During Presidential announcement of the newly nominated Judge Roberts to replace Sandra Day OConner on the Supreme Court. Well, Hil, he's got that Alfred E. Newman look on his face again. Shrub is so over awed by his own importance, it strikes me absurd - again and again -! that this guy is actually a two term president. In 2002 when I was in Ireland, I was talking to a taxi driver about Bush and his ilk. This was during the run up to Iraq. My constant mental picture of Shrub was Alfred E. I was explaining to the cab driver about this US centric cartoon icon. He'd never heard of it/him. I promised him that one day he would encounter Mad Mag, and/or Alfred E. and he would then have a "I get it!!" moment as he remembered this conversation.
I was checking prices to Ireland this afternoon. miles of smiles heh heh. More plastic bravado, though.

Khalid Jarrar has been taken prisoner by the newly reconstituted Iraqi Secret Police. Much comment on them being a wholely owned CIA subsidiary right now. I googled (G) Khalid's name and got over a hundred hits. The blogosphere is in an uproar. Some pointed out that the child is being punished for the Mother's outspokenness. I'm afraid that Faiza thinks that, as well, as she was reportedly removing all the 'in Arabic' posts on her blog. Funny this happened right after she returned from U.S. conference.

Raed's blog 'comments' gave an email for this entity. Someone mentioned that the email bounced. I sent one, bcc to Faiza (possibly against her wishes - sorry) and it bounced; tried again the next day and it stayed put.

There are several petitions, legions of bloggers poised to take action - SOME kind of action, only awaiting the signal from the family. No update today.

Drat, the spell checker doesn't work. Usually, I'd past it into a Netscape Mail msg. and check it there. Now that I've changed HDs I thought I''d geek out and just use Firefox and Thunderbird, which does not seem to have one. Drat !!

and then there's this

"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

from The Times of London" quoting the now infamous "Downing St. Memo."

Where the hell are the cries for impeachment of Bush and all his little (gee, I want to say 'drooling' here, and I've no idea why.) neocon sycophants. **MY** country is sliding down a hill into intolerance, vast differences 'tween have and have not, religious litmus tests for every public job, etc., etc., along the path of so many 'future' tense scifi- some of it brilliant and terrifying. And why has not the media made a recurring sound bite out of the Shrub's comment: "This is my base: the haves and the have mores."

Occasionally, he speaks the truth, inadvertently

eat the world

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Thousands of hungry moths may hold the key to eradicating cocaine production, Colombian scientists have said, but critics say the idea could open the way for "ecological mischief" from CNN dot com

Oh My. Immediate vision of when the 'worm' runs out of cocoa leaves and begins to eat the world.

Constitution 101

" U.S. officials played down a report
on Monday that the administration might seek a United Nations
resolution empowering nations to intercept shipments in and out
of North Korea that may contain nuclear-related materials"

Now, if that's not enough to scare the bejeezus out of you. . .

and then there is:


"Marines From Iraq Sound Off About Want of Armor and Men
By MICHAEL MOSS
Marine leaders and infantrymen of a unit that sustained
heavy losses say a lack of armor and manpower hampered
their efforts."

It was more than 3 or 4 months ago Rumi stood red faced in Iraq and vowed every 'soldier' would be adequately armored asap (a 'sap' would believe him.)

Chopin

They finally put him in the box -(Cedar wood) he was starting to look pretty crispy. But, people are already "calling him a Saint" per CNN. I think that a miraculously preserved body is an indication of saint hood? He was, indeed, a formidible peace maker. I remain skeptical of an institution which can sanctify a Father Serra, mass murderer of California native peoples.

Charles and Camilla were supposed to be married today. I can picture Diana calling out to John Paul - "come home now! They deserve to be eclipsed, as 'they' eclipsed me in life.

More Crowned Heads, and Heads of State in one place at one time in--
"two Italian F-16's intercepting a jet approaching local air space" but Aaron Brown doesn't know about that. My exact fantasy, as I watched the funeral on TV at work: I'd sure like to see all those Italian fighters enforcing air space, circling around Rome.

moving on

yes, Heads - what an opportunity for a quick SCUD. Another dark fantasy.
play some Chopin for Il Papa on his way.

Play some Chopin

for Il Papa, on his journey. No, I'm not a Catholic, altho I tried, once apon a time, going to Mass every day after work, at St Mary's Cathedral (now Old St. Mary's) two doors down California street from my work. The TV waves are full of John Paul II and his extraordinary life and work. He visited the Wailing Wall; he prayed with the Imams in a Mosque; he, unfortunately, couldn't allow women or gays to pray, formally, in his church. But now he knows - knows that all love is good love; all prayer is acceptable in God's eyes. All of us are one, no differences of race or gender or origin.

"The fact, however, is that the Iraqi elections weren't about the free election of a government reflecting the will of the Iraqi people, but the carefully engineered selection of a government that would behave in a manner dictated by the United States. In Iraq, democracy was hijacked by the Americans."

From AlterNet. Of course, Raed Jarrar has been saying this from the beginning. As much as I could, I wanted to 'not' believe it. Faiza seems to reflect a more moderate opinion; she speaks of the parties arguing it out and eventually settling upon something beneficial for all Iraqis. One can only pray.
There are just so very many things in the news these days that outrage me. I was moved to send an email (to 5 or 6 people!) entitled "Duuude, where's my country?" after reading yet another AlterNet story lead
(BEYOND THE GOD POD
Silja J.A. Talvi, Santa Fe Reporter
The nation's biggest private prison corporation is forging strong ties with a fundamentalist Christian ministry, blurring the line between church and state and harkening a new turn in corrections toward Christian-based programming.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/21457/--


Now that is downright scary. You could write a science fiction book about that. Oh wait, there have been three or four already.

These people (Repub. legislators) are playing their political games with a piece of meat. Terri's consciousness -ie., the soul you right wing idiots claim to treasure - has long since departed . Her piece of the collective soul has joined the whole (Heaven, as they choose to call it) and I picture 'her' looking down and shaking her head at all the uproar. And if she has any connection to earthly emotions, still, she is frelling outraged at the treatment of the shell she left behind. Note to my children: don't wait 15 years to disconnect me!! PVS=no more care, dammit. I wonder how these a**holes reconcile their strong support for the death penalty with this one? Of course, they don't. Here's a little quote from Alternet: (well, maybe not little:)
"A memo, which the AP reports was distributed by Senate leadership to right-wing members, called Schiavo "a great political issue" and urged senators to talk about her because "the pro-life base will be excited." Over the weekend, DeLay and Frist held special sessions of Congress to facilitate passage of a bill that would allow a federal court to overturn years of Florida jurisprudence – encompassing seven courts and 19 judges – and intervene in the Schiavo case. (Underscoring that this was about the politics of the Schiavo case and not policy, the bill was written explicitly to apply only to Terri Schiavo.) President Bush played his part in the spectacle, flying to Washington from his ranch in Crawford to sign the bill, even though waiting a few hours for the bill to be flown to him would likely "have made no difference in whether Ms. Schiavo lives."

**CrossFire babblers make the point that GWB received a CIA warning on Aug. 6, 2001, that Al Queda had some pretty specific plans to attack the U.S. He didn't feel it important enough to interrupt his vacation in Crawford, TX. **

In a statement released early this morning, President Bush said he will "continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans." But the facts make it hard to believe that Bush is standing on principle. In 1999, then Gov. Bush signed a law that "allows hospitals [to] discontinue life-sustaining care, even if patient family members disagree." Just days ago the law permitted Texas Children's Hospital to remove the breathing tube from a 6-month-old boy named Sun Hudson. The law may soon be used to remove life support from Spiro Nikolouzos, a 68-year-old man. Bush has not commented on either case.

At every opportunity, Tom DeLay has sanctimoniously proclaimed his concern for the well-being of Terri Schiavo, saying he is only trying to ensure she has the chance "we all deserve." Schiavo's medications are paid for by Medicaid. Just last week, DeLay marshaled a budget resolution through the House of Representatives that would cut funding for Medicaid by at least $15 billion, threatening the quality of care for people like Terri Schiavo. Because the Senate voted to restore the funding, DeLay is threatening to hold up the entire budget process if he doesn't get his way.

Bill Frist has been positioning himself in the media as a champion for Schiavo's interests. Yet, much of Schiavo's medical care has been financed by $1,000,000 from two medical malpractice lawsuits Schiavo won after her heart attack 15 years ago. Frist has been leading the charge to limit recovery for people like Schiavo who are severely debilitated. If Frist is successful, people like Schiavo would not be able to recover any punitive damages no matter how severe their injuries."

Good grief. The woman's cerebral cortex is liquid. She's GONE, been gone, not there ! But a 13 year old retarded kid can be executed for a crime (in Texas, of course.) Where is your sanctity of life?

"John Bolton is a man best known for sabotaging international
treaties and alienating entire nations. That's why he's been
picked to be our ambassador to the United Nations." from the lead to an AlterNet article.

These may truly be the 'end' of days. We are going so backwards from freedom to tyranny. There seems to be a lot of internet buzz from the liberal left. We're all on another planet from the current regime. A few months back, I had a 'moment' in which I envisioned 'regime change' coming back to bite us. If we continue to alienate all our traditional allies ('old Europe' yeh) in 25 years or so when we have NO friends in the world, the Chinese could call in all of the US paper they own and demand a regime change here - with troops to enforce it.

Now that is a scary but very real possibility. In reality, I see (flashes of) China then going through the end of their own Democracy revolution, and presumably not in any shape to attack anyone. And, please God, we here in America will have changed our own regime to a more progressive form.

The days of totalitarian regime are over, I tell you! People know too much, know too many of each other, world wide, and I believe we, the forces for good heh heh heh- are going to meet up and clean up the media which lies to us to please their corporate parents; the false leaders who are paid to legislate for the big corporations and against their own constituents.
--
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Skippy jr. continues to 'demand that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon.' watta concept. He says it with a straight face. Somehow, I want to howl with laughter each time I hear that from him; there's been a lot these last few days.
(above is a reference taken from Doonesbury, who applied that sobriquet to Shrub senior)

I've been loving watching the people of Lebanon demonstrate completely peacefully - women in the front of the lines here and there. Bravo!

(the frelling keyboard at work has a fatal error involving the 'shift' keys. Trying to actually punctuate ?? and !! are imperative for me to maintain my 'style' **koff koff** Typing is always in all caps; 'shift' gives a weird 'other' kind of message, which frequently goes out to the fleet straight away, including, of course, whatever you may have been typing to a specific cab)

He appoints as U.N. Ambassador one of the capitol's harshest critics of that body.
35% of the "regulators" passing on new drugs are lobbyists for - you guessed it - the drug companies. The new Sec. of Interior is in thrall to timber interests, and proceeds to merrily grant permission for roads and clear cut everywhere (well. . .), striking critters off the endangered species list right and left. And how can we forget VP and his secret energy policy meetings (attended mostly by energy producers.)
There's more - I just can't remember it all right now.

The Repubs are trying to stealth through Congress a rule to prevent filibusters - about the only weapon the Dems have to prevent: a) stacking the federal courts; b) stacking the frelling Supreme Court; c) screwing the middle class with draconian changes to bankruptcy laws, drawn up with wording supplied by the banking industry. I could go on, and on.

Oh -and 'they' just voted DOWN a small increase to the minimum wage. Peons, die.
If they could only see: the peons will get progressivly dumber and sicker, requiring either an enormous investment in social services, OR, complete revolt and chaos, OR legalizing euthanasia (eh, maybe not- they want them to breed - more cannon fodder.)

And on another note: certain completely loopy congress people are hollering about how govt (pronounced 'guvment') should make those darned pay cable stations bow to FCC rules on content intended for over the air , accessible to all, broadcast channels. The Chron TV critic waxed apoplectic on that subject today. ha ha

" Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, recently told a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters exactly what they wanted to hear. That it wasn't fair for the FCC to doggedly pursue only broadcasters; they ought to have the right to censor pay cable channels like HBO and Showtime, as well as satellite channels."

'Although current laws, history and political thinking indicate Stevens and Barton are merely right-wing blowhards in over their heads on this issue and will be summarily pimp-slapped by a little thing called the First Amendment, what's the painful lesson learned of late?

"Exactly: Freedom is fluid. It's a bone-chillingly cold new morning in red- state dominated America. Indecency crackdowns are big-play politics. The FCC is raising fines. The Parents Television Council -- among others -- has proven influence. And now Stevens has -- in public, without smirking -- declared that he believes Congress has the power to control more than just the over-the-air broadcasters it currently has jurisdiction"


Georgia (I think -mighta been Alabama) passed a law requiring a WAITING PERIOD before getting an abortion. And they don't even 'get' how frelling absurd they are. More, later, term abortions, and/or more thrown away, abused, unwanted children. Their little piece of 'the' soul could go back barely formed, unbruised; or we could let them experience the pain. Much of the collective soul must be involved in sustaining these poor siblings. Less growth or evolution.

Live from downtown Beirut. Now Hezbollah is having a rally to support Syria. They look pretty darned !numerous! dammit. CNN was live for a hot second, but no more. I'd sure like to see more of that.

No credit!!

Nightline is doing a piece tonight w/lead in of : 'how much credit should P. Bush take?' (for rumbles of unheard of democratic bits and pieces starting across the Middle East (aka the oil zone) ) I think I answered that yesterday. None! Let's see what the talking heads decide.

This is turning out to be more about Lebanon specifically. Many of the Iraqi blogs I read hold their election to be bogus, not 'theirs' at all. How, then can NL push the idea of that election influencing the Lebanese peoples' surge toward freedom from Syria. But these events are happening. Or else the media is presenting an acted and cast drama, and not real people. This guy is not buying it. US could have promoted freedom w/o unilateral waged war; 100,000 Iraqi dead, 1500 U.S. dead; the total trashing of the Iraqi infrastructure and municipal government. NOt to mention irreplaceable antiquities.

Demonstrations in Lebanon against the Syrian occupation and domination - with Women! without veils - go Lebanon!
Mubarak says Egypt should change the constitution to allow multi party elections. Oh My. Local elections all over Saudi Arabia - no Women, of course. CNN Student News asks: Is Pres. Bush's idea coming true? This slow creep toward freedom is NOT not not any part of Bush's doing - it's happening IN SPITE of him - because of the Internet. Even with the greedy, pernicious leaders the world seems to be burdened with right now, people talking to people are going to trump anything a few stuffed shirts think they can continue to perpetrate on us.
My hero, the Internet, heh heh heh. And haven't I been telling that to everyone who would listen for about 10 years now? Well, a prophet gets no respect in her own time ;)

"What do you make of the tapes?"

Judy Woodruff asks two talking heads, one D, one R. I think - the guy did the Bushies a favor, putting them out just in time to dilute the coverage of this "Gannon/Gurket" guy who was serving up prearranged questions on behalf of the gopusa and other right wing internet sites. How in the world did he get these press credentials for WH with a phoney name??? What does this say about 'security?' But, no, let's talk about some tapes (by and large favorable to Bush - actually) instead of the real story - HOW IN THE HELL did this security breach happen? Who facilitated it and why? And even further - I would find it hard to believe whoever credentialed this guy had an inkling of his gay escort past, all over the web. So, again, Who and Why? And since this goes hand in glove with columnists being paid by usga for pushing the B agenda, the propaganda factor is off the charts. And stupid propagandists, at that!

From Paul Krugman, N.Y. Times editorial

" It may sound shrill to describe President Bush as someone who takes food from the mouths of babes and gives the proceeds to his millionaire friends. Yet his latest budget proposal is top-down class warfare in action. . .

First, the facts: the budget proposal really does take food from the mouths of babes. One of the proposed spending cuts would make it harder for working families with children to receive food stamps, terminating aid for about 300,000 people. Another would deny child care assistance to about 300,000 children, again in low-income working families.

. . . even as the administration demands spending cuts, it will proceed with the phaseout of two little-known tax provisions - originally put in place under the first President George Bush - that limit deductions and exemptions for high-income households.

More than half of the benefits from this backdoor tax cut would go to people with incomes of more than a million dollars; 97 percent would go to people with incomes exceeding $200,000.
...
But it costs a lot more to give a millionaire a break than to put food on a low-income family's table: eliminating limits on deductions and exemptions would give taxpayers with incomes over $1 million an average tax cut of more than $19,000."

Gosh, a tax cut of $19,000. That's more than I *made* all year. Every time I do my taxes, I'm struck by the absurdity of me, a 60+ year old woman, living alone, earning barely $14,000 per year, paying any tax at all, let alone the $2K or so the Feds keep, before refunding me that little $300, when we all know there are multi-millionaires who pay not one thin dime in income tax. Who am I supposed to trickle down to? (to whom ...down.) Still waiting for that lotto win, I guess.

lies, and damned lies

when all else fails, the neocon media pundits JUST LIE. They tell their lies in words of one syllable; the carefully documented rebuttal to their lies is more complicated, and not gonna be read by very many people - especially those with borderline IQ's who seem to make up the majority of voters these days!
Makes you wanna hollar!

Faiza

How could I forget Faiza? She is the mother of the three Jarrar boys, an engineer, and an activist, I believe, though she keeps a very low profile in that respect. She shares her strength with many of us who read her blog, and continues to have hope where there may seem to be none. She has raised three remarkable young men. They are involved passionately in reclaiming their country and working constantly in relief efforts.
Given the Zaouk family disfunction, this close and committed family is very comforting to me.

it's kinda hard to describe the play of various childlike expressions that passed across dubya's face as he announced the "great success" of the Iraqi "elections." It was almost as though they'd decanted him from the nursery just in time to tell the grownups what a wonderful thing he'd done in the sandbox. Certainly he had been watching the news heads in their celebratory approach to the story,. and just then had learned that 'his' administration had done this glorious thing for these oh so grateful people over there. Underneath it all, was a repeating flash of 'oh boy, I fixed it for them, and all my friends will get rich (er) too!' There was absolutely no inkling of any comprehension of what is *really* going on.

There are two articles on Alternet that I wish -oh how I wish- someone would hold him down and read to him.



I almost think he does not know - he carefully doesn't know - couldn't imagine how badly everything has gone in Iraq. How much we are hated there, and laughed at around the world for our - his - the "New Century" people - overweening pride, and mentality of ruling the world.

I remember waking up in my hotel room outside of Heathrow on Nov. 3 , thinking that we'd gotten rid of him and our collective embarrassment. I met no one NO ONE in England who was not still amazed that we 'yanks' had actually elected that doofus. And then elected him again. Oh my.

There are so many people in this country who don't wanna know, either. Like my sister, for one. She ends her email with a sig line suggesting "see what the Iraqi's say" and a link to a Fox News sponsored site - for cryin' out loud. So finally, I can't stand it anymore, and I send her a link (labeled "real Iraqis") to the Jarrar's blogs, and Riverbend. I Figure from there she could read others' like I did , but NOOoooo "Oh I saw those, and a few others," dismissively. sigh. All those years of not having a sister - now I've got one again, and she's a Bushy.

Maybe when I get Alzheimer's, I'll forget all this bloodshed, in my name - NO I did not vote for that *^%$ - I make less than $15k a year, but I donated three or four times to the DNC and misc. progressive causes. I still have some hope that the internet and the communications it enables will save us - save the world FROM us.

Dancing happy Iraqis on the news. Oh my. How can any reporter actually IN Baghdad spin this whole thing the Bush way.

A demonstration in SF today, calling this a sham election, designed to allow the US corporations to lock in on Iraqi oil. Curiously enough, just what most Iraqi's think. And here comes Tony Blair, covering his behind, and pumping up the happy talk concerning these elections. I may need to quit watching the news entirely.

I have developed an enormous amount of respect for the few Iraqis I've come to know through their blogs. "where is Raed" was the first one I read - and was by Salaam Pax, with interjections from a young fellow named Raed. Baghdad Burning, by Riverbend, a young lady who writes like an angel, and is angry like an avenging angel, was the second. Raed's turned out to be "A Family In Baghdad." An incredible amount of care and work went into that blog site. Actually several. Do check it out - and all its links.
Raed says the people who are voting have to go there to collect their ration cards. The regime in place there now have tied receiving your next food rations to going to vote, where the rations cards are being distributed in exchange for a ballot. He allows as how this may be just a rumor, but it is such a prevailing rumor, makes no nevermind if it's true or not. There were a few TV shots on tonight's news showing an official sort of document in voters' hands - seemed to be laminated - more like a ration card than a voter registration. I'd love someone to confirm that for me.
--
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

To vote or not to vote

Oh Raed, you break my heart. Everything you say is true, in your detailed analysis of recent US/Iraq history - or I should say, I believe it to be true, in substance, if not in every tiny detail. If you vote, you feel you would be validating each act of terror perpetrated by the invading forces, and Bush Administration. I can hear this, and feel this. But - and a big 'but,' are you not also validating each and every act of Iraqi on Iraqi terror of the so called insurgents? Massive casualties inflicted upon innocent Iraqis - women and children - in the name of an insurgency that DOES NOT WANT YOU TO VOTE. And why is that? No matter how corrupt the current US backed leaders, no matter how farcical the thought of Alawi or his minions in power - the beginning of Iraqi freedom has to start SOMEWHERE. So you vote now, and end up with puppets. So vote them out later. If nothing else, the puppets will most likely improve security for the ordinary citizens, making a later vote more legitimate. And the vote after that, a bit more legitimate. It is a process, may take a long time, but IT HAS TO START SOMEWHERE. If you have no input to where it starts, how are you going to change it later?
I started out with this 'blog registration' process, because I did not want to post anonymously.
I am watching CNN tell many small stories about Iraqis - all of them love us. What a surprise. - but - again - are so many of Iraqi men working as police, national guard, etc., are they all traitors? Maybe there is more than one way to do this thing? It seems to me that so many of them putting their lives in so much danger, they must be considered as patriots? I can't believe that all of the many thousand Iraqis working in security forces can be against their country. Maybe this is just their way of trying to build a new Iraq. How can I suspect each and every one of them of being "tools of the infidels?" If one 'faction' ( I really hesitate to blame all political divisions merely on sectarianism) feels they are being marginalized, squeezed out of the political process, would they not want to vote in greater numbers to see that this cannot happen? Boycotting a vote has always perplexed me. If there is any chance of an open election process, doesn't every single citizen have the obligation to vote?

Oh my God. What colossal hubris: CNN question of the day: is Iraq worth American sacrifice? WHO asked us? Oh my God.