Ten More Years! Ten More Years!

I don't know if we plan to be there for the duration of the insurgency but it certainly won't be over soon.

"The insurgency in Iraq is not likely to be put down in a year or even two since history shows such uprisings can last a decade or more, the United States' top military commander said on Friday.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers said that in the past century, insurgencies around the world have lasted anywhere from seven to 12 years, making a quick fix to the problem in Iraq unlikely.

'This is not the kind of business that can be done in one year, two years probably,' said Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council here.

Myers was filling in for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who was scheduled to address the group but became ill after a long trip to Europe.

Myers said, however, that recent elections in Iraq were a sign that insurgents were not succeeding in their efforts to strike fear in the Iraqi people. American television was full of images in January of Iraqis whose fingers were stained with indelible ink after casting their ballots.

'They were sticking that ink-stained finger in the eye of the insurgents,' Myers told a packed ballroom at the Beverly Hilton hotel.

In Iraq, negotiations continued on Friday over who would lead the country's new government, talks made more complicated by delicate ethnic and sectarian issues.

'There is a lot of tension in the system politically ... which is a very good thing' for a new democracy, Myers said.

The new government is expected to make security an immediate focus. Three U.S. soldiers were killed and eight wounded in a roadside blast north of Baghdad on Friday, the military said.

'There's more and more thought both from religious circles and intellectual circles that (the insurgency) absolutely is unacceptable behavior,' Myers said. "

Nancy Grace Has None

I used to hate when Nancy Grace filled in for Larry King. While I understand that she lost her fiance to random violence, while she was in college, she doesn't appear to have moved beyond it. Though I am sure the tragedy is what fueled her passion as a prosecutor and as a pundit, she grates my nerves - to death. I have yet to tune into her new show and, with the Michael Jackson trial beginning today, doubt that I'll be watching her any time soon. On-air persona aside, it sounds as though her off-stage antics are just as vitriolic.

Anyone who witnessed legal analyst Nancy Grace's combative performance at the recent Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles won’t be surprised by the behind-the-scenes reports coming from CNN Headline News’ new show, Nancy Grace. The diva act continues.

However, CNN may be inclined to take the bad with the good, because Grace is lifting the beleaguered channel in the ratings.

Just one week into the prime time show (which got off with a rocky start with a glitch-filled premiere), Grace has already had her make-up person reassigned, and laced into a production staffer so mercilessly that he quit the show. In a departure for the traditionally low-glitz CNN, Grace has commanded a room of her own for makeup. But it's not as if she wants privacy; the host calls her staff in for meetings while she's being spruced up.

As the show enters its second week, CNN staffers expect more tension. This is cable honey, skip the diva business, says one. It was an echo of reactions to Grace at the TCA gathering in January, when her grande-dame manner during Q&As with journalists raised eyebrows.

In FoxNews-like fashion she, along with Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, have the "screaming meme's" down to a science. She also seems to have caught a whiff of her own armpits and is inhaling much too deeply.

Ooooh My Bad ...

... said Putin.

I don't know if "Pooty Poot" is confused, only pretending to be confused or if he is just messing with Dubya's mind. But this is too funny!

It was meant to be a heart-to-heart: just the two presidents and their translators, sitting alone inside the historic castle that overlooks the Slovak capital of Bratislava. Four years earlier, in another castle in Central Europe, George W. Bush looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and saw his trustworthy soul. But what he saw inside Putin last week was far less comforting. When Bush confronted his Russian counterpart about the freedom of the press in Russia, Putin shot back with an attack of his own: "We didn't criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS."

It's not clear how well Putin understands the controversy that led to the dismissal of four CBS journalists over the discredited report on Bush's National Guard service. Yet it's all too clear how Putin sees the relationship between Bush and the American media—just like his own. Bush's aides have long feared that former KGB officers in Putin's inner circle are painting a twisted picture of U.S. policy. So Bush explained how he had no power to fire American journalists. It made little difference. When the two presidents emerged for their joint press conference, one Russian reporter repeated Putin's language about journalists getting fired. Bush (already hot after an earlier question about his spying on U.S. citizens) asked the reporter if he felt free. "They obviously planted the question," said one of Bush's senior aides.

Trying not to be my usual pessimistic self but I'd say that our relationship with Russia is heading towards the skids.

Coming Back Crazy

I know "crazy" isn't politically correct but one of my biggest concerns about the war is the condition of the troops when they come home. It is bad enough seeing the footage of maimed, limbless soldiers who smile for the cameras and tell reporters they "don't mind" not having legs or arms or full eyesight but there are going to be thousands coming back with wounds we can't see.

Jeremy Harrison sees the warning signs in the Iraq war veterans who walk through his office door every day — flashbacks, inability to relax or relate, restless nights and more.

He recognizes them as symptoms of combat stress because he's trained to, as a counselor at the small storefront Vet Center here run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He recognizes them as well because he, too, has faced readjustment in the year since he returned from Iraq, where he served as a sergeant in an engineering company that helped capture Baghdad in 2003.

"Sometimes these sessions are helpful to me," Harrison says, taking a break from counseling some of the nation's newest combat veterans. "Because I deal with a lot of the same problems."

As the United States nears the two-year mark in its military presence in Iraq still fighting a violent insurgency, it is also coming to grips with one of the products of war at home: a new generation of veterans, some of them scarred in ways seen and unseen. While military hospitals mend the physical wounds, the VA is attempting to focus its massive health and benefits bureaucracy on the long-term needs of combat veterans after they leave military service. Some suffer from wounds of flesh and bone, others of emotions and psyche.

I hope our Veterans hospitals are making extra efforts to accommodate these people. I keep hearing stories of facilities and services being backed -logged and sick (mentally and otherwise) soldiers not getting the services they deserve. It was one thing for the Bush Administration to underestimate the number of soldiers needed to "win the peace" in Iraq. It is for that reason that so many of our soldiers are being injured or killed. But there is positively no excuse for not having an adequate number of healthcare workers and administrative employees to win the wellness of our soldiers when they come home.

Livin' The Vida Single

I guess Japanese men will have to send off for mail order brides from foreign lands. Perhaps I need to move to Japan where the majority of women think like me and people won't look at me cross-eyed when I tell them I see no advantage to marriage.

"A newspaper poll published Friday shows that 73% of single women in Japan say they are happy not being married. But 24% of single women said they did not think they could be happy without marrying eventually.

The poll, conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun, also found that 67% of single male respondents were happy despite not being married. The newspaper conducted the street survey on Feb 12 and 13 by interviewing 3,000 people, of whom 1,853 gave valid answers. Fifty-two percent of the respondents were women."

Switcharoo

Whew! I thought I was going crazy! When I saw the references to Ann Coulter calling journalist Helen Thomas an "old Arab." I was wondering how I had missed that when I read her column. Now I see that the version I saw was the edited, syndicated version and not the one on her website.

"Writing in her February 23 column for Universal Press Syndicate, Coulter observed, among other things, that Guckert/Gannon was a better reporter than The New York Times' Maureen Dowd and his 'only offense is that he may be gay.' Nothing unexpected there, but Coulter also wrote: 'Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.'

But when the column got posted by Universal on its Web site, that line was changed to: 'Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.' "

I don't know what her problem is nor why, like other conservatives, she is justifying Guckert/Gannon's presence in the White House as though it is, at any level, acceptable. With the exceptions that "gay" being in direct conflict with the Bush Administration's platform and unacceptable in the military, that part of the scandal can be dismissed. For some odd reason I thought that prostitution was illegal and butt naked pictures on the internet could be construed as pornography. Additionally, non-journalists who work for non-news agencies with fake names aren't generally allowed into the White House, without a background check, with daily passes and biased access to the President.

At the very least, his presence is an insult to the real, hardworking, experienced journalists who are not allowed the same privilege.

An Ownership Society Where You Own Nothing

I guess people will have to be herded up on a poor farm before they realize what is going onIs This Your Ownership Society?:

"Would you invest in a company that cut your wages, laid off your cousin, polluted your neighborhood, cut your health insurance and raided your retirement fund? If so, you'll love President Bush's 'ownership society.'

At a time of rising support for socially responsible business, Bush's ownership society offers less social responsibility, less opportunity and accelerating dis-investment in the future.

Extensive studies demonstrate the economic benefits of corporate social and environmental responsibility, including improved financial performance, productivity, quality, innovation and reduced operating costs. 'For example,' says Business for Social Responsibility, 'many initiatives aimed at improving environmental performance -- such as reducing emissions of gases that contribute to global climate change...also lower costs.'

The ownership society backed by Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget is the worst of all worlds: fiscally, socially and environmentally irresponsible, morally bankrupt, and toxic to democracy.

Lincoln fought for 'government of the people, by the people, for the people.' Bush stands for government of the owners, by the owners, for the owners.

The richest 1 percent of households already owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. Take-home pay as a share of the economy is at the lowest level since 1929.

Bush is reshaping the tax and budget system so workers pay a greater share of the costs and owners pay less. As wealth is increasingly sheltered from taxes, inequality will become more entrenched and hereditary in Bush's ownership society.

While Bush runs up the national debt to reckless levels, risking economic crisis, to give more tax breaks to millionaires, his budget cuts education, a pillar of individual and national progress, on the pretense of fiscal responsibility.

The unemployment rate is 30 percent higher than it was in 2000. About one out of six Americans has no health insurance, and half of all bankruptcies are illness-related. One out of eight Americans lives below the meager official poverty line -- and many more can't make ends meet above it.

Yet, Bush's budget slashes already inadequate small business assistance, workforce development, community economic development, public health and safety, Medicaid, housing assistance, public transit, food stamps, childcare and much more"

The Bush administration was good at selling himself as a man who can promote the ideals of family values and religion. With the release of the proposed budget, many are seeing that Bush may sell family values, but it really doesn't buy the average American anything tangible for their future. It's sad. For some people all you have to do is mention Jesus and you can sell them shit on a stick!

Yellow Journalism's Finest

I am no longer appalled or amazed by the antics right-wing propaganda machine commonly known as FOX News . What ethical reporter or editor would permit the changing of words in a direct quote to match the preferred lingo of a biased news organization?

"Since April 2002, FOX News has consistently doctored Associated Press articles featured on the FOX News website concerning terrorist attacks in the Middle East to conform to Bush administration terminology. Without any editorial notation disclosing that words in the AP articles have been changed, FOX News replaces the terms 'suicide bomber' and 'suicide bombing' with 'homicide bomber' and 'homicide bombing' to describe attackers who kill themselves and others with explosives. In at least one case, FOX News actually altered an AP quote from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) to fit this naming convention, and then revised it to restore the quote without noting either the original alteration or its correction.

The Associated Press noted in April 2002 that FOX News first began using the term 'homicide bombing' in its own reports immediately after Bush administration officials -- such as then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer -- adopted the term. While other news organizations continued to use the term 'suicide bomber,' the AP reported, 'Dennis Murray, executive producer of [FOX News'] daytime programming, said executives there had heard the phrase ['homicide bombing'] being used by administration officials in recent days and thought it was a good idea.'

But Media Matters for America has found that FOX has applied the 'homicide' terminology not only in its own original reports, but also in the AP reports that it publishes on its website. Readers are led to believe that the AP itself uses the 'homicide' terminology, when in fact it does not. According to a Media Matters search, the AP has used the terms 'homicide bomber' or 'homicide bombing' when referring to terrorist attacks in only one article, published on May 7, 2004. These terms have otherwise appeared in AP articles only in quotations."

Those guys are just skeevy!

Powell Speaks

I knew it would only be a matter of time before his diplomatic silence was broken. Of course, this is nothing new:

"Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, has for the first time publicly criticised troops levels in Iraq and spoken of the rifts between himself and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, that undermined his role as architect of American foreign policy.

Mr Powell, in his first interview since resigning last November, also told The Telegraph of his 'dismay' at the deterioration in relations between America and Europe and of his 'disappointment' with France.

While holding back from blaming Mr Rumsfeld by name for the problems that eventually persuaded him to resign, Mr Powell showed that much of the innuendo and leaks surrounding his volatile relationship with the defence secretary had been well-founded.

Admitting that Mr Rumsfeld's controversial plan to fight the war with limited troop numbers had been an outstanding success, Mr Powell said the 'nation building' that followed had been deeply flawed.

There had been 'enough troops for war but not for peace, for establishing order. My own preference would have been for more forces after the conflict.'"

To Be On God's Side

This Alternet interview with Rev. Jim Wallis really breaks down the differences in how people interpret their Christian beliefs. It comes down to believing that either God is on your side or that you are on God's side. The difference may seem subtle but it is also the reason why equally God loving people can be so divided in this nation.

[...]
Let me close by paraphrasing something Susan Jacoby brought up in an interview we did recently, a famous statement Abraham Lincoln made about the Civil War. He said, in essence, I can't say whether God is on our side, but my great concern is to be on the side of God. That seems to be emblematic of much of what we're discussing. President Bush says God is on his side. He has said he was selected by God to be president, that he was leading a Crusade, although he backtracked on that comment, and that God had chosen him to lead this war against Iraq, and that God is on his side. This is pretty definitive. As you say, perhaps he indeed believes that. Lincoln, on the other hand, said we must hope we are on the side of God, which is a very different emphasis.

Yes, you're right. These are the two ways of bringing God into public life. This is our American history. One is God on our side, and that leads to the worst things in politics. It leads to overconfidence and hubris – triumphalism – and often to bad foreign policy, often to wars, and in this case, now pre-emptive, unilateral war.

The other way about worrying – praying earnestly if we're on God's side – brings into politics the things that we're missing today, like humility and penitence and reflection, and even accountability.

Lincoln got it right. We don't claim God's blessing on our politics and policies. We don't claim that God is on our side. We worry, we pray, we just always examine ourselves to see if we are on God's side. And if Lincoln got it right, I think Martin Luther King did it best. With that Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other hand, he really didn't pronounce, he persuaded. He didn't shut people out; he invited everybody in to a moral discourse on politics. And he said we can do better. We can do better than this by our democratic values, by our religious values.

We have to ask what kind of people do we want to be, what kind of nation do we want to have, what kind of world do you want to leave for our children. And when every major progressive social movement in our nation's history was fueled and driven in part by religion, by faith, by moral values, we have a very powerful, prophetic and progressive religious tradition in America and around the world.
[...]

Where There's Bush, There's War

Gotta love the friendly welcome the President gets overseas!

Thousands of Germans March to Protest Bush Visit

"Demonstrators pulled a float portraying a prisoner being beaten at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison through the German city of Mainz on Wednesday, part of a protest by several thousand people against visiting United States President George Bush.

The float featured a woman in military fatigues whipping a 'prisoner' in an orange jumpsuit -- a replication of abuse by US troops at the Baghdad prison. Also among the marchers were four people in brown cow costumes bearing a sign: 'We don't need you, cowboy.'

Police said about 5 000 people turned out for the rally and parade through the streets of Mainz. Riot police in body armour kept a close watch, with a helicopter hovering overhead and officers passing out leaflets asking people to express their views peacefully.

The route kept the protesters well away from the city's Baroque palace where Bush met German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. But it did take them past the home of a supporter who opened a window and began tossing baked pretzels to the marchers as they passed, rock music blaring from the apartment.

Maximillian Weizel (16) showed up with 10 classmates after their high school cancelled classes because of Bush's visit.

'Bush has messed up,' he said, adding that he disagrees with 'Bush's list of regimes he wants to overthrow'.

The protesters carried placards reading: 'We don't want your kind of peace', 'Where Bush is, there's war', 'World's number 1 terrorist' and 'Wanted dead or alive -- George 'Dubya' Bush and his band of congressmen'.

Margret Koehler-Gutsch (68) held a sign that said: 'God bless America -- with reason.'

'The majority of Americans who voted Bush into office and talk about God should read the Ten Commandments,' she said. 'They should remember that the commandments say, 'Thou shalt not kill,' and that people should love their neighbours.'

'I cannot understand how someone can say they are acting in God's will and then wage war,' she added. 'It's perverse.'

The demonstration was organised by an association of about 50 anti-war, environmental and anti-globalisation groups that came together under the name Not Welcome Bush."

Kill Me, No Oil

We can call Chavez paranoid and crazy if we want to but if he turns up dead ...

"Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said Sunday that he would stop oil exports to the United States if the U.S. government tries to assassinate him.

'If anything happens to me, forget about Venezuelan oil Mr. (George W.) Bush,' said Chavez during his weekly radio and television show.
Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro accused the United States last week of planning to assassinate Chavez.

'If I am assassinated, there is only one person responsible: the president of the United States. You must take action if this happens,' Chavez said to listeners of his show.

Relations with the United States, Venezuela's main oil buyer, have deteriorated in the past months due to Washington's criticism of weapons purchases by Venezuela.

Venezuela is the world's fifth oil exporter and is the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States, shipping nearly 1.2 million barrels of crude to U.S. ports daily.

However, relations have been tense under Chavez, a strong critic of U.S. involvement in Iraq and free market deals backed by Washington.

Chavez has accused the U.S. government of being behind a 2002 coup attempt that it was slow to condemn. "

On Brother Malcolm

Well, I've certainly caused an isht storm by passing this around to many of my internet discussion lists. The funny part is that, minus the obvious disdain for Brother Malcolm, I basically agree with Stanley Crouch that, in recent years, Malcolm has been conjured up into a figure who is far larger in death than he ever was in life.

Truth about Malcolm X

Forty years ago today, Malcolm X was shot down in front of his family and an audience of followers at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. When he died, Malcolm X had been estranged from the Nation of Islam for about a year and had begun to call Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the cult, a liar, a fraud and a womanizer.

Those were mighty hot words to direct at the Nation of Islam, which was feared throughout the black community as a known gathering place for violent criminals of all sorts who had been converted in prison, the way Malcolm himself had. Before his ascent in the cult world of homemade Islam, Malcolm Little had been known as 'Big Red,' a street hustler with a big mouth, a cocaine habit and a willingness to get rowdy and wild if the occasion called for it.

Sent to prison for a series of burglaries, Malcolm turned to Islam, or a version of it, promoted as the 'black man's true religion' which held the secrets to liberation from white domination and black self-hatred. A convert, he began the liberation by replacing his 'slave name' with an Islamic name or an X.

Malcolm X appeared on the national scene in 1959, presented by the media as the face of what white racism had done to black people. He was a minister of hate who used fiery rhetoric to teach that the white man was a devil invented 6,000 years ago by a mad black scientist. White audiences were appalled or darkly amused by this cartoon version of Islam, but more than a few black Americans were influenced by the Nation of Islam and by its dominant mouthpiece - light-skinned, freckle-faced, red-haired Malcolm X, the voice of black rage incarnate.

Some Negroes left the Christian church, others changed their names. A number stopped eating pork and demanded beef barbecue, and a good many eventually stopped frying their hair and became more nationalistic and hostile to whites, in their own rhetoric and in the rhetoric they liked to hear.

Malcolm X proved how vulnerable Negroes were to hearing another Negro put some hard talk on the white man. The long heritage of silence, both in slavery and the redneck South, was so strong that speech became a much more important act than many realized. Martin Luther King Jr. recognized this, observing that many of those who went to hear Malcolm X were less impressed with his ideas than they were with the contemptuous way he spoke to white power.

Since his death, Malcolm X has been elevated from a heckler of the civil rights moment to a civil rights leader - which he never was - and many people now think that he was as important to his moment as King. He was not, and Malcolm X was well aware of this. But in our country, where liberal contempt for black people is boundless, we should not be surprised to see a minor figure lacquered with media 'respect' and thrown in the lap of the black community, where he is passed off as a great hero.

The truth is that, in my opinion, Malcolm X wasn't viewed as a civil rights leader back then. Like the Black Panthers, he reached people who didn't feel that Dr. King had done enough or that his efforts were addressing the right things ... that all that singing an marching wasn't going to get black people what they wanted in the long run (was he right or wrong?). The truth is that I don't recall Malcolm being as prominent as he is now until Spike Lee's movie "X" was released (and even then some choice negroes would see Malcolm X and think it was Malcolm "10" ... 'nuther topic). Most folks hadn't read his autobiography (and I never went to the theater to see the movie because I had read the book).

While I am glad that Malcolm X's legacy has been re-evaluated and that many of his ideas, particularly the ones after he completed the hajj are being remembered with such reverence, Malcolm X was a walking, talking, breathing example of introspection, growth and re-birth - more than once. He wasn't always the man he was when he was killed on February 21, 1965. That man was a new man. That man, like Martin King, had been to the mountain top. That man also wasn't around very long. So, I think that is what Stanley Crouch is saying in his seemingly hostile rememberance to Brother Malcolm. Malcolm's current popularity, in my view, is based on the Malcolm who was at the hour of his death and the Malcolm we believe he'd be if he'd lived. Post-mortem he is larger, stronger, more powerful and more revered that he was the day he died.

Expose The Deviants

At what point is someone going to take a stand and expose these "Christian" fundamentalists as the deviants they are? There has got to be an illness or pathology associated with the need to fixate on sexuality , in all its forms, so voraciously.

On its website the Traditional Values Coalition is warning parents about the cross-dressing and transgender themes contained in the hit DreamWorks feature, now on DVD.

'Shrek 2 is billed as harmless entertainment but contains subtle sexual messages,' says the coalition, which describes itself as a grassroots inter-denominational lobby with more than 43,000 member churches.

'Parents who are thinking about taking their children to see Shrek 2 may wish to consider the following.'

The article then proceeds to describe one of the characters, an 'evil' bartender (voiced by Larry King) who is a male-to-female transgender in transition and who expresses a sexual desire for Prince Charming.

In another identified scene, Shrek and Donkey need rescuing from a dungeon by Pinocchio and his nose, which is made to extend as an escape bridge by getting the wooden boy to lie about not wearing women's underwear."

I think it is time for a watch group to start watching these evangelicals who see sex in all things. That is a big red flag for something - something nasty. Somebody needs to start digging. I'll bet we'd find some of the seediest, most salacious things about the people who protest these cartoons the loudest. Anybody who doesn't have anything better to do than watch cartoons and conjure up homosexual innuendo has problems - BIG ONES!

Doing Things That Make For Peace

At least that is the intent of the World Council of Churches.

"The World Council of Churches has urged its 347 member denominations to give 'serious consideration' to pulling investments out of Israel in protest of what it sees as mistreatment of Palestinians.

In calling for church-sponsored 'economic pressure,' the WCC on Monday (Feb. 21) gave strong support for last year's controversial decision by the Presbyterian Church (USA) to seek 'phased selective divestment' from Israel.

'This (Presbyterian) action is commendable in both method and manner, uses criteria rooted in faith and calls members to do the things that make for peace,' the WCC's 150-member Central Committee said in its resolution.

The Geneva-based WCC is the major ecumenical voice for the world's mainline Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches. It does not include the Roman Catholic Church or most evangelical or Pentecostal churches. While the WCC statement is significant, it is not binding on member churches.

The WCC said its concern was focused on companies that assist Israel in demolishing Palestinian homes, constructing settlements and erecting a controversial 'dividing wall' within the Palestinian territories."

It's a little un-nerving to keep seeing the Roman Catholic Church lumped in with evangelicals and Pentacostals. But, that's right, I'm an ex-Catholic now!

He's Looking For A Soldier Cowboy

Beyonce is looking for a soldier. Bush is looking for a cowboy.

"Bush opened his discussions with a gesture of reconciliation toward disgruntled allies, hosting an elegant dinner for French President Jacques Chirac, the harshest critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

'I'm looking for a good cowboy,' Bush joshed when a reporter asked if relations had improved to the point where Chirac might receive an invitation to the president's Texas ranch. Chirac said U.S.-French relations have been excellent for 200 years and the war had not changed that. They dined on lobster risotto and filet of beef.

Despite the cordial meeting, Bush told Chirac the United States adamantly opposes Europe's plans to lift its 15-year arms embargo against China.

Hmmmm. We'll see how long this make up session lasts.

With Christian Friends Like These ...

I think that Dick Morris, former friend of Bill Clinton, is a total slimeball. I constantly see him on FoxNews and his only area of expertise is bashing Bill and Hillary Clinton. It is almost rather scary because he seems thoroughly obsessed. I realize that his friendship with The Clintons took a beating when Bill fired him. But, as a friend, he should have understood the climate and moved on like a big boy. Instead, it appears that he is going to spend the rest of his life trying to get them back. We all have spats with our friends but his behavior, after a decades long friendship, is traitorous and I flip the channel every time I see him on somebody's panel.

Now it seems that President Bush has his own traitor. Naturally, I was intrigued and hoping for something juicy when I heard that there were tapes of President Bush. But my glee immediately disappeared when I found out that a so-called friend had been secretly taping him. The man had been an evangelical minister at that. His excuse was lame because there is no excuse for this.

"'I didn't want them to become public,' said Doug Wead, 58, an author, former minister and one-time spiritual adviser to the American president.

'They were (a) personal record for me,' Wead, who recorded nine hours of his private conversations with Bush, told CNN television.

Wead taped the conversations between the summer of 1998 and 2000, while Bush

was the governor of Texas and a candidate for the US presidency.

Wead's just-released book, 'The Raising of a President,' draws on the recordings, which were made without Bush's knowledge.

In the tapes, Bush appears to strategize about the best way to finesse answers to potential campaign-trail questions about marijuana and cocaine.

'I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Cause I don't want some little kid doing what I tried,' Bush is heard to tell Wead."

I am still a rabid Bush detractor but even foes need friends they can trust. Doug Wead was thinking about his own future and used his friendship with the Bush family to secretly secure fodder for what he thought would help him write a historic book. Again, I ask, what kind of Christian is this? What kind of friend is this?

Pissing Contest

Oh Jeeee-bus! Here we go with a war of words and threats! Bush is still harping on Iran. Now Iran is issuing "double dares" right back!

"Iran has begun publicly preparing for a possible U.S. attack, as tensions mount between the Bush administration and this country's hard-line leaders over Tehran's purported nuclear weapons program.

'Iran would respond within 15 minutes to any attack by the United States or any other country,' an Iranian official close to the conservative clerics who run the country's security and military apparatus said on condition of anonymity.

The Tehran government has announced efforts to bolster and mobilize recruits in its citizens' militia and is making plans to engage in the type of 'asymmetrical' warfare that has bogged down U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq, officials and analysts say.

Iran insists it needs nuclear technology to meet its burgeoning domestic energy requirements and bolster its scientific community. But the United States accuses it of using nuclear energy as a fig leaf for a weapons program. "

I'd be hard pressed to believe that either Iran or the United States(or Israel) is going to attack the other (but you never can tell). It would be disastrous for both sides and the entire region if this escalates any further. Bush is still spewing his edicts to Iran. They, in turn, are spewing taunts right back. It is really starting to get silly and seems more like a dick fight than anything else.

I Already Knew That

You Are 100% Psychic

You are so very psychic. But you already predicted that, didn't you? You have 'the gift' - and you use it daily to connect with others. You're very tapped into the world around you... Just make sure to use your powers for good!

Are You Psychic?

Eve And Eve

I've been missing Fresh Air on NPR quite a bit lately but I wish I hadn't missed this interview outlined by the blogger at preemptivekarma.com. I interlaced my comments in bold.

In an interview with NPR Fresh air host Terry Gross on February 9, author/VP spouse Lynne Cheney gave an unchallenged "both ends against the middle" analysis of lesbianism/female intimacy.

During the interview, Cheney is asked by Gross about the new Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. Specifically, Gross queried Cheney about Spellings' quest to remove the Department of Education seal and all references of DOE funding from the animated children's show, "Postcards from Buster". Spellings' objection to Buster stems from an episode where on a trip to Vermont, Buster meets some children with lesbian parents.

Cheney responds that she believes parents want control over what their children see and hear, especially in terms of things having to do with sexuality. (The Buster episode in question contains no references to sex or sexuality in any way. The children have two women as parents. There is no reference to their sexuality).

Uh, HELLO! Does this mean you didn't "control" what little Miss Mary watched? After the Sponge Bob Square Pants fervor, I just couldn't bring myself to address the absurdity of the new Secretary of Education jumping on a bunny cartoon as her first order of business. When do cartoon bunnies talk about sexuality? I ended up seeing a brief clip of the "controversial" PBS program and all Buster the Bunny did was go visit two ladies who make frickin' syrup. Without the heads up from the homo police, I probably wouldn't have picked up that the women were "partners." I know for a fact, that if I'd seen it as a kid, I'd just now be figuring it out!

Later in the interview, Gross asks Cheney about her book Sisters,which contains the following passages:

"'To my Helena, my dearest lover...Thine always, A.T.' Helen and Amy Travers? No, it couldn't be, simply couldn't."

"Helen, my joy and my beloved...Let us go away together, away from the anger and the imperatives of men...There will be only the two of us...In the evenings I shall read to you while you work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl..."

"Society as a whole might conclude that women were sexless creatures, but she knew otherwise. She also knew that claiming a relationship was not erotic, thinking it could not be would not keep it from being so. There could be no tearing off of one's clothes and lustily hopping into bed, not if one would preserve the love-religion. But the loving words and the warm embrace were permitted, and the kiss before sleep, the arousal gentle enough so that its nature would not have to be acknowledged."

"The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve...-- no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were. She felt curiously moved...she saw that the women in the cart had a passionate, loving intimacy forever closed to her."

Whaa? So, according to evangelicals, God didn't make Adam and Steve but in Lynne Cheney's book he made Eve and Eve?

Cheney tells Gross that these passages aren't about lesbianism and that those who believe so are guilty of "presentism": assigning the notions of today to pioneer women as some, Cheney says, are trying to now do with Lincoln.

Cheney further goes on to claim that a loving relationship between two women isn't necessarily sexual. Indeed. But here's the problem: she just told Gross a few minutes earlier that two women in the Buster episode are sexual, even though there are absolutely no sexual references.

Uh, right! Sorry, but I am in a sorority and ... we no say tings like that to each other ... Blood sisters don't either

Oddly, today I made the stupid mistake of posting comments (as Qusan) on a conservative sistah's blog (no not LaShawne Barber ... that chick is scary ... I avoid her blog the way I avoid FoxNews) who posted about Maya Keyes' coming out earlier this week. The stupidity was in knowing that a good number of her readers are bible thumping zealots who only know the language of fear and sin and that any chance for intelligent discussion is lost because the debate is based on two different premises: sinful choice vs. genetics.

I said during the election season that I thought Lynne Cheney was in denial about Mary (even though she was at the ignauguration with the entire family along with her partner) and even feels twinges of guilt that she, somehow, made Mary that way. It's sad.

Brain Gender

Your Brain is 60.00% Female, 40.00% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

What Gender Is Your Brain?

Explain The Difference

Let's see, we are shaking in our boots from the fear that the Shiite majority will somehow form an Iranian style theocratic state run by mullahs and clerics. Yet, the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are persistent advisors who are constantly making demands and holding Bush's feet to the fire over campaign promises. Islamic Rule? Evangelical Rule? What is the difference?

"Evangelist Pat Robertson indicated Tuesday that if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expects backing of religious conservatives for a possible 2008 presidential bid, he had better get President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed by the Senate, or at least voted on.

'It is the ultimate test,' Robertson said at the National Press Club. 'He cannot be a leader and allow Democrats to do what they did in the last session.'

The Democrats' ability to stall White House picks for the federal bench was one of the most contentious issues of Bush's first term.

With a Senate comprised of 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and a Democrat-leaning independent, Democrats still have the 40 votes necessary to uphold a filibuster and block a vote on a nominee by the full Senate. In the case of a vote by the full Senate on a nominee, a simple majority would be needed for confirmation.

'To the evangelicals, that is the number one consideration,' Robertson said, saying 'unelected judges' were largely responsible for laws on abortion, gay marriage and Internet pornography.

Bush has sent judicial nominations back to the Senate that were blocked in his first term, assuring another fierce fight. Conservative Christians are a core group of the Republican voter base, so their backing can be crucial in a presidential campaign.

Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, said he's also worried about Middle East peace efforts.

'I do not believe the state of Israel will be secure if it has a Palestinian state in its heart,' Robertson said. A Palestinian state, he said, would have the ability to import weapons to groups in the country that have not agreed to the peace process."

And no Palestinian state either? Isn't that part of what used to be the "road map to peace in the Middle East?" Dubya needs to jump out with is "gotcha guys!" now because these kooks are out of control.

The Stepford Reporters

Now that the effects of the poppies have worn off, everyone has an opinion on the Gannon/Guckert story. Here is Marueen Dowd's, of the New York Times, take:

I'm still mystified by this story. I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?

At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.

In an era when security concerns are paramount, what kind of Secret Service background check did James Guckert get so he could saunter into the West Wing every day under an assumed name while he was doing full-frontal advertising for stud services for $1,200 a weekend? He used a driver's license that said James Guckert to get into the White House and, once inside, switched to his alter ego, asking questions as Jeff Gannon.

McClellan shrugged this off to Editor & Publisher, oddly noting, "People use aliases all the time in life, from journalists to actors."

I know the FBI computers don't work, but this is ridiculous. After getting gobsmacked by the louche sagas of Guckert and Bernard Kerik, the White House vetters should consider adding someone with some blogging experience.

Does the Bush team love everything military so much that even a military-stud Web site is a recommendation?

Or maybe Gannon/Guckert's willingness to shill free for the White House, even on gay issues, was endearing. One of his stories mocked John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform" with the headline "Kerry could become first gay president."

With the Bushies, if you're their friend, anything goes. If you're their critic, nothing goes. They're waging a jihad against journalists - buying them off so they'll promote administration programs, trying to put them in jail for doing their jobs, and replacing them with ringers.

Jokes and butt naked photos aside, this really is a tragic shame. I never used my Journalism degree as a reporter but always respected the quality of training that I received and still have a lot of respect for old schoolers who understand the responsibility and ethics required to be a true member of the press. Those days seem to be over with this administration. Journalists with credentials and integrity are being mined out and replaced by Stepford robots.

Wouldn't Call It A Double-Cross?

Bwaaaaah!

I'm just clueless as to how people, particularly farmers, cannot recognize a wolf i