Remember Why

Surburban Guerrilla reminds us about why we observe this date.

Abraham Lincoln

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Remember all that have fallen or sacrificed for this idea of America when you throw up your hands in disgust at what our leadership is doing and country has become under it. Remember the above words and harden yourself to fight on in whatever way you can, small or large. We are more than George Bush ever dreamed and if we let his dark soul and distorted vision permanently change the principles of this country then we have prostituted what our forefathers sacrificed so much for. Remember.

Escaped Again

Fallenmonk has once again escaped from the evildoers in Gropinator land. This time via the highly suspect San Jose airport. I thought I had been spotted when our first approach to Atlanta was waved off at the last moment but they were evidently after someone else as I made it through baggage claim and to the off airport parking without incident. I then managed to lose myself and my sanity in the 5pm Friday afternoon traffic in Atlanta.
I see I missed another day of Bush lying and trying to scare the rest of the country into continuing to support his war. Note that it is "his war" now and not "our" war or the war. Always remember to call it by it's proper name. It's "His War".
He is really getting good at lying isn't he? No hesitation and a firm set to the jaw as if he almost believes this drek himself. His writers have latched on the half truth ploy. Tell some of the truth but not all and defininetly not anything that would dispute your underlying prejudices.
Yes, everybody saw the NIE but not everybofy saw both the good and the bad parts. You know, the intelligence that questions or negated the stuff used to justify the invasion. What a maroon!

Defined By A Sentence

Everything you ever needed to know about the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist can be deduced from one sentence he threw up today concerning secret torture "Gulags".

Frist was asked if that meant he was not concerned about investigating what goes on in detention centers.

"I am not concerned about what goes on and I'm not going to comment about the nature of that," Frist replied.

Every once in a while such moments happen and usually without warning.

If you aren't one of the 'chosen' or in other words, wealth and white then your life and everything about it is of no consequence to me. I am way too busy trying to spin the Iraq cluster fuck into some half baked tale of global salvation. i can't be bothered with this smaill stuff.

Stay Away from Dover, PA

This is just a fair warning. It comes from an absolute authority and it is beyond question.

Stay the hell out of Dover, Pa.'cause we are looking at a disaster of "biblical" proportion. The shit is going to hit the fan and God is going to sit back and laugh and watch you suffer and after you die some horrible death he is going to make sure you go to hell.
You dumb sumabitches have voted God right out of your town and you know how carefully God follows the local elections is small town PA.
What was on your mind? Do you get some kind of thrill flaunting God's word? How could you reject the idea that the world was started by a couple of nekkid people and a talkin' snake.
Man you are so fucked.

Ticket to Ride

The Wednesday night polls released by NBC and the Wall Street Journal are impressive in their broad denunciation of the Bush presidency.

NBC/WSJ has Bush at all-time lows across the Board:

• Overall: 38%
• Economy: 34%
• Foreign policy: 35%
• Terrorism: 39%
• Iraq: 32%

If this isn't a horse the Democrats can ride then I can't imagine a better opportunity to seize the initiative on everything...Iraq, economy, environment, security, taxes, whatever. If the Dems screw this pooch then there is no hope.

We are not talking about a weekly dip here. This is a trend and I can imagine it getting worse for Bush. These things kind of have a momentum that is virtually impossible to stop. It's the snowball effect.
The following indicates a major paradigm shift in the thinking of the American people.

Fifty-seven percent believe he deliberately misled people to make the case for war, compared with 35 percent who say he gave the most accurate information he had. In addition, 58 percent are less confident the war will come to a successful conclusion, and 57 percent say the United States should reduce the number of U.S. troops there.

I can seriously see the word "impeach" becoming something you begin to see in the daily MSM narrative. Whatever "political capital" Dubya thought he earned in the last election has been squandered two fold. It's taken way too long for the American people to wake up but they appear to awake now. Jolted awake is more like it.

Bad News - Worst Case

Susie at Suburban Guerrilla has the scoop and it confirms what I mentioned, and didn't want to believe, a couple of days ago. there is no longer any question that the U.S. used white phosphorus against both civilians and insurgents in the attack on Fallulah. This report from the Army itself also proves that the U.S. State Department was lying when it said the WP was only used for illumination.

From the “The Fight for Fallujah – TF2-2 IN FSE AAR: Indirect Fires in the Battle of Fallujah” in the March/April ‘05 edition of Field Artillery Magazine :

“The munitions we brought to this fight were . . . illumination
and white phosphorous (WP, M110 and M825), with point-detonating (PD), delay, time and variable-time (VT) fuzes.”

“WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired “shake and bake” missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.”

This according to Captain James T. Cobb, First Lieutenant Christopher A. LaCour, and Sergeant First Class William H. Hight, the authors of the article. Their article fundamentally disagrees with the statement by the U.S. State Department on the matter.

There are also numerous reports from embedded journalists that WP was fired on Fallujah, such as this one from the North County Times:

“Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused.
...
The boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call “shake ‘n’ bake” into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week.”

The use of white phosphorus is not specifically banned by any treaty, however the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (Protocol III) prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilian populations or by air attack against military forces that are located within concentrations of civilians. [2] The United States is among the nations that are parties to the convention but have not signed protocol III.

I don't know all the details about Protocol III and I am no lawyer but a nation that wants to claim the morale high ground has absolutely no business using such a weapon against combatants or anyone else. If you want to read more about WP here is the Wikipedia entry.

I am just disgusted.

Update #1: For and impassioned take on this story you can't go wrong by reading Hunter's diary over at Dkos.

Kansas Freak Show Redux

The Kansas Board of Education has rapidly reloaded and shot itself in the foot again. This time they had to resort to changing the definition of science in order to get intelligent design foisted upon Kansas' youth. Here is the salient paragraph...

In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

I guess that will show the scientists that if you make the scientific method so rigorous as to eliminate the possibility of total bullshit being passed off as science, then they will just take their ball and go home.
If you live in Kansas it must be embarassing to be the laughing stock of the world.

Update: looks like the voters in Maryland are actually thinking and acting accordingly. Via Susie at Surbrban Guerrilla. Here is the quote:

DOVER, Pa. – Voters in this rural school district Tuesday ousted eight school board members who backed a controversial policy to introduce high school students to “intelligent design,” which critics say is a form of creationism.

Voters replaced the GOP incumbents with a Democratic slate that called for removing intelligent design from Dover’s science curriculum, returns from all six precincts showed.

There is hope I guess.

Lower the Bar One More Time

Via Americablog

Sounds like another brilliant plan from the Pentagon.

"We have clear experience from the 1970s with recruiting a sizable number of people from the lowest mental categories," said White. After the Vietnam War, the Army accepted a higher proportion of low-scoring recruits, leading to training and discipline problems, he added.

To achieve last month's recruiting targets, 12 percent of those accepted by the Army had the lowest acceptable results. They scored between 16 and 30 points out of a possible 99 on an aptitude test that quizzes potential soldiers on general science, mathematics and word knowledge.

Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey told reporters last month that the Army would begin accepting more people who scored in the bottom third on the military's aptitude test, increasing the proportion to 4 percent from 2 percent. The Army had kept the figure at 2 percent since 1990.

Do they not have any pride in the quality of their forces? Do they think it will somehow solve their problems if we lower the standards for military service? What happened to the FEW good men meme?
Is the problem that the only people they can find to sign up are the ones that will score lowest on these apptitude tests? If they don't lower their standards does that mean that we have to give up and get our folks home?

I can just see the ads now. "Are you dumb enough to join todays Army? Can't find your ass with both hands...no problem we can make a target out of anybody and the dumber you are the easier it is. Can't find the recruiter's office...no problem, just have your little brother or sister dial the number on your screen and we'll come to you."

I am being a smart ass and the truth is that it takes smart people to survive in a combat theatre. People that can think on their feet and improvise quickly in order to save their life and the lives of their comrades. Lowering the standards is going to mean higher casualties...I guarantee it.

Another in the seemingly endless chain of tragedies our current misadministration is visiting upon us. Goddess help us all.

Where Do I Sign Up?

Please, Please Karl can I be on your list? I know I am probably too small a fish to be on the list but I would like to sign up if that's possible. It really would mean a lot.

Via Capitol Hill Blue
White House keeps dossiers on more than 10,000 'political enemies'

Spurred by paranoia and aided by the USA Patriot Act, the Bush Administration has compiled dossiers on more than 10,000 Americans it considers political enemies and uses those files to wage war on those who disagree with its policies.The “enemies list” dates back to Bush’s days as governor of Texas and can be accessed by senior administration officials in an instant for use in campaigns to discredit those who speak out against administration policies or acts of the President.

[snip]

Those on the list include former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, former covert CIA operative Valarie Plame, along with filmmaker and administration critic Michael Moore, Senators like California’s Barbara Boxer, media figures like liberal writer Joe Conason and left-wing bloggers like Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (the Daily Kos)

Update: I see in my rush to get this posted I neglected to credit Susie at Suburban Guerrilla for pointing this out. My most humble apologies.

Good Blogging

Congratulations to Bobby Cramer over at Bark Bark Woof Woof on his second anniversary at blogging. As the volume of bloggers increases it is nice to know there are bloggs you can rely on as such as BBWW. Not too big and not too small.

The Hits Keep Coming

Just in case the last post wasn't sobering enough then take a look at the disheartening account of the death of a prisoner in Iraq at the hand of Americans by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker. Here is just snippet.

Jamadi’s bruises, [a forensic pathologist who examined the case records] said, were no doubt painful, but they were not life-threatening. Baden went on, “He also had injuries to his ribs. You don’t die from broken ribs. But if he had been hung up in this way [with his hands tied behind him in a painful position known as a "Palestinian Hanging"] and had broken ribs, that’s different.” In his judgment, “asphyxia is what he died from—as in a crucifixion.”

I guess this is why Cheney is pushing so hard to exempt his boys from McCain's torture retrictions. Maybe Cheney is channeling Pontius Pilate? Maybe they think crucifixion is OK since it is in the Bible?

The bad dream continues.

Tell Me It Is Not So

It's just after 4am here in the West Coast and I am obviously still on East Coast time. It's not so bad because it does give me a chance to wander around and see what is going on. The bad thing is it allows me to stumble upon things like this.

While this is only one report I distinctly remember seeing something about white posphorous earlier in the Iraq debacle. I probably discounted it back then as some wild rambling and so over the top that it had to be just a bad rumor.

This is the Independent and it is not to be grouped into the National Enquirer crowd. If this is true and, I am sad to say, I am finding it harder and harder to disbelieve anything I see around our war crimes in Iraq then we will be paying for these crimes until the end of time.

The quote from the American soldier sure has the ring of truth...

"I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete.

"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."

A telling paragraph in the article is the following:

In December the US government formally denied the reports, describing them as "widespread myths". "Some news accounts have claimed that US forces have used 'outlawed' phosphorus shells in Fallujah," the USinfo website said. "Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. US forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes.

This kind of double talk is typical of Pentagon misinformation. It admits that white phosphorus was used but for illunination which will discount any direct evidence of its use in theatre. If evidence of its use against combatants or civilians is presented then they can use the old collateral damage dodge.
I don't want to even think that we used this horrible weapon against other human beings. I'll reserve my judgement until I see more independent verification but somehow I get the sense that there is some flavor of the truth here.
How sad.

Gropinator Land

Sorry for the quiet here but it has been a busy weekend. Off to Sunnyvale on the other coast tomorrow morning for another week. Should be the last trip until December when we will take the application live. Rumor has it that I will be somewhere in Tennessee the week after but only rumor so far, though I was told not to make flight reservations for Indianapolis for week after. Something is in the wind. They'll wait until the last minute to tell me and then complain because I didn't get the best airline fare.

If you haven't or don't read the comments here there is one you should read on the previous post. It's by a another blogger Kristie of Just Venting. She is a perfect example of the type of people who will be hurt by the " make believe we are fiscally responsible" assholes in the Congress. Everything that they are doing to "save money" is a bad joke that will hurt real people. The real budget problems such as the Medicare Drug Benefit, war, defense etc. are not being touched. God forbid that that bridge in Alaska that goes nowhere be put on the back burner just so some stupid American babies won't be malnourished. Halliburton Forbid!

No Child Left Hungry

I was being snarky, or trying to be, in my last post. The cuts coming down the pipe are going to be disastrous for the low and middle class in this country. I'm talking about the people that have a job (or two or three) and are still just one or two missed paychecks from ruin.
A quick look at the "opportunities" for the working poor that are coming up courtesy of our Rethuglican lovers is a clear demonstration that these folks don't give a damn about the poor children in this country and by all evidence would just as soon see them dead.

Congressional Budget Office says:
The upcoming food stamp cuts in the House measure would cut almost 300,000 people off nutritional assistance, including 70,000 legal immigrants.

About 40,000 children are going to lose eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunches.

Another $5 billion would be saved by a scale back of federal administrative aid to state child-support enforcement programs. Translation: Less child support for those that need it most.

Another House provision rolls back a court-ordered expansion of foster care support and denies foster care payments to relatives who take in children removed from their parents' homes by court order. This provision reduces the foster care coverage for to about 4,000 children a month.

While I have been lucky to always have food on the table I have experienced personally the reality that I am one of the lucky ones. I dare say a million children in this country go to bed hungry at least one night a week and these new measures passed by the Republicans are going to insure that this number goes up dramatically.

These assholes are passing "broad brush" laws to try and trim a few dollars here or there so that they can kill more Iraqis or other brown skinned people to be named later. Hello folks but the public defense budget for the coming year is 500 billion dollars. They are so concerned that some poor mother is getting an extra few dollars of milk money that they are ready to kill the whole system.

Yeah, I know there is a war on blah, blah, blah. but defense spending now repents over 50% of the government's discretionary spending. This is not chump change.

Update: 11/5 at 0830: Fixed typos.

Update II 11/5 at 0900 : Firedoglake is on this as well and there are some excellent comments.

Brilliant Idea

The Rethuglican Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, wants to spend 8 billion dollars to build a 2000-mile fence between the United States and Mexico:

Mr Hunter's plan for the fence envisages a dual-layer construction equipped with electric sensors stretching from the Pacific Ocean across to the Gulf of Mexico.

The events of 9/11 convinced him that his plan was necessary, Mr. Hunter said:

He said that the lessons of 11 September 2001 taught Americans that immigration was a national issue that required national solutions.

This plan is brilliant, an inspired GOP stroke of genius. How else were we going to use some of that 54 billion dollars we have stripped from food stamps,Medicaid, student loans, agriculture subsidies and child support enforcement? Hell we can probably fund the whole thing from the money we are stripping out of Medicaid and Medicare.

Now that you mention it, and with all that money we will have, we should just go ahead and build a fence across the Canadian border as well. Those Canadians are just as likely to be hiding terroists and other people who don't like us. Don't forget that Canadians are just as capable of taking good jobs aways from Americans as the Mexicans are. Damn straight.
The fence across the Canadian border would have one more big benefit and that would be to keep those cowards that don't want to fight for the democracy in Iraq down here in the lower 48 where we can get to them.

I like it! It's direct and forceful. Guaranteed to keep out foreigners. Create some jobs. What's not to like?

Don't Want to See It

OK here are the latest numbers from the CBS Poll

The question asked is:
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"

The overall approval comes out at 35% but when you look at the breakdown of responses between the Repubs and Demos you get quite a spread.

Among Republicans the approval is 77% approve and 19% disapprove and for Dems the numbers are 11% approve and 83% disapprove. Independents come in at 31% approves and 56% disapprove.

Just what in the hell does Bush and compancy have to do to make Republicans disapprove of his job performance. Think about it. Can you even envision the disaster that this country will have to be before the Republicans wake up and actually disapprove of Bush's performance. While I can't quite get my head around such a gruesome picture, just pondering sends shudders up my spine.

I don't know about you but I never want to see the Republican approval numbers below 50% because that will mean roving bands of storm troopers are moving through the country randomly killing small children and anyone of color.

Pile On!

ME in the comments over at Firedoglake has started a media campaign and I think it is an excellent idea. I will do my part tonight after I finish the day with the client. Below is the complete text of the comment over at Firedoglake. If any of you have some time and participate in any part of the campaign it will help. There is "blood in the water' and we cannot allow the MSM or the Bush Cabal to stifle the momentum.

[snip]

I have been working today on getting the message out. It's a lot of work, but it is worth it. I have collected some MSM and right wing media emails, and some direct links to online forms.

I have been using the statement from Senator Reid as the base text. I have been adding a header with a comment/opinion, pasting in the text, then putting my full name, addy, and phone at the end. The Reid text can be copied from the link below:

http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8021806/ #152806

Below are two on-line forms for USA Today and the Christian Science Monitor:

http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin...in/ contactus.pl
http://asp.usatoday.com/marketin...ne.aspx? type=18

List of valid email addresses:

editor@weeklystandard.com
Foxnewsonline@foxnews.com
comments@foxnews.com
letters@amconmag.com
letters@nationalreview.com
letters@nytimes.com
letters@washpost.com
letters@latimes.com
letters@cnn.com
letters@newsweek.com
letters@msnbc.com
viewerservices@msncb.com

Please take time and complete the "No More Pardons" form to be presented by the Hon. John Conyers if you have not already done so:

http://johnconyers.com/index.asp...7ECB674DE91D% 7D

You should also take a minute and contact your local and state representives. I have been sending them all the same message:

http://www.senate.gov/general/ co...enators_cfm.cfm

http://www.house.gov/

Some Senators need special attention (ADD/ADHD kids ya know, they don't want to hear)

Bill Frist:
http://frist.senate.gov/ index.cf...ist.ContactForm

Pat Roberts:
http://roberts.senate.gov/e-mail...e- mail_pat.html

Rick Santorum:
http://santorum.senate.gov/ conta...contactform.cfm

(add you favorite gooper target here)

And then the good guys, send em some love ;)

"Give em hell Harry" Reid:
http://reid.senate.gov/email_form.cfm

Richard Durbin did a great job today:
http://durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm

I am going to be reposting this on a fairly regular basis... Please don't get upset. Everybody should take a few minutes (or more) and help get the message out. You can't expect government to work from the top down, and this message will have to be _beaten_ into the MSM. It's up to us.

Thoughtful Voices

Got some sad news when I checked on the Adgitadiaries blog this morning. MandT have decided to end their contibutions to the blogospehere. While I am not privy to their reasons for going quiet I am sure they are reasoned and sincere.
They have been a regular visitor and contributor to the comments and I appreciated all the input. I hope they continue to stop by and contribute but if nothing else let us all know how they are doing.

While we haven't been as diligent in supporting them as we should have been we are very sad to hear that their thoughful and meaningful contributions will end. I just want them to know that if they feel the urge to blog this space will always be available. An email is all that is required [the.fallenmonk at gmail dot com].

Additionally, I would love to have an email contact as well and if they would share that at the above email I would be most honored and I will reciprocate with my "real life" email.

Here is hoping that they reconsider their decision to go silent and we get the opportunity to hear from them via some vehicle.

Much Love and Peace guys.

Harry's Showing His Colors

Well! I thought this was going to be a slow week for news after all the excitement of last week. Walk in to my hotel room this evening and turn on CNN and see Hary Reid giving Bill Frist a shellacing big time. Don't have time to get all the details right now but from what I can see Harry is finally forcing the Senate to take up it's contitutionally mandated role to provide oversight to the executive branch I hope this is the beginning of the much needed transition back to a clear separtation of powers.
Go Harry. This is exciting.

Quiet Week Here

Probably be a quiet week here since I don't have Internet access except at night in the hotel. Raining here in the "Heartland" so not much walking around and scouting the territory. Not as big a place as I expected. A few tall buildings but not a metropolis by any measure. Hotel is right downtown by the dome so if the weather improves and I can escape maybe I can get a few pictures.
Everyone have a great day.