Worse Than Walter Reed?

"Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready". ---By Mark Benjamin, Salon.com

Apparently this little statistical game was played so that Bush could have his 21,000-man “surge”. But because more than 21,000 were needed, some of those unfit for service were magically declared fit after all and sent off to Iraq.

"In an interview for the Salon report earlier this month, Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the commander of the 3rd Brigade, did not dispute that injured troops were being deployed, but insisted they would be put in safe noncombat jobs once they were in Iraq" (emphasis added).






"it's just a flesh-wound, soldier! So get your ass into gear and report for duty, on the double!!"

Add this to the Walter Reed scandal.
And the reclassifying of injuries to reduce veterans’ benefits scandal.
And the unarmored Humvee scandal.
And the not-enough body-armor scandal.
And the not-enough bullets scandal.
And the not-securing 477 tons of explosives scandal.
And the Pat Tillman scandal.
And the Jessica Lynch scandal (and don’t forget Shoshanna)
And the Abu Ghraib scandal.
And the Haditha scandal.
And the shooting and bombing of non-US journalists scandal.
And Rumsfeld’s automated bereavement letters scandal.
And the air-freighting of the dead as baggage scandal.
And the KBR contaminated water for the troops scandal.
And the waiving of normal recruitment standards scandal.
And the not–enough troops in the first place scandal.
And the invasion-on-false-pretenses scandal.

"Pete Geren, the acting Army secretary, told a Senate panel on March 14 that the Army would investigate the injured soldiers' claims that their medical records were modified at Fort Benning in February in order for them to be sent to Iraq. House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. The Army inspector general has also launched a probe. It remains unclear if any of those probes will also look into injured soldiers being sent to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in January."

Meanwhile the GOP and Bush are insisting that they “support the troops” whilst the Democrats are somehow undermining their effectiveness.

This shit has got to stop, and the only way to do that is to bring the troops home now and then put all the Army bureaucrats, GOP politicians and administration officials involved on trial.

Lies, Shoots and Leaves

Republicans and their political conservative allies in the media have an interesting relationship with words, don’t you think? It’s as though every week they learn to say a new word without learning what the word actually means.

For instance, when the Democrats introduced a bill insisting that the US should see some tangible strategic progress from the use of American tax-dollars in Iraq—the Republicans called it “micromanaging the war”.

There’s nothing in the Democrats’ bill about firing generals because they want realistic numbers of troops, or appointing an ambassador to personally write Iraqi traffic laws, or requiring troops to keep painting schools that kids can’t attend for fear of being kidnapped or killed, or any demands that interviews with soldiers be scripted and rehearsed. That sort of thing would strike me as micromanagement.

What about the phrase “Global War on Terror?”
Terror is an emotion, global means the whole world, war is an armed conflict; but the US military is engaged in armed conflict in just two relatively nearby countries (comprising 1/148th of the global landmass an 1/500th of the world’s surface area) against forces that might number 30,000. The GWOT then is hardly a “global war” and it certainly isn’t combating terror, let alone terrorism (which, being a tactic, is a hard thing to have a war with too). It should come as no surprise then that if the description of the policy makes no sense, neither should the policy itself.

What about “accepting full responsibility”? Saying these words is apparently all that’s required to absolve a Republican of any moral, professional or legal transgression large or small, even after weeks of adamant claims of innocence, denials of self-incriminating evidence and false counter-accusations of their critics. For some reason responsibility means something quite different to ordinary citizens.

Of course the constant distortion and outright misuse of words by Republicans and their conservative supporters may be mistaken, but it is no “mistake”.
It is a strategy long employed by GOP staff specifically devoted to crafting and testing new uses for words and phrases that will help sell policy as product, where the packaging is paramount, regardless of the products’ merits or flaws and the ‘pitch’ is then distributed with instructions to the salespeople who sell the package without consideration of the contents.

It’s not that they promote the good and minimize the bad of the product they are selling, they simply totally misrepresent their “product”: The “Clean Air Act” was NOT designed to produce cleaner air.
Invading Iraq and killing Saddam Hussein was supposed to eliminate the supposedly global threat he posed—yet having accomplished that leaving Iraq would pose a greater global threat? Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff were completely innocent until they weren’t just proven guilty but admitted their guilt. In literally every aspect of policy and action the Republicans have lied about their motives, their actions and have even lied about their lies.

And whenever they are caught, they claim ignorance, memory loss and inadvertent illiteracy.
In any other job or circumstance these Republican pundits and politicians would be fired, imprisoned, remitted to counseling and professional care or locked-up as being criminally negligent or insane or for being a danger to themselves and to the public at the least for not knowing the difference between right and wrong or being able to distinguish reality from fantasy.

But instead they are allowed to lie, to shoot their mouths off and leave the consequences of their actions behind for everyone else. They lie about their motivations; they shoot their opponents and then leave without concomitant consequences.

And they do all this with words they don’t understand and refuse to understand. As the saying goes " a little learning is a dangerous thing"; Republicans and their conservative compatriots almost without exception clearly have very little learning, and as the rest of us have learned. it has proven and continues to be, a very dangerous thing.

Brits Fail To Bomb Manchester For London Bombing

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260450,00.html

British police arrested three suspects in Manchester. England, today for theri suspected role in the 7/7 undergrounf bombings.
Although Tony Blair has been such a steadfast "with" guy instead of an "against" guy why hasn't he bombed Manchester for harboring terrorists--isn't that what George Bush would have wanted? After all, isn't suspicion the standard of proof these days?

If the UK really is our best ally in the GWOT they have to stand up to their responsibilites and bomb the crap out of their own country. Only then will the US stand down and only then will terrorists be not-emboldened .

Operation Iraqi Freedom--The TV War 4 Years On

When the OIF show was first pitched it had everything the executives wanted.

It had colorful characters: a clean-shaven all-American everyman with a mysterious past, a mysterious marriage and 2.2 children, forced by tragedy to confront his demons and become a leader. His loyal friends and advisors; an emotionally crippled mentor with a heart condition, a maverick former wrestler with a unique grasp of logic, a political wonk with a brain as big as a football, and a college-educated black woman whose immobile hairdo belied her true passions.

It had a compelling plot: Together this rag-tag group, thrown together as if by the ineffable hand of destiny, would confront none-other than the latest mustachioed iteration of Satan himself (Hitler and Stalin being the previous two, with Castro relegated to minion status on account of the beard) in an epic battle between a nuclear-armed unelected president allied with religious extremists bent on world domination and a nuclear-armed unelected president allied with religious extremists bent on world domination for freedom!

Even as the writers were still polishing the script, marketing directors were working feverishly behind the scenes developing “buzz”. The security surrounding the plot was unprecedented; the details of how the story would unfold were unknown even to the director and executive producer, let alone the cast! But despite the security, everyone involved in the project couldn’t contain their enthusiasm and let a few details slip, which only whetted the appetites of a ravenous press.

Technical advisor Don Rumsfeld (who played himself in the show until recently) down-played rumors that OIF might have “legs” when he said in a pre-premiere interview that OIF “will last six days…six weeks…I doubt six months”.
But he also spoke of known knowns and unknown unknowns and unknown knowns and known unknowns so convincingly that neither industry insiders nor outsiders could know what Rumsfeld or anyone else actually knew about OIF.

Though the premiere was scheduled for March 20th 2003 the OIF executive producers, in a clever marketing move no doubt inspired by Orson Welles’ infamous War Of the World’s radio broadcast, interrupted ‘scheduled” broadcasting a day early, resulting in a huge ratings bonanza as OIF debuted with spectacular special effects and gritty hand- held footage that only added to the immediacy and excitement of the script.

What was considered a risky project by some industry observers had become a “slam dunk” for the OIF team as, what was supposed to be the final episode of this miniseries—the hero’s landing on an aircraft carrier with a stars-and-stripes “Mission Accomplished”—scored such high ratings that the networks scrambled to offer open-ended contracts to develop and produce new shows every week and unusually with no attempts to change the cast, crew, scriptwriters or producers.

Four years later those concessions to not change a good thing appear in retrospect a bad thing. Production costs rose beyond all expectations whilst the formerly impressive special effects became mundane and rote. Dialog became wooden and plots recycled endlessly. New blood was used in the supporting cast but the old blood at the top began to coagulate and dry and become crusty stains that no amount of Tide could dislodge.

The writers and producers it seems were seduced by their sudden stardom and abandoned their respective crafts: producers have to spend money wisely to put product on the screen and deliver buying audiences, and the writers have to engage the audience with human interest, personal conflict, sympathetic characters that advance the plot, a few moments of victory and ultimately a happing ending.

Instead the script denied the audience the necessary personal connections; the hero never went into battle against overwhelming odds; his buddies never forced him to look inside himself for the fortitude required for him to become what he so desperately needed to become; no hard-bitten principal player rescued a nervous kid, nor did any of the crusty career soldiers turned generals get reminded by a raw recruit of the reason they were fighting and dying.
And as for the inevitable ‘mavericks’, there seemed to be a hell of a lot more psychos raping and killing civilians than those befriending the locals; and any stealing wasn’t from the PX or borrowing from other units to get some home-comforts in the middle of a war or to circumvent military bureaucracy to get the equipment needed to “get the job done”, it was stealing piles of money in the knowledge that they wouldn’t get caught .

OIF practically debuted as a “cult” show, but unlike other cult shows OIF doesn’t even have enough fans to maintain midnight syndication, let alone a new series.
OIF “jumped the shark” with the introduction of the Paul Bremer character and OIF’s spin-off “W.R.” (Walter Reed) is beyond even Michael Crichton’s skills.

It’s definitely time this series was taken off the air.

Conservapedia : What Liberals Don't Want You To Know!

Back in the day when God created America as His Kingdom on Earth, everything a child needed to know about the world and his place in it was taught to him by a devout man equipped only with the Bible, a leather belt and if necessary a dark, splintery closet.

But in the early 20th Century hordes of godless communist euro-trash invaded Americas purple majesty, solicited by a giant French whore loitering around the docks of New York City (the east-coast’s San Francisco). These immigrants brought with them social diseases like diversity and satanic tools of science that have ultimately resulted in all the temptations of the intertubes, of which the most abominable in the sight of our Lord is Wikipedia—make that WickedPedia!.

Every True Christian knows about “The Tower of Babel” wherein a bunch of Arabs cooperated to challenge God but were righteously thwarted when God cursed them with languages other than English, thus preventing the tower from being built.

And what is Wickedpedia but another cooperative that denies God as the source of all things by making up their own self-regulating ‘laws’?
Worse than that, and not content with killing Christian babies, liberal fascists are actively recruiting children, through Wickedpedia’s demonic texts, to create a new world order based on unholy ‘facts’ and satanic peer-review.

Now if these were the good old days, God could just do what he did to the Babel builders, but Satan’s minions have developed language translation software so the old method of restoring God-given chaos to show who’s really in charge just won’t work. Besides as the Bible clearly shows and the last 2000 years of history prove. God did all the heavy-lifting in The Beginning (Genesis) and ever since it’s been up to His sheep to finish His work (which explains a lot really, when you think about it).

So with the clear guidance of the Bible, Christian conservatives have embarked on a crusade to reclaim God’s Truth by turning the Devil’s tools against him in creating God’s own holy Wiki-site—the Conservapedia!

Not only is Conservapedia a tool that tells you what to think, it also has a feature that lets you study what it tells you to think, called StudyConservepedia!

Here’s what an anonymous group of anonymous Christian children wrote to explain it all to you:

“Have you ever dreamed of the ultimate tool for studying history? Have you ever wished for a way to learn that is more fun? Well, here at Conservapedia, we have found it!”

(Actually I thought the Bible was the ultimate tool for studying history, but as our personal Saviour said; “judge not lest ye be judged” so I guess I better keep my pie-hole shut).

“The method of learning that StudyConservapedia utilizes was developed by the teacher and home schooled students of the world history class in northern New Jersey that put together this website. Students studied for half the year using this system. When the mid-term exam finally came the students who had put in extra effort with this system got among the highest scores in the class!”

(See, if you study extra-hard for half a year some of you will get better than average home-school scores! )

Anyway, with the StudyConservapedia system now fully explained why don’t we just dive in to the fantastic world of Conservative knowledge that is Conservapedia and see if we can’t find all kinds of things we can agree upon, for fear of otherwise going to Hell!

(I’ve appended some helpful notes--in brackets like this-- to the selected Conservapedia entries for those unfamiliar with actually comprehending God–approved texts on their own. And by the way, though I've added emphses here and there, all the excerpts below exactly as I found them on Conservapedia this weekend--I am not kidding.)

Ah, here’s something that’s been worrying Christians since dinosaurs ruled the Earth—Dinosaurs! Eeek!

(I’m kidding of course about “ruling the Earth”; they never did that! God ruled the earth and Adam had dominion over plants and animals—though not over his own sinful loins, apparently, but Eve did lead him-on, so Adam’s excused…anywhoo, let’s not dwell on that shall we? Let’s get back to the subject at hand…

Dinosaur: They [Scientists] claim the fossil evidence supports their beliefs. However, there are a number of lines of evidence that point to dinosaurs and man coexisting. For example, trained scientists have reported seeing a live dinosaur...

(Christian fact: Untrained scientists never see live dinosaurs!)

...Of those Christians who reject evolution, the Young Earth Creationists believe, based primarily on Biblical sources, but also drawing on archeological and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the Creation Week...

(Note the warning! Of those Christians who reject evolution—implying that there are some Christians who accept evolution! The author probably means Unitarians but Conservapedia contributors prefer not to resort to name-calling.)

Take, for instance, the entirely God-created Plesiosaur

Plesiosaurs:-- According to creation scientists, who use the Bible, plesiosaurs were created on the fifth day of the Creation Week

(You won’t find Plesiosaurs in the Bible because that’s not what God called them back then. In fact he made so many of them he didn’t have time to name them—that was Adam’s job and he forgot, thanks to that slut Eve.
Oh, and ignore the apparent discrepancy about whether dinosaurs were created on the 5th or 6th day of creation—that’s untrained scientist thinking! Besides, a Plesiosaur may be a Dinosaur, but a Dinosaur is clearly not a Plesiosaur! God said so, and you can’t argue with Him!)

But that’s enough about things that definitely happened 6000 years ago, what about history not important enough to be in the Bible but that we are forced to know by those secular elitist liberal professors Bill O’Reilly and John Podhoretz are always on about? Well that stuff is covered too, just enough to fool the liberals into thinking they are winning!

History:-- 3500 B.C. began with copper tools, then 2500 B.C. superior bronze tools, then 1200 B.C. superior iron tools. (Entire article)

(And that’s all you need to know, because that’s the entire Conservapedia article, and if it’s good enough for God, then it’s good enough for me!)

Of course there’s more to Conservapedia than just important information about how the Bible confirms everything trained scientists already know.

There are all sorts of other subjects that Conservapedia explains in ways that other encyclopedias simply fail to match, that are fun and easy to learn! Examples?
How about…

The Atlantic Charter:-- The Atlantic Charter was a declaration for free trade and self-determination. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Minister Winston Churchill met in the Atlantic Ocean on August 1941 in order to begin to plan for peace after the conclusion of World War II. (Entire article)

Done! Next?

Beowulf:--Beowulf the Dane is a character in Beowulf who shares a name with the hero of the poem. (Entire article)

(The hero with whom Beowulf shares his name, which would be Beowulf of course, isn’t important because the main character is Beowulf, not Beowulf. Okay? Okay! Moving on…)

What about modern mythological characters…like Tony Blair?

Tony Blair:--Tony Blair is the British Prime Minister. He belongs to a socialist party[1]. (Entire article)

What else is there to say, really? But if you must learn about the evils of socialism rather than just accepting that socialism is evil, click on the “socialist” link and you will learn this:

Socialism: Socialist parties are extremely common in Europe, even Tony Blair belongs to a socialist party. (Entire article)

If you then click on the Tony Blair link, it will take you back to…Tony Blair, who belongs to a socialist party and must therefore be evil (unlike not-Prime Minister Winston Churchill who spent an entire August treading water in the middle of the Atlantic with ‘FR’ as they planned the aftermath of a war the US wasn’t fighting—see The Atlantic Charter above).

Speaking of godless political trends like socialism, what does Conservapedia have to say about something no one has ever heard-of, like Realpolitik?

Realpolitik: Realpolitik is politics based on reality, which was an approach popularized by Otto von Bismarck in putting together the German nation in the years leading up to 1871. (Entire article)

(Why should you care about this apparently pointless subject? Well consider this: Whilst it took Bismarck from 3500 BC (the years leading up to 1871, when non-Biblical history started—see above) to 1871 to make reality-based politics popular, it took the anointed George Bush only six Republican years to de-popularize reality-based politics, just as God took six Creation Days to make the world! Coincidence? I think not!)

Which brings us to the measurement of historical time…

Centuries:--In the Roman army, small groups of eighty to one hundred men. (Entire article).

(Although there’s no link to Roman in this article, Romans are famous for two things; being terrible with numbers but making trains run on-time (see above) and crumbling architecture. But in their favor they are against contraception and s-e-x, which leads us unnaturally to… )

HPV: ....alternative means of protection against this cancer include the inexpensive pap-smear and abstinence

(See? An abortion will give you cancer, BUT a pap-smear is as foolproof as abstinence--all you have to do is throw away the pap and you're cured of HPV! You'll still be a slut, though.)
But speaking of smears, here’s a thoroughly researched article about Big Oil you can use against anti-business big-government lefty environmentofascists that will make their heads explode!

Big Oil:--Despite criticism from socialist liberals who wish to abolish the use of gasoline, Big Oil has an exceptional environmental track record, often repairing mistakes quickly before they can become disasters. Big Oil has also proven valuable in funding independant scientists[7] who are able to dispute the propaganda behind Global warming without worrying about losing their government or academic funding due to liberal reprisals. Though, it appears now even Big Oil is aknowledging the reality of man's effect on climate [8][9]

(Praise be! Now that could have been written by Neil Cavuto himself!)

And best of all whilst you are learning how to be a better Christian from Conservapedia, you can make other people better Christians too, by submitting an article yourself!

Get your entire home-school involved and then all three of you can copy things from approved sources like Karl Rove or Pat Robertson’s speeches or John Gibson’s “My Word” column or even borrow some of Ann Coulter’s hilarious jokes (liberals claim conservatives aren’t funny, so proving them wrong will be loads of fun) to create your very own article with real words and phrases that conservative organizations use all the time and will happily send you, already written!

But don’t forget, Conservapedia isn’t just for learning, it’s also for attacking and crushing the liberal terrorist baby-killing propagandist Islaminazis who are trying to destroy America by using Wickedpedia to establish a gay communist Mexican science-worshiping new world order through it’s anti Christian-conservative “facts” .

As God said; “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Matthew 5.38).

By selecting our own Christian facts from the Bible--because when the Bible was written scientists weren’t even alive so how can they disprove anything?—and by using the 21st Century technology of we will be able to redefine reality not as liberals want it to be, but as God intended it to be. before the evil inventions of science and facts and gay’s, when all the world was flat and Christian and children played with real live dinosaurs—just like the Bible says.

Al-Halliburton?

The AP reports this Sunday that Halliburton is moving its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai, chief executive Dave Lesar announced Sunday.”

This is of course the same Halliburton that government investigations have determined overcharged and wasted at least $2.7 billion of taxpayer’s money through it’s KBR subsidiary that still “supports” the US military in Iraq, but still made profits of $2.6 billion last year alone.

And this is of course is the same Dubai that the US public and most of the Congress didn’t want managing and operating US ports because of national security concerns.

“I will spend the majority of my time in Dubai" said Lesar.

It should come as a shock to no one that from heron on out the only possible US corporate taxes Halliburton might pay will be confined to the Houston sub-office.
Mr Lesar, his staff and his company may also enjoy another benefit of moving to Dubai-- the US does not have an extradition treaty or a mutual legal assistance treaty with the UAE.

But with Halliburton moving to Dubai, doesn’t that then make it a foreign company and thus subject to concomitant examination and restrictions regarding US tax and tariff codes, and of course government contracts? Or have they found a way to evade that too, as they seem to have everything else?

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Constitution

What is the biggest threat facing the US public?

Osama Bin Laden? Al-Qaeda? Islamic Terrorists? Sponge-Bob SquarePants? Mexicans? Liberals? Gays? Hillary Clinton? Global Warning? Apathy? Ignorance? The MSM? Drugs? Obesity? Bloggers? Bush? Cheney?

To quote the crustiest, angriest talking-head on television (McLlaughlin): WRONG!

It is Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez; our own 21st Century Torquemada, Cardinal Richelieu and Machiavelli all rolled into one.

Whilst George Bush and Dick Cheney have ignored the US Constitution, Gonzalez has been shredding it.
Whilst Bush and Cheney have ignored the law, Gonzalez has been re-writing it.

According to Gonzalez the office of the President (as occupied by George Bush) wields supreme executive power. And thus as the appointed premier “legal authority” of King George, Gonzalez wields supreme legal authority.

When George used the newly-coined phrase “enemy combatant” Gonzalez made it a ‘legal’ term defined solely by the President, to be used exclusively by him. Gonzalez overturned by fiat the US’s legal obligations to the “quaint” Geneva conventions. Without review he re-defined torture as the equivalent to the distress or actual fact of organ failure.
He determined that any law passed by congress could be nullified by the President with a post-it note. Gonzalez has also consistently claimed that his opinions and actions may be revealed to the public or obscured from examination according to his own private judgment which for reasons of self-appointed executive privilege he insists he is not obliged to reveal.

In August of 2006, whilst the public interest was directed to global warming, Joe Lieberman’s political schizophrenia, Israel’s collective military punishment of Lebanon, Mel Gibson’s drunken rant, George Allen’s macaca slur and so on, Gonzalez’s DOJ was busy firing eight state prosecutors for no justifiable reasons.

No matter how powerful you think you are, it’s always best to deliver bad news on Fridays or avoid public notice by appointing unqualified political cronies or conducting political purges in August.

Some six months on, the DOJ’s purge has come to the attention of, yes the Democrats.
Gonzalez has claimed that the prosecutors were fired for “performance” issues. Yet Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) showed that one of those fired, Carol Lam (of San Diego, CA) had received, in August, a favorable performance review from the DOJ.

David Iglesias, State Attorney for New Mexico was also fired for “performance” reasons but as TPMuckraker reports (theyhave been all over this issue):

“… the statistics kept by the Federal Judiciary don't reflect an inability for Iglesias' office to move more quickly on cases -- in fact, quite the opposite. In 2001, when Iglesias took over, the data (pdf) shows a median of 4.6 months for a criminal case in the New Mexico office to move from filing to disposition (dismissal, guilty plea, or trial). In 2005, that time had dwindled to 3.7 months.

And that's a time when Iglesias' office was increasingly snowed under by more cases. His office opened 1,548 criminal cases in 2001; in 2005, the office opened 2,915.

So Iglesias' office was opening more cases and handling them faster than his predecessor. Maybe that's why he received a positive performance evaluation? “

Seattle, Arkansas, Nevada. Arizona have also lost their state attorney’s by the same ‘process’ in the same timeframe and for the same ‘reasons’.

As the House continues to conduct it’s hearings on this matter Gonzalez’s response has been that the attorney’s dismissals “could have been handled better”.
In other words the problem is not that these attorneys were fired based on trumped-up charges of poor performance, but that firing them during August with a major international conflict raging to distract the public from domestic issues simply didn’t provide Gonzalez’s DOJ enough cover to prevent their insupportable actions from going un-noticed.

In itself this purge is bad enough, and Gonzalez’s lame excuses and obfuscation typical. But what is really going on? The geographic distribution of this purge seems rather specific—Washington, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada; Arkansas is the “odd man out” in this regard.

Now take what you know about Gonzalez (as I crudely summarized in my fifth paragraph) and add that to this attorney purge. Then bear in mind Bush and Cheney’s political standing at the moment and combine that with the current view of Republicans and their policies. And then add this:

"The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned.
That proposal surfaced Wednesday in a private meeting during which U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, tried to convince industry representatives such as AOL and Comcast that data retention would be valuable in investigating terrorism, child pornography and other crimes
[-]
Only universities and libraries would be excluded, one participant said. "There's a PR concern with including the libraries, so we're not going to include them," the participant quoted the Justice Department as saying. "We know we're going to get a pushback, so we're not going to do that."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been lobbying Congress for mandatory data retention, calling it a "national problem that requires federal legislation." Gonzales has convened earlier private meetings to pressure industry representatives. And last month, Republicans introduced a mandatory data retention bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would let the attorney general dictate what must be stored and for how long."

I think it’s fair to conjecture from past and current actions that Gonzalez is, as discreetly as possible, using his position to subvert the foundations of US law and constitutional government. Whilst he has the power he is ensuring that Bush, Cheney and the entire neocon cabal, including himself, are rendered immune from investigation, let alone prosecution. He twisting the law to serve himself and his colleagues and to suppress the rights and options of the public to determine their own governance and he is doing so in private.

Bush and Cheney can take the public heat until 2008 whilst Gonzalez functions as the faithful lieutenant, manipulating the system to preserve their comfortable and unassailed retirement which Gonzalez himself will also enjoy.

Those who believe in the rule of law and the primacy of the Constitution will feel obliged to uphold them as they reverse their abuses by Bush, Gonzalez who in turn will then, as they already have done, use the very same articles and principles they have abandoned and perverted, to defend themselves and avoid all accountability for their actions and their crimes.

Bush and Cheney will leave office (not soon enough, but soon) but Gonzalez is quietly ensuring that the rights and privileges they have illegally claimed will continue, whilst the public’s rights and privileges will continue to be denied.

Bush and Cheney have crippled America, but Gonzalez is poised to strike the killing blow. It is he, not Bush or Cheney who is the biggest threat this country faces.

Why Wait? The People Have The Power Of The Purse

The power of purse doesn’t just lie with the Congress, but with the tax-payer.

If on April the 15th the public filed income-tax extensions to delay the continued funding of policies with which the majority do not agree, and by which they do not benefit, then perhaps our government might finally act to satisfy the will of the people whom they are constitutionally, morally and legally bound to serve.

Why wait for 2008?

Now, I fully realize that the government isn't living from paycheck to paycheck (every April 15th) and plenty of people count on their refunds.

Deferring income-tax payments until August wouldn't change a damn thing. But the act of doing so, en-masse, as a protest, might keep the pressure on this profligate administration and provide further ammunition for the Democrats who are being stymied by an evenly split Senate in their efforts to end the Iraq occupation.

It wouldn't be an exercise in power, but perhaps in influence.

However, as brilliant as this idea is in theory, it has been brought to my attention that in may not be practical. Trouble is a hell of a lot of people simply can't afford to follow this suggestion.
Still, for those who can, why not?
And besides even if it is a stupid, impractical idea, so was the Iraq war and look at what an impression that made! If just the notion got some publicity, who knows what might happen ( hopefully nothing bad).

Perle's Lost Lustre

So there I was, face to face with the Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle.

According to my intelligence sources I’d have been justified in launching a unilateral strike in his ‘crotchal’ region, yelling “Whose your Baghdaddy now, bitch?!!!

But before I could act a nervous young man handed me his camera so that he, the only fan of Perle’s out of nearly 500 attendees, might have a memento of the day he met one of his heroes. He offered a paperback copy of one of Perle’s screeds for an autograph whilst I preserved the moment of political porn.

The dirty deed was done and then it was my turn.

Neuron’s fired chemo-electric charges across myriad synapses commanding my muscles into action and in the blinking of an eye I was shaking Perle’s hand and telling him “Good job!” and then he simply disappeared into the darkness from whence he came.

No, I wasn’t having a nightmare.

Perle was attending as a panelist in one of a series of town-hall discussions being conducted by PBS, anchored on its new documentary series America at a Crossroads which will air in April.
This particular event was hosted at DePaul University’s Merle Reskin Theater (under the auspices of DePaul’s Offic of Islamic Studies in conjunction with the Global Voices lecture series) in Chicago and I just happened to be helping-out.

Why, given the opportunity, didn’t I take Perle to task for his active promotion of a policy that has killed many thousands of innocents?--because it would have been pointless; my complaints would have fallen on deaf ears, and besides there was no need.

Perle did actually do a “good job” during the discussion and the question period. Maintaining his usual specious arguments, flawed logic and revisionist rhetoric he clearly demonstrated his inadequate intellect, willful ignorance and the bankruptcy of the neo-con philosophies and policies.

Although he has opined of late that his fellow neocons have mismanaged US policy he still maintains the absurd underlying neocon philosophy of an imperial, militarily aggressive America ultimately benefits the global community. And though he no longer officially advises on US policy his fellow neocons are still entrenched in positions of power and influence.
Having committed to several more appearances anchored on the PBS series in which he will invariably face skeptical audiences Perle has unwittingly begun to knot the rope with which he will ultimately hang himself (and by association condemn his fellows) in full view of the public.

So ultimately that’s why I shook his hand and encouraged him, instead of berating him or punching him in the face. He has chosen to step into the light, he will shrivel under it, and there will be no one to blame except himself. And we all get to watch.

Playing President

George Washington shakes hands with actor George Bush playing president, as the nation observes President's Day.

(Thanks to AP for the photo and Fox News for contributing to the caption).