Susan Weed opposed Daquarii Rock
for an open seat on the Pullman, WA school board.
Weed won.
Why the Antiwar Democrats Will Retreat, he nails it.
Bush is winning today because he has jettisoned the jabber about global democracy and argues that a U.S. withdrawal risks a strategic disaster, national humiliation, massacre of our friends and triumph for al-Qaida. Democrats, fearing he may be right, are in paralysis.Agreeing with Pat tends to give me that icky feeling inside, but sometimes it has to be done.Scourged for 20 years over
Thus the rout of the peace Democrats. But the movement will be back. For, Petraeus' good news notwithstanding, there is no light yet visible at the end of this tunnel.Who Lost China?they don't want to spend the next 20 years answeringWho Lost the Middle East?
If we let our current ruling regime get away with this, we deserve what we get.
Our victims don't.
Here's a simple mnemonic for the solution: ICICI.
Murder, war crimes, treason, desertion--no shortage of grounds. Mix and match, or pick a personal favorite.
Man the barricades.
A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime, FOX News confirmed Tuesday....and...
The Germans voiced concern about the damaging effects any further sanctions on Iran would have on the German economy — and also, according to diplomats from other countries, gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities.and
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the most ardent proponent of a diplomatic resolution to the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions, has had his chance on the Iranian account and come up empty.
Most relevant parties have concluded such a comprehensive attack plan would require at least a week of sustained bombing runs, and would at best set the Iranian nuclear program back a number of years — but not destroy it forever. Other considerations include the likelihood of Iranian reprisals against Tel Aviv and other Israeli population centers; and the effects on American troops in Iraq. There, officials have concluded that the Iranians are unlikely to do much more damage than they already have been able to inflict through their supply of explosives and training of insurgents in Iraq.and
Vice President Cheney and his aides are said to be enjoying a bit of "schadenfreude" at the expense of Burns. A source described Cheney's office as effectively gloating to Burns and Rice,We told you so. (The Iranians) are not containable diplomatically.The next shoe to drop will be when Rice and President Bush make a final decision about whether to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and/or its lethal subset, the Quds Force, as a terrorist entity or entities. FOX News reported in June that such a move is under consideration.
The six-term lawmaker, party loyalist and former staunch war supporter represents one of the most significant GOP losses to date. Speaking to reporters at a news conference in Albuquerque, Domenici said he began to question his stance on Iraq late last month, after several conversations with the family members of dead soldiers from his home state, and as it became clear that Iraqi leaders are making little progress toward national reconciliation.
Once more, with emphasis: Domenici said he began to question his stance on Iraq late last month, after several conversations with the family members of dead soldiers from his home state
.
So, Senator Pete is so dim, or callous, or out of touch, or--what?--that finally, in the last few weeks, after the reality of the last several years, after tens or hundreds of thousands of innocents dead, all it takes is having his nose rubbed in the Iraq mess via the grieving families of murdered soldiers. I had a dog like that once, but she grew out of it in six months or so. That's pre-kindergarten in dog years. Pete seems a bit developmentally delayed.
Whaddaya think, New Mexico? Are YOU going to trust this guy with OUR lives, come next re-election campaign?
our own malevolent tyrant
...and...President George W. Bush is miserable and mad. He's off to Europe this week for the G-8 summit, and the prospect of meeting with peers who refuse to hang on his every word and bow to his whims makes him moan.
He also has to eat foreign food, sleep in an unfamiliar bed and pretend he's engaged and interested in what the other heads of state have to say. For Bush, this is pure torture, though richly deserved.
He'll probably restrain himself and not repeat his condescending, sexist shoulder rub of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. His buddy British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a lame duck, but the two will chuckle together, slap each other's knees and try to forget the disaster they brought to Iraq.
Bush can't bully the leaders of the world's major industrial nations and convince them of his righteousness the way he can his staff and friends. He is becoming increasingly unhinged and even more dangerous.
...and...American troops have been in Korea for 57 years. Since the truce in 1953, only 90 U.S. troops have died in border clashes with the North Koreans. By contrast, in the four years since the "Mission Accomplished" proclamation, more than 3,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, and the casualty trend lines are going up in the futile "surge" strategy.
The Iraqi bomb-makers are boosting production, and no matter what we do militarily, they cannot be stopped. More money and more troops won't change that grim reality. More Americans died in April and May than in any other two-month period since the war began. In May alone, more than 2,000 Iraqi civilians died.
Nailed it, eh?Even our own malevolent tyrant knows there will be no ease this summer for those living in Iraq. He recently said, "It could be bloody -- it could be a very difficult August." He should know because, as he likes to remind us, "I am the president! I am the president! I am the president!"
Bush:After her daughter was born, Julie Aigner-Clark searched for ways to share her love of music and art with her child. So she borrowed some equipment, and began filming children's videos in her basement. The Baby Einstein Company was born, and in just five years her business grew to more than $20 million in sales. In November 2001, Julie sold Baby Einstein to the Walt Disney Company, and with her help Baby Einstein has grown into a $200 million business. Julie represents the great enterprising spirit of America.Tart: Finally, some State-of-the-Union recognition for attractive, well-educated straight blonde women who became millionaires by turning 800% profits on low-budget children's videos featuring hand-held puppets and classical music played by a xylophone.
The best title I can remember at the moment, hands down.
Naughty word alert.
Religions are symbol-systems of meaning. Practitioners navigate these systems with the help of spiritual teachers in order to understand their place in the universe at an intuitive level. Anyone skilled in religion can craft their own symbol-system - which is precisely what Joseph Smith and the Mormon church fathers did. The problem occurs when adherents invest one of these systems with the imprimatur of absolute truth. The absolute truth is the unspoken truth that the symbols reveal - not the symbols themselves.
According to "Reconciliation Tax Cuts Would Average $43,000 for Households with Income Over $1 Million, Revised 5/11/06", by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities:
The owners:
About 87 percent of the benefits of the reconciliation conference agreement would flow to the 14 percent of households with incomes above $100,000, and 55 percent of the benefits would go to the 3 percent with incomes above $200,000. Households earning more than $1 million a year, which represent only 0.2 percent of all households, would receive 22 percent of the benefits of these tax cuts.
The owned:
In contrast, the three-quarters of households with incomes below $75,000 would receive just 5 percent of the benefits. The 60 percent of households with incomes below $50,000 would receive less than 2 percent of all benefits. In total, 68 percent of all households would receive no benefits whatsoever from the tax-cut package.
Questions?
From "Will the Administration Claim the Cost of Fixing Social Security Rose $700 Billion Because Congress Did Not Act Last Year?", a 1 May 2006 article from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
President Bush and other Administration officials often claim that delaying action on Social Security by "...just one year adds $600 billion [or $700 billion] to the cost of fixing Social Security." Such claims may be repeated on May 1 when the Social Security Trustees release their annual report on the program's finances. Such claims, however, are not accurate.
And, for the curious, the title question is answered in a later article (revised 15 June 2006) titled "What the New Trustees' Report Shows About Social Security", the answer, apparently, being yes.
According to a Washington Post article:
Analyst Jeffrey M. Jones wrote in the most recent issue of the Hoover Institution's in-house magazine that food stamps contribute to overeating, and he argued for "retaining a stigma [about food stamps] historically associated with welfare."Eat the rich.
From an article by Jeff Carr, in Sojourners weekly "email magazine":
When was the last time you heard a Catholic cardinal calling his flock to civil disobedience? That's what Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony did in his Lenten message, urging his people to make room "for the stranger in our midst, praying for the courage and strength to offer our spiritual and pastoral ministry to all who come to us." The strangers to whom he was referring are the estimated 11.5 to 12 million undocumented immigrants living on the margins of our society.[...]
If enacted into law, [H.R.4437] would criminalize social service workers and others who provide compassionate or humanitarian aid to undocumented people, including churches and faith-based organizations. The crime would be a felony, potentially punishable by stiff fines and up to five years in prison. According to the Los Angeles Times, Mahony said that if Congress passes the bill, he will instruct the priests in his 288 parishes to defy the law in open civil disobedience.
[...]
I hope Mahony would have room to welcome an evangelical Christian minister such as me to join him and his fellow priests in civil disobedience. It's time for people of faith to stand up on behalf of our immigrant brothers and sisters whom I am confident Jesus would have included when he said
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
JC was a revolutionary, I figure, and we could use that now. I'm thinking of starting a group, tentatively named Christian Atheists (Radical/Extremist). That gives CARE as an acronym. A good acronym is essential, I think.
CARE would be a group for those who want to buy in to Jesus' social, economic and ethical philosophy, but not the Old Testamental, Jehovan, moralistic, supernatural, creation-myth aspects of traditional Christianity (at least not in a literal, non-metaphorical sense).
So if us left-wing atheists could make common cause with the social gospel wing of conventional Christianity, along with the Buddhists, Muslims, and any other people of goodwill in the world, mayhap we could bring about that heaven on earth I've heard tell of. Anything beats unfettered corporate capitalism.
In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have removed from public access thousands of historical documents that had been available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.[...]
But because the reclassification program is itself shrouded in secrecy - governed by a still-classified memorandum that prohibits the National Archives even from saying which agencies are involved - it continued virtually without outside notice until December. That was when an intelligence historian, Matthew Aid, noticed that dozens of documents he had copied years ago had been withdrawn from the archives' open shelves.[...]
The stuff they pulled should never have been removed,he said.Some of it is mundane, and some of it is outright ridiculous.
Read more at www.iht.com...
That's spread over two and a half years. $640 million a year. $440 million/year of that by the DoD. And that understates the tax-payers' tab for administrational flackery:
GAO's accounting of the Bush Administration's public relations and advertising contracts is limited. GAO surveyed only seven of the 15 cabinet-level departments, relied on self-reported information from the agencies, and did not include subcontracts, task orders on existing contracts, or public relations work done by government employees.
More info at <http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/> . (Whew. And numerical IP addresses are considered user-unfriendly?)
Read more at www.truthout.org/docs_2...
The big network corp's want to give you as little as possible for the highest possible price. So what else is new in this greatest of all possible corporate-capitalist worlds?
We the people
are, after all, merely an evolutionary dead-end, serving as feedstock for the great and powerful economic structures that own the world and it's teeming masses.
Best learn to live in the cracks and crevices, 'cause that may be all us commoners have left to us.
But I'm not bitter....
Read more at www.truthout.org/...
Mr. Feingold was clearly angry when his turn came to question Mr. Gonzales.What is the meaning of "is", again?You wanted this committee and the American people to think that this kind of program wasn't going on,he said.But it was.Not so, Mr. Gonzales insisted. Last year, he said, Mr. Feingold asked him whether he thought the president could authorize eavesdropping
in violation of the law,and that the question was therefore hypothetical.
I was telling the truth then,the attorney general said.I'm telling the truth now.
Read more at www.nytimes.com/2006/02...
