More Japan photos are up: Takayama morning markets

Photos from the Takayama morning markets, Japan are up!Highlights: a breakfast of hoba miso plus market photos of fiddlehead ferns, fresh marshmallows and Japanese hacky sacks.Click here for more

Will we let them steal another one?

As more information comes out about the Justice Department being used to disenfranchise voters through attempts to aggressively prosecute so-called "voter fraud", more Americans are willing to believe that not just the 2000 election, but also the 2004 election, was stolen for George W. Bush.

Between executive orders allowing the president to declare anyone he wants an "unperson" and confiscate all that person's assets simply on his say-so, detention camps being built for unknown reasons, and frightening rumbles of expanded wars in Pakistan Iran, and now Turkey, we are seeing the result of allowing a president who would steal an election to take office.

Now, with the House of Representatives getting ready to go on vacation without acting on electronic voting problems, it seems that even after two elections, technologically ignorant Congresspeople refuse to take seriously just how easy it is to hack the existing voting machines:

Matthew A. Bishop, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis, who led the team that tried to compromise the machines, said his group was surprised by how easy it was not only to pick the physical locks on the machines, but also to break through the software defenses meant to block intruders.

Professor Bishop said that all the machines had problems and that one of the biggest was that the manufacturers appeared to have added the security measures after the basic systems had been designed.

By contrast, he said, the best way to create strong defenses is “to build security in from the design, in Phase 1.”

It's clear that the Republican Party in this country decided in 2000 not to trust its ideology and agenda to win elections for it, but instead work the process to its advantage. Democrats allowed themselves to be bamboozled in 2000 and 2004. Only Josh Marshall's noting of a pattern behind the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys thwarted the plan to rig the 2008 election by using the United States Department of Justice to systematically disenfranchise members of groups believed to be Democratic voters -- Latinos, African-Americans, and the elderly.

The Republican way is not to win hearts and minds, but to win by any means necessary. Democrats in Congress are still living in an earlier generation, when Tip O'Neill could fight tooth and nail on the House floor and then go out for collegial drinks with those same antagonists. Those days are gone. These guys play for keeps. It's not enough for them to win, they have to stomp their opponents into the ground.

Do Democrats believe in fair elections or not?

The nicest press a Clinton has ever received

Aside from some very minor snark about Chelsea Clinton's employment with a hedge fund, not even Chatty Cathy Jodi Kantor can find anything bad to say about Chelsea Clinton:

And if her mother, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, manages to become the first female president of the United States, Chelsea Clinton could be in a historic, head-spinning position of her own: the first first child twice over.

She certainly brings experience to the job. At age 12, she appeared in Bill Clinton’s “Man From Hope” video, testifying to his fatherly virtues. (Mr. Clinton also told viewers of his daughter’s forgiving reaction to his admissions about marital transgressions.) During the Monica Lewinsky scandal six years later, she was photographed hand in hand with her parents, seemingly holding them together.

When Mrs. Clinton first ran for the Senate, her 20-year-old daughter crisscrossed New York State by her side. Now, at 27, Ms. Clinton is still clapping and beaming on her parents’ behalf, accompanying them on trips (recently, to Aspen, Colo., Germany and Israel), fund-raising ( she helped bring in more than $20 million for her father’s foundation this fall) and playing a more glamorous version of her lifelong role: model daughter.

“It’s ‘The Truman Show,’ ” said Jill Kargman, a friend of Ms. Clinton, citing the movie about a character whose entire life is a reality television program.

But like Truman, who eventually breaks free, Ms. Clinton now has her own life: a hedge fund job, a serious boyfriend, a tight circle of friends and a permanent place setting on the New York party circuit.

[snip]

Colleagues from McKinsey and Avenue Capital give a uniform account of Ms. Clinton, saying that she came early, stayed late, showed sound judgment and asked no special favors. At a benefit last month for the School of American Ballet, on whose board she serves, Ms. Clinton seemed as hardworking as the other attendees did festive. Most of the women her age wore bright gowns and bare skin, but Ms. Clinton wore a dark pantsuit, her hair smoothed and fastened back into a strawberry-blond sheet. She slipped out before the performance ended, telling friends she had to return to her computer.

[snip]

But when Ms. Clinton is introduced, she often comes across as an inquisitive student. Daniela Amini, a friend, recently watched her navigate a dinner table full of strangers by asking well-informed questions about subjects like Iranian history, antique carpets and Russian literature.

Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, has watched the deliberate way Ms. Clinton navigates the award-and-cocktail-party circuit. “She’s more than aware that she could be a week’s worth of headlines or a month’s worth of rumors,” Mr. Gelb said.

Ms. Clinton also appears patient with the strangers who constantly insert themselves into her day. “Way more than any actor, she would be entitled to the eye roll,” said Ms. Kargman, who recently tried to carry on a conversation with Ms. Clinton at a party as fan after fan interrupted to talk about her parents.

Not even Kantor's expenditure of four full paragraphs to the fact that the father of Ms. Clinton's companion, Marc Mezvinsky is doing time for investment swindling, significantly detracts from what is overall a very flattering piece, nearly devoid of the kind of condescension that usually drips from New York Times coverage of All Things Clinton.

Perhaps watching the useless wastrel Bush girls for the last six years serves to underscore the fine young woman the Clintons have raised. An adolescence spent not looking like an even-featured blond beauty is difficult for anyone, let alone someone living under the microscope of the White House, with Rush Limbaugh calling you the "family dog" over the airwaves to millions of people who then call in and agree with him. Clinton's adolescence with lesser parentage would have seemed like a high school with millions of wingnuts playing the role of the Heathers. That she has grown into a poised and together young woman is a credit to her parents, no matter what we may think of either of them as leaders.

Methinks perhaps they reassure too much

The coverage last night of Chief Justice John Roberts' hospitalization for what is being described as a "benign idiopathic seizure" questioned the almost instantaneous reassurance that "he has fully recovered from the incident." Any time there is a brain incident like this, quick and facile diagnoses, absent a history of epilepsy, are usually not standard practice.

Because we are not a "hate site", contrary to what most wingnuts may believe, we hope for Roberts to make a full recovery. He is, after all, a relatively young man with young children. Unlike the mouthbreathers on the right, our compassion isn't contingent on liking what he does or his ideology.

Roberts had a similar incident in 1993 and has not had a recurrence since. Interestingly, a Google search on "benign idiopathic seizure" reveals nothing that occurs in adulthood. There is, however, an idiopathic generalized epilepsy of adult onset, which has a genetic component.

If in fact Roberts does have a form of adult onset epilepsy, this is still not a cause for excessive concern and should not result in talk of his resignation, particularly if Arlen Specter is truthful that the Senate Judiciary Committee knew of the 1993 incident and didn't find it important. Epilepsy is treatable with medication, and one would hope that we have progressed beyond the stigma that the syndrome used to carry with it.

If the Roberts incident causes the composition of the Supreme Court to finally become a presidential campaign issue, particularly with a third of Americans now believing that the Court is "too conservative", up from 19% in 2005, that would not be the worst thing in the world. Rudy Giuliani has already said he would appoing "strict constructionist" justices, which is code for "extremely reactionary" in the mold of Samuel Alito. The Roberts court has made clear that it favors corporations over citizens and government control over individual rights. Concerns about the Court extend far beyond Roe. Assuming that Roberts is not seriously ill, shining a spotlight on this Court is a positive development.

Outback Steakhouse, North Strathfield

Grilled Prawns $13.95Six prawns grilled on the barbie andserved with the Outback’s own Remoulade sauceThere are no blooming onions and I'm not happy at all.The blooming onion is literally the name of the Outback Steakhouse's signature dish. It takes pride of place on the front cover of their menu and yet when we check with our server he regretfully tells us that they haven't been able to get

Around the blogroll and elsewhere -- Leave Your Tits At the Door Edition

Some days there's just too much good stuff out there to comment on individually.

Digby on CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood's belief that Hillary Clinton having the temerity to wear her breasts in public is like Barry Bonds lying about using steroids. Perhaps someone else can explain this linkage to me, because I'm sitting here scratching my head. Has there ever been a culture more obsessed with, and yet revulsed by, the oversized sweat glands that sit on an adult woman's chest? I'll bet John Harwood has a stack of back issues of Juggs, but that Hillary Clinton doesn't bind her chest with Ace bandages before appearing in public makes her some sort of flasher. Would someone please contact his mother and ask at what age she weaned him?

If you enjoyed training your H-1B replacement before getting fired, you'll love President Fred Thompson. Carrie pulls the curtain aside from Thompson campaign manager, former Bush Energy Secretary and former Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham to reveal the ugly truth.

Looks like those of us who see echoes of Nazi Germany in the way the Bush Administration does business are on to something. Jurassicpork reports on Captain Codpiece's granddaddy's plan to topple FDR in the 1930's and replace it with a fascist dictatorship.

N=1 on the difference between universal health INSURANCE and universal health CARE -- and why plans requiring the purchase of insurance from for-profit companies are Trojan horses.

clammyc askes, "What will it take to end this madness?"

Skippy taunts the chickenshit Republicans who aren't only afraid to fight in real wars, but are also afraid to answer real questions from real voters. I know that the obsessive Zac Efron fans uploading Hairspray 30 seconds at a time can be pretty terrifying, but really, guys -- YouTube is nothing to fear.

Melina reports on just one family trying to work hard and play by the rules -- and getting nowhere fast. Now with added frogs and a new parakeet.

Here's one from the "Is Mr. Brilliant Right Again?" file. Is the veneer over the progressive areas of North Carolina really just that? Pam reports on jackbooted thugs (otherwise known as the local gendarmes) harassing those who do not equate the flag with George W. Bush.

Considering that Republicans like to give lip service to not taking Al Franken seriously as a candidate, they sure are taking him seriously as a candidate -- in their typical way.

And that's all for now. Laterz, bitchez....

When the Iraqi government says we don't know what the hell we're doing, things are at a sorry pass indeed

This is what happens when you go to war not understanding the context of the country you're invading:

The fighting around the factory north of Baghdad went on for a month, until local Sunni Muslim tribesmen decided they had had enough of the extremists in their midst and started working with the Americans. About 220 of those tribesmen now staff checkpoints and have started cooperating with Shiite counterparts who once were their enemies, said Fulton, a U.S. Army company commander from Yucaipa.

Experiences like these have led the U.S. military command to step up efforts to recruit residents to set up local protection forces, authorizing officers to use emergency cash and other funds to strike contracts with tribal leaders.

On Saturday, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, credited the strategy with beginning to turn around an insurgent haven as he toured the region of dusty villages, citrus plantations, fish farms and palm groves near Taji, about 12 miles north of the capital.

But the Shiite-led government, which has been under intense U.S. pressure to dismantle Shiite militias, has complained that the policy legitimizes what they regard as the Sunni equivalent.

"They solve one problem by creating another," said Sami Askari, an aide to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and member of his Islamic Dawa Party. "This is a seed for civil war."

Meanwhile, as Frank Rich opines, Gen. Petraeus may be the new de facto president (replacing Dick Cheney), but Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has had quite enough of him.

Mission accomplished.

I am just speechless

Yes, I'm a size 16. But I can walk 2.2 miles in 43 minutes (with my short little legs on my 4'10" body), I do yoga 3-4 times a week, and at least one cardio and one sculpt workout every week. I don't eat fast food, I limit myself to one square of dark chocolate every day, I have banished as much high fructose corn syrup and white flour from my life as is practical. I don't have high blood pressure.

I have been at my current job for six years and seven months and have taken exactly five sick days.

But a growing number of employers (thankfully, not my current one) think they have a right to decide that I am not healthy simply because of the size I wear.

Perhaps employers might be more effective in improving workers' healthy by reducing stress, increasing vacation time, not putting people on guilt trips for taking that vacation time, and not expecting them to work 70 hour weeks to show how dedicated they are. And they can also alleviate the kind of stress that causes weight gain by not cutting jobs the minute the stock price drops and making employees train their H-1B replacements.

But of course it's much easier to pick on the fat chicks, isn't it?

I don't think UnitedHealth, which is my insurer, has spent more than about $800/year on me in the last five years, except last year when I had my first colonoscopy. Most of the time they don't even pay anything for my gynecology visits, because my doctor (or at least she was until she went on a crash diet and started driving everyone crazy) isn't in-network and is subject to deductible. In fact, I think my annual mammogram is about all they've had to pay. But because some asshole worships before the altar of the almighty BMI, some employer out there would be able to belittle my healthy old self simply because at 4'10" tall and of Russian peasant stock, I am unable to reach a BMI they say is "acceptable."

Interestingly, the only time in my adult life that I was anything close to "ideal weight" I was on a 300-calorie-a-day crash diet, I was working out five nights a week, and I would cry at the drop of a hat because I was hungry all the time.

This is health?

More at The Crone Speaks.

Cinemarati adieu

Those readers who only know me from this blog probably don't know that I wrote online movie reviews for seven years prior to taking on the task of speaking truth to power. OK, I exaggerate. I started blogging because I was getting my rant on every morning and driving Mr. Brilliant crazy. I don't rant any less, but this way he knows what I'm ranting about.

It started in early 1998. Later that year, I was invited to join the Online Film Critics Society. Like most organizations of its type, it became intensely political and crazy, and when the craziness of involvement in a group for which you do not get paid outweighs any pleasure you get out of it, it's time to quit. Other online critics I knew through the OFCS, like Mary Ann and Gabriel, soon followed. Gabriel and I decided to merge our web sites together and created Mixed Reviews, the archive of which is still here.

In 2000, a bunch of OFCS alumni, led by Mary Ann, cobbled together a new organization, the mission of which was to elevate online film criticism above the level of sites like Ain't It Cool News and be taken seriously as film journalists -- on a par with print critics. I always thought that "Cinemarati" sounded like a pasta dish, but after much back-and-forth e-mail, Mary Ann, Brian Webster, Gabriel, Dan Jardine, Jeff Huston, Scott Renshaw, myself, and a few others had managed to put something together that over the next five years clawed and scratched its way to credibility. The initial vision of a portal site similar to Rotten Tomatoes combined with a messageboard proved too ambitious to maintain on a volunteer basis, so over time the site evolved to a messageboard with some original articles by and links to articles by members.

And what members they were, too. Over the years, people like the Oscar®-obsessed Nathaniel, the cerebral Nick Davis, the great and wondrous Stephen Himes, the lovable and bizarro Low IQ Canadian/Martin Scribbs, the incomparable Catherine Cantieri, Mark Ruffalo's BFF the prolific Michael Dequina, the still amazing and tireless gentle tough guy Vern, and so many others, combined with the various lunatics who both challenged the discussion and laid verbal turds in the punchbowl, made Cinemarati the fascinating Web destination it was.

I left the group in 2005, when this blog became MY obsession and when reviewing movies became a chore instead of a joy. The site moved from a static site with a Snitz forum messageboard over to a new, sleek design at Wordpress, and with new blood, carried on for two more years.

It is a mark of how far I left it behind that I didn't even know until checking in today that the remaining members had decided that Cinemarati has outlived its usefulness, and it was time to give it a dignified burial.

If you want to read what those who stayed on have to say about their experiences, it's still there. Just move fast, because soon it'll be gone forever...lost to the vapors and the Wayback Machine.

Pssst....in other news, the Japanese just wanted to see if you'd fall for the raw fish

MJS at CorrenteWire explains how all this happened:

(Jivester News, Lmtd.) In a breathtaking announcement today, Rabbi Soyvitch Goldberginsky told a slightly confused gathering of End Timers at a How to Dress for the Rapture: Boxers, Briefs or Dangler’s Puffery seminar in Las Vegas, Nevada that the basis for their religion, the founding gospels of the New Testament were in fact part of an elaborate gag perpetrated by “…a few wisenheimers back in the day. The guys were sitting around, tossing shrimp at pigs for who-knows-why, when one of them says “Hey, what if we say that God shtupped a zaftig and Jr. will give everyone a Get Out of Hell card? And they will have to sing ass-kissing songs and feel bad a lot of the time, just like us.”

Read on....

Every now and then I do the right thing

Like buying Lowe's stock. Many years ago I worked with a guy named Walter. Walter had a very simple investment strategy: Buy stock in companies that make things you like. In Walter's case, it means investing in whimsical things like Tootsie Roll Industries. But it's not necessarily a bad way to go. Think of it as socially conscious investment in the micro-micro-micro level. Even former Fidelity Magella whiz-picker Peter Lynch sometimes operated this way, picking Pier One Imports after a visit to one of their stores with his wife.

A long time ago, when I rolled some old 401(k) plan funds into an IRA, one of the stocks they picked for me was Home Depot. The OTHER Great Orange Satan was very good to me over the eight or so years I had it. I think it split three times. But after I started growing more irritated with their stores, and after a Lowe's opened near where I work, I thought "What the heck am I hanging onto Home Depot for?" So I put in an order to sell Home Depot and buy Lowe's instead.

Lowe's has also been pretty good to me, but even though big-box home improvement stores are down in general, and even if it hadn't, I'd still be happy I have Lowe's stock instead of Home Depot. Here is Lowe's response to finding out that one of the shows on which it advertises has a web site in which people are permitted to advocate assassination of a Democratic presidential candidate and attacks against the Capitol:

Dear Lowe's Customer,

Thank you for your comments regarding the program, The O'Reilly Factor.

Lowe's has strict guidelines that govern the placement of our advertising. Our company advertises primarily in national, network prime-time television programs and on a variety of cable outlets.

Lowe's constantly reviews advertising buys to make certain they are consistent with its policy guidelines. The O'Reilly Factor does not meet Lowe's advertising guidelines, and the company's advertising will no longer appear during the program.

We are dedicated to providing the best service, products, and shopping environment in the home improvement industry. All three of these are very important to our business, and our customers will always be our number one priority.

We appreciate your contacting us, and hope this information addresses your concerns.

Thank you,

Lowe's Customer Care

On the other hand, here is how Home Depot is responding:

Our advertising campaigns have one simple objective to communicate with audiences in the most effective way possible. The Company is receptive to many forms and styles of media as we seek a balanced representation of programming to reach our customer base. Unfortunately campaigns like this one cause us to take time away from our sustainability goals and address a variance of political views.

By the way, I also bought Adobe right after the Macromedia acquisition was announced. I work with both Adobe and Macromedia products, and the two companies seemed like a good fit to me. A week after I bought the stock at around $54, it split. Even after this week's bloodbath, it closed at $40.39. I think I've done OK.

Thank you, Walter.

The Rocks Aroma Festival

Sydneysiders love coffee.They also love their tea and also their hot chocolate, if the unprecedented crowds at The Rocks Aroma Festival last Sunday provided any indcation.By the time we got down there, many things has sold out including the special chocolate showbags from Adora, and the delectable treats from My Little Cupcake.Thankfully we still found plenty of coffee. And that's more than

Ice Packs and Cheese of Mass Destruction

I have to confess: I fell for it this time, hook, line and sinker. You see, I hate to fly. I am a fearful flyer under the best of circumstances, and while I'm better than I used to be, left to my own devices I would Just Stay Home. So when I read (and linked to) this story about the TSA cofiscating items that were indicative of terrorist dry runs, and with not one but two trips coming up in the next few weeks, I went into a mild, but still significant, freakout mode. Yes, I know that the government lies through their teeth, and I know all about the Nexus of Politics and Terror. But one thought haunted me: Why all that cheese? It was the cheese that made it credible -- not that they were making Cheez Bombs, which have caused much mirth and merriment over the airwaves in recent days, but who the heck takes processed cheese in their luggage?

I of course didn't stop to think about things like preparing for being trapped in a plane on a runway for 10 hours with no food, or being trapped in, oh, say, people headed for the the Swan and Dolphin hotel at Disney World, where a grilled cheese sandwich and a Pepsi for your six-year-old is going to not only run you fifteen bucks, but require you to sit through a couple of grim college students dancing to "Let's Go To the Hop."

Enter Keith Olbermann and Will Bunch to save the day.

This morning I told Mr. Brilliant about the fact that the "ice packs in which the gel had been replaced with clay were in fact leaking ice packs in the luggage of a Long Island grandmother in her mid-60's, who had been pulled aside when the ice packs were found and asked by TSA authorities if she knew Osama Bin Laden. I said, "Wanna bet that this woman wasn't even Muslim? Wanna bet that in fact she was a nice little Jewish grandmother from Lon-gyland?" Well, thanks to DBK and Blondesense Liz, I now know that I was right.

Meet Sara Weiss.

And oh, it gets even better. Via Facts Not Fairies comes this CNN video from Friday's Situation Room debunking the entire "dry run" theory:

Needless to say, I'm somewhat less terrified to get on a plane on Thursday than I was. But you know, I think I'm going to leave those two back issues of Yoga Journal that I haven't read yet at home. After all, interest in anything having to do with non-Western culture is a cause for suspicion. I guess that also means that I'm going to have to leave the most recent Jodi Picoult novel at home, because it's about a school shooting. And I guess I shouldn't take my copy of Armed Madhouse either, nor last week's Newsweek with the cover story about Islam in America. So what CAN I bring on the plane? I know -- I have an Old Testament with English on one side and Hebrew on the other. They can't do anything to me for carrying a Bible, with me? Oh yeah, that Hebrew could be a problem. So what the hell can I take on the plane to read?

But you know what REALLY worries me now? Dan Abrams is doing stories on shark attacks again. So is Discovery Channel. Just like they did during the summer of 2001.

Whatever will we tell the children?

Mommy, why is the lying man still in charge of the law?

Because the consultant class wouldn't like it

Dick Polman of the Providence Journal has scripted out the perfect Democratic 2008 campaign ad -- and unlike Bob Shrum, it won't cost a dime to whoever picks it up:

CONSIDER THIS hypothetical:

A Democratic president is forced to take action after terrorists attack New York and Washington. It’s clear that the terrorists’ sponsors are based in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But within 18 months, this Democrat decides to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attack. In the next four years, he spends half a trillion dollars, sucking America deeper into a quagmire, stretching the military to the breaking point — while in Pakistan, the culprits remain free. Indeed, U.S. intelligence officials warn that evildoers in Pakistan have “regenerated key elements of their Homeland attack capability.”

Imagine it’s the eve of a national election. Any question how the GOP would respond?

They’d run TV ads mocking the Democrats as the party that has made America weaker. Their talking heads on Fox News would lament how the Democrats are wrecking our proud military, can’t be trusted to run a war, can’t even choose the right war to fight. They’d crank out podcasts about how the party of George McGovern is wasting our precious blood and treasure while our true enemies plot to kill our kids in their suburban beds.

In short, the Republicans would craft a visceral message that aims for the gut and engages the emotions. Over the last 40 years, that has been the GOP’s métier.

[snip]

One of the NIE summaries was entitled “Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West.” And 11 days ago, a counterterrorism official familiar with the NIE document told the Associated Press that al-Qaida is “considerably operationally stronger than a year ago” and has “regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001.”

Yet, in response, Democrats have barely registered a pulse. None of the ’08 candidates, or national party leaders, or the congressional leaders, have gone for the gut GOP-style, with something like this:

Grainy slow-motion footage of Osama bin Laden and activity at his training camps. Cue ominous music.

“Six years after Sept. 11, this man still roams free — thanks to George W. Bush and his Republican allies. They promised they would be tough. They promised to protect us here at home. But instead they took their eye off the ball, spending $2 billion a week in a futile war half a world away from our real enemy, imperiling our brave servicemen and women, and emboldening those who would come here to kill us. America can no longer afford the party of weakness. Vote Democratic, as if your life depended on it.”

So which of the candidates will have the stones to actually do this?

Inflammatory headline much?

AP:

Liberals Pressure Fox News Advertisers

Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network.

MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos.

The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot Inc. to stop advertising there.

At least 5,000 people nationwide have signed up to compile logs on who is running commercials on Fox, Gilliam said. The groups want to first concentrate on businesses running local ads, as opposed to national commercials.

[snip]

The groups seem particularly angry at Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who has done critical reports on left-wing bloggers. On July 16, O'Reilly said the DailyKos.com Web site is ''hate of the worst order,'' and sent a reporter to question JetBlue Airways Corp. CEO Dave Barger about the airline's sponsorship of a gathering run by DailyKos.

He'll never ride on JetBlue again, O'Reilly said.

Fox said JetBlue has since asked that its name be removed from the DailyKos.com Web site.

MoveOn.org is campaigning against Fox because it says the network characterizes itself as a fair news network when it consistently favors a conservative point of view, said Adam Green, the organization's spokesman.

Those damn liberals, trying to squash free speech rights. Liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal.

I wish I could find that old Mark Alan Stamaty cartoon that showed George Herbert Walker Buxh jumping up and down and screaming "Killer negroes (sic) are coming to get you! Liberals want to take all your money! Read my lips! Read my lips!"

The article gets everything about the Jet Blue Yearly Kos sponsorship wrong, but it succeeds smashingly in getting the "Liberals against free speech" meme right on target -- as if this was something that Bill O'Reilly didn't start.

But you know what I hate most about this? That this whole fracas has forced me to go to bat to defend the Great Orange Satan. Now THAT just pisses me off.

Was Pat Tillman the victim of a deliberate hit?

We know that Pat Tillman wasn't the Toby Keith-listening, rah-rah jingoist that the image sold to us by the Administration after his death would have you believe. We know that Tillman believed the war in Iraq was "f***ing illegal" and we also know that he was a devot´ of the writings of Noam Chomsky. It only took three years for the rest of America to catch up with what Tillman knew when he was killed in 2004.

But as horrific as the details of Tillman's death have been up to now, it appears that his death bears all the earmarks of a deliberate murder -- dare I say it? A hit on a soldier deemed insufficiently loyal to "the Family":

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman's comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman's death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.

The medical examiners' suspicions were outlined in 2,300 pages of testimony released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Among other information contained in the documents:

_ In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop "sniveling."

_ Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.

_ The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman's death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn't recall details of his actions.

_ No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene - no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.

The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been criticized in recent months for lying about the circumstances of Tillman's death. The military initially told the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by enemy fire. Only weeks later did the Pentagon acknowledge he was gunned down by fellow Rangers.

With questions lingering about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached, Congress is preparing for yet another hearing next week.

Now why should the truth about what happened to Pat Tillman fall under "executive privilege"? Unless said privileged executive decided that a high-profile soldier opposed to his Iraq policy was just too risky to keep around?

(via C&L)

It doesn't matter; Bush will pardon Gonzo anyway

Of course Bush will pardon Gonzales if the latter is impeached in Congress. That's what the Bush Crime Family does -- they take care of their good loyal soldiers.

Doesn't mean Congress shouldn't make him do it.

Yesterday FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that the infamous 2004 confrontation WAS, in fact, about the NSA spying program:

The director, Robert S. Mueller III, told the House Judiciary Committee that the confrontation was about the National Security Agency’s counterterrorist eavesdropping program, describing it as “an N.S.A. program that has been much discussed.” His testimony was a serious blow to Mr. Gonzales, who insisted at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that there were no disagreements inside the Bush administration about the program at the time of those discussions or at any other time.

The director’s remarks were especially significant because Mr. Mueller is the Justice Department’s chief law enforcement official. He also played a crucial role in the 2004 dispute over the program, intervening with President Bush to help deal with the threat of mass resignations that grew out of a day of emergency meetings at the White House and at the hospital bedside of John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general.

In a separate development, Senate Democrats, who were unaware of Mr. Mueller’s comments, demanded the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether Mr. Gonzales committed perjury in his testimony on Tuesday about the intelligence dispute. The Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, issued a subpoena to Karl Rove, the White House senior political adviser, and another presidential aide, J. Scott Jennings, for testimony about the dismissal of federal prosecutors, another issue that has dogged Mr. Gonzales.

White House officials said the Democrats had engaged in political gamesmanship.

“What we are witnessing is an out-of-control Congress which spends time calling for special prosecutors, starting investigations, issuing subpoenas and generally just trying to settle scores,” said Scott M. Stanzel, a White House spokesman. “All the while they fail to pass appropriations bills and important issues like immigration reform, energy and other problems go unanswered.”

The conflict underscored how Mr. Gonzales’s troubles have expanded beyond accusations of improper political influence in the dismissal of United States attorneys to the handling of the eavesdropping program, in which Mr. Gonzales was significantly involved in his previous post as White House counsel.

“I had an understanding that the discussion was on a N.S.A. program,” Mr. Mueller said in answer to a question from Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, in a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Asked whether he was referring to the Terrorist Surveillance Program, or T.S.P., he replied, “The discussion was on a national N.S.A. program that has been much discussed, yes.”

Which means that either Gonzales perjured himself, or else there is ANOTHER spying program even more secret, and presumably even worse, than the already-illegal NSA program.

So why was this man smirking during his testimony? In all likelihood, as Jon Ponder says, it's because Gonzales knows that he will never spend a minute in jail -- that all he needs to do is remain loyal to The Family, and he'll be pardoned. Still, this should not dissuade Congress from doing the right thing. It's highly unlikely that Bush will be impeached, and that even if impeachment articles are drawn up, and even if they are sent on to the Senate by the House, he won't be convicted because Senate Republicans have put the American people on notice that to them, party loyalty trumps everything -- even the rule of law, even the United States Constitution. The best we can hope for is to ensure that the history books put on record that the 43rd president was a criminal who pardoned all the men who fell on their swords for him.

Trying to prove that government health care doesn't work

Does anyone else think that the Administration's appalling performance of treating Iraq veterans at Walter Reed and elsewhere is a deliberate attempt by the Bush Administration to "prove" that government-run health care doesn't work?

Pretty ironic for a guy who just had a nice preventative care procedure last weekend at taxpayer expense:

Democratic lawmakers in Washington say they're drafting a health care reform bill that would expand coverage for low-income kids. President Bush says he'll veto any such legislation, warning that it would lead the nation "down the path to government-run health care for every American."

Like that would be a bad thing.

What's particularly galling about Bush's position is that it's coming from a man who just underwent a colonoscopy performed at the taxpayer-funded, state-of-the-art medical facility at Camp David by an elite team of doctors from the taxpayer-funded National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

If anyone understands the benefits of government-run health care, it's the president.

[snip]

Bush told an audience in Nashville last week that the Senate bill is "the beginning salvo of the encroachment of the federal government on the health care system." He said he'd veto any such legislation making its way to his desk.

That's a fine how-do-you-do for a guy who had five growths removed from his colon on Saturday largely at the government's expense and had them promptly examined by government experts at the government-run National Naval Medical Center.

Happily, the tests showed no sign of cancer. So Bush can rest easy for another few years, thanks to all that government health care.

No one at the White House could be reached to discuss how much the president paid out of his own pocket for the colonoscopy and subsequent testing.

Presidents typically have their own health insurance, although the first-class treatment they receive is largely defrayed by taxpayer funds. In other words, they're prime beneficiaries of government-run health care - just like in Cuba.

(h/t: Cookie Jill, who is not me)

Of course you realize, this means war

OK, that does it. I'm going.

I only hope Skippy can forgive me.

Here's the deal, folks: I registered for Yearly Kos back in February. It wasn't that I wanted to hang with the Kool Kidz. After all, as you know, I have no great love for the Great Orange Satan, who at a Hoboken book signing last year refused to see me as a blogger, but decided that I was a nice middle-aged Jewish lady running a bed and breakfast. And I know full well that Blogtopia (™ Skippy) is essentially an inverted high school where the guys and gals in the chess club and on the AV squad are the Big Men and Women on Campus. My reasons for planning to go originally had to do with the 2008 election and under circumstances that have changed since then. Let's just leave it there, shall we? Then the circumstances changed and I decided not to go. Then we scheduled vacation that week and it was a moot point. Then we rescheduled vacation and suddenly that weekend was open again. And still I was so-so about going. I mean, I hate to fly under the best of circumstances, and reading that the TSA has been confiscating blocks of wired cheese (which resembles plastic explosive) at security checkpoints doesn't exactly put my fear of flying to rest, especially for a domestic route. But Melina is going, so I'll have someone to hang out with, and we can talk about web site development and about missing Morning Sedition, and maybe even try to put together a Bloggers Who Suck get-togetherin the hotel bar. So suddenly it seemed like fun again.

But this isn't about Kos, and it isn't about being accepted by the Heathers. But the most important reason to go is that if I don't go, then Bill O'Reilly wins.

It all started with O'Reilly declaring a fatwa against JetBlue for sponsoring Yearly Kos, using a few of the most egregious comments posted at DK as a reason:

Keith responds:

But corporate CEOs aren't exactly known for their courage, so JetBlue pulled its name from the sponsorship list, though the 10 air tickets it donated remained. I know that the very same CEO who was ambushed outside his apartment by a Faux Noise flack in the first video has received many, many letters since then. I am not flying Jet Blue to Chicago, and while the one time I flew the airline, I was impressed, they don't fly to or from Fort Myers on weekends, so I'm unlikely to use them again anyway. So my own correspondence to David Barger doesn't put me in danger of being a hypocrite.

But having cowed the CEO of a major airline, Billo wasn't going to let it drop without doing the Ickey Shuffle in the end zone:

But note his citation of a post allegedly found at Daily Kos "calling for the violent overthrow of the government." (Note also that he claims kinship with ABC News and CNN, which of course we already knew. But I digress.)

Well, that seems like Billo has a point then, doesn't it? Not exactly.

Enter John Aravosis, the Scourge of Corporate America. I know I risk getting kicked out of the Feminists' Division of the Kool Kidz Club (not that I was ever allowed admittance in the first place) for saying nice things about John, but when he gets wind of a corporate injustice, he squeezes corporate balls with a needlenose pliers until they scream for mercy -- which usually doesn't take all that long.

And sure enough, there, nestled over at Billo's web site -- a site where you have to PAY for the privilege of posting comments, so presumably there is a record somewhere of who posts (you know, a record like the one he says Fox keeps of all callers?). So it should be an easy matter to find out who posted these comments, in a thread entitled "If Hillary WIns, WIll (sic) you be respectful of her?"

Nice, huh?

So, Billo, are these people the equivalent of the Nazis and the Klan? Hmmmmmm???

Of course you can't BUY publicity like this, so frankly, this little foofarah makes the idea of Being There even MORE appealing, because what ought to have been a little conclave of politics junkies, even one attended by all of the Democratic candidates for president, seen only on C-SPAN3 in the wee hours of the night, is now something that ought to be receiving some media coverage.

Gee, you'd almost think Kos and Billo have a kind of Osama bin Laden/George W. Bush mutual benefit kind of relationship going.....

Smirk II, Electric Bugaloo

Why is this man smirking?
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

That's an easy one to answer -- it's because he knows that no one can touch him. He knows that his presdent, the self appointed First Dictator of the United States, will protect him to the ends of the earth. After all, isn't that how organized crime works? Solozzo didn't dare touch Tom Hagen, and Congress won't dare impeach Alberto Gonzales, despite the latter's obvious perjury yesterday:

ThinkProgress has the document showing clearly that Gonzales perjured himself about the March 2004 White House intelligence briefing.

The only way that Gonzales hasn't committed perjury is if there is another, even more secret surveillance program to which NO ONE outside the Administration was privy. Would he care to elaborate on that one to avoid a perjury charge? I think not, especially when there is some question as to exactly whom is going to try him.

A post I wish I'd written

Jewish Partisans

During World War II, the majority of European Jews had no idea that the Nazis were conducting a meticulous disinformation campaign to convince them that they were going to work camps instead of being exterminated. Yet more than 30,000 Jews escaped from Nazi ghettos and camps to form or join organized resistance groups.

These 30,000 Jews joined hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis, but they had to worry about local antisemites. Often they formed all-Jewish groups to protect themselves from their old neighbors.

Resistance took on different forms. Physical resistance by the partisans was something that hurt the Nazis. Spiritual resistance may not have affected the Nazis directly, but it was important to the Jews, since the Nazis wanted to take away their dignity and self-respect.

In defiance of the laws, the Jews held prayer services, or taught children to read Hebrew; those who performed in theater groups or in concerts, who painted pictures and wrote poems, were part of the resistance, though they had no guns.

There were smugglers who sent children to safety and couriers who carried messages between the ghettos, as well as forgers who created documents for use in the outside world. Jews in the work camps sabotaged guns and other products they were making for the Germans.

Partisans with ammunition blew up thousands of Nazi supply trains, making it harder for the Germans to fight the war. In Lithuania, Jewish partisans were responsible for significant damage to Nazi trains.. Partisans also destroyed numerous Nazi power plants and factories, and focused their attention on other military and strategic targets, not on civilians.

I'm so ashamed. Ashamed that with four grandparents who escaped the pogroms in Russia and Poland, with one set of great-grandparents who actually WENT BACK just in time for Hitler -- I had never even heard of Jewish Partisans until tonight, when I read this post by Jane Hamsher:

One of the most pernicious and popular soundbites being exploited these days is the denigration of “partisanship.” When it comes out of the mouths of Republicans who perfected the art of soulless political grandstanding in the 90s, it’s hard enough to take. It’s even tougher to stomach when it comes from George Bush with his thorough devotion to Karl Rove (who needs no better reason to sabotage national security and flagrantly violate the law than the fact that someone is a Democrat). Then there are the useful idiots like Sam Waterston and the Unity ‘08 nuts who really just don’t know what they’re talking about.

But people like Joe Lieberman (and his protege Barack Obama) who consistently indulge this frame ought to know that sometimes the right thing to do is to acknowledge that the other side cannot be bargained with, that no negotiation is possible, that what you’re up against is just wrong and it’s incumbent upon people of conscience to draw a line in the sand and say “enough.” That too is partisanship, and they need to stop decrying it just because it focus groups well with people sick of the GOP and their bully tactics. Partisanship in fact has a glorious history.

Read the rest of Jane's post about that history and why it matters now -- and why every bit as much as we need to take back the word "liberal", we need to take back the word "partisan." Too many people risked too much for us to allow Republicans to turn partisanship into something that must be crushed.

Most of us, when we think of the Holocaust, we think of passive Jews, marching obediently into the gas chambers, willing themselves to believe that they were just going to be deloused. Funny how we never hear about the ones who fought back:

As Sonia Orbuch, a fighter from Poland said, “If I was going to die, I was going to die as a fighter, not as a Jew.”

With a president who has now signed a Presidential Directive that effectively criminalizes dissent, it's important that we take back the word "partisan" from the people who would have us march obediently into tyranny and call it a virtue, on behalf and in memory of those who risked everything to fight back.

Hey! I'm not blocked!

It looks like "anything.blogspot.com" is blocked, but "blogger.com" isn't. Whaddya know?

Anyway, folks, if you're tempted to think that President Rudy Giuliani wouldn't be so bad because after all, he's like, a liberal, go read Lower Manhattanite, who was in New York City on the day Rudy Giuliani attempted to incite a police coup d'état against the duly elected mayor of New York City. Then think about Nazi Germany. Then think about whether you want this guy to be president.

Around the blogroll and elsewhere

I'm this close to bringing my laptop to work every day and spending my lunch hours at Starbuck's. But while I can't blog at work, there is still the miracle of Google Reader.

Melina on the death of Tammy Faye Bakker.

Digby on how Fred Thompson's wife is the power behind the basset hound. Somehow I don't think Chris Matthews is going to be as frightened of her cleavage as he is of Hillary's.

Do they produce these conservative fembots out of a factory? This one isn't quite ready for prime time, but the ingredients are all there.

D.R. Scott on That Hair Video.

The Crone Speaks has an update on the supposedly "liberated" women of Afghanistan.

Via Candide's Notebooks, I found a series by OHDave making the case for supporting John Edwards: Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Why should this surprise anyone? Hoffmania on the Little Prince's filibuster of his host at a health care roundtable. And ah, shit, I simply have to sponsor the lovely Bullit, a.k.a. Mrs. Hoffmania, in this event. We Jamaicophiles have to stick together. Barry, are you listening?

John Maine????? You gotta be shitting me! (Bonus points to Mets fans who get that particular in-joke -- and it's not about last night's game.)

What Hume's Ghost said. (hat tip: Spocko)

How about a nice hot cup of WHAT THE FUCK??? Pam serves it up. With hot buttered groat clusters. (Now I wonder if I should get on a plane to Jamaica, let alone Chicago next week...)

Ms. Gypsy on how you can't tell parody sites from the real thing anymore.

No one at my workplace knows the name of this blog, and it isn't because they don't want to know. I don't blog much about work, mostly because it's a good job about which I have no serious gripes, other than the ones that are problems only because they play into my own neuroses. But I worry sometimes: What if I had to find another job? Would this blog, its progressive viewpoint and salty language, make me even more unemployable than being an overweight, 50+ web developer would? What are the costs of emerging from behind the curtain as opposed to the benefits of that freedom? BlueGal wonders too.

And while I hate to link to the Great Orange Satan, this is too good to ignore: Kagro X shows Fox News kicking apostates out of the Republican Party.

It's Sartre's world, and now we all live in it

There Is No Exit:

The American people have only one question left about Iraq: What is President Bush’s plan for a timely and responsible exit? That is the essential precondition for salvaging broader American interests in the Middle East and for waging a more effective fight against Al Qaeda in its base areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And it is exactly the question that Mr. Bush, his top generals and his diplomats so stubbornly and damagingly refuse to answer.

Yesterday provided two more frustrating and shameful examples of this denial. One was a new war plan drawn up by America’s top military commander and top diplomat in Baghdad that will keep American troops fighting in Iraq at least until 2009. The other was yet one more speech by President Bush that claimed that Iraq was the do-or-die front in the war on terrorism — rather than a rallying point for extremists and a never-ending drain on the resources America needs to fight that fight.

The war plan drawn up by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker simply assumes that a large-scale United States military presence in Iraq will continue for at least two more years.

So much for Mr. Bush’s soothing incantations about a relatively short-term “surge” of additional troops. The plan ignores the fact that the volunteer Army cannot sustain a prolonged escalation without grievous losses in quality, readiness and morale. Even more unrealistically, the plan assumes that with two more years of an American blank check, Iraqi politicians will somehow decide to take responsibility for their political future — something they’ve refused to do for the last four years.

[snip]

Prolonging the war for another two years will not bring victory. It will mean more lives lost, more damage to America’s international standing and fewer resources to fight the real fight against terrorists. If Mr. Bush’s advisers can’t tell him that, Congress will have to — with a veto-proof majority.

Meanwhile, the Codpiece-in-Chief continues to feed America's youth into a meatgrinder, explaining it thusly (with annotations by Your Humble Blogger):

Nearly six years after the 9/11 attacks, America remains a nation at war. The terrorist network that attacked us that day is determined to strike our country again [BECAUSE YOU ABANDONED THE FIGHT AGAINST THEM TO INVADE IRAQ], and we must do everything in our power to stop them [UNLIKE WHAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST SIX YEARS]. A key lesson of September the 11th is that the best way to protect America is to go on the offense, to fight the terrorists overseas so we don't have to face them here at home [THEN WHY ARE YOU CONDUCTING MASS SURVEILLANCE OF AMERICANS, AND WHY IS YOUR DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY CLAIMING THAT THERE AL QAEDA CELLS ON THEIR WAY HERE?]. And that is exactly what our men and women in uniform are doing across the world.

The key theater in this global war is Iraq [BECAUSE YOU WRECKED IT]. Our troops are serving bravely in that country. They're opposing ruthless enemies, and no enemy is more ruthless in Iraq than al Qaeda. They send suicide bombers into crowded markets; they behead innocent captives and they murder American troops [SO IT'S NOT IRANIAN SHI'ITES THEN?]. They want to bring down Iraq's democracy so they can use that nation as a terrorist safe haven for attacks against our country. So our troops are standing strong with nearly 12 million Iraqis who voted for a future of peace, and they so for the security of Iraq and the safety of American citizens.

There's a debate in Washington about Iraq, and nothing wrong with a healthy debate. [THEN WHY ARE YOUR SPOKESPEOPLE AND THE PENTAGON SAYING THAT THOSE WHO QUESTION YOU ARE AIDING ENEMY PROPAGANDA?] There's also a debate about al Qaeda's role in Iraq. Some say that Iraq is not part of the broader war on terror. They complain when I say that the al Qaeda terrorists we face in Iraq are part of the same enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001. They claim that the organization called al Qaeda in Iraq is an Iraqi phenomenon, that it's independent of Osama bin Laden and that it's not interested in attacking America.

Juan Cole debunks this horsepuckey here.

The reality is that this president hasn't got a clue what he's doing -- and he has a general in David Petraeus who's not just running the ball down the field for him, but moving the goalposts out into the parking lot.

Not the only idiot in the family

In today's column, MoDo reveals that her entire family consists of shallow groupies. Here she reveals that her sister isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer:

For me, one of the most amazing reversals brought about by W.’s reign of error is this: He may have turned my sister into a Democrat.

As a girl, Peggy shivered in the bitter cold through a coatless John Kennedy’s inaugural speech, and when she saw W. “debone” Ann Richards in a Texas debate in ’94, she thought: “This guy will be the greatest president since J.F.K. He’s so good looking, bright. He’s got everything going for him.”

She volunteered at the Republican convention in 2000, toting a “W Stands for Women” sign. I snuck her into the press pen at a breakfast with George and Laura and had to tackle her when, to the consternation of reporters, she began cheering as if at a Redskins game. She flew to West Virginia to work a phone bank for W. She sat up all night election night (in vain). She cut back on Christmas presents to give him money, and proudly displayed pictures of herself at fund-raisers, one with W., one with Dick Cheney. She canceled her Times subscription when I wrote about the rigged buildup to the Iraq war, and called “Bushworld” (my chronicle of W.’s warped reality) “that silly book.”

She once told a reporter that she couldn’t totally choose W. over me because she knew if she were dying “he won’t come and hold my hand, and I know Maureen will.” So imagine my surprise when she started talking about voting for Barack Obama or John Edwards, if they stop “pussyfooting” around Hillary.

“W.’s loyalty to Cheney has hurt his presidency,” she says sadly. “When Cheney picked himself as vice president, W. should have said, ‘Bug off.’ He could have made his own banquet instead of choosing leftovers. If only he had dialed his father or listened to Powell instead of Cheney and Rumsfeld on Iraq. Not only has W. brought himself down, he’s brought down John McCain, who I wanted to support but can’t because of the war.

“I grew up in the shadow of Walter Reed and was used to seeing servicemen without limbs. But recently after watching a special on soldiers coming home from Iraq with brain injuries, I picked up a picture of my four nephews and I know how I would feel if they had fought in Iraq and came home without limbs or in body bags.

“We are spending billions on this war, and yet veterans and their children are practically getting nothing. I’m no longer a Republican. I’m an American, and I will cast my vote for the person I believe will start the process to get out of Iraq — unless, of course, it’s Hillary.”

Some things DO run in families.

Just so much cannon fodder, then just so much carrion

When a war becomes pointless, so do any efforts to bury its casualties with any kind of dignity:

FORT LEWIS, Wash. — Twenty soldiers deployed to Iraq from this Army base were killed in May, a monthly high. That same month, the base announced a change in how it would honor its dead: instead of units holding services after each death, they would be held collectively once a month.

The anger and hurt were immediate. Soldiers’ families and veterans protested the change as cold and logistics-driven. Critics online said the military was trying to repress bad news about deaths. By mid-June, the base had delayed the plan.

[Its commander, Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby, was expected to decide Wednesday whether to go through with it.]

“If I lost my husband at the beginning of the month, what do you do, wait until the end of the month?” asked Toni Shanyfelt, who said her husband was serving one of multiple tours in Iraq. “I don’t know if it’s more convenient for them, or what, but that’s insane.”

Military historians and scholars say the proposal and its fallout highlight the tender questions facing the armed forces as casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan mount, and some soldiers and their families come to expect more from military bases than in past conflicts.

During Vietnam and Korea, the historians say, many bases were places for training soldiers and shipping them out, rarely to see them return, with memorial services uncommon. Now, in the age of the all-volunteer force, the base has become the center of community. The Army and other branches have fostered the idea that military service is as much about education, job training and belonging to a community as national defense.

“It wasn’t considered the Army’s business in any of the other wars to conduct these services,” said Alan H. Archambault, director of the Fort Lewis Military Museum, which is supported by the Army. “It was the hometowns of the soldiers that died that had these. Now I think the Army bases are trying to be the hometowns.”

Because this president has given so much lip service to American troops, using them as political props and political weapons with which to cudgel the American people into submission, it's hardly surprising that the families living on military bases expect their loved ones to be treated like the heroes they've been told they are. But you cannot exploit these men and women for political gain and then put them in the ceremonial equivalent of a mass grave. If this president wants to use the military for political gain, let him give these bases the resources so that these families can try to make some sense out of that which is senseless.

Tuesday morning quarterbacking the debate

Alas, I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but I did manage to watch a good chunk of last night's debate. I thought the format was great. Having questions asked by real people gave the whole thing a populist feel that the insular environment of conventional debates just doesn't have. Some of the more gimmicky questions, such as the tax singer, seemed designed more to try and get their creators on television than to elicit information from the candidates, but combined with Anderson Cooper's obvious and laudable efforts to stay in the realm of Actual Journalism, I give the format a B+.

Overall imperssions:

Mike Gravel: Who is he working for, anyway? I don't adhere to the "Never speak ill of a Democrat" rule, but his "All of these people are terrible and scary" rant is getting just a bit old already. He's absolutely right about following the money, and I like that he's there to hold the viable candidates' feet to the fire, but I can't shake the nagging feeling that he's being paid by the Republicans.

Chris Dodd and Joe Biden: Symbols of how Washington turns perfectly good and smart men into hacks. These are two of the smartest, most knowledgeable guys in the Senate -- and I can't see myself voting for either one of them. These are not times to be clapping the opposition on the back and going out for steaks and martinis and cigars. Tip O'Neill could pal around with Republicans, because in O'Neill's day, it wasn't all about crushing the opposition and stomping on its corpse. Those days are long gone, and both of these guys have Beltway written all over them. It's a shame, too, because in the absence of this sense of both of them being, as Stephen King would say, "glad-handing sacks of shit", either of them could be a fine president.

Dennis Kucinich: Sorry, folks, but he's not serious either. He's fun to listen to at these debates, but talking about the Kucinich zen utopia is a waste of time, even for someone like me, who's had it with the Democrats' "go along to get along" tactics. His relentless self-promotion at these debates makes him seem more like an infomercial pitchman than a candidate. Maybe he's necessary to keep the others honest, but this has to be his last go-round. If he does this again, he becomes Harold Stassen.

Bill Richardson: Awful. Just bloody awful. It's a shame, too, because Richardson is arguably the best candidate to handle the mess into which the Bush Administration has turned our relations with the rest of the world. Once again, he seems unprepared, and it comes across not as natural, but as disorganized. Combined with his rumpled appearance and distracting resemblance to actor Paul Sorvino, it's the kiss of death.

John Edwards: Confession: So far I'm leaning towards voting for Edwards. This isn't because of any moment similar to the one when I first saw Howard Dean on Press the Meat and said, "YES!! This is the guy!" It's because of the things he's talking about this time. And yet, I keep having this feeling that I'm being played, because this John Edwards isn't the same one we saw in 2004. And that's the problem. He did everything right in this debate. He was passionate, he spoke eloquently about poverty, he seemed, well, REAL. And that's the problem, is that we KNOW that he's GOOD at seeming, well, real. I have no doubt that he's a good guy. A man that good-looking who is still crazy about his wife even though she's no longer young gets major good-guy points. But I still have a nagging skepticism.

Barack Obama: With every debate, Obama looks more like he should be the president on a TV show. He's got poise, presence, and fabulous suits. But in every debate, there's a cautiousness about him that makes me think the Republicans and the Mean Grrlz in the media are going to eat him for lunch if he's the nominee. Whether it's from having been teamed up with Holy Joe Lieberman as his mentor in his early months in the Senate or from a true belief that bipartisanship is possible with this bunch, he seems to be tilting at windmills with his talk of changing the way politics is done in Washington. It already has changed. It was changed by Lee Atwater and Karl Rove -- and there's no going back. Obama made his splash by showing passion and fire at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Since then it's been all caution. That kind of tentativeness is not what I'm looking for in a candidate.

Hillary Clinton: At last we get to the proverbial 800-pound gorilla. It's really a shame that Clinton has been such a warhawk, and it's even more of a shame that the prospect of Chris Matthews and Congressional Republicans who have their own closet skeletons sniffing around her underwear drawer for another 4-8 years is so ghastly. Because damn it if she didn't LOOK like a president last night, and it would be wonderful to be able to work for a woman candidate with enthusiasm. The bright orange jacket stood out against the sea of grey suits, her makeup was just enough, she spoke authoritatively but without the shrill stridency she tends to show when she's excited. She's still far too studied, and the Clinton Triangulation is still in full flower. I can't support her on policy, and I absolutely will not support her on the war, but if these early debates are a contest of First Impressions, I think she had the biggest balls in the room last night. Damn it all.

Why am I not surprised?

The generals to whom George Bush actually listens have decided that U.S. presence is going to be needed in Iraq until the summer of 2009 -- six months after the man who lied us into a pointless, needless war goes back to clear brush full-time in Crawford, with his taxpayer-paid Secret Service detail by his side.

While Washington is mired in political debate over the future of Iraq, the American command here has prepared a detailed plan that foresees a significant American role for the next two years.

The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. “Sustainable security” is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009, according to American officials familiar with the document.

The detailed document, known as the Joint Campaign Plan, is an elaboration of the new strategy President Bush signaled in January when he decided to send five additional American combat brigades and other units to Iraq. That signaled a shift from the previous strategy, which emphasized transferring to Iraqis the responsibility for safeguarding their security.

That new approach put a premium on protecting the Iraqi population in Baghdad, on the theory that improved security would provide Iraqi political leaders with the breathing space they needed to try political reconciliation.

The latest plan, which covers a two-year period, does not explicitly address troop levels or withdrawal schedules. It anticipates a decline in American forces as the “surge” in troops runs its course later this year or in early 2008. But it nonetheless assumes continued American involvement to train soldiers, act as partners with Iraqi forces and fight terrorist groups in Iraq, American officials said.

In other words, a continued combat role as Americans try to police rival religious groups that have hated each other for centuries. And so the generals in Iraq move the goalposts yet again; long enough for Bush to get outta Dodge.

The only up side to all this is that because it is consistent with George Bush's lifetime pattern of screwing up everything he touches and then leaving the mess for someone else to clean up, it possibly reduces the likelihood of retention of power despite, or in place of, the 2008 elections. Of course Dick Cheney may have other ideas.

I would almost b

It always comes down to sex with this bunch

Now we know what the Bush Administration really wants to know about people entering the U.S. from Britain:

Highly sensitive information about the religious beliefs, political opinions and even the sex life of Britons travelling to the United States is to be made available to US authorities when the European Commission agrees to a new system
of checking passengers.

The EC is in the final stages of agreeing a new Passenger Name Record system with the US which will allow American officials to access detailed biographical information about passengers entering international airports.

The information sharing system with the US Department of Homeland Security, which updates the previous three-year-old system, is designed to tackle terrorism but civil liberty groups warn it will have serious consequences for European passengers. And it has emerged that both the European parliament and the European data protection supervisor are alarmed at the plan.

In a strongly worded document drawn up in response to the plan that will affect the 4 million-plus Britons who travel to the US every year, the EU parliament said it 'notes with concern that sensitive data (ie personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and data concerning the health or sex life of individuals) will be made available to the DHS and that these data may be used by the DHS in exceptional cases'.

Why on earth would DHS need to know about the sex lives of the British?

(via Logan Murphy at C&L)

Psychiatric Help - 5 ¢

Call me a bad liberal, but when Mr. Brilliant gets home late because the print server crashed and a friend is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, sometimes real life takes priority over debates.

I did catch some of the Democratic debate, and liked the format very much. I think the questions from "real people" are far better than those that come from the Washington pundit corps. What struck me overall is what a smart bunch of people these are -- and what a nice change from the kind of death-centered nimrods we're going to see on the state in September from the Republican side. I recorded it, so I can watch the parts I missed later on.

I did, however, like John Edwards' YouTube video:

More snark like this when the Very Serious People in the Washington punditocracy start obsessing about trivialities, please.

I did not like so much how thin Elizabeth looks. :(

A different kind of surge

So what will it take for these sex-crazed Republicans to realize that abstinence education doesn't work? If it doesn't work with THEM, it sure as hell isn't going to work with teenagers:

Experts worry nation's on brink of teen sex surge
WASHINGTON -- The long decline in sexual activity among U.S. teenagers, hailed as one of the nation's most important social and public health successes, appears to have stalled.

After decreasing steadily and significantly for more than a decade, the percentage of teenagers having intercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since then, despite the intensified focus in recent years on encouraging sexual abstinence, according to a new analysis of data from a large federal survey.

The halt in the downward trend coincided with an increase in federal spending on programs focused exclusively on encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage, several experts pointed out. Congress is debating funding for such efforts, which receive about $175 million a year in federal money and have come under fire from some quarters for being ineffective.

Funny....the 24/7 coverage of Bill Clinton's blowjob didn't cause teens to have more sex, but being told by a bunch of hypocritical scolds not to do the nasty is having just the opposite effect.

Of course the fact that such programs don't work doesn't faze the sexophobes one bit:

But abstinence proponents argue that, if anything, the data underscore the need for greater emphasis on encouraging youngsters to abstain from sex until marriage.

"We need to increase abstinence education and give more dollars to abstinence education. It is the healthiest program we have for young people," said Leslee Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse.

Actually, the healthiest program would be one which teaches kids to handle their sexuality responsibly. Pat admonitions to Just Say No won't work with sex any more than they worked with drugs. Ideally, kids wait till they're old enough to handle it. But keeping them in ignorance isn't going to make them do that. These are the people who blamed Bill Clinton for teen sex, but now they're blaming MTV -- because it's THEIR guys who are getting caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar.

Conservatives are the first ones to call for spending cuts for programs that they think don't work. This one doesn't. Let's put it to a merciful death.

Where is the next generation of Jimmy Breslins?

When I think about journalists, I usually think first about the kind of hacks we see today -- people like Judith Miller, Adam Nagourney, and the editorial board of the Washington Post. Then my eye turns to television and I think about David Gregory asking a few tough questions so maybe we won't notice him dancing onstage with Karl Rove or smirking while Katty Kay talks about Hillary Clinton. I think about Chris Matthews' mancrushes and obvious misogyny. I think about Willian Kristol being taken seriously anywhere.

Then I think about the guys I used to read in the New York Daily News when I commuted into New York every day -- guys like Mike Royko and Lars-Erik Nelson and Pete Hamill. Reading these guys was like reading a kind of cigar-chomping dub poetry. Even Nelson, with whom I often disagreed, was a fine writer.

Royko and Nelson are dead, and Pete Hamill is mostly off writing books. But there is still Jimmy Breslin:

I am walking in Rosedale on this day early in the week while I wait for the funeral of Army soldier Le Ron Wilson, who died at age 18 in Iraq. He was 17 1/2 when he had his mother sign his enlistment papers at the Jamaica recruiting office. If she didn't, he told her, he would just wait for the months to his 18th birthday and go in anyway. He graduated from Thomas Edison High School at noon one day in May. He left right away for basic training. He came home in a box last weekend. He had a fast war.

The war was there to take his life because George Bush started it with bold-faced lies.

He got this lovely kid killed by lying.

If Bush did this in Queens, he would be in court on Queens Boulevard on a murder charge.

He did it in the White House, and it is appropriate, and mandatory for the good of the nation, that impeachment proceedings be started. You can't live with lies. You can't permit them to be passed on as if it is the thing to do.

...and he goes on from there. Go read it. Now.

Our plan for continuity of government in the event of disaster is so secret we can't let you see it

...not even the guy whose job it is to oversee it:

Oregonians called Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.

As a member of the U.S. House on the Homeland Security Committee, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure "bubbleroom" in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.

On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.

"I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack," DeFazio says.

[snip]

Norm Ornstein, a legal scholar who studies government continuity at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he "cannot think of one good reason" to deny access to a member of Congress who serves on the Homeland Security Committee.

"I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual, knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House," Ornstein said.

This is the first time DeFazio has been denied access to documents. DeFazio has asked Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., to help him access the documents.

"Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right," DeFazio said.

Gee, ya think? Libby Spencer, who wrote about this article, notes this conservative blogger, who thinks this is all paranoia:

Think about what would happen if the President tried to cancel elections and declare martial law: Do you really think that the military (the same generals who basically drove Rumsfeld out and who threatened to resign en masse if the President ordered a premature strike on Iran) would support and carry out such an extra-Constitutional move? Do you think the media would just stand by and that the Congress would shrug? Do you even think that Republicans in Congress would support the establishment of such a precedent that could just as easily be used against one of them down the road?

Uh....yes I do. And do I think the media would stand by and Congress would shrug? You bet I do. In the case of the media, we have plenty of history indicating the media's willingness, Keith Olbermann notwithstanding, to go along with just about anything this Administration wants to do. And as for Republicans in Congress establishing precedents that could be used against one of them, well, they're already doing it in allowing this president to take away their oversight role.

I don't think such a move would be done in a vacuum. But it's abundantly clear by now that at the very least, this administration had foreknowledge that the something akin to the 9/11 attacks were going to occur -- and they allowed them to play out in spectacular fashion, because this president wanted to go to war with Iraq, and such an attack would provide the "new Pearl Harbor" cited by PNAC as potential justification. If it looked like Dick Cheney didn't want to give up power, or if it started to look like Bush and Cheney were going to be tried as war criminals, I don't put anything past them.

Those who would say that these notions sound like the ravings of the black helicopter crowd during the Clinton years are comparing apples and oranges. My belief that such things are possible for this president and this vice president aren't based on my inherent loathing of them, they are based on their obvious and avowed enthusiasm for the "unitary executive" -- accountable to no one. If it seems that someone might actually hold them accountable for their deeds, well, a cornered animal is the most dangerous kind.

Why are guys like William Kristol and Brit Hume even given air time?

I know this is from Fox News Sunday, but even by Fox standards, this "maybe things will change by then" patter from the gasbags of the right is ridiculous:

WILLIAM KRISTOL (Weekly Standard editor): What's amazing is how far left the Democratic Party in the Senate has gone. And they're voting -- as you showed that [Sen.] Evan Bayh [D-IN] -- they're voting, Evan Bayh is voting for something he said two years ago would be a huge mistake, a date-certain timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The entire Democratic Party voted for that. Maybe everything will fall apart in Iraq and they can say, "We wanted to get out earlier." Maybe things will continue to improve with the surge and [Gen. David] Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, and the Democratic Party is gonna look six months from now as if they wanted to pull the plug just as our military was giving us a real chance to prevail in Iraq.

[snip]

WALLACE: Let me throw something else into this, Brit, and ask you about it. Because you did see this week clearly not only with General [Raymond] Odierno [commanding general of multi-national forces in Iraq], but also, as e pointed out, with General [Rick] Lynch and General [Walter] Gaskin, you talk about, it's going to take into next year, well into next year for us to secure the gains. Otherwise, we will have fought and some of our troops will have died to clear these areas, and the bad guys will come right in. What do you think is the possibility that congressional Republicans will stand firm not just until September, but into November or next year?

HUME: That depends on upon what level of military progress will be reported in September. My guess is there will be noticeable, notable military progress to report in September. There's already some now. And the question will then become how seriously do we take the objectives we set for the Iraqi government. And how important in the face of Al Qaeda beginning to lose ground and the terrorist violence subsiding Iraq are we going to take those benchmarks. And are we going to then think about pulling the plug as we're beginning to win on the ground militarily on the effort because of the failure of the Iraqi government to function properly.

WILLIAMS: How many years have you been saying this?

HUME: I just said that just now. Didn't you hear me?

WILLIAMS: You've been saying this for a long time. "Oh, more time." Bill says, "Oh, what's wrong with the strategy now?" Come on, guys, I mean, acknowledge there's a problem here. We're not winning in this thing. And it's not -- I can see if you say to me, "Don't encourage the terrorists." OK, we don't want to do that. We want stability in the Middle East.

HUME: Juan, you need to read the news more carefully and recognize that, when you say, "We're not winning," that we may now well be winning.

Meanwhile, back in consensus reality:

Three parked cars exploded in a predominantly Shiite area in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 19, police said.

The first explosion, which occurred about 11 a.m., targeted a passing police patrol, killing six people — three policemen and three pedestrians — and wounding nine other people, a police officer said.

At least seven cars also were damaged in the blast, which struck near the Interior Ministry's nationality and social affairs directorate and the 14th of July bridge in Karradah, he added.

Another parked car bomb about 500 yards away struck at about the same time, ripping through a bustling market of vegetables and household goods, killing three civilians and wounding five others, the policeman added.

AP Television News footage showed U.S. soldiers milling about the charred wreckage, with shattered glass and blackened debris from nearby shops and street stalls strewn on the bloodstained pavement.

Another car packed with explosives struck a police patrol in Elway square at about 11:30 a.m. in another part of Karradah, killing two policemen and a civilian and wounding five people, police said.

Karradah, a popular shopping area, has been hit by several high-profile bombings, and Monday's attack occurred despite a five-month-old U.S.-Iraqi security operation aimed at stopping such violence in the capital.

A roadside bomb also was aimed at a police patrol but missed its target, killing a civilian and wounding two others in the southern Shiite area of Hillah, another officer said. Gunmen elsewhere in the province killed a 35-year-old lawyer, he added.

Elsewhere, gunmen opened fire on an open-air market in Iskandariyah, killing a man and his wife as well as a policeman who started firing at them, another officer said.

Three bullet-riddled bodies of men in civilian clothes also were found at a construction site in Iskandariyah, a mostly Sunni Arab city 30 miles south of Baghdad, police said. The men, ages 25 to 35, had been bound by their hands and legs and bore signs of torture.

I've long felt that the American people were behaving like victimized spouses in an abusive relationship, trying valiantly to find something to believe in the utter horsepuckey being spewed by this president in regard to terrorism. "Only I can keep you safe. I'm the only one that loves you. Those Democrats want to see your children killed. Stick with me and don't leave the house and you'll be fine" -- right before bringing out the belt in the form of shoveling our tax dollars into the pockets of his cronies and systematically eviscerating the Constitution. But as the Americans have decided they don't want to be beaten anymore, now it's right-wing pundits who are behaving like the abused spouses: "This time it'll be different. This time it'll work. He really loves me. He's so big and strong and I know he only has my best interests at heart."

Sometimes I wonder if these guys would just shatter into a million pieces if they had to face the truth.