The Indisputable Truth

NEW LOCATION: CHANGE BOOKMARKS

2006-03-18T18:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, we're there now. The new page is here: The Indisputable Truth.

Thus far the comments have evaporated over there and the site isn't quite finished, but in the next day or so I'll hopefully get everything back together and I'll be writing consistently again.

Still working...

2006-03-17T22:13:00.000-05:00

No updates quite yet, folks. Sorry, this is taking up a lot of time.

Changes on the horizon.

2006-03-17T16:30:00.000-05:00

After Blogger's 18-ish hour crap out that resulted in a few lost articles (which I had thought would be saved), as well as the current display errors, I've made the decision to move away from the Blogspot service. In the next day or so, I'm going to be migrating to my own domain and server, most likely www.indisputabletruth.net, possibly www.indisputable-truth.com although I don't like the hyphen. More updates as they come. Just be prepared for a change of bookmarks and a cosmetic change. I'll hopefully keep it minimal, but as I'm abandoning Blogspot, I'm going to be using a completely different software service. Keep your hats on, folks, things may get a little bumpy.

Airlines don't screen explosives.

2006-03-16T23:26:00.002-05:00

Well this is awfully comforting. NBC recently did a little investigative journalism and found out that American airline screenings to not detect explosives. The test went through 21 different airports to see if homemade bomb materials could make it onto the plane. Apparently they could, and could do it pretty easily.

In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials.

Isn't that fantastic? In all these years since 9/11, that's the progress we've made. Namely: none at all. We've moved ahead almost five years and we haven't even managed to protect the country from the one thing that would seem almost mandatory. Now, according to the Transportation Security Administration, "detecting explosive materials and IEDs at the checkpoint is TSA's top priority." There are two obvious ways of looking at that response, given the current situation. Either they're completely full of shit, or that may be the most frightening statement about the aviation business I've ever heard. 21 for 21 you can get homemade explosives onto a plane and that's the TOP priority. Hate to see what's considered unimportant. It's times like these that I absolutely do not understand how anyone can claim that the Bush Administration is even remotely good with national security. Our country gets hit by three hijacked airplanes and you can still get explosives onto airplanes? That's simply absurd. It reminds me of a few months ago when the 9/11 commission said we still weren't prepared for an attack.

"A lot of the things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the president or by the Congress."

And now we have solid proof of it. Well done, Bush Clan. $247 billion spent on the Iraq War, thousands upon thousands of NSA wiretaps without court orders, and five years of invoking 9/11 in order to rally support and you haven't even gotten our airlines free of explosives, which shouldn't even require a 9/11 to get done.

Boot-camp youth not killed by sickle-cell.

2006-03-16T14:11:00.000-05:00

Okay, I think that makes me two for two on calling bullshit. First I pegged that the IEDs weren't coming from Iran, and now this crops up. I'm a little late with reporting it, I admit, but it's still worth noting. The story of 14 year old Martin Lee Anderson dying at a juvenile boot camp in Florida was hot stuff for a short period of time, and the claim of a medical examiner that the kid died from completely natural causes (sickle cell anemia, specifically) struck me as a little odd at the time, as I wrote here:

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.

Well, wouldn't you know it, it looks like that's not the case, and Anderson really was beaten to death.

The new autopsy was conducted Monday by Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams. Baden said it was clear the teen did not die from sickle cell trait, or from any other natural causes.

Yes, it turns out the kid probably didn't have the disease at all, that was just a pure excuse. The fact that it lasted even this long without being uncovered is pretty surprising to me, since I used pure logic to determine that it couldn't have worked like that. This was a 14 year old kid who didn't know he had sickle cell? And it was bad enough that it could kill him after a minor scuffle? Come on now, the kid was in a juvenile boot camp, odds are he's been in at least one fight during his life. If the condition was that bad, it would have reared its head by now. So, unsurprisingly, we find out that nothing sickle-cell related killed this kid and he really was beaten to death. This confuses me a bit, though:

No guards have been arrested or fired but the camp has been closed.

The fact that none of the guards have been arrested annoys me, to use the term as mildly as possible, but I'm still not sure what it matters that they weren't fired if the camp was closed. I suppose that's telling us that no specific action was taken against just them, but on the same token, the camp closed. No matter what they lost their jobs, action was taken against the whole damn camp. What really does get to me is that in cases like this, no action is ever taken against the guards or anyone responsible for this in a legal sense. If I worked at a convenience store and beat a kid to death because I thought he might have been stealing a candy bar, I'd be in prison. Nine guards beat a 140 pound kid to death and all that happens is the camp closes. Amazing.

Open Thread

2006-03-16T00:31:00.000-05:00

I think this is a good idea at night. Have at it. Also, I'm going to be fiddling with putting Technorati tags on the site now. I may or may not do the whole backlog (that could take hours), but I'll be doing it to the more recent ones. Go ahead and click on the tags if one of the topics interests you, see what others are saying.

FBI: keeping tabs on anti-war activists since 2002

2006-03-16T00:28:00.000-05:00

File another one under the "who says it's all about terrorists?" heading. While all of the discourse during the NSA scandal has generally been about whether or not what the president did was patently illegal (which is where it should be, I believe), another fairly important thing to at least look at is who is getting spied on. Here we have The Thomas Merton Center, an anti-war activist group named after a Vietnam protestor, whom the ACLU has discovered was being spied on by the FBI in 2002.

And it's a good thing, too. We can't be having these dangerous anti-war radicals running around with their "free speech" spreading their hate. The memo says that among other things, they advocate "pacifism". I'll tell you, I feel a lot safer knowing that these crazies are being looked at closely. And that's not all!

The same memo notes that one of the leaflet distributors "appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent" but that no other participants appeared to be from the Middle East.

Look out! They've got a Middle Eastern looking guy!

Is this where we've gotten to in this country? The FBI is going to start eyeing anti-war groups? I know, I know, this one's special because there was a guy handing out leaflets who may or may not have been Middle Eastern, so this is totally different. That seems to be the excuse the FBI is hiding behind, that they were looking for a "person of interest", but unfortunately the documents don't say anything that effect. The ACLU reports on the incident in detail.

The documents come to the ACLU as a result of a national campaign to expose domestic spying by the FBI and other government agencies. The ACLU has filed Freedom of Information Act requests in 20 states on behalf of more than 150 organizations and individuals. In response to these requests, the government has released documents that reveal monitoring and infiltration by the FBI and local law enforcement, targeting political, environmental, anti-war and faith-based groups.

This is going beyond simple checking up on someone who may be a criminal. It's hard to argue with that, no one has immunity from the law simply because they're a group advocating whatever. If there's someone who may be a terrorist in the group, I'm pretty sure the rest of the group would like him outta there. That's not what this is. This is the FBI watching an anti-war group simply for being anti-war.

I'd like to know what's so conservative about anything the Bush Administration is doing these days. This is shaping become the biggest Big Brother style government in the US's history. The Patriot Act lets the government find out what books you read and search your house without your permission (or even awareness of it), the NSA is allowed to spy on you any time Bush feels like it, and now the FBI will watch you protest.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Or else."

Prosecutor says Moussaoui trial "pointless" thanks to ruling.

2006-03-15T22:51:00.000-05:00

Hope you're proud of yourself Carla J. Martin. After her idiotic misconduct in Moussaoui's trial caused a judge to throw out a large portion of testimony, the prosecutor of the case has said there's no point to the trial now.

The barred testimony "is one of the two essential and interconnected components of our case," the prosecutors wrote in a motion submitted to [Judge] Brinkema. Excluding the witnesses, the prosecutors wrote, make it "impossible for us to present our theory of the case to the jury."

Now, one of the easiest responses would be "so what? It's a terrorist, who cares if there was a little misconduct." In fact that's what a few of the prosecutors are saying, that the misconduct of just one attorney shouldn't screw up the whole case.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's the best idea in this case. Aside from the fact that Moussaoui, if the death penalty is thrown out, get off with "only" life in prison with no parole, to overlook such a ridiculous instance of misconduct in the courts simply for the severity of the case is opening up a pretty dangerous door. As much as I'd love to hit Moussaoui to the fullest extent of the law, the key note there is the "fullest extent of the law".

One of the things we pride ourselves here in the United States, at least I do, is that for better or worse everyone is offered the exact same rights under the letter of the law. It's one of those nifty little things that makes sure no one can be oppressed by the government in the court (you can tell how well that's worked). However, it offers a fair amount of protection, and unless we accept that now and again it's going to result in something like this, we could easily lose what we do get.

The real problem isn't the judge's ruling, it's the prosecutor's idiocy. I've said it already that this wasn't a hard case to prosecute, he admitted to conspiracy for terrorist attacks. This is another one of those cases where someone broke the law, and we can't play Bush here and start deciding which laws aren't important just because it may get us a result we want. Can you imagine a scenario when improper court procedure was considered unimportant just because of who the defendant was?

I know a lot of people out there want the country to shift to a totalitarian "we can do whatever we want as long as its under the guise of stopping terrorism" state, but not me. Freedom isn't free, and that doesn't mean we have to give up freedoms. It means we have to give freedoms to people we probably wouldn't like to if we want them ourselves.

The lesson to glean from this isn't "terrorists get off scot free if someone messes up a little", it's "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT SCREW AROUND WHEN PROSECUTING A TERRORIST".

Iran: not responsible for IEDs in Iraq.

2006-03-14T22:07:00.000-05:00

Man, I'm pretty sure I called this one earlier this month. Despite all of the yelling on the part of Rummy and Bush, there is no evidence that IEDs in Iraq came from Iran, according to Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

President George W. Bush said on Monday components from Iran were being used in powerful roadside bombs used in Iraq, and Rumsfeld said last week that Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel had been inside Iraq to stir up trouble.
Asked whether the United States has proof that Iran's government was behind these developments, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing, "I do not, sir."

I had previously expressed some skepticism about the US's setting the stage for an Iran War, feeling that it was fairly convenient shifting of responsibility for violence. Much like the war in Afghanistan was moved to Iraq, the war in Iraq is being moved to Iran. Now it seems I may have been onto something with that.

Of course, simply admitting that there was a hasty conclusion drawn is too uncharacteristic of this administration, so it's time to make a few excuses instead.

"As to equipment, unless you physically see it coming in agovernment-sponsored vehicle or with government-sponsored troops, you can't know it," Rumsfeld said. "All you know is that you find equipment, weapons, explosives, whatever, in a country that came from the neighboring country."

Well, it is a neighboring country, after all. It's next door and there are almost certainly people in there who don't like the United States. That doesn't mean jack. Now if stuff was coming from India, then that might be serious cause for alarm and an indication that the government might be involved. You can't suddenly make the leap that because some weapons came in from Mexico that are being used in gang violence that the Mexican government is responsible for fighting in the United States.

In this case, it's not even full weapons, just components. What components? Well, we don't know, because we haven't even been told where the information came from. I have this image of wires and red buttons being pointed at as proof of something.

Rummy then goes on to say that you can't even tell if people are involved from the government because Iranians make a pilgrimage to sites in Iraq (I wonder if that Golden Mosque was on the Shiite's list...). So now all we've got is some people who are from Iran who may not be involved in anything and a few weapons and that's adequate evidence to start up a war with Iran. Honestly, though, that's more than we ever had to go into Iraq.

Open thread.

2006-03-14T19:40:00.000-05:00

The republicans call Vietnam War veterans Murtha and Kerry "cowards", the Bush Clan has smeared those two men as well as McCain (another Nam vet) on numerous instances. Meanwhile, the right flocks behind Bush as a brave man of war, behind a man who saw as much combat during Vietnam as I did. Discuss.

Britian called post-war Iraq "a mess" in 2003.

2006-03-14T16:45:00.000-05:00

When even our closest ally is telling us that things are going terribly, I'd say that's a minor hint that things are really going terribly. Here we have warnings to Tony Blair that the US was mishandling the war. Now, really, I'm pretty sure none of us needed any reaffirmation of this fact, but it's especially interesting to hear that the country we pretty much point to as proof that there's any kind of meaningful support was rumbling of, basically, incompetence.

Describing [retired general Jay] Garner's outfit, he wrote: "No leadership, no strategy, no coordination, no structure and inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis." The forthcoming arrival of Paul Bremer, the U.S. diplomat who replaced Garner, was "not a day too soon," he added.

I'd say that's a pretty fair way of putting things. Though the real doozie's here:

Phase IV [the post-war nation-building stage] "did not work well" because the focus of U.S. planners had been on the invasion, he wrote. "There was a blind faith that Phase IV would work. There was a failure to anticipate the extent of the backlash or mood of Iraqi society."

Now I don't know about that part. I can't really think of anyone who would blindly have thought that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. That's a pretty optimistic way of looking at things. Who in the world would have...

Oh, right. Forgot about that guy.

What's really nice is that while everything coming in from other areas is talking about problems over there, be they potential or realized, American intelligence refuses to acknowledge them. We had Bush telling us Saddam had WMDs and helped al Qaeda with 9/11, Rummy telling us Saddam was an "imminent threat" to the US, our Veep assuring us that we'd be greeted with open arms as liberators, Administrator of the US Agency for International Development Andrew Natsios assuring us that $1.7 billion in taxpayer money for the war was a high estimate, and Gen Casey reminding us that the civil strife was over. Hard to believe how completely wrong everything we were told was.

Oh, speaking of the violence in Iraq, it seems that around 87 more bodies were found in the past 24 hours. A few mass graves, some stuffed in buses, that's a body count of around 25% of what the media kept trying to push across as the total count. Interestingly, I mentioned a little while ago that body counts were being suppresed by Shiites, and it didn't seem to get picked up. As I wrote there:

It seems now I have my answer: Shiite officials are suppressing execution-style death tolls, so the only "official" numbers are coming in the form of explosions and in-the-street violence.

What do you know, almost a week later we find stockpiles of bodies killed in that exact manner. I'd keep an eye on this one, folks, I heavily doubt this is the end of discovering bodies out there. There are more, possibly many more. It's going to really bring to light what's happening with the forming government. I can only imagine how Bush could possibly respond upon finding that the government he's championed putting into the country may be executing people and hiding the bodies. Can his little mind possibly comprehend the elected government hating democracy? I doubt it, myself.

Personally, I think we do need to "cut and run" now. Dangerous place, and they need to sort out their own affairs. Like I said, we aren't police, we've made them a non-threat to the United States, time to go.

Billions to be spent stopping IEDs.

2006-03-14T12:46:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or does it seem like there's always a new reason to spend another few billion in Iraq and stay there another year? Now we've go the United States spending billions and deploying experts to stop IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices, which is a pretty fancy term to mean a bomb that they piece together on the fly and put on the side of the road.

The situation is just maddening. Not only because we've got American soldiers being blown up by street bombs planted by insurgents, but for the way it's being looked at by the government. I would think that anyone viewing this situation with an objective eye would see this as some ragtag insurgents planting bombs and that's about the end of the situation. The bombs may be fairly advanced due to using Saddam's old materials, but these aren't war experts.

But listening to the military you'd think we're dealing with masterminds.

Hoaxes are a peril. "The enemy's very smart," said Capt. Peter Weld, Sisk's commander. "They plant a harmless device that soldiers find and gather around, and then they hit them with a real device nearby."

I fail to see how "very smart" the enemy is. It's planting a fake bomb. It's not exactly a carefully planned strategy, I'm pretty sure that's shown up in a number of movies. Our military is getting outsmarted by that? You know, I don't even know why they'd need to use a fake bomb. According to the Captain here, the soldiers all gather around the harmless device. The insurgents could just blow that up and not need to worry about having decoys.

Is that what our military is trained to do? Find something that looks like a bomb and huddle around it? No wonder people are calling the attackers so smart. People wonder why I say the war isn't planned and constructed well at all, here you go. Then we've got this kind of comment:

Lt. Col. Bill Adamson, operations chief for the anti-IED campaign, was realistic about the challenge in a Pentagon interview. "They adapt more quickly than we procure technology," he said of the insurgents.

What kind of a state are we in? We're the United States of America, can someone tell me why a bunch of ragtag insurgents are able to stay a step ahead of us?

It occurs to me, though. What's going on is we're trying to fight insurgents while protecting the people who live there as peaceful citizens. The military in Iraq is protecting the emerging democracy and those who live in it while detaining and removing the threat of terrorism and insurgency. If this were really a war, we'd blow up the areas like we did at the beginning before we accomplished our mission. Now we're trying to root out the individuals.

So what would you call a force that patrols the streets to protect the citizens? An army? I sure wouldn't. I'd call that the police. And that's exactly what our army is doing in Iraq. We haven't done anything remotely for the protection of the United States in as long as we've been there. We forced in a democracy and now we're spending our time and money to make sure it sticks. When did our military become primarily concerned with the well-being of people of another country?

But, really, the end result of this is that we've got Sunnis fighting Shiites, with a death toll that's steadily climbing despite officials assuring us the threat is over, and we've got insurgents blowing up Americans.

Bush wants to say anyone who opposes us staying there a coward, that we shouldn't want to "cut and run". But really, why are we still there? What benefit are AMERICANs getting? Sure a warm fuzzy feeling from a democratic Iraq is nice, but the cost of this war is just incredible and that's going to hurt us far more than it helps. Some will say "having an ally in the Middle East is what we need". Sure, that'd be nice if we weren't doing it by pissing off other countries and destroying our own military.

Our soldiers did not enlist to act as police for Iraqis. They are our protection, and using them for this purpose is simply sickening. Killing them for this purpose is detestable.

Bush's approval rating plummets further, republicans whine about media bias

2006-03-14T01:41:00.000-05:00

You know, there are times when you almost want to feel bad for the guy, until you remember how many people he's killed and all the civil liberties he took a crap on. Many were complaining about the CBS poll showing Bush's rating at 34%, saying that the polling group was more democrats and independents than republicans. Well, now we've got another one to work with, the USAToday/CNN/Gallup poll that's got him at 36%, the lowest they've seen yet. Now, I could obviously question what everyone's problem is about who gets polled, because these same polls had Bush at nearly 90 after 9/11, and in the 70s after the "Mission Accomplished" banner happened. Actually I'm going to do just that, and I'm going to attack the problem from three different heads. First off, as I mentioned, Bush's ratings were around 90 after 9/11. Unless these people complaining think that the poll targeted a different demographic back in '01, we all agree the same people said that 90% that are saying the 36%. So either the republicans are bitching and moaning about a very small percentage difference between what the recent polls are saying and what they really are, since it's the same people, then they're apparently of the belief that after 9/11 over 100% of the country liked him. I don't think I'm alone in saying that's pretty bloody unlikely. Secondly, trends are more important than straight numbers, and the trends make Bush look even worse. If his approval was low after all of the events that should typically spike approval (tragedies, the "victory" in a war), then it'd be pretty easy to accuse polling bias of keeping him down. But he went from the highest approval of any president to the third lowest. His approval dropped by almost two-thirds from that huge 9/11 bump to now. Since I'm still going off the assumption that these polls (if they're so biased) aren't going to have ever skewed numbers to make him look BETTER, he's still the president with the worst approval rating drop in history. Thirdly, how do people think these polls happen? Aside from not having seen any proof of party bias in the polls, do these people think 4,000 people are selected, and then after the poll is conducted 1,100 of them are used? A thousand or so people are selected at random, and then the party affiliations are revealed after it's over. So it's still a random sampling. I'd question if there are simply more democrats or independents. now thanks to him. Of course, then we find ourselves noting that the party affiliation isn't necessarily a great indicator of things, as we see in Susa's 50 state poll of whether people thought Bush broke the law with wiretaps. Now, yes, it's true that the red states are more inclined to saying he obeyed the law and the blue states more inclined that he broke it, but what are our (unweighted) averages? RED STATES Obeyed the law: 35% Broke the law: 36% BLUE STATES Obeyed the law: 28% Broke the law: 43.5% So we're talking a 7% difference between the republicans and democrats on the issue, roughly. I ignored the undecideds because they were fairly even between the two groups. Now, if it's true that bias is given to one group over the other, let's say a nice pro-blue bias (three dems for every one republican), let's see how that stacks up to normal: NO BIAS (50/50) Obeyed the law: 31.5% Broke the law: 40% BIAS TOWARD DEMOCRATS (75/25) Obeyed the law: 29.75% Broke the law: 41.5% Wow. What a change even an enormous bias for democrats gives to that poll. Republicans, you're going to have to stop crying about every little poll that comes out. Like it or not, the country is not behind Bush, and all of the moaning about liberal bias in the media isn't going to change that. At least not in any significant way. And then there's this, which totally slays me.

Nearly half of those polled said they believe Democrats would do a better job of managing the war -- even though only a quarter of them said the opposition party has a clear plan for resolving the situation.

That's right. Only half of the people who think dems would do a better job actually have any idea what they would do. There is a significant portion of the population who is basically saying "anyone can do a better job than Bush"

Moussaoui's trial halted due to improper procedure.

2006-03-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

This is absolutely unbelievable. Thanks to the attorney's coaching the witnesses, a federal judge has recessed Moussaoui's trial for two days. More than that, there's a chance that now the death penalty will be taken off the table as a sentencing option.

According to descriptions by the lawyers in court, it appeared that a female FAA attorney who had attended closed hearings in the case went over with four coming witnesses from her agency the opening statements at the trial, the government's strategy and even the transcript of the questioning of an FBI agent on the first day.

All right, let's examine this one for a moment. I've expounded on my opinions about the Moussaoui trial in relation to 9/11, but I've also stressed that he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Considering the guy obviously committed some treason, to a level that would have resulted in a whole slew of deaths no less, I don't believe the death penalty would be at all out of line.

That brings me to this incident. The guy has admitted that he conspired to fly an airplane into the White House. If he's sentenced to death for that, then really that's the most we can do to him, so I think trying to pin anything extra is unnecessary and won't amount to much other than looking good. Hell, you can even say "see? We got one" no matter what. Why am I stressing this point? Because, as I said, the man admitted to a crime that may be worthy of execution. So what does Lil Miss Moron do? Screws up the whole damn trial with a ridiculously illegal move.

The judge herself said that in "all the years I've been on the bench, I have never seen such an egregious violation of a rule on witnesses" and the prosecutor called it "horrendously wrong". This is like the OJ trial with Mark Fuhrman. You take what should be an airtight (or at least fairly easy) case and one idiot throws the whole thing out the window by doing something stupid.

Of course, the obvious observation: throwing out the death penalty just isn't right thanks to the severity of the case. So, how about we just throw out that testimony? Clearly it's unreliable, but the prosecution has a slight problem with that:

Prosecutor David Novak replied that removing the FAA witnesses would "exclude half the government's case." Novak suggested instead that the problem could be fixed by a vigorous cross-examination by the defense.

Fantastic. Half of the government's case is currently resting on the testimony of people who were illegally informed of trial proceedings, which is about as helpful as taking testimony from someone who used a teleprompter.

I said earlier that it'd be pretty easy to pin some serious crimes against the nation on Moussaoui, particularly concerning his admitted involvement in other attacks that never came to fruition. Admittedly that does ignore this little tidbit at the end concerning this specific trial:

Up to now the burden of proof was this: To obtain the death penalty, prosecutors must first prove that Moussaoui's actions — specifically, his lies_ were directly responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11.

I'm sorry to say, that's almost impossible. For that to be proven, the prosecution would have to prove that the government was completely on top of things before 9/11, and that if Moussaoui had been honest then it would have been prevented. For that accusation to stick, somehow it would have to be proven that he was the only reason that the attacks happened.

If all of the doors to your house are open, you can't blame the guy guarding the front door after someone robs you, even if he was sleeping on the job. We're trying to get this guy for the wrong thing, and the prosecution managed to even totally screw that up.

Russ Feingold calls for censure of Bush.

2006-03-12T17:46:00.000-05:00

I'll tell you, this is one of the coolest things I've read in a while. Though it's a fairly extreme leap, Feingold's resolution to censure Bush is, even if unsuccessful, the kind of thing we need to start pushing to show that aside from disagreeing with the president, people are going to do something about it.

Disagreement with the president isn't anything new, and in the five and a half years since he took office it's not like Bush has never run into a time where he was facing a whole lot of opposition. Opposition from the United Nations, from Congress, now and again his own people (remember Colin Powell saying he didn't think pre-war intelligence was right?), it's all old hat for this guy. However, that doesn't amount to jack when it's a president who has no problem with simply hopping around anyone in his way and doing whatever he bloody well pleases. It ends up looking like a bunch of whiners not actually trying to get anything done.

Thank the lawd for Feingold, then. He even makes sure to clarify this movement in relation to the current efforts to fix up the laws.

"There can be debate about whether the law should be changed. There can be debate about how best to fight terrorism. We all believe that there should be wiretapping in appropriate cases -- but the idea that the president can just make up a law, in violation of his oath of office, has to be answered."

This is what I've been screaming about for forever. It isn't a fight against wiretapping, it's a fight against ILLEGAL wiretapping. You can argue all you want about the inefficiency or the problems with the laws as written, but the president simply isn't allowed to go changing any laws he doesn't like just because he wants to. It's the same argument I wrote into the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about in response to a woman who just didn't catch on.

There are other people who didn't catch onto this problem, namely our good friend Bill Frist. Still proving he thinks the only purpose of government is to give a thumbs-up to whatever the president says, he had this to say:

"He is flat wrong, he is dead wrong," said the Tennessee Republican --also a potential presidential candidate in 2008 -- adding that "attacking our commander in chief ... doesn't make sense."

Right. Being against the president: always a bad idea. He even added that the American people are "solidly behind" the president on this issue. I guess he forgot the poll that showed that 52% of Americans favor impeachment if it turns out he spied without a court order, amongst others with similar numbers. Even the most sunny reports have those who say Bush should be allowed to do it in the low 50's. Hardly "solidly behind".

Will the censure succeed? That's fairly debateable, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Let's take this in the other direction, for any right-minded folk who might be reading. Can you imagine what kind of havoc would happen if a hardcore liberal president was allowed to sidestep any laws he didn't like, and then the only consequences are that the laws are fixed to allow him to do what he already did? Mull that over, imagining what would happen, then tell me you approve of what's happening now for reasons other than just liking Bush.

Bill Frist: 2008 presidential candidate?

2006-03-11T23:43:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I sure hope so. So Frist won a poll concerning potential 2008 presidental candidates. He even trounced, which really shouldn't come as a surprise since McCain has been losing points for breaking ranks with Bush, while Frist has generally stuck alongside the pres aside from the ports deal, and that was only because it was trendy.

Frist, who packed the home-state crowd with supporters wearing blue "Frist is my leader" buttons, won nearly 37 percent of the 1,427 votes cast by delegates to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

You know, I think this is great. I honestly do. Frist is the weakest willed person I know of in Washington these days. The man cannot make a decision on his own, he just drifts along wherever Bush is headed unless the political climate is such that he should oppose the guy.

If the republicans want to nominate a man that will not take a stand on anything unless there's someone there to tell him what to think, that's just dandy. Hell, they've already done it once before. By proxy, that leaves Frists's popularity in the tanker as well.

But if I were to diverge from my "anything to sabotage the republican party" rhetoric then I'd say the republicans need to honestly choose anyone but this dingbat. Bush's popularity keeps going down, and anyone who sticks by him is going to look worse and worse as time goes on. Even other GOP'ers are making distance between themselves and Bush in order to help their presidential bids.

The first-tier presidential aspirants (McCain, Romney, Allen) all showed up here, switching on their best smiles as they back slappedtheir way around the fabled Peabody Hotel. In the lobby, New Hampshire power broker Tom Rath talked about that delicate dance: "Unless things improve (for Bush), you won't see anyone running back to embrace the mother ship. Nobody is running as his natural political heir."

Well... nobody except for Frist.

And yet, he's the guy that gets chosen as the next republican candidate. That tells me two things: that the republicans in power realize that they need to get away from Bush because he's simply a black spot on the country's history, and that the republican population still flocks to whoever still is faithful to our Mighty Leader. I think that speaks a fair deal about the general intelligence of your average republican voter. Or at least roughly 37% of them.

The democrats don't like Bush, neither do the republicans in Washington. I can only wonder what it is that keeps the general population still rooting for the guy.

America-hating, terrorist-loving, politically correct liberals.

2006-03-11T16:12:00.000-05:00

Hi there. My name's Zach, and I suppose I'm not a very good liberal.

I think the world has blacks, cripples, retards, and fat people.

I think things are "illegal", not "unlawful".

I think the KKK has every right to say they hate everyone, but I also have the right to call them idiots.

I think Osama and al Qaeda should be thrown off of skyscrapers, because it seems fitting.

I think Saddam was an asshole and a terrible person.

I think some problems can't be solved by throwing money at them.

I think illegal immigrants don't deserve the same rights afforded to citizens.

I think the death penalty is necessary sometimes.

I think you can put all the religious decorations on your personal property you want.

I think abortion isn't something everyone should aspire to have.

I think a family with a stable mother and father is the best situation for a child to be in.

I think affirmative action is problematic.

I think the welfare system is being abused.

I think kids need a smack now and again.

I think drugging kids to make them calm down is a terrible idea.

I think media bias masking as journalism is a bad thing.

I think Hardball is a pretty good show.

I think that after 9/11 there is a valid reason to be wary of some Arabs.

I think Christmas is a pretty nifty holiday.

I think America is a great nation, and I want to have a family and die here an old man.

Hi there. My name's Zach, and I suppose I'm not a very good liberal.

Bush to give speeches about Iraq "strategy"

2006-03-11T01:25:00.000-05:00

I'm going to open this one up with a challenge. Wade through the article without bursting into laughter or getting a nosebleed.

So our president is facing more problems. His approvals ratings are in the toilet, Iraq is getting worse and worse, the Katrina videos are proving him to be more incompetent than we previously thought possible. What's a pres to do? Well, Bush is giving speeches to rally support of the war. Specifically, he's trying to convince skeptics that there is a victory strategy and it's going great.

Wait a second. We have a plan for victory? Did we forget this?

We're within two months of the third anniversary of this event, and now the president is going to make speeches to tell us that he's got a way to win the war? Seems like we jumped the gun with that little banner, there. You know, even if it's true that there is a strategy for "victory", it hardly matters now. Bush has done the equivalent of telling his nephew to knock a beehive down with a shovel and then four hours later saying "Okay Billy, I think I have a way to get you out of there!"

The president hopes to give "better depth, understanding and context for how the strategy in Iraq is unfolding," a senior White House official said of the planned speeches.

Nothing about the Iraq strategy is unfolding. Even giving the president the benefit of the doubt that he ever had a strategy beyond "git in there and git Saddam", we would call this "unravelling", not unfolding. To say any portion of the Iraq War has had any semblance of strategy would be to lie to oneself grievously.

The president is in a pathetically desparate state now. Early on it seemed that what he did was in order to get his policies pushed, and he was exploiting situations to best suit him. Now it's more that all he can do is try to get the heat off of him as quickly as he can. The republicans in Congress are jumping ship in time for the 2006 elections, as if a presidential endorsement is a political kiss of death now. Which it may very well be when the man himself has a sub-40% approval rating that is only moving downward.

So off he goes, determined to make things better. But don't worry, he's still doing my favorite trick which I'm going to dub "abracadubya". Basically it goes like this, you take a fairly cut and dry event, perhaps one concerning internal conflict and...

"There are some who are trying to, obviously, sow the seeds of sectarian strife," Bush said, during remarks to a group of community newspaper publishers yesterday. "They fear the advancement of a democracy. They blow up shrines in order to cause this Iraqi democracy that is emerging to go backwards, to not emerge."

...Abracadubya! Now it's about terrorists who hate democracy and freedom again. The Sunnis aren't attacking Shiites because they have a centuries-long tradition of hating each other and now the advent of a Shiite-led government rubs them the wrong way, they simply hate the idea of democracy and progress.

I think the problem is that Bush sees foreign violence as the complement to the violence he starts. He blows up cities in order to make democracy happen without a real end in mind, his plans made with vague philosophical ideas that look fairly nice on paper. Thus, he can't parse that anyone who does things that impede on his wishes could have any goals BUT simply to disrupt things. It just doesn't seem to register. To him, violence is there simply to start more violence. At least when people we don't like are doing it.

That's really the strangest part. At this point I don't believe he is being politically manipulative with the war. He's been far too rock solid on how he sees it to be doing this for pure personal gain. He truly sees these attacks as people trying to destroy freedom, and he truly sees insurgents as haters of democracy and not people fighting against other people. You almost wonder if he were the principal of a school if he'd expel children for fighting, because they're sowing the seeds of discord and trying to disrupt the educational process.

Fortunately, the country isn't following along any more. It's just three more years of him getting limper and more pathetic. Best we can hope is that his days of really screwing up are at a standstill, because he's too ineffective to do anything at all.

Bush "worried" by the message sent.

2006-03-10T15:42:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's right. It seems that in light of the UAE ports deal being shut down, Bush is worried by the "broader message" it sends.

"In order to win the war on terror, we've got to strengthen our relationships and friendships with moderate Arab countries in the Middle East," Bush told a meeting of the National Newspaper Association in Washington.

I think if you took out "moderate" and replaced it with "America-invested" then chances are the statement would be a lot more accurate.

Mr Bush, once again, this issue has far less to do with the UAE than I think you're willing to acknowledge. So far, no less than five relatively large events (some enormous like the war or 9/11, some not so large like the Cheney shooting) have all happened, each of which could have been considered understandable in their own rights. Attacks, hunting accidents, hurricanes, these things happen. I think it's pretty foolish for anyone to expect a president to protect us from any and all disasters. What is way more important is how you deal with it.

All through the article Bush keeps talking about how grand the UAE is and how helpful they've been. That's awesome. Glad to know they're good people. I'd like to strengthen our relationship with them myself. Maybe if you hadn't been such a jacknut and threatened to veto any attempts to even delay the deal (not stop it, just delay) after hearing about it on the news, maybe people wouldn't have lost it.

Or maybe, just maybe, when you're walking around saying Palestine's democratically elected government needs to bend to the United States' will, that we need to impose sanctions on Iran if they have a picture of uranium on their wall, and that anyone with a remotely Middle-Eastern sounding name is a terrorist and belongs on the watch list, you're going to run into a problem. Namely that in addition to the democrats who expect you do stupid stuff, you're also going to have to deal with your lapdogs who have crammed their heads full of "Arabs are bad".

Speaking of those sentiments, we've also got this bit in a London paper by an Arabian writer:

"The excuses that the U.S. Congress used to oppose this deal were not only pathetic but very racist at the same time because if a non-Arab company would have won the bid, we would not have heard all that noise from the U.S. Congress or any other American institution," the editorial said.

That's absolutely right. I don't even pretend to doubt it. Well, it's not entirely true. If we were to find out that China or Cuba or Nigeria suddenly bought up our ports, there'd be a hell of an outrage as well. Don't forget Russia circa the 1980s. It's not the color of the skin, it's the history the nation has in dealing with us. I might trust Hamas to deal with Palestine, I wouldn't want 'em in charge of anything on our soil.

If anything is damaged thanks to all of this, it's your fault, Sir Bush. Your fault for dealing with it so piss-poorly, like you have time and time again.

Abu Ghraib to be closed.

2006-03-09T23:57:00.000-05:00

Somewhat, anyway. The United States is handing the prison over to Iraq, but not until we get all of our prisoners the heck outta there. And, in an interesting turn of events, it looks like that might start happening fairly soon.

Though, honestly, I'm not exactly sure what this means in terms of how the United States will be dealing with prisoners. We've still got Bagram and who knows how many other hidden prisons full of people pissing in plastic buckets, so I fear mostly that this is a surface deal, made because Abu Ghraib has become the face of scandal in Iraq. All of the prisoners are getting moved elsewhere, and the fact that all of the heat was on Abu Ghraib nearly exclusively, I can't help but wonder if this is the last time many of them will see daylight.

"There are facilities being built so that the U.S. can pull out of Abu Ghraib. Then it will be up to the Iraqi government to decide what they want to do. I do not know that the Iraqi government had decided. It's an Iraqi decision, I just don't know that they've made that decision."

New facilities, though. There's a double edged sword to this concept. On one hand, that means they're new, so the media is going to be seeing where they are, seeing the progress as they're built, and thus will know they're there. On the other hand, it also means there's a great chance that there will be a lot more facilities that we aren't going to know bout, at least for a while.

Thumbs up to the Iraq government, though, for working on how things will go after the occupation is over.

Capital punishment was suspended during the formal U.S. occupation, which ended in June 2004, and the Iraqis reinstated the penalty two months later for those found guilty of murder, endangering national security and distributing drugs, saying it was necessary to help put down the persistent insurgency.

A small handful of executions of violent insurgents, plus three others have happened so far. As it turns out, the president is against capital punishment and so far has deferred the authorization to his pair of vice presidents. They even freed a few of Saddam's former agents, saying they weren't guilty of any crimes against humanity.

Looks like Iraq might pull itself out of the muck after all. Here's hoping, folks.

Dubai Ports deal: dead

2006-03-09T22:54:00.000-05:00

Count another loss for the Bush clan today. After a few weeks of serious debate and a completely unprecedented GOP split from the White House, Dubai Ports World will sell its American operation to a US "entity". A 62-2 vote in the House Appropriations Committee no less.

A leading congressional critic of the ports deal, Rep. Peter King, applauded the decision but said he and others would wait to see the details. "It would have to be an American company with no links to DP World, and that would be a tremendous victory and very gratifying," said the New York Republican, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

See folks, when you have Chuck Schumer on Savage and they're both agreeing, you know this is bad for our Mighty Leader. When Bill Frist says he'll overturn the president's veto, you know it's really bad. So, faced with this kind of a problem, how is the president going to make Scotty respond?

"It does provide a way forward and resolve the matter so we can continue working on other important priorities," said White Housespokesman Scott McClellan.

...gotcha.

I wrote a little while ago on why the UAE deal was important, and I think the end result drives an important message to the White House. The people are not going to accept our leaders sleeping at the wheel for any more issues. Finding out that a deal is going through without Congress being aware of it or even a review held is simply unacceptable.

I can't help but wonder if Bush found out that the deal died on TV.

Iraq supressed body count

2006-03-09T14:55:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I really do love the Washington Post, and this is one of those times.

You see, I'd been wondering why I had written about a body count of over a thousand while the vast majority of reports coming out of US media was putting the number at under 500 still. It seems now I have my answer: Shiite officials are suppressing execution-style death tolls, so the only "official" numbers are coming in the form of explosions and in-the-street violence.

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared for his safety, said a representative of the Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings.

Given the numbers from the morgues, this would make sense. And, frankly, it's rather alarming to know that even the government may be withholding information related to this serious issue. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the new government to know that they're going to be hiding things. More than that, you have to remember that it's the Shiites that would be ordering these executions.

The widely differing tolls reflect acute political sensitivity at a time when Iraq's three-year-old conflict is undergoing a fundamentalshift: Execution-style killings of the kind frequently blamed on police or Shiite militias allied with the government appear to be killing more Iraqis than bombings of government and civilian targets by Sunni Arab insurgents.

Uh-oh. I would think the first thought when seeing something like this would be: are we sure Iraq is better now?

Men want a say in unexpected pregnancies.

2006-03-09T00:01:00.000-05:00

I have a bad feeling I'm going to open up a can of words with this one.

Let's throw out a scenario, purely hypothetical but not exactly unrealistic. You've been going out with your girlfriend, and you've been going out with her a while (assuming you're a guy). Let's say a year or two. You've been faithful to each other, and the both of you have been tested for every STD on the planet and you're both disease free. Your girl is on the pill and the pair of you decide to go at it condom-free, since you both feel safe. You've agreed no kids yet, you're not ready for them at all and have stressed this.

Everything's cool for a while, then your girl seems to be sick. Turns out she wasn't being honest about using the pill (she wanted a kid and was lying or she forgot and was horny that night, take your pick). Now she's pregnant and refuses an abortion. You don't want a kid and have said that since the beginning, and your girl refuses to put the kid up for adoption. You leave, because after all of that discussion on no kids, she's pregnant and won't terminate for religious/ethical reasons. Unfortunately, you now have to pay child support to the tune of a few hundred a month.

Fair? I don't think so, and now men want a say in unplanned pregnancies. Meet Mel Feit, director of the National Center for Men.

"There's such a spectrum of choice that women have -- it's her body, her pregnancy and she has the ultimate right to make decisions," said Mel Feit, director of the men's center. "I'm trying to find a way for a man also to have some say over decisions that affect his life profoundly."

Some are calling this lawsuit the Roe v Wade for men. Unfortunately not everyone agrees with this. Take Jennifer Brown of Legal Momentum, a women's rights group.

"Roe is based on an extreme intrusion by the government -- literally to force a woman to continue a pregnancy she doesn't want," Brown said."There's nothing equivalent for men. They have the same ability as women to use contraception, to get sterilized."

Not quite, Jenny (mind if I call you Jenny?). You see, in the case of Roe v Wade, we have the government forcing a woman to be a mother when she doesn't want to be. In this case, we have the government forcing a man to be a father when he doesn't want to be. If a couple disagrees on an abortion, the woman can get the abortion even if the guy disagrees, and even if they break up at least the pregnancy is terminated. A man can't have an abortion behind his girlfriend's back, for hopefully obvious reasons.

At the end of the day, the basic gist of things is that the baby is in the woman's tum-tum, so she gets to say whether or not it lives. This is where the "it's a woman's body, it's a woman's right to choose" thing starts to get hazy. It's going on in the woman's body, but that child isn't just hers. It's not just an extension of her body like an extra limb or a cyst. It's a composite little piece of life that two people made.

I realize this makes me sound pro-life, but trust me I'm anything but. My point there was just to say that it takes two to make that thing.

Feit doesn't advocate an unlimited fatherhood opt-out; he proposes a brief period in which a man, after learning of an unintended pregnancy, could decline parental responsibilities if the relationship was one in which neither partner had desired a child.

I like this idea, though I think it does forget the possibility of a woman doing something in order to make a pregnancy happen (poke holes in the condoms, lie about being on the pill, lie about surgery, etc). There should be a statute of limitations, though, I agree. Can't have a guy that suddenly decides at the 9th month that he changed his mind and wants out.

Honestly, I think abortion and this law should have roughly the same time frame. Sounds fair to me. If the guy didn't want out before the end of the abortion period was over, that means he's changing his mind and that's exactly what we don't want. This is a clause intended to be for when the pregnancy is entirely unplanned and he can't get his girlfriend/wife to terminate it. That is ALL this should be used for.

Sudan wants no UN involvement.

2006-03-08T18:39:00.000-05:00

I'm incredibly surprised this one isn't getting that much attention in terms of international news. For those unaware of the issue, what we've got is a hell of a war going on in Darfur, Sudan. It's happening between "Arab" and "non-Arab" sections of the country (quotes because the differentiation isn't quite accurate), with the non-Arabs accusing the majority Arab government of neglect. The non-Arab citizens took up arms, and the government responded by ravaging most of their towns. Reports vary on the body count, but it ranges between 180,000 and 300,000 with around 2 million displaced from their homes.

Needless to say, it's an ugly and disturbing situation.

There are talks of UN intervention, which Sudan officials warn against. The opinion on that side seems to be that if the United Nations gets involved, violence will increase and the outside troops will be seen as invaders regardless of their race. An understandable position, though myself I'm wondering what the citizens think. It's pretty obvious that the people on the killing side are going to want to keep the UN out.

"Even if they send pure Muslim or Arab troops we will consider them invaders and will fight them," Fatahi Khalil, the dean of the Sudanese Bar Association and secretary of the Popular Organization for the Defense of the Homeland and the Faith, told cheering crowds

And really, why wouldn't the citizens want the UN to help? Foreign involvement always works. I mean, look at Iraq! Er, Israel. Um... Korea?

All right, moving along then. The question is... where has the United States been during all of this? Saddam probably killed anywhere from thirty to forty thousand people in his borders, and so that's half the reason we invaded the country. Bush has already conceded that we'd have gone in regardless of the WMDs, and the number one anti-war argument seems to be "So you WANT Saddam to still be in power?" Naturally an anti-war arguer at this point will start hedging nervously and going "Well, NO, but..." and the argument's done with.

Obviously, the proper response is "so why aren't we in Darfur?" We'll invade a country whose leader killed 40 thousand people, but a government killing two hundred thousand or so? That's not our problem, apparently. I really do hate turning things back to the Iraq war, but it's pretty difficult to avoid at times. They didn't have weapons and now we have a situation that's FAR more dire, but yet the war in Iraq is still defended. Amazing, no?

So back to Darfur. What should the UN be doing? Take action or not? Hard to say.

Rumsfeld: Media "exaggerated" Iraq violence.

2006-03-08T01:31:00.000-05:00

I'll tell ya, the best thing about the presidency these days is that the administration either blames whoever blows the whistle on problems or calls them liars. Today's flavor is our good friend Don Rumsfeld blaming the media for exaggerating Iraq violence. Yes, exaggerating.

"From what I've seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation, according to General Casey, "Rumsfeld said. "The number of attacks on mosques, as he pointed out, had been exaggerated. The number of Iraqi deaths had been exaggerated."

Oh yeah, good old General Casey. Would that be the same General Casey who said the violence was over? Would that be him? I'm not entirely sure I'd trust the guy. Seems a little out of touch with things. Rumsfeld isn't too trustworthy either, though. Bearing in mind he's the man who called Saddam an "imminent threat" to the United States, and then later denied saying such on Meet the Press only to be shown video of him saying just that. So not only couldn't we trust him when he said it in the first place, he's lying about having said it later. And he's quoting someone who said the sectarian violence ended last Friday, when actually eleven people died today in Iraq, complete with some more mosque destruction just to make things interesting. Rumsfeld then goes on to say that all of these exaggerations are occurring on "one side" of the issue. Meaning, it's there to "give heart to the terrorists." Well, I certainly wouldn't want to do that. ...wait, what? Oh, that's how it works. Apparently telling people what's happening is giving aid to the enemy. It's certainly not doing anything crazy like showing people that things aren't going as well as the administration wants to tell us it is. It isn't honest journalism that tells the American citizens what's really happening in the world. No, it's another example of "playing politics" that the administration is so adamantly against. Which is really a shame, since they decided to have a career in politics. Honestly that's the most alarming trend coming out of the White House these days. Any news reports that come out that aren't in favor of Bush policies is immediately labelled as "giving aid to the enemy". Point out that illegal spying is going on? Aiding the enemy. Show that people are dying in sectarian violence in Iraq? Aiding the enemy. Continue to throw more and more troops into an unnecessary war in a dangerous area of the world while our actual enemies are elsewhere? Well that's just being tough on national security. Speaking of those enemies, Rummy was sure to explain that "al Qaeda "has media committees" and tutors people on how to "manipulate" news organizations." Eerily similar to the Gitmo claims that all of the torture reports were coming from lying al Qaeda operatives, no? Al Qaeda has become the Bush Clan's ace in the hole. Anything goes wrong there's a way to blame it on al Qaeda and say that things aren't that bad. Let's review White House spin on everything, shall we? Torture claims in Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib are all made up by al Qaeda, the severity of sectarian violence in Iraq is made up by al Qaeda (and it's being exaggerated by the media, to boot!), and the people causing said violence are al Qaeda. Oh, and all of the weapons in Iraq are coming from... Iran. Okay, not al Qaeda that time, but still. Someone care to remind me why we went into Iraq? More than that, explain to me me why, rearing on half a decade after 9/11, al Qaeda is still capable of causing all of this mayhem? I thought Osama was neutralized and we got all of the important operatives.

Constitution or Bible?

2006-03-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

One of the best quotes I've ever heard. In a discussion over gay marriage amendments:

"As I read Biblical principles, marriage was intended, ordained and started by God - that is my belief," [Sen. Nancy] Jacobs declared. "For me, this is an issue solely based on religious principals."

...

"People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible," [American University constitutional law professor James Raskin] said.

Awesome. That one's getting logged away in the ol' memory.

US setting the stage for war in Iran.

2006-03-07T14:32:00.000-05:00

You know, I'm really not sure why this comes as any kind of surprise to me. Don't worry about all of those talks in Moscow folks, because as we speak the United States is getting ready for the next war that will make sure Bush can hold off elections "for our safety".

First up, we find the United States rejecting any uranium enrichment by Iran, and saying the UN Security Council should take action unless Tehran makes an "about face" concerning its activities. The same United States who called the same United Nations inefficient when dealing with Iraq is now trying to get them to do something about Iran. And concerning the level of enrichment that appears to be going on?

[State Department spokesman Tom Casey] told reporters: "You can't be just a little pregnant. You can't have the regime pursuing enrichment on any scale, because pursuing enrichment on any scale allows them to master the technology, complete the fuel cycle -- and then that technology can easily be applied to a clandestine program for making nuclear weapons."

Okay, let's review the situation in Iran. They have 10-20 centrifuges for uranium enrichment. This is enough to make nuclear power. It would take a few thousand of these things many years to make weapons-grade uranium. But somehow they're going to daisy-chain these machines together to make weapons right under our noses. Oh sure, many of the machines aren't working right at this point, but the potential is there!

No one's denying that Iran + nukes = trouble. That would be fairly foolish. What I'm saying is that we need to give Iran at least some leeway to see if their intentions are genuine. It takes years for thousands of centrifuges to make the uranium for a warhead, do the math on twenty of them. Now imagine that not all of them are working reliably. These guys are not going to be able to suddenly drop a nuke on our heads next week. If the number of centrifuges keeps going up or they refuse to let inspectors see what they're doing, then I see the need for recourse.

What about Scotty McC?

White House spokesman Scott McClellan complained that Iran continued to make provocative statements and take provocative actions, and said Tehran "can't be trusted" because it hid its programs for nearly two decades.

Actions speak louder than words, and Iran is making actions and speaking words. But we can't trust them because of shady history? Wouldn't this very logic tell us that the UAE shouldn't be anywhere NEAR our ports? Oh, right, that would require the White House to show a shred of consistency. My bad.

But don't worry, if they can't rally the necessary support just for that, an incredibly convenient story has appeared claiming that Iran is giving Iraqi insurgents weapons.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant.

Of course! It's Iran. That's where all of the danger in Iraq is coming from. It's not Saudi Arabia, it's not Jordan, it's not even within Iraq itself. It's Iran. Not only that, but the weapons themselves are made with detonators that cannot be jammed and the explosions result in projectiles that our armor cannot stop! I guess that just leaves us with the option of air strikes, which is pretty handy because we're almost out of ground troops.

I guess all we have to wait for now is Bush to use the powers Congress "gave him" to give himself an extension of his presidency so we don't change horses midstream. And then we'll hear about it on the news after it's all over and done with because everyone who even attempted to leak the information got put in jail. This truly is a Brave New World, this post-9/11 America.

How to stop corruption problems, by George W Bush

2006-03-06T23:12:00.000-05:00

By now the White House is rife with corruption. From Abramoff to the NSA, Plamegate to the newly found Katrina tapes. It seems like any information we're getting about what the White House is doing has something to do with underhanded activities. There's a tragic lack of actual progress being made up on the hill these days. Fortunately, Bush has worked out a way to fix that.

The solution, you ask? Bush will stop information from being leaked, thus ridding us all of that pesky problem of knowing about all of the corruption travelling through the west wing.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton vetoed legislation passed by the Republican Congress that would have criminalised unauthorised leaks of classified information, though even that bill would not have made the receipt of such information a crime. The Republican chairmen of both the Senate and House intelligence committees have said recently they might make another effort to pass such legislation.

Isn't that simple? Quiet public outrage of scandals by stopping the public from knowing about those scandals. We won't get mad about domestic spying or bribery if we have no idea it's going on.

Of course, that does beg the question: what's the difference between a scandal revealed about domestic spying and a scandal revealed about a CIA operative? Well, apparently the former is damaging to our national security and the latter is encouraged by our vice president, so it's okay. But then, Cheney said he did have the power to classify and declassify information whenever the hell he wanted, but it's not like that could lead to a situation where the White House briefly declassifies sensitive information for political purposes while keeping all else classified to keep the public in the dark, right?

...right?

Violence in Iraq continues.

2006-03-06T15:49:00.000-05:00

Man. Being away from the news for a few days almost made me want to stay away. Especially with news like this coming down the wire. On Friday our good friend General Casey said Iraq violence was over. It's the same sentiment, really, that people have been saying since a few days after the violence started, and it always seems to be coupled with this beautifully bizarre analysis of motive:

"This is a difficult time, and there are fairly determined and ruthless terrorists that are out to halt Iraq's movement forward to a democratically elected, constitutionally based government," Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commander of Multinational Force Iraq, said in a news briefing from Iraq reported by the American Forces Press Service."What I see here on the ground is great persistence by the Iraqis to deny them that."

Once again we find a situation where, in order to bring this all into the battle for democracy, and that any violence that happens there is for the express purpose of disturbing that democracy. I've said it before and I'll say it again: with or without Saddam, the Sunnis and the Shiites don't like each other. What kills me is that people like Gen Casey are going to try and turn what is a Civil War into an act of terrorism by a small force trying to screw things up for everyone else.

But hey, at least the violence is over right? Well, as long as you don't count today's explosions in Iraq that killed 14 and wounded 52, amongst other deaths in Baghdad and others areas to the north. Aside from that, really, it's all good.

Of course, it's really unfair to paint Iraq that negative a light. The leaders really are doing what they can and I commend them for that. The curfew attempts, and now there's a 60-day countdown to getting the new Parliament and a Prime Minister. It's all fantastic and I can do nothing but applaud Iraq for their efforts and hope that they'll all prove successful. What gets to me above it all is the American attitude toward what's happening.

In the Iraq frame, we've got a brewing Civil War and the Iraqi officials trying to quell the violence. It's Iraqis dealing with Iraqis fighting Iraqis. It's a part of what happens when a government sets up another in a foreign country (hi, Pakistan), but it's entirely internal and though there are two factions of citizens, at the end of the day everyone is still a part of Iraq.

In the Amerian frame, we've got terrorists trying to destroy democracy. It's Iraqi officials dealing with terrorists fighting Iraqis. It's not internal according to many of these people and must be dealt with as though it's a small-scale war of sorts. It's this skewed perspective that has messed things up as bad as they've become. The people fighting in this are not some outside faction. They're the same people we've been "liberating" and trying to separate the fighters as terrorists against democracy is only going to paint us as an interfering party and will create more animosity.

Besides, if a Civil War does erupt, how could we possibly get involved? We can't take sides, and you can't be unaffilitated when in the middle of a war.

Busy weekend.

2006-03-05T13:33:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates this weekend. Been working on a bunch of stuff. If you want, throw some ideas into the comments or start up a debate of your own. Consider it an open thread.

South Dakota, we hardly knew thee

2006-03-04T15:59:00.000-05:00

Once again it's time for me to speak out on this Blog about something near and dear to my heart. And that of course is abortion (it should go without saying). Now I decided long ago that I wouldn't side with the crazies of the right which would have all the babies live, but only on the condition that these babies are baptized Christian. And at the same time I found the left to be so boring, offering a pro-choice solution. I mean where is the excitement with that? That is why I have taken it upon myself to defend the extreme position of pro-death. We should kill all the babies. Now I know what you're probably thinking, and that's; "Grant, you can't support abortions to the age of 5." That claim is erroneous! Of course I can. I mean we all know some people who should have been, or should be aborted. Take some of these people in South "the other North" Dakota. You may remember South Dakota. Know for it's scenic landscape, bison, and for its progressive laws, such as my personal favorite: "If there are more than 5 Native Americans on your property you may shoot them." well the friendly folks of S.D. have something new an exciting for you to chew on. And that of course is the repealing of Roe vs. Wade. You remember our old friends Roe, and Wade. Back in the 70s they fought this issue out in the supreme court. And now everyone is free to enjoy an abortion like they enjoy sunshine. But in some places of the country this did not sit well at all. Fundamentalist and the right wing have taken it upon themselves to resemble the Blues Brothers, that’s right they are on a "mission from God." they have taken it upon themselves to repeal the supreme court ruling in Roe vs. Wade, and try and make it illegal for anyone to have an abortion. Unless the baby is a health hazard to the mother, or if it is a case of rape or incest. What I don't understand is how these people can be so supportive of letting people live. And then be so supportive of upholding the death penalty. What the hell is that? Make up your minds people! Are they staying or leaving here? This is why we need to all be pro-abortion. Then no one can complain about anything anymore. There won't be any bitching from either side anymore. I personally suggest we do what Thomas Swift suggested and just harvest the babies for food. Help some starving kids in Africa, you know join the fight with Bono. I mean we could eliminate hunger forever, it truly is a "Modest Proposal." And now that we are competing in a global economy we need abortion more then ever. Look at our main economic competetor China. They can't get enough abortion over there, it's like crack there. Abortion has the same effect in China as David Hasselhoff has in Germany. We gotta pick up the ball here people. To fall behind a communist country in something that we obvious all care enough about to burn down buildings for would be un American. I figure the only measure we have to take is get rid of non-competitive soccer, so our children don't all turn out gay. Not that there is anything wrong with being gay, it's just that gay people can't have children, and can therefore also not supply us with enough abortions to blow China out of the water. It would put a damper on the abortion rates...and our American spirits. On another note worthy news event. Some monkeys native to Africa called Bonobos are being hunted out for food by the native people. This wouldn't be a big deal if these monkeys weren't known for their constant fornication with one another. They are known as the "love monkeys," much like Davey Jones. They are seen to represent peace and love, and are icons of the hippie, flower pour every waking hour movements. But now that starving tribes in Africa have decided to go in search of food these monkeys are being killed out in order to feed the hungry. Now a bunch of hippies from Washington, who obviously have more of a right to say what starving people can and can't eat are protesting these actions. And are fighting to save these "love monkeys." "Bonobos are an icon for peace and love, the world's hippie chimps," said Sally Coxe of the Washington-based Bonobo Conservation Initiative. "To let them die off would be a catastrophe." What do I think...besides the obvious, "you damn hippies should be shot into space. How dare you try and interfere with these tribes who get shit on by the rest of the world just because it would "bum ya out dude." you aren't there, starving, fighting day to day for food and clean water so shut the hell up." but instead I think this... ....if memory serves me correctly, sex with monkeys gave us AIDs...and I don't think monkeys should be having anymore unprotected sex. In closing I remind all of you to Keep the Faith, and stay sexy.

Moussaoui on trial for letting 9/11 happen

2006-03-04T00:55:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's what we're getting this guy for. Though he was in prison at the time, Zacarias Moussaoui may be executed for not preventing 9/11. It seems as though we are unable to get a hold of any of the people who planned or helped to execute the attacks, so we're relegated to making a man who was possibly on the list of people do participate in it or another similar attack the fall guy for the entire operation. If convicted, he'll either be executed or face life in prison.

Previously Moussaoui has said he was not part of the 9/11 plot but that he was tasked to take part in a second wave of attacks destined to hit the White House. At his plea hearing in April 2005 Moussaoui said, "I was being trained on the 747-400 to eventually use this plane … to strike the White House, but this conspiracy was different conspiracy than 9/11."

The guy was a grunt. He was going to be one of the men blown up with the planes. Arresting him is good, interrogating him is good. Making him the public face of the 9/11 attacks that he has become is simply pointless. It's even a good thing to give him whatever sentence for the failed attack on the White House that didn't happen.

All right, that's being pretty cynical of me, I'll admit. It's not like the government would be doing anything that ludicrous. The man is probably a legitimate target for the sentence he's up for, and it's not like they'd make a guy who was going to fly the damn plane the center of the entire 9/11 conspiracy, right?

Justice Department prosecutors handling the case intend to identify in photographs the nearly 3,000 victims killed during the attacks and have said in court filings that they will call 45 victims to testify against Moussaoui.

...ah. So, during the trial, we're going to see the photographs of all of the victims who died, talk to the victims who lived, and get as many family members in as well. Either someone is planning on having some stupendously long trials for every single person who ever gets nabbed for this or the plan is to take care of Moussaoui and call it a day. If was a bettin' man, I don't think I'd be out of line in saying the latter.

Okay, listen, I'm not downplaying the severity of 9/11. I'm not saying a man who had a part in the attacks should just go away with a slap on the wrist. I'm not even saying Moussaoui should be let off with a minor sentence. What I am saying is that it's almost blaringly clearly that Moussaoui is having the entire weight of the September 11th attacks placed on his shoulders and he's being burned at the stake for the sake of the public at large.

Moussaoui was not an organizer, a planner, or even anyone that important in al Qaeda. How can I say that? He was going to be in the plane. He clearly wasn't so important he had to survive the only mission he was involved with. What's really funny (and not ha-ha funny) is how it almost seems that the feds want to maximally prosecute Moussaoui for how poorly they dealt with him.

CIA Director George Tenet was briefed on Moussaoui's arrest on Aug. 23, 2001. "Tenet was … told that Moussaoui wanted to learn to fly a 747, paid for his training in cash, was interested to learn the doors do not open in flight, and wanted to fly a simulated flight from London to New York," according to the 9/11 report.

The CIA immediately notified the FBI who... waited until September 4th, nary a week before the fateful day, before sending a message to the intelligence community. And even that was just a matter-of-fact type of notice, he's in custody and it's all good. The bulk of the information is classified, concerning this arrest, and if we know that they missed the mark that badly (he paid for the training in CASH?) in the available information, I can't imagine what's being withheld.

So Moussaoui is being blamed for withholding information and that's why 9/11 happened. Because some low-level grunt may not have told enough. It has nothing to do with the "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in the U.S." memo that Bush got in August, it has nothing to do with the calls that were slow to be translated before 9/11, no. It's because of this guy.

You know, Bush is possibly the least proactive president we've ever had. For all his chatter about having to pre-empt these attacks and events, he doesn't have much of a history of doing it. A pile of warnings about 9/11 go unacted on so we start wars and make a scapegoat out of a mostly ineffective party, warnings on a hurricane go ignored, ditto on warnings of civil war in Iraq. Possibly the most important and catastrophic events in his presidency, nothing done. And then this kind of things happens afterwards.

Moussaoui should be punished for whatever he's guilty of. That's it. No more, no less.

US says Gitmo is exempt from Torture Ban

2006-03-03T15:50:00.000-05:00

Really, now, how can anyone in our government try a tactic like this and still claim that no torturing is going on?

There's a guy who's been sitting in Gitmo for a little while now, his name is Mohammed Bawazir. He was one of a large number of prisoners there who were participating the hunger strike that caught a little press. Apparently in an attempt to save his life and protect his health, Bawazir was strapped down and force fed for hours at a time, he claims.

Denied access to a toilet while restrained, he received nutritional formula plus four bottles of water at each feeding [with a tube through his nose and into his stomach], causing Bawazir to repeatedly urinate and defecate on his clothes, the filing said.

It's about now that the lockstep Bush followers will say "that's not torture! People get fed through a tube in hospitals!" and other such completely asinine arguments. To them I would ask what their exact qualifications for torture are, since the horrors of Abu Ghraib didn't seem to qualify either. As far as I can tell, as long as the United States is doing it, it's not really torture. Back on topic, though, you would think these guys would be able to do something about it, since McCain managed to push that anti-torture thing through, right?

Well, not quite. You see, now the US is saying that the Detainee Treatment Act doesn't apply to Gitmo detainees, at least somewhat. You see, the law does protect detainees from "systematic torture", but there is a bit of a caveat:

Government lawyers have argued that another portion of that same law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, removes general access to U.S. courts for all Guantanamo Bay captives. Therefore, they said, Mohammed Bawazir, a Yemeni national held since May 2002, cannot claim protection under the anti-torture provisions.

Yes, that's right. The law protects prisoners from torture, but here it also doesn't allow them to go to the courts to get said protection. The obvious question of "how the hell do we expect the prisoners to be protected" doesn't appear to have a solid answer. I also can't help but question how that little provision managed to get in there without anyone seeing a problem.

Naturally, everyone remotely implicated with this issue is already saying that the case is frivolous, false, and that Bawazir himself isn't trustworthy. They're saying that the United States was only doing what they did for the man's health, and really, who could blame them for that? Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin is telling us that any and all such procedures are done in the most humane manner possible. So why would Bawazir claim otherwise?

"In short, he is a trained al Qaida terrorist, who has been taught to claim torture, abuse, and medical mistreatment if captured," [Maj. Gen. Jay W.] Hood wrote. He added that Bawazir allegedly went to Afghanistan to train for jihad and ultimately fought with the Taliban against U.S. troops.

One little hook, though. He's never been charged with a crime. He's one of 490 terrorist suspects who were captured and put in Gitmo, he's been there since 2002 actually, and in that time he has yet to be charged with anything. Out of those 490 suspects, only 10 have been. The man has been held in prison for four years with no charge of a crime, and now he's completely unable to bring any charges of torture to the courts thanks to the very law offering him those protections.

Bawazir may very well be guilty. Unfortunately, he's not really being given any ability to prove it either way. This is the problem with Guantanamo Bay, with Abu Ghraib and now with Bagram and who knows how many others. People are thrown in their on suspicion and treated as guilty parties with no way of proving their innocence. They have no rights, be they guilty or innocent. Humanity aside, this is no way to fight a war. Especially when fighting as morphous a subject as "terrorism". Torturing innocent parties and keeping them imprisoned for years on end without so much as a charge only creates more animosity towards the US, and thus more terrorists.

Honestly, one of the most depressing things about the state of the nation is the supreme inability to do incredibly important things in a remotely logical way.

Saudis allege illegal US wiretapping

2006-03-03T00:22:00.000-05:00

Sounds to me like we've started a bit of an avalanche. First we had an admitted terrorist saying he may want to take back his guilty plea due to the possible illegality of how his arrest happened, now there is a Saudi charity group with evidence they were spied on as well.

The al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi organization that once operated in Portland, Ore., filed a description of classified government records in a lawsuit Tuesday and immediately asked a judge for a private review.

That's right, a charity group that situated itself in Oregon for a while may have been spied on under that oh-so-lovely NSA thing. If there was any question as to why Bush would be spying without warrants, I think we got an answer here. I don't think there's anyone up there in FISA courts who would issue a warrant to spy on a charity group. Of course, the article again states that the government is complaining that FISA didn't allow them to "move quickly enough".

Once again, the government admits that it's breaking the law. But that's a sidetrack.

The Iyman Faris deal was not the only such incident, a number of terrorist suspects out there are having their cases re-opened because they think the laws may have been broken in order to get their convictions. That's a wholly understandable and supported claim, unfortunately it's one that's pretty easy for the Administration to basically throw out the window. Illegal or not, the world at large is not going to come at it from a strict legality standpoint as long as the end result was terrorists in prison. In this "post-9/11 thinking" world the terrorist is more dangerous than the bomb.

Two things separate this case from those, however. First of all, it's a case of an innocent party being spied upon. It's easy for someone like Faris to have his complaints tossed out since he ended up admitted to his plot. Here it's a charity group, about as dangerous as a box full of kittens (to use a line from The Longest Yard). There is no way for the Administration to defend circumventing the FISA courts in order to start wiretapping. The second is that this is more than just idle suspicion. Here, the group is citing the government's own records.

The lawsuit contends that al-Buthe's conversations with people in the United States were illegally intercepted. In May 2004, the suit says, government officials provided al-Buthe -- apparently by accident -- copies of conversations he had with attorneys Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor.

Whoops. Leave it to a little bungling with paperwork to blow this whole issue open.

So that makes you wonder, at least it should. Here we've got a charity group with nothing criminal going on that very likely was being spied on by the government. Illegally. Why would the administration be doing that? It's a charity group, we have lots of charity groups around the United States, and a lot of them are foreign. Check out Children's Charity, they've got a few contact spots in the United States as well.

Mr Bush, why would you treat an Arabian charity different than a British charity?

Dubai ports deal to go through without review.

2006-03-02T20:42:00.000-05:00

And here I was being all optimistic about the 45 day review. Yep, as the title says, the Dubai ports deal is set to close tomorrow or Monday, further proving that nothing we are told by the administration means a thing. No inspections, no review, lax standards in document disclosure, and now the very thing that was even making me optimistic about the deal has turned out to be nothing more than smoke up the country's ass.

Dubai Ports World's $6.85 billion acquisition of Britain's P&O will close on Friday or Monday, despite an additional 45-day review by the U.S. government in response to security concerns, a U.S. Treasury Department official said on Thursday.

There really isn't much to add to this one, but the message is crystal clear. Our president does not care about even obligatory security measures. Bush wants this deal to go through, and he wants it to go through NOW. But why? According to him and everyone representing him, nothing is changing. It's a non-issue. So why is it so incredibly important that it happen even without something as clearly warranted as a security review slowing it down? If history is any precedent with this administration (one thing you can't say about the Bush Clan is that they aren't consistent), then we're going to start to get more and more pieces of the puzzle in the upcoming weeks. And none of it's gonna be good.

Senate passes the Patriot Act.

2006-03-02T20:15:00.000-05:00

If I was Bush, this would be a serious relief to hear that at least one thing went according to plan. With an 89-10 vote, the Senate has passed the mildy revised Patriot Act. If you'll remember, this is the same Patriot Act that's been at the center of a bunch of controversy since it first showed up, criticised as an act that offers less freedoms without any more real protection.

Amongst these the famed "sneak and peek" provision that allows citizens to be searched without anyone notifying them until well after the fact. Also a nice little clause that lets the government see what books people have bought or borrowed from book stores and libraries. Fortunately, we're told that this "revised" Patriot Act makes sure to fix all of those pesky civil liberties problems that no one believes the president cares about. Check out these new provisions.

Give recipients of court-approved subpoenas for information in terrorist investigations the right to challenge a requirement that they refrain from telling anyone.

Eliminate a requirement that an individual provide the FBI with the name of a lawyer consulted about a National Security Letter, which is a demand for records issued by investigators.

Clarify that most libraries are not subject to demands in those letters for information about suspected terrorists.

There, don't we feel more protected now? We're allowed to challenge a requirement that we refrain from telling anyone. That doesn't mean there's any kind of a chance that the challenge will be accepted, but hey! At least we're allowed to challenge it now! And isn't much better now that most libraries aren't subject to those demands? What "most" means is up for debate, but hey, it's all good.

I'm echoing Senator Russell Feingold. At best, these changes are cosmetic. None of the problems people have brought up with this thing have been answered here, and in fact are kind of insulting. Unfortunately, the bill passed with a near unanimous vote (I consider 90% something of a landslide), and part of me wonders if that's the Democrats trying to ride on their "look, we really are tough on national security!" high and the republicans, well, doing what they do best.

The Patriot Act, a rushed piece of legislature that was passed almost immediately after it was proposed back in 2001, is the direct result of a country in the midst of a fear epidemic. Reeling off of 9/11, the Act was proposed on October 23rd and passed into law on October 26th. This was in a time when you could have proposed a law that required everyone to wear portable cameras and there would have been public support for it. Name it the "Patriot Act" and now it's a hell of a force to deal with.

As a quick aside, what happened to descriptive names? "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" or something like that. Instead we get "Patriot Act" and such nondescriptive names that seem geared more toward making the laws difficult to oppose rather than tell the people what it actually is. Let's not forget that it was passed without anyone really reading it. Makes me wonder how many people actually closely read these new provisions.

The UPI has made a nice list of the problems in the Patriot Act. From the "sneak and peek" to the library clause, and even this one:

Moreover, the administration has been using the Patriot Act to prosecute cases that have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. Local corruption, fraud and drug cases have all been the happy recipients of Patriot Act developed evidence.

Remember that part where everyone kept saying that only terrorists and al Qaeda will be caught with these measures? Well, you can nicely throw that one out the window, now. The Patriot Act will be abused if let through, and those limp little revisions are not going to fix a damn thing.

There are eight days until the Patriot Act's sixteen provisions expire, in that time it must make it through the House and then to the president. We already know that as soon as it hits our Mighty Leader's desk it's going to be passed. So that's eight days we need the House to fight it and stop it from continuing. I'm a strong supporter of security. What I'm not a supporter of whatsoever is Orwellian surveillance.

Indisputable Truth on Slate

2006-03-02T12:24:00.000-05:00

Hey, check it out! Indisputable Truth on Slate.com.

At Indisputable Truth, liberal Zach Gates is horrified by the death toll: "This is not a small roadbump ... 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."

I'm making my mark, it seems.

Bush knew about Katrina beforehand.

2006-03-02T12:20:00.000-05:00

I'd like to say at this point that I'm jaded about anything that may be found out about the Bush Administration, the lying and stupidity and all of that, but truthfully I'm not. Which is evidenced by my supreme shock to get this bit of news I've been sitting on since yesterday evening. See, not only did he hear about the possibility of Katrina's devastation, but Bush and Chertoff were explicitly warned about the levees before it hit. And what was the man's response to hearing all of the impending danger?

...he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

The man is on tape before the disaster saying "don't worry, we're prepared", and he's on tape afterwards saying "no one could have anticipated a breach". I'm just floored by this.

See, I expect the president to be stupid. I expect him to lie. That doesn't surprise me. What continually baffles me is how he tries to lie in situations where he's going to be proven as such. It's like Rumsfeld saying he never called Saddam an imminent threat when Meet the Press had a video of him saying just that. If you know there are people who can testify that you said something or that you knew something, it's hard as hell to lie about it. Doubly so with video on record.

Of course, once again someone in the Administration has to try to spin things around so they don't seem QUITE that bad. No Scotty McClellan this time, but don't worry, it's still a whopper.

"I hope people don't draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing," presidential spokesman Trent Duffy said, citing a variety of orders and disaster declarations Bush signed before the storm made landfall. "He received multiple briefings from multiple officials, and he was completely engaged at all times."

I want you to read over this a few times to try and figure out what he's trying to say and how it's supposed to defend the president. According to Mr Duffy here, the fact that the president got LOTS of briefings and was engaged in ALL of them is why there's no problem with his claiming later that no one anticipated the breach. The fact that he was talking with lots of people is why it doesn't matter that, despite claiming to be "fully prepared", he was anything but.

I don't know, folks. For once I truly have no idea what his defense is supposed to mean.

What really jumped out at me from this one was Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown. I was on the front lines to call him inexperienced and a horrible choice for the job. Maybe he wasn't the right man to head FEMA, but after watching the video and reading a few of the things he said at these briefings, you can't help but feel like he was really a victim of the administration in this whole incident.

"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, notonly in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary. "Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. … Just let them yell at me."
...
"The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level…. I don't know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane," he said.

The man really sounds like he was aware of the situation. It makes you really wonder what happened, what went wrong and why it went wrong. From these tapes, Bush was aware of the situation, Brown knew what was going on and had an idea of what needed to be done. He even mentioned that people weren't being taken out of hospitals and prisons. So how is it that it took Bush a few days to react, and then claim that no one could have anticipated the breach?

If there were any thoughts that people were being unfair to Bush in this deal, I hope you've changed your mind about it now. Bush will (at least claim to) pre-empt terrorist attacks and such events when there's no real credible evidence that it would happen. When he's given an explicit briefing, though, he does nothing. And then claims no one could have known.

Why the UAE port deal matters

2006-03-01T20:29:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty big issue lately, and it's been more divisive than most and in more bizarre ways than any other facing the president thus far. It's also fairly important to clarify exactly what the problem is and why it really is a big deal. What I'm about to say may not be what everyone is saying, but I believe it to be the true heart of the issue.

The UAE port controversy is NOT that the United Arab Emirates is a bunch of terrorists. I just had to get that out of the way first off, because that seems to be what the opposing side looks like and what some of the more vocal supporters are saying. What really is the basis of the problem is exactly what the opposers are saying, though: that it makes Bush look incredibly weak on terrorism.

To determine the problem, you have to look at all the facts as just what they are, and wait to assemble them until the end or else you'll make the wrong conclusion (trust me, it's important).

Okay, about the UAE themselves. They have a very shady history record. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the State Department put the UAE on the "primary concern" list in the INCSR for terrorism-funding and money laundering even recently. The two 9/11 hijackers were indeed from there, let's not forget the transporation of nuclear weapon materials from Pakistan into the Middle East. The Coast Guard is also saying they don't have enough information to say whether or not they are dangerous. From this standpoint, the UAE simply does not look good.

Moving on to Bush's side of things. The man was vehemently for the deal after hearing about it on the news, even threatening to veto any attempts to stop it. All this based on not even knowing it happened until it was already over and done with. His brother Neil may have gotten funding from the UAE to develop his educational software. The Dubai Ports World bought CSX's port assets, and John Snow used to run that company. David Sanborn was a senior executive of DPW who, a month prior to the ports deal, was made the new head of the Merchant Marines. In addition, the UAE gave four times as much Katrina money as the other countries combined. This makes the deal look as if the UAE bought support and that Bush was ignorant of it entirely.

Now let's take a look at how the story happened. It was sat on for a while, then it came out that the deal happened without Congress being told about it. Then Bush did his famous "I'll veto anything that attempts to stop this deal" schtick. Then we found out there were 21 ports under consideration, not six. Then it turns out the DPW wasn't made to give the same documentation that other companies have in the past. In addition, the 45 day review, which is quite warranted in a situation like this, was not used until forced recently. The story came out very slowly, making it look like something was hidden.

All right, there's our setup, now it's time to start piecing it together. The president supports a deal that puts what appears to be a dangerous company ahead of our ports. He himself had many connections to the country and the business in question, in addition to the other money the UAE has invested in the country. All the while it seems as if the Administration was trying to keep the details of the deal as quiet as possible.

The final product is starting to gel. Our president is going to support a deal with a country that LOOKS incredibly dangerous without ordering any kind of investigation and without knowing the facts himself, and that those in the know were hiding details. If we were given the indication that he knew the deal intimately, or that the company was even inspected thoroughly, this wouldn't be quite the same issue.

The thing is, Dubai Ports World may turn out to be a wholly benign company. The review may come back and tell us that we are in no danger from them. What is a problem is that Bush, who has made an entire presidency out of demonizing Arabs, would support a deal after hearing about it on the news, meaning he only knew what we knew. Which means he couldn't have possibly known that the DPW and the UAE were not dangerous at all, because we still don't know that. In addition, the deal has all those connections.

The man clearly seems to be glossing over serious security issues simply because of personal connections, whether or not the danger is real is irrelevant because at this point we don't know. He was willing to support it without even checking. That's incredibly weak on national security. Even the most democratic anti-War "we should trust everyone everywhere" person would have at the very least been WARY of the deal and demanded an investigation.

But not Bush. Our mighty leader, the man who tells us the country is safest under him. No, he couldn't even do that.

Terrorist looking for pass due to NSA spying.

2006-03-01T20:28:00.000-05:00

Well, I'd like to say I didn't see this one coming. Iyman Faris, a fella who pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge back in 2003, is saying that he wants to rescind his plea if the NSA spied on him without a warrant. The real bastard of this issue is it looks like that's exactly what happened. If that wasn't bad enough, it looks like he's not going to be the only one trying this strategy.

Faris, who was born in Kashmir but is a naturalized U.S. citizen, is the latest in a string of terror defendants across the nation demanding they be told whether their cases were influenced by the NSA program.

I can't even imagine how many people are going to go free if this pans out the way it looks like it will.

Now, there are two ways of looking at this issue. The first is the way the republicans and NSA supporters are going to spin it. They're all going to parade out and blame those who forced the program to be revealed, saying that if we'd all just let it be then these dangerous people would still be in jail. The president, Scotty McC, and Alberto are all going to point their fingers at the American people and the democrats, saying it's now our fault that these terrorists are going to be let free. This is the "by even talking about the program we're aiding the enemy" they've been alluding to all this time.

This is an incredibly poor argument, since it's like blaming the police for letting your plants die after you got arrested for robbery. Sure the event immediately preceding the plants dying was you being arrested, but if you hadn't done something ILLEGAL in the first place, then you wouldn't have gotten arrested. Maybe a better analogy would be a kid in middle school getting mad at his teacher for giving him detention because "my mom's gonna kill me!"

And that's the position the Democrats absolutely HAVE to latch onto for this to be even remotely effective. The President is already looking weak on security thanks to the UAE deal, the Katrina fiasco is flaring up again further injuring his ability to protect the nation, and now these terrorists may be released because he got them arrested via illegal means, it's HIS fault they're going to be free again. The only thing Bush has ever been able to turn to in his presidency as why we need him is now turning into his greatest weakness. And don't forget Osama's still out there.

The president is a wounded dog right now. We just need to... wait. That's a terrible analogy. Well, the point is that we need to put the final nail in his administration's coffin, and make sure to show how wrong everyone who fought tooth and nail to defend him was in time for the 2006 midterms.

Iraq: not a concern on terror.

2006-03-01T00:48:00.000-05:00

At least that's what the State Department is trying to push. Out of the three ratings for terrorism concerns, the State Department may rank Iraq as no concern again, as it has for the past few years. That's right, the same Iraq we were told all the boogeyman stories about has never been rated as even a concern since the post-9/11 decision to add terrorism concerns to the ratings. There have been insurgencies going all the while, people from neighboring nations inside the borders to blow up American soldiers, but to them there was no threat. Of course not, that would make the Iraq War look bad.

While that reeks of political influence, this is the paragraph that struck me the most (my own emphasis added):

But unwilling to add to Iraq's woes, some at State are pushing to give Baghdad another pass this year. Instead of appearing in the first tier, alongside such countries as the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Nigeria, Iraq appears likely to end up again with the lowest rating, joining such countries as Finland, Iceland, and New Zealand.

That's right, the State Department rates the UAE as a terrorism concern of the highest order, right alongside a pair of countries that no one will say are safe. I don't even think I need to add anything to that, which is good because I'm tired and going to bed.

The world agrees: US screwed up Iraq.

2006-02-28T15:10:00.000-05:00

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.

Evolution even wins in Utah.

2006-02-28T00:53:00.000-05:00

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.

US: Risk of civil war over. Iraq: lots more dead.

2006-02-27T19:58:00.000-05:00

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.

White House: no special counsel

2006-02-27T19:38:00.000-05:00

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.

Pope: embryos have rights from conception.

2006-02-27T15:05:00.000-05:00

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.

The Iraq War: success!

2006-02-27T13:01:00.000-05:00

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.

It's not six ports, it's twenty-one for the UAE.

2006-02-27T00:45:00.000-05:00

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.

Israel calls Abbas "irrelevant", Hamas talks of truce.

2006-02-26T21:04:00.000-05:00

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.

Specter proposes NSA bill.

2006-02-26T14:35:00.000-05:00

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.

Afghanistan's Bagram prison under scrutiny

2006-02-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

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?

Iran is enriching uranium now.

2006-02-25T18:42:00.000-05:00

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.

South Dakota starts assault on abortion

2006-02-25T01:36:00.000-05:00

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.

Bush talks about Iraq violence

2006-02-24T22:27:00.000-05:00

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.

The US is planning for the "long war" in Iraq.

2006-02-24T16:14:00.000-05:00

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".

Hamas's latest response to the Israeli attacks.

2006-02-24T16:03:00.000-05:00

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.

Too many Bush scandals. More leaking.

2006-02-24T12:32:00.000-05:00

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.

Iraq: stunned by violence.

2006-02-24T01:12:00.000-05:00

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.

Even Hamas is protesting peacefully.

2006-02-23T18:51:00.000-05:00

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?

Riots in Iraq, riots in Nigeria.

2006-02-23T18:38:00.000-05:00

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.

UAE has at best a "mixed record" with terrorism.

2006-02-23T13:37:00.000-05:00

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.

White House made agreement with UAE

2006-02-23T00:55:00.000-05:00

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?

South Korea supports North Korea

2006-02-23T00:47:00.000-05:00

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.

Civil war in Iraq? Shiite mosque bombed.

2006-02-22T19:37:00.000-05:00

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.

Bush: unaware of ports deal.

2006-02-22T12:44:00.000-05:00

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?

White House says no to NSA briefing.

2006-02-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

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.

Bush approves of the UAE taking over ports.

2006-02-21T18:23:00.000-05:00

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)

Supreme Court isn't doing too terribly.

2006-02-21T17:41:00.000-05:00

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.

1000 visitors reached!

2006-02-21T10:42:00.000-05:00

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.

Jailed for denying the Holocaust.

2006-02-20T23:16:00.000-05:00

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.

Bush wants the line-item veto back. Congress unsure.

2006-02-20T20:10:00.000-05:00

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.

Iran is willing to consider Russian nuclear plan.

2006-02-20T15:48:00.000-05:00

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.

The US and Iran agree: no gays

2006-02-19T18:45:00.000-05:00

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.

Save money: get tax breaks with an SUV.

2006-02-19T15:24:00.000-05:00

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.

Schoolbus drivers will save us from terror!

2006-02-18T20:42:00.000-05:00

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.

The religious right is sick of Pat Robertson.

2006-02-18T17:07:00.000-05:00

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.

Republicans: rallying all Christians!

2006-02-18T01:53:00.000-05:00

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.

Whittington apologizes to Dick for being shot.

2006-02-17T19:03:00.000-05:00

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?

US: no money for Palestine!

2006-02-17T15:52:00.000-05:00

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.

Teen beaten to death in juveline boot camp.

2006-02-17T01:17:00.000-05:00

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.

Well there's a coincidence.

2006-02-16T17:04:00.000-05:00

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...

Just say no to Gitmo.

2006-02-16T15:16:00.000-05:00

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."

How to "apologize", by Dick Cheney.

2006-02-15T22:05:00.000-05:00

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.

Abu Ghraib: still a problem

2006-02-15T12:50:00.000-05:00

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.

Dick is so considerate.

2006-02-14T17:33:00.000-05:00

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.

Don't ask, don't tell...

2006-02-14T17:22:00.000-05:00

...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.

Dick's hunting troubles.

2006-02-14T00:04:00.000-05:00

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.

The Gay Agenda and others.

2006-02-13T13:45:00.000-05:00

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.

Religion is the worst thing to happen to humanity.

2006-02-12T15:08:00.000-05:00

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?

China: Adventures in Neo-Colonialism

2006-02-12T13:45:00.000-05:00

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

Whoomp, there it is.

2006-02-11T20:14:00.000-05:00

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?

A fix.

2006-02-11T17:53:00.000-05:00

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.

Let's go budget cuts!

2006-02-10T22:53:00.000-05:00

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.

Ann Coulter is not a republican.

2006-02-10T21:57:00.000-05:00

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.

It could happen to you, too.

2006-02-10T14:53:00.000-05:00

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.

No surprises there.

2006-02-09T12:38:00.000-05:00

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.

C'mon Scott, what now?

2006-02-09T12:09:00.000-05:00

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.

Attention Islam: stop feeding stereotypes please.

2006-02-08T14:31:00.000-05:00

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.

Shadow of the Colossus is eating my life

2006-02-08T11:53:00.000-05:00

That is all.

Wiretapping: it's all the same nothing

2006-02-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

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.