq. Rall says the producers promised his cartoon wouldn't be used, Hannity says that's bullshit, but even outside of that debate, what does a cartoon about a football player in the war from two years ago have to do with Toles's cartoon? Absolutely nothing, the only reason to bring it up was to personally insult Rall in the inevitable case that he starts to make Hannity look like an idiot. Rather than debating Rall, all Hannity can do is insult him, call him names ("a right to be so mean"? Is this the 3rd grade playground?) and do all he can to yell and scream and drive the debate away from the actual debate. Like I said, there was no reason to bring up the cartoon. It had no bearing on Toles aside from giving him an opening to insult the man. More than that, it was fuzzy and out of focus and only shown for a few seconds. At Rall's attempt to ask what the purpose was of showing a 2 year old cartoon, all Hannity could do is yell "Are you ashamed of it then? APOLOGIZE!" I've been mad at O'Reilly many times, but this may be the worst I've seen myself. Why is this man given his own show on a major network? Is this bringing us ANY understanding of the news? Does anyone watch that and come away thinking "they made a good point, I feel enlightened now!" No. There's none of that to be found, just incredibly pathetic browbeating from a man who has no idea what he's talking about. Hannity is a major reason why people have no idea what's actually going on in this country. He won't debate issues, he'll just insult and yell at anyone who disagrees with him. I often think that's why people love him and O'Reilly so much. If you already agree, it's so incredibly safe because you never have to listen to the other side, he'll shut them up for you.

You know, I need to work on not just posting links to news stories. I try to interject as much of my opinion as I can but when I'm trying to keep up with a bunch of sites that put stuff up as soon as their 100-man staff can find it, I fall behind. Besides, a news stream is fairly dull, I like to put up opinion pieces as well. In light of that, I'll mention something I thought of recently. A few friends of mine around here aren't big on the news. While I'm reading the Guardian or checking out some of the other blogs with MSNBC rocking behind me, they'll be watching American Idol or perusing one of those video sites to watch soldiers dancing on aircraft carriers. They aren't up any current events unless there's a news blurb during a commercial and they haven't flipped stations yet, or possibly on the rare occasion they catch The Daily Show or Colbert Report (usually the latter since TDS shows alongside Family Guy). At first I was annoyed, because I thought people should be more on top of the news. It's pretty important what's going on, why would you be wasting your time watching bad singers or cartoon reruns? "The opiate of our time" is a phrase that sprung to mind. This occurred to me specifically because I was getting a meal out and there was a TV there that was playing ESPN. I watched people with stats memorized, talking odds and figures, names and bios of these athletes. That people would devote their lives to observing people playing a game seemed like such an odd idea to me, I wanted to tell them "hey! Why not put that kind of energy into educating yourselves?" But then it struck me: that isn't very fair. You can't expect the entire nation to only watch and read the news. Cripple the entire entertainment industry and leave everyone to lives of trying to keep up with our governmental machine as it trudges along. Because let's face it, keeping a close eye on the goings-on in this country isn't really that fun. At its best it's postively enthralling, at it's worst it's a painful chore. And after all, isn't that why we have representatives, senators, mayors, governors, judges, etc? We elect these people so they can make all of the decisions for us. Come election time, people want the Cliff Notes of what people are about and will make a decision based on that, then not worry about it for another few years. I'm not saying complete ignorance of politics is good either. Obviously you have to spread the word because otherwise who's going to vote? Probably people touched by others who are active in politics, and there's a good chance they'll be on the other side. I want to keep people informed, but I don't expect them to sit around checking up on the news every few minutes to see if anything's happened. From November 3rd 2004 to November 1st 2008, what the president does is mostly inconsequential to most. After all, you can't vote him out in the middle, reap what you sow, just whatever. Honestly, they have a fair point. so why pay attention in the middle? Catch up around election time so you're informed leading up to the ballot. Well, I do it because sometimes extreme things happen and unless the country raises a stink about it nothing's going to be done. Unfortunately, there isn't always a big stink going on. Bush lies about something, delivers an empty promise, it turns out they take money illegally, nothing really new here. So for these people it's just not worth it to sit watching the news for hours a day for days and weeks in the off-chance something does happen. For me it is, though. And I know for a lot of others it is too. And that's why it's extra important to be vocal when these issues do happen. That's why you have to spread the word, call senators and congressmen, send emails. Don't just think about stuff and preach to the choir, get something done!

Much as I hate to pull away from my previous post. But check this out. Remember when Bush said this? We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years. Well he ran into yet another little wrinkle. As it turns out, the Energy Department is laying off workers due to budget cuts. A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas. It's been two days since Bush told us that we'd be pursuing alternative sources of energy and getting away from our "addiction to oil". So far we've found out he wasn't talking literally, and now we find out we're actually cutting the budget to pursue said alternative sources of fuel. It makes you wonder why he'd be talking about these things if everyone around him seems to say otherwise. Well fortunately the article has an idea about that too: Republicans said Mr. Bodman's push dovetailed with the view of Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, that high gas and home heating prices would be a potent political issue. Ahhhh, now I get it. You see, nothing that Bush was saying had any actual bearing on reality (remember, just examples), he was saying it all in order to help his tanking approval ratings. Most likely in the hopes that it'd get the republicans in better standing with the American people for the 2006 midterms. When over 50% of the country thinks the minority party would do better, that really makes you wonder about things.

Colbert's rootin' for the Steelers. Suck on that, Seattle.

You know, where you've been saying something for a long time and everyone called you crazy but now it turns out you were right. Well here it is, the memo that proves Bush was hell-bent on the Iraq war no matter what: A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme. As amazed as I am by the fact that this memo came out, what's going to really get me later is when no one seems to care. People are going to say the ends justified the means and then move on. That right there is my biggest problem with so many people in this country, and it's something I touched on earlier: short-sightedness. People look at the Iraq war and see that Saddam is out and that's good, so the fact that we marched into a war by a president who lied to us every step of the way means nothing. It's really mind-boggling how people can look at the immediate and miss any potential future implications. Be it NSA spying or Alito's nomination, people look a maximum of ten or eleven minute into the future. As long as we get our immediate goals fulfilled, why worry about what happens a year down the road? We got led into a war that's wreaking havoc on our economy and physically, as well as mentally, crippling our young soldiers? So what, we got Saddam out! Our right to privacy is being eaten away by domestic spying and the incoming Patriot Act? So what, we might catch spies that could still be caught legally! The deficit is going to skyrocket in the next few years thanks to the tax cuts? So what, we got our $300 checks! I can't help but think of the Eddie Izzard quote about a restoration of a building "to make it look just like it was FIIIFTY YEEARS AGO. And people are saying 'Nooo! No one was alive back then!!'" We're a country of RIGHT NOW, and that's why we're in serious trouble until people start to get a wider scope.

I'm sure everyone's heard of the fervor surrounding a Toles cartoon in the Washington Post. Here's the cartoon for those curious: Scarborough Country on MSNBC (liberal media, for you Fox watchers) decided to do a little blurb on it and showed the cartoon so everyone could see it for themselves. Now here's what they showed on Scarborough, to emphasize the lowest caption: As they showed the above, the talking guy (I didn't catch his name, I was typing up the last entry that I've currently deleted and am re-writing) was talking about how the comic depicted Rumsfeld calling the soldier battle hardened, and thanks to the edited image it didn't let anyone see that the "soldier" is really the "US Army". Because, of course, letting everyone see that the crippled "soldier" is a visual metaphor for the weak and crippled state our military is in, and that our forces are "stretched thin", would mean that this bald jackass wouldn't be able to go on his little diatribe. Good work, liberal media!

Check out the new additions to the Patriot Act. `Sec. 3056A. Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service Uniformed Division `(a) There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the `United States Secret Service Uniformed Division'. Subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security, the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division shall perform such duties as the Director, United States Secret Service, may prescribe in connection with the protection of the following: ... `(b)(1) Under the direction of the Director of the Secret Service, members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division are authorized to-- `(A) carry firearms; `(B) make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony; Lovely. Good to know people can be arrested at any time for any "offense against the United States". And now of course we have "reasonable grounds to believe", which is way looser than "probable cause". You just watch, people are going to be arrested left and right, we've seen it start with Cindy Sheehan at the SOTU. What's amazing is if this passed through, that would have been a perfectly legal arrest. So is this it? Is this when the country starts to turn into a Police State? Guess I should enjoy this blog while I have it, because in a month it'll get me arrested.

(click for larger version)

Less than 24 hours after the SOTU, it seems that already Bush's people are clarifying his remarks. You see, when Bush said this: Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. ... Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy, and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past. He didn't really mean that. Here, let's clarify. What the president meant, [his energy secretary and national economic adviser] said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025. ... "This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said. You know, I think that makes sense, and it makes things a lot easier to palate. You see, when Bush says things, he doesn't mean them LITERALLY, he's just creating examples of what COULD happen. So, you know, when he says things like: Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. or I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous Presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have, and federal courts have approved the use of that authority. Appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed. or By passing these reforms, we will save the American taxpayer another $14 billion next year, and stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009. See, he doesn't mean them LITERALLY. Those are just figurative examples of the way things COULD be. You see, he's not lying about anything, we just need to stop reading into what he says so deeply. And let me tell you, taking that approach to the things Bush says makes life a hell of a lot easier.

You may have to forgive me on this one, I just watched Good Night and Good Luck. For anyone who hasn't seen this yet, do it. It's not just a movie about McCarthy, the parallels are obvious. Anyway, early on during the State of the Union, Cindy Sheehan was arrested for wearing an Iraq War related t-shirt. Even stranger, the wife of Bill Young was ejected from the address, and her shirt was in SUPPORT of the war. Sam Alito's put on the bench and later that day we have free speech shot down twice. Good jaerb, folks. Well there's a lighter side, a little gleam if you will. It seems the charges against Sheehan were dropped. To quote: “We screwed up,” a top Capitol Police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said Sheehan didn't violate any rules or laws. So who ordered her to be arrested? Someone unfamiliar with the law? It's amazing really, and if the inevitable lawsuit doesn't come out successful, I do believe I will get sick to my stomach. Here we have blatant violations of free speech, ignorance of precedents (Cohen v California that decided wearing dissenting t-shirts was perfectly legal), and yet it's all done by a president who claims to be spreading freedom to the world. How can we possibly claim to spread freedom when we deny it to our own citizens?

I got nothin' to add to this. Read for yourself. Proof Bush is making us LESS safe from terrorism. Okay, maybe I can add to that. Our good friends over at Crooks and Liars found audio of Rush Limbaugh calling Osama "irrelevant". That right there highlights the president's position on terrorism and why he needs Osama to be alive. People, typically, don't like to think of things as broad, general issues. It's a lot easier to put a face on something and then cast all hate and anger at that face and to believe that the destruction of that face means the destruction of the issue. We point as Saddam, we point at Osama, I've even pointed at Bush as the problem for so much in America (though in this case I concede that simply removing him from office won't fix jack by itself). It's easier to accept things when it has a person attached to it. That's where Osama comes in. In the United States post-9/11, Osama Bin Laden IS terrorism. Al Qaeda, Zarqawi, Arabian people in general, they may be pointed at as terror-ISTS, but only Osama is terror-ISM. Bush made him the very definition of the word, any and all thoughts of terrorism link back to Osama. If anyone does any kind of an attack, in some way it all ties back to the man who caused all of the WTC deaths. Thus, his existence, his living, and his continual threats to the United States is nothing but a good thing for Bushie. Why? Just like Rush said, he's "irrelevant". Osama hasn't had any grand attacks, in the public eye he's not capable of doing anything and his call for "truce" hammers this point home. As long as Osama is alive, Bush can tell everyone that terrorism is RIGHT THERE. More than that, as long as Osama is alive and not killing anyone, Bush can look us all in the eye and tell us terrorism isn't doing anything, and that they want a truce. If Osama were to die (providing he's not already, or he's not recording these audio tapes while under "Coalition" control to use a tinfoil hat theory), then Bush would be forced to use the actual statistics for terrorism. With Osama dead, people would wonder if anyone's "carrying the torch" and would eventually spy upon those numbers. That 2005 saw over twice as many terrorist attacks and half again as many deaths as 2001, and that's COUNTING the deaths in the WTC and Pentagon. With Osama alive and "defunct", people will see terrorism as defunct. Without him, people will see the truth. And the last thing the Bush Administration needs is a country that sees how poorly things really are going.

All right, I think I'm feeling more level-headed and ready to talk about the president's SOTU address, and so I sit here looking at C-SPAN's transcript again, thinking things over. An overall impression of the speech was that it sounded far over-rehearsed, forced and unnatural. Bush isn't a good speaker in general, but he tends to stumble over some words and rephrase them how he saw fit. This time around, he seemed to be reading to the letter, which tells me he was desperate to make sure he got all of it right. He sounded scared. Gone were the big statements, the big ideas from years past. No talk of social security reform or the colonization of space. In fact, the most he would push on us as new would be his laundry list of limp initiatives. He knows he's in a bad place, the lowest post-war approval ratings of any president save Nixon, and this speech I could almost call Bush's version of the Checkers speech. He appealed to raw emotions without worrying about the reality of the situation. Case in point, at two separate locations in the speech, he referred to why you should support the NSA and the war: Fortunately, this nation has superb professionals in law enforcement, intelligence, the military, and homeland security. These men and women are dedicating their lives, protecting us all, and they deserve our support and our thanks. ... Our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices -- and showing a sense of duty stronger than all fear. They know what it's like to fight house to house in a maze of streets, to wear heavy gear in the desert heat, to see a comrade killed by a roadside bomb. You see? You can't oppose the Iraq war and his spying, there are people working VERY HARD at the bottom rung and you don't want to make them feel bad, do you? Granted, every single army was manned by foot soldiers who were doing it to feed their families, from the Romans to those in North Vietnam, and we like to demonize them despite the sacrifices they were making for what THEY believed was right, but we aren't allowed to do it this time! Of course, the fact that Bush is up there talking about sacrifices, duty, and knowing what it's like to fight in the streets when he himself hardly even showed up when he needed to be in Arizona makes me laugh to no end. Then we have this little guy here: It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al Qaeda operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. So to prevent another attack... And he goes on. Well, the thing is, a while ago Cheney tried to say the same thing and our friends at the Washinton Post called him on it. As they called it (and Kerry recently said as well), the problem was "bureaucratic", not a lack of information. The government had the calls, it just took too long to translate them. More than that, in the apparent 20 months prior to the attacks the government failed to track these two down. So, of course, when our government fails to stop an attack because of bungling with the information we already have, the solution is to swamp the officials with even MORE. The rest of the speech was full of things such as his claim that we need to stop relying on oil (in general this time as opposed to foreign). This was also a fun bit: We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years. Sounds good, though a quick look at our friends of the Straight Dope clears up some things. You see, even if we had a way to get ethanol, the simple conversion of it wastes so much energy that it would never be a feasible fuel source. Not that I'd be too worried about wasted money on this project anyway, this is the guy who told us four years running that we'd be relying less on foreign oil even as usage skyrocketed. Then, this one that I mentioned earlier: Lincoln could have accepted peace at the cost of disunity and continued slavery. Right. You see, apparently all of our history lessons were wrong. As it turns out, Abraham Lincoln singlehandedly started a war between the previously peacefully co-existing North and South simply to stop slavery. I'm not a history major, I don't care much about it, but even I know this statement was just plain wrong in every way possible. I'll let Grant cover this one more since he's the history expert. So how about this: Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale. Human... animal... hybrids. I wasn't aware this was a problem facing the country today. I also didn't know anyone was selling and somehow PATENTING human embryos. Did this guy get his history from South Park? I was almost expecting him to say "We cannot let Eric Cartman make a Shakey's Pizza out of dead fetuses again!" Just a few pieces of the speech. If I were to take out every section full of lies, inconsistencies, half-truths, or empty promises I'd basically copy and paste the full thing. But one thing seems to be true: Bush does not have any grasp of reality. He makes his brain look at the world with this sunny slant to it and talks about how things are going from that angle. But even in that he's faltering. He sees his empire crumbling before him and is grasping for support. Watching half of the audience stand up to cheer for him, the left only cheering the loudest at the mention of his social security reform proposal being shot down, told me he's truly in trouble. Polls are grim for Bushie. His policies are seen as failures, the war is tanking, people don't support him, the majority will vote for simply anyone who opposes him. Whereas 2 weeks before the Alito vote I was sure the country was done for, I think now we can take it back.

Just some quick fiddling with the SOTU transcript. Funny to see what he focuses on. terror - 20 freedom - 17 Iraq - 16 democracy - 11 Iran - 6 education - 2 health care - 2 integrity - 0