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ATHENS, Greece - Iraqi soccer players reacted angrily Friday after being told that their nation's Olympic participation was mentioned in TV commercial by the re-election campaign for President Bush.


The players called on Bush to stop using them to win votes in the United States.

“Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,” midfielder Salih Sadir was quoted as saying. “He can find another way to advertise himself.”

“Our purpose is not to politicize the football team in any way,” Mark Clark, a consultant for the Iraqi Olympic Committee, said. “It seems the story was engineered.”
“It is a little naughty,” he said. “The players are not very sophisticated politically; they are a little naive. Whoever posed these questions knew that the reaction would be negative.

I'm guessing those soccer players just totally blew Clarks chance at getting an invite to the Ranch.

Another Iraqi player asked: “How will (Bush) meet his God having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes.”

Now that really is naive. Bush will meet his God with a bottle of bourbon and a ton of your oil money dude. And Mark Clark was going to to take you to the Ranch with him but no-o-o, you had to go and be naive.

“It is possible something was lost in translation. It’s a free, new Iraq, and the players are entitled to their opinions but we are disappointed.”

Iraq’s soccer players once lived in fear of Uday Hussein, son of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, who used to beat the soles of their feet or throw them in prison for slip-ups on the pitch.

Under current coach Adnan Hamd, they have defied the odds to reach the quarterfinals at the Athens Olympics, where they will play Australia on Saturday.

Hamd said, “The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?”

Abbas, the swimmer, finished his military service two weeks before the war began in March 2003. "Thanks to God," he said.

He was sitting in his family's home in a quiet section of Baghdad when the bombing began. No one he knew was killed or injured. When the war ended, he trained for one week in Iraq's Olympic-size indoor pool. But then, he said, U.S. soldiers took over the pool and he no longer could swim there. He attended the world championships in Barcelona without training, he said, and didn't get a chance to swim again until this February, when he moved to Canada. Clearly, this was not the preferred way to prepare for the Games.

I think Clark is probably right about something being "lost in translation" I think what was actually said was "FUCK NO! That lying, murdering, weaselly thief, Bush may not use as a campaign tool!" Really, I wonder how "whoever posed these questions knew that the reaction would be negative."

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This made me laugh

_____________________________________________________________________________________
I went to Joe's funeral this morning. It was nice.
Joe would have been proud to have Coach Ogelsby speak
for him. He did a good job. I feel bad for all the
people that would have liked to have been there but,
due to the lack of information in the press, didn't
know when or where.
I feel sad and, angry and, guilty but, a new feeling has
joined in. I feel defeated.
I know we can still defeat Bush. I have made lists of
the damage he has caused that need to be reversed
by the next administration. Now I know that some
damage can't be reversed.
I always knew it but now I know it in my soul.

___________________________________________________________________________________________
I started taking Joe to school when he was 6 years old. Circumstances separated us for a few years and then when he was 15 he started riding my bus again. He was still as sweet and gentle as he had been in 1st grade. Through high school, when his car was broke (which was most of the time), he would almost always sit up front and talk to me about what was going on and his plans. He didn't have it as easy as a lot of kids do but, I swear, he never complained and I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. He worked hard and did everything he needed to do to make a good life. I had all the hope for him and I'm sure his family did too.

No. 747-04
IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 5, 2004

DoD Identifies Marine Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, 22, of Stevensville, Mont., died Aug. 2 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, 30, of Milford, Mass., died Aug. 4 from injuries received from enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, 19, of Nicoma Park, Okla., died Aug. 4 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif.

19. He was 19. This is not right.

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Entry in G.W. Bush's personal Blog

July 8, 2004: "Another long day of speeches and fundraisers. Met with all these phony media company execs. Had to promise them some bill next term and shake a lot of stupid hands, but they did bring in two or three million or so. Whatever. Karl keeps a list. I got big laughs during my speech, so I'm happy."

Leave it The Onion

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Minister of Fear

___________________________________________________________________________________________
Mrs. Betty Bowers
America's Best Christian
explains Republican Paradoxes


The United States should get out of the United Nations because it is a useless institution that furthers anti-American policies. In the meantime, however, our national raison d'etre is spending thousands of lives and billions of dollars to enforce U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

Support for our troops is best shown by bumper stickers, festooning trees with yellow, ridiculing people who are sticklers for a justification for getting Marines killed, and using aircraft carriers and the enlisted as photogenic backdrops for partisan political opportunities. Cold, unsentimental cash, such as for veterans' benefits and combat pay, cheapens our affection for our brave boys and gals in uniform.

It is the coming together (marriage), not the rending apart (divorce) that is most likely to undermine a marriage. After all, the biggest threat to marriage is allowing people to do it.

Christ told us that if an enemy strikes us, we are required to forgive them and turn the other cheek. This is why savvy Christian nations work around Jesus' girly-man approach by preemptively attacking first.

If you want to provide the people of Iraq with health care, police, roads, sewers, a new power grid and education, irrespective of cost, you are a fiscally sound conservative. If, on the other hand, you want these same things for Americans, you are a tax-and-spend liberal.


Read the rest and much more here.

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Thanks for this Daisy!

How to start your week with a positive outlook:

1. Open a new file in your PC
2. Name it "George W. Bush" *
3. Send it to the trash
4. Empty the trash
5. Your PC will ask you: "Do you really want to get rid of George W. Bush?"
6. Answer calmly, "Yes" and press the mouse button

* Replace with the politician/public servant/football manager/tv presenter of your choice.

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Bush Finally Speaks the TRUTH.

Aug 6, 2004

US President Bush has told a roomful of top Pentagon brass that his administration would never stop looking for ways to harm the United States.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we," Bush said.
No one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted.

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Job Fair 2023

Texas educators are debating what will be taught in new sexual education textbooks for its high school students. The 15-member Texas Board of Education is considering and will likely approve four books, all of which extol the virtues of abstinence. Three make no mention of contraceptives at all while one makes passing reference to condoms.

The battle in Texas has national implications because the state is the second-biggest market for textbooks in the United States. Books approved by the state's school board are typically marketed nationally.
According to Centers for Disease Control figures, Texas has been among the top five states in the country for teen-age pregnancies for several years.
When he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush pushed for an abstinence-based sexual education curriculum. He raised his concerns to a national level when he said in this year's State of the Union address: ''We will double federal funding for abstinence programs, so schools can teach this fact of life: Abstinence for young people is the only certain way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.''

If approved, the texts are likely to appear in classrooms in August 2005 -- where they could be the standard text for about 10 years.
Local school districts are not required to use one of the new books but they receive state funding to buy them if they do.

Why bother? Let's save the money and don't teach any sex ed at all. While we're at it, let's have Good Shepherd Catholic School devise the curriculum for everyone. Look at it this way, with the baby boom that is sure to come, there'll be enough workers to support Social Security when we need it. Of course there will have to be jobs......

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(CBS) During California's rolling blackouts, when streets were lit only by head lights and families were trapped in elevators, Enron Energy traders laughed, reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.

One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so f----d. They should just bring back f-----g horses and carriages, f-----g lamps, f-----g kerosene lamps."

Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win.

"It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay Secretary of Energy," says one Enron worker.

That didn't happen, but they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices.

(Well, it didn't officially happen.
Invoking executive privilege, Vice President Dick Cheney refuses to disclose details of meetings he held last year with Enron officials.)

"When this election comes Bush will f------g whack this s--t, man. He won't play this price-cap b------t."

Crude, but true.

"We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse and that's why I oppose price caps," said Mr. Bush on May 29, 2001.

Both the Justice Department and Enron tried to prevent the release of these tapes. Enron's lawyers argued they merely prove "that people at Enron sometimes talked like Barnacle Bill the Sailor."

I don't know about Barnacle Bill but they certainly speak the language of the vice-president. Not a sailor, a raping, thieving, murdering pirate.

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In the race for the U.S. Senate the GOP runs one of it's
nuttiest cases in Oklahoma. Tom Coburn.
Tom doesn't believe in his own spirit and would have deprived his Grandmother of the right to choose after she was raped.

He was greatly helped by the television ads purchased by Club for Growth.(The Club for Growth is a self described extremist organization who have vowed to take on John Kerry's centrist message to create jobs, provide health care and protect America's national security.)
The 56-year-old Muskogee doctor set himself apart from other candidates. "My desire is not to be a U.S. senator. My desire is to change the Senate," he said.
On the death penalty, he said: "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life."

He said he performed two abortions to save the lives of mothers who had congenital heart disease, but opposes the procedure in cases of rape.

"Under the mores we live under today, my lineage wouldn't exist," Coburn said, explaining that his great-grandmother was raped by a territorial sheriff.

Coburn's plan to attack rising medical costs includes an emphasis on prevention.
Cutting down on diabetes by using less sugar and controlling weight could save billions of dollars in the next 20 years, he said.
I see National Weigh In Day coming.
He said more money could be saved if people took over-the-counter drugs that reduce the risk of getting colon cancer.

Besides bringing competition to the pharmaceutical marketplace, he supports creating a competitive environment in medicine.
"The guys who do the worst job in heart bypass get paid the same as the guys who do the best job. Why's that?"
I'm sure my insurance will only pay for the Walmart Price Cut Bypass.

Voice America issued a statement criticizing Coburn for saying in an Associated Press interview that he would favor the death penalty for abortionists.
“This is just one example of the length to which the far-right is willing to go to take away a woman’s right to choose and to criminalize a very personal, private decision between a woman and her doctor,” the acting president of the group said. “I am appalled that as a physician, Dr. Coburn would make such a statement about his colleagues.”

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CHICAGO, Aug. 3 — Laws passed by 18 states requiring guns to be safely stored away from children have reduced the rate of teenage suicides, researchers said Tuesday. The child access prevention laws implemented since 1989 may have prevented more than 300 suicides among 14- to 17-year-olds through 2001, according to the study by Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore.
Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among American teenagers, accounting for 1,883 deaths in 2001.
''There were 63,954 suicides among youth aged 14 through 20 years during the 1976-2001 study period, 39,655 (62 percent) of which were committed with firearms,'' according to the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Laws that raised the required age of gun buyers and owners, however, did not significantly reduce suicide rates, the study said.

Of 40,000 teenagers that wanted to shoot themselves in 12 years,
300 of them couldn't find the gun. The other 39,700 died. Or is it 20,000 and 19,700?
I don't know, this article is a little fuzzy to me but you can bet your ass that the only thing the NRA will see is that there is no good reason why 12 year olds should not be allowed to buy guns.

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As they start, Kerry has 14 states and the District of Columbia in his column for 193 electoral vote while Bush has 25 states for 217 votes, according to an Associated Press analysis of state polls as well as interviews with strategists across the country.

Both candidates are short of the magic 270 electoral votes. The margin of victory will come from:

* Tossups: Bush and Kerry are running even in 11 states with a combined 128 electoral votes. Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan and West Virginia are the toughest battlegrounds. Two other tossups, Pennsylvania and Oregon, could soon move to Kerry’s column.
* Leaning to Kerry: Maine, Minnesota and Washington (a combined 25 electoral votes) favor Kerry over Bush by a few percentage points. Gore carried them in 2000.
* Leaning to Bush: North Carolina, Colorado, Louisiana, Arizona, Virginia, Arkansas and Missouri (a combined 73 electoral votes) give Bush modest leads. He won all seven in 2000.Al total, 21 states are in play. Some will bounce between "lean" to "tossup" throughout the campaign.

Four years ago, Bush won 30 states and their 271 electoral votes — one more than needed. Gore, who won the popular vote, claimed 20 states plus the District of Columbia for 267 electoral votes.

Since then, reapportionment added electoral votes to states with population gains and took them from states losing people. The result: Bush’s states are now worth 278 electoral votes and Gore’s are worth just 260.

Reapportionment? Wasn't that called "redistricting" when we last heard of it? I guess the neocon press (I don't think they get irony, so I'm calling a spade a spade here) didn't want us to remember the GOP's, led by tom delay, big party power grab the last few years. Remember when the Texas democrats spent some time in Oklahoma In May 2003 to deprive the real evil-dooers (GOP members)a quarum in the Texas State House of Reps. It worked for a while then in August Texas became a true Banana Republic.

Eleven of the twelve Democrats in the state senate refused to attend the special session, convening instead in Albuquerque, New Mexico July 29, outside the jurisdiction of the Republican-controlled Texas state government. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, has rebuffed requests that the legislators be extradited.

The Democrats refused to return, defying the fines, which took effect on Thursday, August 14, starting at $1,000 each, doubling to $2,000 on Friday, $4,000 on Saturday and $5,000 on Sunday and every day following until the special session ends August 26. The total fine for boycotting the entire special session would amount to $57,000, and the Republican senators specified that this be paid from personal and not party funds.

Several Republican senators suggested that Democrats who do not pay the fines would be deprived of their votes in the state Senate, an action that would deprive as many as 8 million people of representation (each Senate district has about 700,000 residents). Neither Governor Rick Perry nor state Attorney General Greg Abbott have yet taken a position on disenfranchisement of senators, which has no precedent under the state constitution.

The boycott by the Democratic state senators repeats the tactic employed by Democratic members of the lower house who left Texas as a group three months ago. They waited at a hotel in Oklahoma until the regular session of the legislature ended, frustrating the initial Republicans effort to push through the redistricting plan.

Governor Perry called a special session of the legislature and the redistricting plan was passed through the lower house, but the bill failed in the state Senate for lack of a two-thirds majority. Perry then called a second special session of the legislature, for which the Republicans imposed new rules ending the traditional two-thirds requirement for a bill to pass the Senate.

Kerry’s best prospects may be in the five tossup states won by Bush in 2000: Ohio, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and West Virginia.

Winning either Ohio’s 20 electoral votes or Florida’s 27 would do the trick.

Come on Ellen, you can do it! Save the country. Get out the vote, call all your friends! Put notes on all the cars in the grocery store parking lot that say "bottleofblog.com". That should do it.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - President Bush on Monday generally endorsed the two main recommendations of the 9/11 commission, saying he would support creation of a potentially powerful post, national intelligence director, and the establishment of a counterterrorism center to coordinate intelligence analysis and efforts to thwart attacks.

Maybe the new organization can be staffed with all the whistleblowers fired from the FBI.

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Quite a few years ago I was flipping stations on the radio trying to find some Christmas music and something this preacher said made me stop and listen. It was something about boring people being the biggest sin he could commit. I listened to the whole sermon and was thinking "No way is this guy in Oklahoma, he's too good, too liberal." I never was the kind of person that could sit through church and take what I could and leave the rest. I felt like a hypocrite. I'm amazed that Rev. Meyers exists and the fact that he is here in Oklahoma makes me believe in miracles. And I don't have to feel like a hypocrite at church.

Commentary
Perhaps we prefer the lie?
Eight years ago, when I began writing for the Oklahoma Gazette, I named my column for the essential tension in life, as in any democracy: the difference between rhetoric and reality. I teach a class by the same name at Oklahoma City University because students need to learn the difference between spin and fact, between what Orwell called linguistic “insincerity” and the often painful truth. But this summer, there is no need to enroll in such a class to know the difference. All you have to do is pay attention.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by a Republican, says that not only were there no weapons of mass destruction, and no links to al-Qaida, but that Congress might also not have authorized the war against Iraq if they had known what they know now — which is the truth.

The so-called “defense of marriage” amendment failed, not because we are all of one mind about homosexuality, but because it has become abundantly clear that the whole thing has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage and everything to do with the politics of division — which is the truth.

When the British report exposed the big lie about the threat posed by Iraq, Tony Blair did what real leaders do and took “full personal responsibility.” Bush, on the other hand, in the words of syndicated columnist Maureen Dowd, “took full personal irresponsibility” and continues to press “the preposterous case that he has made America safer”— which is not the truth.
Facts are such pesky things to a true believer. Whether it’s global warming or the case for evolution, the true believer just winks at the evidence and claims that it’s all a test of faith. There are fundamentalists, for example, who believe that God placed ancient fossils in the earth to see whether we would choose science or Genesis. Meet God the trickster. And whatever you do, don’t let it slip that one can believe in both evolution and God — which is the truth.

We are all guilty of bias, of course, and prone to our prejudices and predispositions. But we are approaching a time when truth has absolutely nothing to do with anything. In other words, one can become a legend in one’s own mind and develop a complete immunity from either the truth or basic logic.

Bush continues to defend the extraordinary (and by the international standards we established, illegal) war against Iraq by saying, “So I had a choice to make: either take the word of a madman or defend America.” Any student in Critical Thinking 101 knows that this is a classic false dichotomy — and that’s the truth.

Once more comes the tired rhetoric of us against them: “We will confront them overseas so we do not have to confront them here at home.” That might fly if any reasonable person still believed that we were threatened by the mighty nation of Iraq. Remember the “elite Republican Guard,” which Bush called the fourth-most fearsome fighting force in the world? Turns out, they were pathetic — and that’s the truth.

It is possible, and this is the scary thing, to become flawless in one’s illogic. That is, it is sometimes a great comfort to believe the lie and to avoid the painful truth. This is true in politics, in religion and in the family — where all dysfunction is masked by the pretense of perfection.

On the day after you read this column, John Kerry and John Edwards will accept the nomination of the Democratic Party to oppose the policies and the record of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Immediately, the character assassination will begin, and we’ll be told it’s God and country over trial lawyers and Eastern liberals.

But that’s just one more lie in a long list of lies. The truth is a senator from Massachusetts with a lifetime of public service (and actual military service) will ask Americans to choose between four more years of what we have or a bloodless chance of direction at the ballot box — which is the genius of our democracy.

The debate should not be about whether you are “with us or against us,” “red or blue,” patriotic or peculiar. It should be about deficits, education, judges, women’s rights, gay rights, decent jobs, racism, help for the beleaguered middle class and America’s reputation around the world.

But we will not survive if we prefer the lie. And we will not survive if we don’t bother to vote.

And that’s the truth.

Meyers has been senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church since 1985 and is a professor of rhetoric at Oklahoma City University.

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He's 4 months old now.
He has a little sideways smile he gives when he
1st see's me that makes me feel like his favorite
person in the world. He is utterly addictive.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

This is one of my favorite t-shirts to exercise in.
I probably picked it up at a base thrift shop somewhere.
I've been wearing it for years and years and have had to
steal it back from my son a couple of times. I never paid
attention to what it said and was surprised when I read
"PennState 86" on it last week.

I'm about ready for football season to start.

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Bivo. It's what's for dinner.

This was my freakin' vacation, by the way.

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Here's a little story that demonstrates George W. Bush's intelligence, integrity, honesty, and respect for "brown people" all in one.

HAVANA - An indignant Fidel Castro used a live television appearance Monday night to respond to White House charges that his government encourages child prostitution.

Speaking to Florida law enforcement officials on July 16, Bush claimed the Cuban leader shamelessly promotes sex tourism.

“The dictator welcomes sex tourism. Here’s how he bragged about the industry,” said Bush. “This is his quote — ‘Cuba has the cleanest and most educated prostitutes in the world’ and ‘sex tourism is a vital source of hard currency.’”
Three days after Bush’s remarks, the Los Angeles Times reported that the White House found the comments in a Dartmouth undergraduate paper posted on the Internet and lifted them out of context. “It shows they didn’t read much of the article,” commented Charlie Trumbull, the author.

Speaking in 1992 to the Cuban parliament, Castro actually said, “There are prostitutes, but prostitution is not allowed in our country. There are no women forced to sell themselves to a man, to a foreigner, to a tourist.”

He didn't read any of the article Dude. He said "This is what I want to say. Find those words and arrange them the order I need."

On Monday Castro demanded evidence for the attacks on his country. Castro questioned, “How it is possible that such unspeakable, foul slander is hurled against Cuba?”
The answer, said Castro, comes from inside the mind of the president —the subtitle to a book by psychoanalyst Dr. Justin Frank, called “Bush on the Couch.”

How did I miss this book in my summer reading?

Castro quoted Frank, (correctly) who delves into Bush’s professed bout with alcoholism and argues that his history of untreated alcohol abuse could impair his judgment.


Bush, charged Castro, could be having a difficult time “distinguishing between relevant and inconsequential information.”
Wayne Smith, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and veteran Foreign Service officer who served 6 years in Havana, argued that a government crackdown in 1998 stemmed the “rampant” prostitution that erupted across the island following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

According to Smith, prostitution “is no longer any more of a problem in Cuba than it is in…the United States.”
Smith, an advocate of normalizing relations with Havana, also takes umbrage over Bush’s assertion that Cuba has “replaced Southeast Asia as a destination for pedophiles” and that new controversial travel restrictions to the island aim at curtailing the sexual exploitation of children.

Prostitution attack- another attempt to woo voters?
Bush’s new rules, that took effect June 30, limit Cuban Americans to one visit home every three years, eliminate humanitarian permission to attend funerals or visit dying relatives, and remove extended family like aunts, uncles and cousins from the list of government-approved relatives. Violators are subject to a $65,000 fine.

“What does restricting Cuban-Americans to one visit every three years have to do with reducing prostitution?” asked Smith. “Is Mr. Bush suggesting that their real purpose was not to visit their families on the island but to engage in sex tourism?”

Smith is among the Cuba-watchers who believe that Bush’s strident policy is designed to capture the Cuban American vote this November in the critical state of Florida.

Surely the Cuban-Americans will want to vote for the man who is refusing to let them attend their mother's funeral because he believes they can't restrain themselves from having sex with a child when they touch their native soil.

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Sister's by Lynne Cheney
The 1st 3 chapters anyway.

Ms. Cheney has forgotten she wrote this book (not listing it in any of her more recent books) and when asked, she said she couldn't remember the plot. Well, I believe it, there doesn't seem to be much of a plot to remember, just an excuse for some good old fashioned lesbian erotica.
So many things to forget in this administration.

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Bush Woos Black Voters at Urban League
Akron, Ohio Mayor say's, " I think it's a mistake."

___________________________________________________________________________________________


"Dick Cheney can be president." George W. Bush

VP Dick Cheney,, Former Halliburton CEO, benefiting from a rich retirement package with the Halliburton for his service. No doubt looking forward to picking up that career if we ever get his ass out of D.C.

"Cheney received almost $180,000 from Halliburton in 2003 alone. [Sources: CNN, 4/13/04; CNN, 10/25/03]

"Three days before a Halliburton subsidiary was awarded a $7 billion no-bid contract to fight oil fires in Iraq, an Army Corps of Engineers official wrote an e-mail saying the award had been ‘coordinated’ with the office of Vice President Cheney, Halliburton's former chief executive.” [Source: Washington Post, 7/2/04]

Secrecy on energy issues began years ago when Vice President Cheney's energy task force met behind closed doors—a controversial process still being debated in the courts.

Now the two Republican chairmen in charge of the energy packages from the House and Senate are behind closed doors again—this time to rewrite the bill themselves without input from Democrats and other critics.

The process defies convention in this capital city.
Republicans say their closed-door process is the only way to wrest a bill out of a Congress that is deeply divided on energy issues.

Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana and Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the GOP chairmen of the House and Senate energy committees, work out titles of the energy bill in secret. The chairmen first release these drafts to GOP colleagues, then to Democrats and the press.
The last energy bill died in conference during the 107th Congress, after protracted and difficult negotiations. "There were too many meetings, too many offers and counteroffers," said chairman Tauzin on the opening day of the energy conference last month—the last open meeting until conferees are convened to sign an agreement.

GAIL RUSSELL CHADDOCK / Christian Science Monitor 2oct03

"...too many meetings, too many offers and counteroffers"
Can you imagine if this man were to become President how much simpler government would be?
We wouldn't need to think at all.


Again, old news. But this needs to be common knowledge.
The Republicans I know would hate this. If they only knew.

Of course if Rush doesn't say it, they don't know it.

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This is over two weeks old and it's still pissing me off.

Ron Fournier THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reports that Kerry has chosen Edwards as his running mate and these are the words he uses

"Obsessed with secrecy, Kerry kept his decision to himself until the last possible minute.."

What the fuck? This is a news story and Fournier just pulled out of his ass his OPINION or FANTASY that Kerry is obsessed with secrecy. I don't even have to tell you that "the last possible minute" would have actually been the 26th-29th at the DNC so that makes absolutely no sense.
Now maybe Fournier doesn't have access to anyone in the Kerry campaign so he couldn't ASK why Kerry kept the decision process private but if he had just watched The Daily Show when Terry McAuliffe, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, was on, he would have known that the reason Kerry wasn't making it a public contest was basically that he didn't want any hurt feelings.
That makes sense.
Now "obsession with secrecy" is not a trait I have been comfortable with in my President for the last 3 1/2 years, so, if you have some factual basis for that statement I would surely like to hear it before November 2nd. If you were just pulling it out of your ass, kindly stuff it back in.

___Blogger is updating AGAIN! I can't paste anything. Almost useless
without the ability to paste. I'm waiting to hear from them.
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According to The Oklahoman the top news in the Nation Today is "News Coverage Veils Campaigns: Study suggests John Kerry needs to establish his identity with the public." The "Hot Topic"? "Hamilton, Burr Face Off Again"
I guess the fact that the case Bush made for sending thousands of people to their deaths in Iraq has turned out to be based on the word of one man who

"was an alcoholic and utterly useless as a source"

is just old news to the Oklahoman. They didn't deem it worth reporting on today. So the people that rely on The Oklahoman for their news will never know that the Pentagon intelligence analyst, the only person inside the U.S. government that had ever actually spoken to the informant, wrote an urgent e-mail to a top CIA official warning that there were even questions about whether Curve Ball (the informant)

"was who he said he was."

and recieved this reply.

"Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say," he wrote. "The Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about."

They will never know that

"the committee found, U.S. intelligence officials repeatedly embellished fragmentary and ambiguous pieces of evidence, making the danger posed by Iraq appear far more urgent than it actually was."

They will never know that,

"Taken together, the facts in the report show that virtually every major claim President George W. Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq—from Saddam's growing nuclear program to his close ties with Al Qaeda—was either wrong or exaggerated."

I hope Kerry will use this in an ad so they might know,

"Leading up to September 11, our government didn't connect the dots," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, the ranking Democrat on the committee. "In Iraq we are even more culpable, because the dots themselves never existed."

"The president showed no signs of having had any second thoughts about the wisdom of the invasion."

Yes, He would have had to have had first thoughts in order for there to have been seconds.

But at least Oklahomans know that Hamilton missed, again.

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Asked Sunday about her husband's stand on gay marriage in 2004, Lynne Cheney said, "I thought that the formulation he used in 2000 was very good.

"First of all, to be clear that people should be free to enter into their relationships that they choose. And, secondly, to recognize what's historically been the situation, that when it comes to conferring legal status on relationships, that is a matter left to the states," she said.


The vice president's press office had no immediate comment Sunday.

Monday morning the vice president's press office announced that Lynne Cheney is addicted to prescription drugs (perfectly acceptable to the GOP) and has checked into the Betty Ford Center for treatment.

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In what could be viewed as a desperation attempt to hold on to the presidency, the Bush administration is preparing plans to postpone the November presidential elections by claiming the threat of a terrorist attack would disrupt the process.

Sources within the Department of Homeland Security confirm the agency is preparing "legal steps" to postpone the election and can do so at a moments notice when the orders come from the White House. Michael Isikoff of Newsweek magazine is also confirming this in this week's edition.

In other news, George W. Bush announces that he has already held a surprise election, in an effort to thwart the evil-doers, and he got 100% of the votes.

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Bush in 41.2 Seconds

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Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin' out of my ears.
Buckets of moonbeams in my hand,
I got all the love, honey baby,
You can stand.

Talking to the Rain.

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1 million $30,000.00 a year jobs-We've been robbed again

"People are finding work in this country. The tax relief we passed is working."
George W. Bush, Miserable Failure

$749.1 billion (cost of tax cuts, 2001-2004)

/ 860,000 jobs

= $871,046 per job

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The first cheer was when the theatre manager announced that this film was sold out. I'm glad I went to see it. Even though I knew most of the information he was passing on (I would have included a lot more but MY movie would have lasted 5 or 6 hours) he connected all the dots and showed the way it really played out. Some was very painful to watch. I wasn't laughing in the spots where everyone seemed to be laughing. I guess I've lost some sense of humor. It's not funny for me to watch Bush display his imbecility.
Not everyone stood and cheered at the end (this is Oklahoma) but most of us did. The biggest cheer came, just as people were picking up their purses and preparing to leave, when one fellow with a big voice commanded us all to "GO VOTE!"
So, now I'm going to a Move On gathering. It sometimes seems useless to try to do anything here but the votes were much closer in 2000 than anyone seems to worry about. Maybe we could make OKlahoma a Swing State.

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Thank you for ordering tickets from MovieTickets.com!

Your Tracking Number is ********-1643****
Your Movie: ........... Fahrenheit 9/11 R
Showtime: ............. 7:20pm, the evening of Friday, June 25, 2004


I know it's just "Liberals talking to themselves" (according to John Harwood), but I want to see these other Liberals. I want to sit in the same theatre and comment outloud with them. I wonder if I should take any props with me? You know, like for The Rocky Horror Picture Show you'd take a newspaper for the rain scene, toasted bread for the toast scene.

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Scalia does not depend on an HMO

WASHINGTON, June 21 — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today, that patients cannot use state courts to sue H.M.O.'s for malpractice when treatment recommended by their doctors is withheld.
The decision rejected the arguments of lawyers for Juan Davila. Mr. Davila was prescribed Vioxx by his doctor for arthritis but was required under his Aetna health plan to try less expensive medications first. One of those caused severe internal bleeding.
"To say that the plan condemned them to not using Vioxx is simply not true," Justice Antonin Scalia told George P. Young, a lawyer for the patients. "All you're talking about here is money."
"Well," Mr. Young replied, "the truth is, your honor, that neither of these claimants would have needed health insurance if they had the independent means to just whip out a gold card and pay for the drug."

I'm sure Cheney takes care of all his bills.

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12 weeks old

Thanks for the tye-dye Cousin

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The Bush Hearing: Part 84

Just days before the Food and Drug Administration rejected an application to make the emergency contraceptive Plan B available without a prescription, top agency scientists dismissed the reasoning that was used to justify the rejection as unfounded, internal agency documents reveal.


The documents, which contain the scientific conclusions of three separate levels of FDA reviewers, show that the scientists disagreed in particular with the contention that there was not enough information to assess how easier availability of the drug would affect the sexual behavior of young teenagers. That was the primary reason given for the FDA's dismissal of the application as "non-approvable."

Senator Clinton is now requesting a Senate Hearing and General Accounting. The Hearings should just be scheduled as soon as the appointments are made in this administration. I wonder if these self-limited puritans ever see a correlation between themselves and the "evil" Islamic fundamentalists that are our enemies. I'm sure not. Ahhh, to be an ideologist. Something I'm finally starting to understand.
It's not a word you can just look up. You have to talk to one till you're blue in the face, finally make some headway with your facts to their guts and then, next day, be right back where you started. Rinse, Repeat.
It's what's easiest for them. They don't have to think. Hell, I've flirted with it myself. The thing is, if more of us speak openly the truth, the more accepted it is, it becomes the easiest thing for them. Voilà!

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One, Two, Three Strikes! You're Out!

NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.

The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late — Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. “Here’s a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we’re suffering as a result inside Iraq,” Cressey added.

And despite the Bush administration’s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi’s killing streak continues today.

You'd think Bush would be embarrassed to start blaming everything that's happening in Iraq now on Zarqawi considering, he had three fuckin' excellent chances to take him out!

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Stop The Fraud

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June 16, 2004

While many people are celebrating the Supreme Court's decision on Monday to dismiss a lower-court ruling that deemed as unconstitutional the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, some of the leading warriors in the fight are not that happy about the route the justices took.

The two-word phrase is secure in the Pledge -- for now -- after the high court ruled 8-0 that Michael Newdow, the plaintiff in the case, had no standing in the case he launched on behalf of his daughter because he does not have custody of the young child. The California atheist had challenged the inclusion of "under God," which was added to the oath in 1954 by Congress.

But in a surprise move, Justice Antonin Scalia recused himself from the case...Michael A. Newdow, the atheist opponent of the pledge who is acting as his own lawyer, filed papers Sept. 9 with the Supreme Court, asking Scalia to bow out because the justice had spoken critically of the 9th Circuit ruling at a Religious Freedom Day event Jan. 12 in Fredericksburg.

On that occasion, Scalia cited the 9th Circuit decision as an example of what he considered mistaken attempts to "exclude God from the public forums and from political life."

Newdow, of California, argued that this violated the code of conduct for United States judges, which says that "a judge should avoid public comment on the merits of a pending or impending action."

"Under such circumstances . . . one might reasonably question his impartiality," Newdow wrote.

Legal analysts said that, if Scalia's recusal was prompted by his comments, it would be an extremely rare occurrence on a court whose justices generally avoid even indirect public references to possible cases.

I'll say it's a surprise! Hell Scalia won't recuse himself after he's slept with the primaries in a case. We all know what happens on those hunting trips.

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Youth Minister from "Church of Bush" shows what this country is all about! See the video.

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I jinxed myself by saying I would have some free time. Among other things that have come up, everyone and their brother want sandals for their beach wedding, in 3 days! Whatever happened to planning ahead? I have had some time on the road though, and that means time to read.
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind was a good start on summer reading. Bush appointed Paul O'Neill Treasury Secretary and then fired him two years later because Bush and his cohorts are allergic to the truth and O'Neill is too old and rich to be afraid to tell it. His descriptions of his meetings with our president are absolutely chilling. There's nothing there folks. If you gave him a penny for his thoughts, you'd get change. O'Neill has a great memory and backs it up with documents drawn from a collection of 19,000 files.
O'Neill remembers that 10 days into this administration, at the 1st meeting of the National Security Council, "Getting Hussein was now the administration's focus. From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it--the president saying, 'Fine. Go find me a way to do this.'"
I just started Molly Ivins Bushwhacked. It's too infuriating to be funny but I did laugh at this little gem she quoted from William Brann " The trouble with our Texas Baptists is that we do not hold them under water long enough." ha! That goes for our Oklahoma Baptists too.

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This, alone, got him on my daily read list but there is a lot more.

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Sorry Ricky, but how can I be anything but happy when this is what I see before I leave for work?

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We Won!
Yesterday, Federal District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton handed Planned Parenthood and women everywhere a huge victory as she ruled that the federal abortion ban passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush last year is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced.

How much money did our Right Wing Constitution Hating Government waste on this effort I wonder. It was just a battle, we are in the war as long as there are pro-life, pro death sentence, anti stem cell research hypocrites trying to control the lives (and deaths) of everyone in the USA. The Food and Drug Administration has rejected making Plan B emergency contraception available over the counter. So Call for the Resignation of Acting FDA Commissioner and consider it your invitation to the internment camp should Bush steal another election. See you there.

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Trouble in Paradise?

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San Francisco Summer '67

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Ricky points out something from the same news item in previous comments...

Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge issued an unusual joint statement Friday, assuring the American people that “we are working together" against terror.

It's good Ashcroft is working with Ridge, now maybe they can try working with the FBI and include some senior officials in Ridge's Homeland Security.

Senior intelligence and homeland security officials tell NBC News they were surprised by Ashcroft's claims and know of no credible intelligence that al-Qaida is 90 percent ready to attack....... and they hope Ashcroft's use of questionable information doesn’t undermine public trust.

It's just a fake to the left folks.
And they hope it doesn't undermine our trust. Well, no one is talking about a terrorist threat this weakend. Liberals, Conservative Democrats and, Wingnuts are having a great Memorial Weekend and gathering in mass for concerts and, sport events.

"This disturbing intelligence indicates al-Qaida's specific intention to hit the United States hard," Ashcroft said

Too late man. Nobody believes a fucking thing anyone in this administration has to say anymore!

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Friday, Ashcroft's spokesman blamed the FBI, and the FBI admitted claims that terrorists were 90 percent ready to attack came not from al-Qaida, but from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades’ statements.

Terrorism experts say that the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade could be "one guy with a fax machine" and has claimed to be responsible every strange and bad thing that has happened in the U.S. except the cicada invasion.

“Portraying this group seriously is simply a reflection of the FBI's continued failures since 9/11 to basically develop an analytic capability at headquarters in assessing terrorist intelligence,”(terrorism expert and NBC analyst) Emerson said.

Well, I don't really think the FBI is under orders to "develop an analytic capability at headquarters in assessing terrorist intelligence". I think they are under orders to distract from what a colossal, incompetent failure, the President is. They're pretty much sucking at that too.

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Unbelievable
My Rush lovin cousin in CA sent me this shit. I just finished listening to the Al Gore speech on the O'Franken Factor and I was feeling so hopeful that good sense would prevail in November and then I made the mistake of checking my mail. I just cannot think rationally. I can't even breath.

"They were never looking for trouble.

But when trouble came, they faced it with courage.

They were always on the side of right.

They defended good people against bad people.

They had high morals.

They had good manners.

They were honest. "

Help

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Another classic post at Bottle of Blog. Ricky says what most of us are thinking only he says it better and funnier. When I express the same sentiments it sounds more like "!//@#%Bush*!!#Daily Oklahoman%#@$@!!%@#!!" See, not funny.

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I can't believe he beat out a million other sperm.

A Pentagon directive says countries wanting a share of the $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts in the 2004 U.S. budget must participate militarily in the postwar effort.The administration's policy effectively excludes companies from countries such as Russia, France, Germany and Canada.
The president said he still hoped those countries and others would agree to forgive Iraq's crushing debt burden. "It would be a significant contribution for which we would be very grateful," Bush said.
Asked about the European Union's claim that the policy might violate the World Trade Organization commitments, the president said, "I'd better consult my lawyer."

Why start now George?

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Inhofe's Skin Too Thin for Oklahoma
It's well-established that Senator James Inhofe is a dangerous idiot, that he has no character, and that he's not stopping his malicious ways.

Now, having been caught lying several times to Northeast Oklahoma residents about cleaning up a dangerous Superfund site that he doesn't want cleaned up because it will cost his mining friends some coin, Inhofe has the nerve to accuse people who tell the truth about the environment of lying. And, in typical Inhofe fashion, he can't even just accuse them of lying: he wants them prosecuted for disagreeing with his spin.

Read the rest from Life and Deatherage

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Get a free bumper sticker at Moveon.org, or buy 10 for $3 and pass them out at the office.

or

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Sunday's Daily Oklahoman reported that Bush leads Kerry by 19 percentage points in Oklahoma.
More than two-thirds supported amending the state constitution to recognize marriage as being only between a man and a woman. A large majority of those polled also would vote for a lottery in hopes that it would support the economy that the Bush administration has damn near bankrupted.
For the last three weeks, up to Saturday, my phone rang every night around 8 and the caller ID said "out of area" from an 888 #. I never answered and no messege was left.
My theory is that the only people that were polled were people that don't have caller ID. People like my mother. People that have had a few too many by 8 o'clock and "you're damn right" they're gonna vote for Bush. I'm sure those pollsters got an earfull. "If you don't vote for Bush there'll be queers havin' sex on your front porch! Not a thing you can do about it. Not a thing.....nothin.
Queers."

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Bush's address coincided with the unveiling of a new U.N. resolution by the United States and Britain endorsing the June 30 handover of political power in Iraq and authorizing a U.S.-led multinational force to keep the peace. The draft resolution urges nations to send troops for an international force -- something the administration is anxious to see, with American troops stretched thin.

Dubya is wishing he'd played nicer now. Shouldn-a-been such a big ass bully.

| Christian Science Monitor | October 7, 2002
President Bush stands ready to attack Iraq even without the approval of the United Nations Security Council.
Bush warned that the UN could become as irrelevant as did the League of Nations in the 1930s if it doesn't deal with threats to international order.

Guess it seems a little more relevant now. The threat to international order that they needed to deal with is George W.

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Can you believe how cute this kid is?

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Joe Biden Just said "I've been quite for a year and a half." I'm listening to him lambasting the Preznit while Bush is still on screen and I'm just pissed. Why were you quite for 3 1/2 years? Every channel (except FOX.."the Presidents plan and the forceful way he put it forth. Will this keep the waverers from wavering? A: "It should") has someone critisizing and pointing out that this administration blames someone else for everything. Where the hell have you been? Why did y'all let me think I was insane for so long? Cause y'all are a bunch of chickenshits that's why."

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Daily Record
BUSH FALLS OFF BIKE (BUT THERE'S NO HARM DONE HE LANDED ON HIS HEAD)
May 24 2004

GEORGE Bush's popularity has taken a tumble and now so has he.
The 57-year-old president is battered and bruised after falling from his mountain bike on his Texas ranch.
Bush suffered cuts and scratches to his chin, upper lip, nose and both knees. He carried on with his ride on Saturday after his doctor patched him up.
Spokesman Trent Duffy said: 'Suffice to say he wasn't whistling show tunes.'

Do the Bushie spokesmen ever say anything that makes sense?

Bush famously hurt his face when he fell off a sofa as he choked on a pretzel in 2002.

I liked the headline on this one but the AP story noted that Kerry took a spill on his bike a couple of weeks ago and managed to not turn into a bloody pulp.

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Thanks for the suggested Summer Reads y'all.
My two favorite web people (what?) gave such differing suggestions, I'm going to have to check out everything. To the e-mailer that offered to mail me her/his collection of romance....Not this summer, thanks though.
My mother would read to us from the collections in the Children's Worldbook Encyclopedia when I was very small. When it was my turn to choose (which was often because I was the baby and got my way) I always chose "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes.
My sixth grade teacher (thanks Mrs. Scott) read "A Wrinkle In Time", by Madeleine L'Engle, aloud to us.
The following summer I noticed and, subsequently devoured, four books my dad had bought for a college course.
The Scarlet Letter
Brave New World
Fahrenheit 451
Anthem
The same book, 32 years later.
An alternate universe opened up to me and the library became my favorite place.
It drove my mother nut's. She hated my reading all the time and said I was boring.
I wish I'd been one of those people that kept a running list of every book they ever read.
I have actually bought books and gotten a couple of pages in when I realized I had already read them.
Very disappointing.

A few I still remember reading.
Everything Kurt Vonnegut but Timequake
Everything John Irving (Except the autobiographical wrestling stuff)
The whole week with Rabbi Small
Margaret Atwood, Anne Tyler, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, George Eliot, Dickens, Barbara Kingsolver.
To me, Joseph Heller was a one hit wonder with Catch-22. Let me know if you found different.
Likewise with E. Annie Proulx (so far). The Shipping News is one of my top 5 but nothing else she has written came close.
A Soldier of the Great War was a good book.
Boy's Life
Al Franken is a hero to me. He watches the Wingnuts, he make note of every inane thing they say and do, and he calls them on it.
I didn't finish school so I've felt obligated to try to read everything in the "Classic Literature" section of the library. Most of it was not wasted time but I never enjoyed Hemmingway or Faulkner. Jack London doesn't do it for me and I don't know why but I can"t get past the 1st couple of pages of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry into Values". Maybe it's because the guy that says I have to read it, voted for Bush.
I haven't read any Harry Potter but I want to save it till Vincent is older.
We read Goodnight Opus a lot now.

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Bush-Cheney campaign manager, blubbers nonsense. Karl Rove wets pants.
Pat Buchanan gleefully reports, "The Democrats are finally catching on."
What's with Buchanan? He was so happy at the prospect of Kerry kicking Bush butt that it frightens me.
Is he still pissed at Bush for (lying about) wanting to give drivers license's to aliens?
Anyway, I think he's right about the Democrats finally catching on. I'm particularly impressed with the popularity of the word incompetent
to describe the Preznit.

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I'm having a lot of trouble with this blog. I can't get to it most of the time. Sometimes, if I play with the w's, like right now I'm here because I eliminated all but one of the w's in the address. I expect to have some time in a couple of weeks and will seriously look at setting up shop somewhere else then.
I also expect to have some time to read this summer, something besides blogs. I'd love some suggestions, it's been so long. I like literary fiction. I want one or two good, current political books. I don't like autobiographies. If someone could channel Jane Austen and have her pen about 50 more books to comfort me when it's time to sleep, I'd appreciate it.

While I'm here, here's another good description of GW I found at StarFire.

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This was fun

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"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring the draft would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."

Because I ain't no Senator and my son ain't no Fortunate Son.
Sign the petition to stop the draft.

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Oil industry officials testifying before the Senate environment and public works committee insisted the reason I paid $1.92 for a gallon of gas yesterday was environmental regulations.
They had charts and everything.

Neither witness said how much of the current price of gas was directly attributable to the regulations. Mr. Slaughter presented a chart showing that crude oil accounts for 46 percent of the price, taxes 24 percent and marketing and distribution 11 percent. That leaves 19 percent for refinery costs, but the chart did not explain what portion could be linked to environmental regulations.

A few troublesome Democrats mentioned that the Emperor's thingy was showing.

While questions from Republicans on the committee, including the chairman, Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, focused on ways regulations might be streamlined to encourage more production, Democrats challenged the industry representatives to explain how oil companies could ask for fewer rules while they were enjoying such high profits.

Senator Inhofe wields his magic gavel....

The difference of approach led to a confrontation between Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, and Mr. Inhofe and Senator Wayne Allard, Republican of Colorado, as the hearing was concluding after a single round of questions.

Ms. Boxer asked for a second round, only to be rebuffed by Mr. Inhofe, who said he wanted to adjourn. She then asked if, "without objection," she could enter into the record newspaper articles that reflected the robust first quarter earnings reports. Mr. Allard objected, saying that the articles were welcome but that a speech from Ms. Boxer was not.

When she tried to respond, Mr. Inhofe lowered his gavel and ended the hearing.

.......and poof!! Ms. Boxer doesn't exist.

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Once again, Senator Inhofe;

"I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment," the Oklahoma Republican said at a U.S. Senate hearing probing the scandal.
"These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations," Inhofe said. "If they're in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."
"I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying."

telegraph.co.uk

The first of 2,500 detainees to be released from the jail at the centre of the abuse scandal were freed yesterday after the American military admitted that the majority of them were being held unnecessarily.

Now Senator Inhofe has nothing to say to that because it contradicts his position and therefore it doesn't exist. Now on to the price of oil...

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Boomer Sooner

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Josh Marshall writes about George Bush's lack of interest in the news as noted in an article on Bill Sammon's new insider account of the Bush presidency, Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry and the Bush Haters. (emphasis added)

"He does not dwell on the newspaper, but he reads the sports page every day," Mr. Card said with a chuckle.

Bush explains why it's best he doesn't show any interest in the thoughts, feelings, lives of the American people, all those things he might come across in the news sections of the newspaper...

"I like to have a clear outlook," he said.

Josh says it best

...it's one thing to fall short of the mark and another to work out a system of self-rationalization and denial to ensure you come nowhere near the mark. And this is it in spades.

He doesn't even need the yes-men who "extract" the "facts" from the news articles. He's his own built-in yes-man.

"He's his own built in yes-man." That one is right up there with Hightower's description of G.W., "He was born on third base but he thought he had hit a triple."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________WASHINGTON

- At least 28 senior-level federal employees in eight agencies have bogus college degrees, including three managers at the office that oversees nuclear weapons safety, congressional investigators have found.

Make that 29.

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I usually catch the BBC News on my way home for lunch everyday and I've noticed, the past two days that the reporters, when introducing the subject of the war in Iraq, no longer refer to it as the "War in Iraq" or "The War on Terror" but simply as "The Bush Administrations attempt to expand U.S. influence in oil rich nations.".

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I am "outraged" at Senator Inhofe for using these hearings to try to badmouth John Kerry. Yesterday he was outraged at the outrage over the abuse in Iraq. Today he had the opportunity to see more graphic pictures, portraying rape, sodomy and, more of man's inhumanity to man, and he decided to bitch about gas prices, blaming, as usual, environmental regulations.

It's not surprising: his top campaign contributor is the oil and gas industry, which lavishes more money on him than all but one other U.S. Senator.

U.S. Newswire

That's 2 cents a gallon those regulations are costing us. 2 more cents I could be contributing to Kerry.

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Rumsfeld Refuses to Fall Gracefully

CBS said it withheld broadcasting the images for more than week at the request of Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a development that led the senators to further accuse the Defense Department of trying to censor the news.
Rumsfeld whines “Everyone knew it. CNN was there asking questions.”

This tells me that CNN minds even better than CBS

Mr. Bush pledged that his defense secretary would not be ousted, even as he acknowledged that he had chastised Mr. Rumsfeld 24 hours earlier for his failure to inform him about graphic photographs showing the American abuse of Iraqi captives.

So everyone but the the President, right Donnie?

Here's all I found in the archives of the Department of Defense News for 16 Jan 04

01/16/2004: Bremer Says Sovereignty Handover Should Happen on Schedule

01/16/2004: Rotation to Provide Right Mix of Forces

01/16/2004: Sanchez Urges Saddam Loyalists to Lay Down Arms

01/16/2004: 101st Airborne Division Starts to Head Home

01/16/2004: Rebuilt Afghan School Brightens Youths' Future

01/16/2004: Myers Praises Australian Efforts in War on Terror

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. I'm sure it's someplace really obvious. I must be so stupid not to have picked up on it back in January when it was anounced to the media.

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4 weeks old

He likes what he sees in the mirror.

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First Amendment fight reveals mind of drug warriors
May 07,2004


Last week an important case regarding free-speech rights was argued in federal court in the nation's capital. Although it attracted little attention, it has the potential to widen the debate about federal drug policy - and has already highlighted the intellectual weakness of the most fervid drug warriors.

Istook has tacked an amendment onto a transportation bill that would deny federal funds to any transit authority that displays ads for marijuana reform.

Rep. Istook's anti-marijuana reform amendment comes on the heels of his having slashed $90,000 from Washington, DC's transit authority budget in December after discovering that local buses were carrying advertisements – placed by a Massachusetts-based pro-marijuana legalization group, Change the Climate, Inc. – that had the tagline, "Enjoy Better Sex! Legalize and Tax Marijuana."
"At a time when the nation and Washington, D.C., area in particular suffer from chronic substance abuse and sexually transmitted disease, I find it shocking that WMATA provides this ad space, and at no cost!" Istook wrote in a Nov. 10 letter to the chairman of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Yeah, that makes sense, STD's and marijuana. Dude, do you really have no sense of humor or do you look for stuff to keep your core voters scared. How does it feel to have your whole career built on fear? Down home folks fear of change. I think Istook is concerned that marijuana use would compete with the alchohol industry, and he does get a lot of money from the booze companies.

"It's fair to say that Rep. Istook is awash in alcoholic beverage industry money," Bruce Mirken, MPP's Director of Communications told WorkingForChange.
The Istook Amendment "is in direct violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution"

But Istook obviously hates the Constitution and thinks this country sucks, what with all this Freedom and all.

In 1998, Istook authored the "Religious Freedom Amendment" which the Anti-Defamation (ADL) said "would take the country back to the days when public schools forced a single religion upon students of myriad faiths."

Ernest Istook wastes so much time and money on ridiculous causes and what does he do for us at home?

Shawnee resident Mark Dickinson was critical of Istook's vote to provide a 3.5 percent cost-of-living increase for military employees, but not for federal employees.

"We have a lot of unhappy people at Tinker Air Force Base," said Dickinson, who is president of the American Federal of Government Employees, Local 916 at Tinker. "This is money that goes into the Pottawatomie County community."

Dickinson pointed out that there are 1,500 Tinker employees in Pottawatomie County, making the base the biggest employer in the county. He said that although the federal employees have gotten raises in past years, that they had been passed up for many years before that.

"Because the president's proposal is to raise the military 3.5 percent, people say you cannot give the military a pay increase across the board unless you do the same thing for the civilian work force," Istook said, noting it would require an additional $2.2 billion to raise all federal employees. "Most people that are in federal civil service are not called upon to make the same level of sacrifice ... as we do in our military."

"we do in our military."? His bio shows him safely ensconced in college from '68 to '76. No mention of military service.

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TBogg points to this article that explains why Oklahomophobians are largely Bush supporters. It also answers one of my old questions; How do these people relate to GW?

They don't read either.

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I'm in a really bad mood. I heard a guy saying, "Well I tell you what, I'm not votin' for that damn Kerry, that's for sure." today and several people were just a'noddin their heads in agreeement. I smiled my brightest, gave him a sweet little "I'm harmless" wink and asked "What is it, specifically, you don't like about Kerry, Hon?" And I got the same goddamn answer I 've gotten everytime I've asked, "I don't know, I just don't like the guy." That's the scariest thing I've ever heard. What's my defense against that?
Someone point me to a good source of answers for every accusation the gop has made against Kerry. I'm going to start making up flyers and leave them lying around. Maybe one on all the lies and backroom bullshit the bushies have been getting away with too. Cute litttle animal pictures to suck them in. If I could just tie in cockfighting.....

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Check out Sinclair Broadcasting business's in your area.
Adios Malcolm in the Middle.
I'll never watch FOX again.

Oklahoma City, OK
Owned And Operated WB www.kocb.com
Owned And Operated FOX www.kokh.com

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Raymond Green in Mens News Daily

Ted Koppel read the names of the more than 500 fallen soldiers in Iraq on ABC’s “Nightline” and the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. decided to preempt the broadcast on its stations which air ABC programming. Sinclair stated the preemption was intended to prevent ABC from aggrandizing what it thought to be an antiwar movement and issued a statement on its website explaining the motive behind the decision.

We know where Sinclair stands on the war and the motive behind their decision. As for ABC, that is another story.

Koppel has also denied that his broadcast was intended to encourage antiwar sentiment. He has, however, admitted the broadcast was inspired by an issue of Life magazine in June of 1969 that contained two pages of pictures of the men who died over the course of a week in Vietnam that “had an enormous impact.”

Sinclair is accused of influencing the news while CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and nearly every other media outlet skew what people hear and read on a daily basis. A bipartisan group returned from Iraq about 6 months ago stating that the coverage of the situation in Iraq was far better than what we were being told by the media.

Things must have gotten a hell of a lot worse in 6 months, but I guess you don't believe what you see on the news

I believe that the motives of Sinclair are more sincere than Koppel’s ridiculous attempt to portray objectivity, and the decision by Sinclair makes far more sense than the same media distorting every other issue cares to acknowledge.

Sinclair is not influencing the news, you moron, it's CENSORING it!! Could you not have decided to change the fucking channel on your own? Do you need Daddy to put a lock on the TV so you won't accidently see something he thinks you shouldn't? An American, any Patriotic Flag Loving, True American would be outraged at this inexcusable theft of freedom!
Sinclair states;

Before you judge our decision, however, we would ask that you first question Mr. Koppel as to why he chose to read the names of the 523 troops killed in combat in Iraq, rather than the names of the thousands of private citizens killed in terrorists attacks since and including the events of September 11, 2001.

On September 11, 2002, ABC broadcast the names of all those killed on that horrible day. You are a total dildo Raymond Green, a dildo up Sinclair Broadcasting Groups ass.

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Debra Galant explains Censorship


The New Taliban is the FCC.

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Great post at Mr Crunchy

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

We're Doing Some Uniting Now, Boy Howdy!

This past Sunday, in celebration of the big march on Washington for women's reproductive rights, Bush aide Karen Hughes suggested on CNN that somehow the pro-life movement was allied with the US in the war against al Qaeda. Or that the war against al Qaeda should make us all pro-life. Or something. Here's the quote:

"I think after September 11, the American people are valuing life more…and I think those are the kind of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy, and really, the fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life."

Haven't we all felt the tremendous surge in the value we all place on every single human life since September 11? I mean, we've stopped executing criminals, everyone has good health care and we all feel really bad about the ten to fifteen thousand Iraqi civilians we've killed (so far) to shut down Saddam's imaginary weapons programs. I guess I can sort of understand what she's trying to say, if I hop on one foot and squint and shake my head real fast and pretend that instead of a brain I just have an itsy bitsy ganglia at the base of my neck controlled by a computer chip that Karl Rove soldered onto it, and I take a hubba-hubba-huge hit off my Pat Robertson bobblehead crack pipe. (For her part, Ms. Hughes has ceded her reproductive rights to Dick Cheney, and he's still trying to figure out what to do with them. He will not be releasing the identities of any, ahem, issue experts he calls in to discuss the Hughes Reproductive Rights Reuse Program Related Activities Program.)

The pro-choice folks are all pissed off, and understandably so, especially considering how close to home this hits with al Qaeda being such a pack of Feminazis and everything. The president of Planned Parenthood even wrote Ms. Hughes a letter requesting an apology. I'm sure that apology will be forthcoming any minute now, just as soon as Ms. Hughes remembers where she put her soul. But all of this is just news. What's more interesting? Meta-news. The meta-news here is that this may well be the Bush administration's first attempt to use a new policy, which has been dubbed Operation 9/11 Justification for Everything. Can you imagine? Try. (I don't know how to do Bush's accent in text, so I'll just keep the sentences real short so Imaginary Bush won't have trouble with them.)

"Understand your enemy. See? Al Qaeda loves taxes. When we lower taxes, we lower al Qaeda."

"There is oil in the Middle East. There may be oil in Alaska. If we'd struck oil in ANWR, we'd have more oil."

"Remember 9/11? Affirmative action sucks. Stay the course."

"9/11 wasn't provoked. It happened because of our way of life. Our way of life means 'marriage' is between one man and one woman. Al Qaeda wants to destroy our way of life. When gay people get married, it makes al Qaeda happy."

OK, so maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch.

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Something for Daisy

I was looking for something to say I'm sorry (not to Daisy, to someone else) but after I saw this I thought what I did wasn't so bad after all.