Tarzan The Monkey Man

This fool is swinging on a rubber band and hanging by a thread of sanity.

Georgie Anne Geyer writes today in the Dallas Morning News about President Bush’s strange behavior during a recent meeting with “[f]riends of his from Texas.”

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

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Celebrity Rehab

Look. I don't care about these celebs doing jail time. They play circus animals to the masses so, yeah, I am probably one of the few people who deserve special treatment because we spend so much time treating them like they are special. Why can't they just create a new reality show called Celebrity Rehab where instead of having jail time, they allow the world to view why they really end up in rehab in the first place.

Nicole Richie admits she's "nervous" about the possibility she may follow her friend Paris Hilton to jail.

Richie was charged with DUI in February. Police say she was under the influence of booze and an unspecified drug when they stopped her last year.

Richie told Ryan Seacrest on his radio show on KIIS-FM) in Los Angeles that she understands she has to "take responsibility" and "deal with whatever consequences" come her way.

Richie also denied a report that she'd been in rehab recently. She says the rumor started because she hadn't been seen in a few weeks. Richie says she was touring with her boyfriend Joel Madden of Good Charlotte.

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The One Big Ass They Can't Tap

The obsession slays me. It's positively mongrel-like. There is no reason on this earth that a multi-millionaire like Donald Trump should have the time or inkling to be making the rounds on the cable networks hurling insults at Rosie O'Donnell. I'm not being dense. I know it's some incantation of homophobia but if I were a white man, I would be embarrassed to give a big, loud, unkempt lesbian this much attention. What is really the issue here? The want some of that?

Donald Trump joined Bill O'Reilly last night so they could massage one another's egos over having created, as O'Reilly put it so smugly, the "monster" that became Rosie O'Donnell on "The View."

With Rosie leaving "The View," the pair of smarmeisters -- O'Donnell's most public nemeses over the past year -- chummed it up on "The O'Reilly Factor" last night. O'Reilly wondered aloud if they hadn't overplayed Rosie, and Trump alleged that O'Donnell once "ate a lot of cake" at his wedding to Marla Maples, way back before they were at each other's throats.

No word on whether it was necessary to expand the set to accommodate both of their heads.

They want her!

Ground Hog Day In The Middle East

I could have sworn that this just happened yesterday but in Iraq. Plane down. Rescuer's ambushed.

Seven NATO troops were killed when their Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, a U.S. military official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the incident, which killed five U.S. soldiers and two military passengers.

Initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, the U.S. military official, who was not authorized to release the information, said on condition of anonymity. It was not clear if there were any survivors, the official said.

The official said it was a CH-47 Chinook helicopter.

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Is He Trying To Incite These People?

They are asking us to leave and he is talking about staying indefinitely.

President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.

The comparison was offered as the Pentagon announced the completion of the troop buildup ordered by Bush in January. The last of about 21,500 combat troops to arrive were an Army brigade in Baghdad and a Marine unit heading into the Anbar province in western Iraq.

But then everyone else is always accused of emboldening the enemy. What a crackhead!

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Day Late, Compassion Short

Dubya's BS on Dafur was one big yawn and halfhearted lie. It's too little, too late to talk about genocide because it's been going on for years. Why talk about it after they've killed, raped and displaced everyone there is to kill, rape and displace? As with every other thing he says, it rings hollow.

If the definition of a gesture is "a slight movement to convey one's intentions," then President Bush has done just that today with Darfur.

In a pronouncement that ran but minutes, this morning Bush called for a "plan B" in the Sudan. Basically a twist of the screws to what had been considered "plan A:" intensifying pre-standing sanctions against the nation. Targeting specific companies and barring them from doing business with Western Financial institutions. Throw some further sanctions at a couple senior Sudanese officials and a rebel leader.

All and all, yes, that adds up to a gesture; a weak little motion to remind the suffering in Darfur that, yeah, somebody's over here. Somebody's taking your plight into consideration.

Long, slow consideration.

Such languid wringing of hands has been the tepid non-response to the crisis since the US labeled the killings in Darfur genocide back in 2004.

The lack of significant response is not wholly the Administration's fault. Khartoum and the government of Sudanese president Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir have strong strategic partners in China, which loves little Sudan for its oil.

Great. Another oil conflict brewing.

Mr. Woolworth's Whipped Cream

Many years ago, I remember someone telling a story about one of the jobs she had as a young person. She worked at the soda fountain at Woolworth's and had a co-worker who was very exact about the amount of whipped cream she would put on sundaes. When customers would ask for more, she would tell them the store policy and really seemed to be empowered by rationing out Mr. Woolworth's toppings.

Well, this guy capitulated to the customer's demands for more chili sauce than store policy allowed and he still got shot!

A Wendy's night manager now knows just how seriously some people take their condiments.

Renel Frage, 20, got shot in a dispute early Tuesday over chili sauce.

Frage was working the 5 p.m.-to-3 a.m. graveyard shift at a Wendy's in Miami Gardens when an extra-demanding customer showed up at the drive-through window after midnight.

After paying the $3.24 tab in cash, he drove to the second window to pick up his meal.

He told the attendant he wanted extra chili sauce.

``I told him, I just take the orders and give out the food,'' said Susan Byrob-Fimon, the attendant. ``It wasn't up to me to give him more chili.''

Frage, hoping to appease the customer, slipped in eight extra packets - for a total of 11.

Frage, who makes $16,002 a year, stepped outside to tell the disgruntled customer he already had his extra condiments.

``He hadn't even checked the bag,'' he said on Tuesday afternoon. ``I was trying to be nice.''

When Frage stepped outside, he was shot through his upper left arm. ``There was blood everywhere,'' he recalled. ``It was a big mess.''

I'm not the biggest consumer of fast food and except for a little sauce for my very infrequent Chicken Mc Nuggets, I don't even like it. But, I guess there are hoarders and greedy people who need more sauce than food so places need to charge extra limit condiments. It's not, however, worth arguing over - and definitely not worth being injured. You may get the occasional person committed to saving Mr. Woolworth some money by being strict with the whipped cream but, as with the worker who got shot, most clerks will pass you a few extras without a fuss.

Trigger Happy Pappy

This is wholly ridiculous! Why didn't he call out or ask who is there? Even if she had gone to bed, is it not possible for her to wake up and wander around the house? I'll tell you, if I get that scared and paranoid, it's time to move to a hole in the ground.

An off-duty New Haven police officer shot and critically wounded his 18-year-old daughter, apparently mistaking her for an intruder after she sneaked out of their Stratford home and re-entered through the basement.

Eric Scott, 41, on the New Haven force for nine years, has not been charged in the Tuesday shooting.

"Mr. Scott was under the impression his daughter had gone to bed for the night," Stratford Capt. Thomas Rodia said. "He did not expect his daughter to be outside or down in the basement."

Investigators said Tasha Scott left her home late Monday to meet a boyfriend. She triggered a backyard motion sensor light as she tried to enter through a basement door.

Awakened by the light, Eric Scott spotted someone moving in the basement bathroom, police said. He fired his department-issued pistol once, hitting the teen in the knee. The bullet traveled up her leg and lodged in her thigh area, police said.

I am glad she didn't die.

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Surging Hard or Hardly Surging?

Yet another mini-civil war ...

The letter tossed into Mustafa Abu Bakr Muhammad's front yard got right to the point.

"You will be killed," it read, for collaborating with the Kurdish militias. Then came the bullet through a window at night.

A cousin had already been gunned down. So Muhammad and three generations of his family joined tens of thousands of other Kurds who have fled growing ethnic violence by Sunni Arab insurgents here and moved east, to the safety of Iraqi Kurdistan.

"We had our home in Mosul and it was good there, but things are now very bad between Arabs and Kurds," said Muhammad, 70, standing outside his new, scorpion-infested cinderblock house in the nearby town of Khabat.

While the American military is trying to tamp down the vicious fighting between rival Arab sects in Baghdad, conflict between Arabs and Kurds is intensifying here, adding another dimension to Iraq's civil war. Sunni Arab militants, reinforced by insurgents fleeing the new security plan in Baghdad, are trying to rid Mosul of its Kurdish population through violence and intimidation, Kurdish officials said.

Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, with a population of 1.8 million, straddles the Tigris River on a grassy, windswept plain in the country's north. It was recently estimated to be about a quarter Kurdish, but Sunni Arabs have already driven out at least 70,000 Kurds and virtually erased the Kurdish presence from the city's western half, said Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of surrounding Nineveh Province and a Kurd.

More Spoils of War

Some people collect the spoils of war and some are spoiled (ruined) by it.

Back home in Iraq, Umm Hiba's daughter was a devout schoolgirl, modest in her dress and serious about her studies. The 16-year-old Hiba wore the hijab, or Islamic head scarf, and rose early each day to say the dawn prayer before classes.

But that was before militias began threatening their Baghdad neighborhood and Umm Hiba, whose honorific means "mother of Hiba," and her daughter fled to Syria last spring. There were no jobs, and Umm Hiba's elderly father developed complications related to his diabetes.

Desperate, Umm Hiba followed the advice of an Iraqi acquaintance and brought her young daughter to work at a nightclub along a highway known for prostitution.

"We Iraqis used to be a proud people," Umm Hiba said over the frantic blare of the club's speakers. She pointed out her daughter, dancing among about two dozen other girls on the stage, wearing a pink silk dress with spaghetti straps, her frail shoulders bathed in colored light. As Umm Hiba watched, a middle-aged man climbed onto the platform and began to dance jerkily, arms flailing, among the girls.

"During the war we lost everything," said Umm Hiba. "We even lost our honor."

This just makes me ill ...

The Dead Enders

Those who still approve of Bush.

28 percent. President Bush’s approval rating in a new Harris poll, “the lowest level of his presidency.” 

We're Moving Backwards

We have pharmacists hopping on high horses telling people they are too holy to dispense contraceptives (while having no idea if the prescription is for birth control or some abnormal condition), the Brazilian government is trying to make sure that all women have what they need to plan their own family.

Just weeks after Pope Benedict XVI denounced government-backed contraception in a visit to Brazil, the president unveiled a program Monday to provide cheap birth control pills at 10,000 drug stores across the country.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the plan will give poor Brazilians "the same right that the wealthy have to plan the number of children they want."

Brazil already hands out free condoms and birth control pills at government-run pharmacies. But many poor people in Latin America's largest country don't go to those pharmacies, so Silva's administration decided to offer the pills at drastically reduced prices at private drug stores, said Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao.

The price for a year's supply of birth control pills under the new program would be $2.40, and anyone rich or poor can buy the pills by simply showing a government-issued identification card that almost all Brazilians carry.

The number of outlets selling the pills will start at 3,500 and is expected to rise to 10,000 by the end of this year. When the $51 million program is fully under way, the government expects to be handing out 50 million packages of birth control pills each year.

Each government-subsidized package with enough pills to last a month will cost 20 cents. They now retail for $2.56 to $25.60.

20 cents per month? Wow! I really wish they'd do that here. There are a lot of people who need this kind of access.

What Is It About Texas ...

that makes it home to so may sick mothers who kill their babies?

A young mother who may have been depressed apparently hanged three of her small daughters and herself in a closet using pieces of clothing and sashes, authorities said Tuesday.

A fourth child, an 8-month-old daughter, was also found dangling in the closet but was rescued from the family's mobile home.

As people argue over whether women should take contraceptives which will allow them not to have periods, people need to be arguing over women who have too many, too fast and they end up in a post-partum state of psychosis. These mass murders of children would be rare if people really gave a hoot about women, women's health and caring for children after they get here.

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Who's Going To Jail For This?

She was a spy!

It's official. Valerie Plame was a covert agent at the time her name was leaked by Novak. Will Victoria Toensing issue an apology? And Fred Hiatt should follow her lead.

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003…read on

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Deaths A Two Year High

Both staying the course and surging have done nothing for our troops but guarantee that more of them will not make it home.

“A series of fatalities announced on Tuesday in Iraq saw the US military’s death toll rise to its highest monthly level in more than two years.” With 114 deaths so far, May is already the third deadliest month of the war, with the highest fatality rate since Nov. 2004.

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Deluded And Demented

This man is in total denial and it's sad. Perhaps he listens to The Washington Journal call in program every morning because they do have their share of hicks and yahoos who call in with full support (and bad information) for the President. He needs to get out of that bubble and off of the bottle.

Confronted with strong opposition to his Iraq policies, President Bush decides to interpret public opinion his own way. Actually, he says, people agree with him.

Democrats view the November elections that gave them control of Congress as a mandate to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. They're backed by evidence; election exit poll surveys by The Associated Press and television networks found 55 percent saying the U.S. should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq.

The president says Democrats have it all wrong: the public doesn't want the troops pulled out — they want to give the military more support in its mission.

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Here We Go Again

When all else fails, Bush claims you don't love America.

President Bush attacked opponents of an immigration deal Tuesday, suggesting they "don't want to do what's right for America."

"The fundamental question is, will elected officials have the courage necessary to put a comprehensive immigration plan in place," Bush said against a backdrop of a huge American flag.

I've yet to weigh in on the immigration bill yet because my views on it are all over the place. I don't like it but there are parts from both sides that I disagree with. I'll get around to posting my disjointed thoughts one of these days.

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Send His Ass Over There

sounds like a plan to me!

Paul Wolfowitz may have been ousted from his post at the World Bank, but a free-speaking GOP lawmaker has an idea to keep the so-called "architect" of the Iraq War from standing in the unemployment line.

"I would like to suggest...that maybe we give Paul Wolfowitz a new job and send him over [to Iraq] as mayor," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., "since the neocons got us in over there."

As deputy secretary of defense from 2000 to 2005, Wolfowitz helped develop the strategy and public rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He publicly stated that coalition troops would be greeted as liberators, and the nation of Iraq would be largely capable of financing its own rebuilding through oil revenues.

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How Ya Livin'?

Check out the pics of the $592 million embassy we are builiding in Iraq then compare them with the streets of Baghdad. It looks like Americans will be living mighty fine over there ...

Now, having said over and over again that we don’t want to be seen as an occupying force in Iraq, we’re building the largest embassy that we have — probably the largest in the world — in Baghdad. And it just seems to grow and grow and grow. … We agree that we should focus our aid locally not in Baghdad, but we have 1,000 Americans at the embassy in Baghdad. You add the contractors and the local staff it comes to 4,000.

... while everyone else will live in squalor.

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Guess I Am Not The Only One Who Noticed

Americans are big, fat babies! I could understand if you are from New York. 9/11 was a horrific day that still isn't over for some people but just because then mayor Giuliani stood up in front of a few cameras on that fateful day, doesn't make him a hero or comforter extraordinaire. What else was he supposed to do? Remain seated in a classroom holding a book about a goat ... with a Norman Bates expression on his face? It's about time someone called him on doing nothing spectacular!

Starting in January, New York City firefighters and family members of September 11th victims will be following former mayor Rudy Giuliani around nationally, challenging media claims that he “owns” the 9/11 attacks. “If somebody can tell me what he did on 9/11 that was so good, I’d love to hear it,” says Jim Riches, a deputy chief with the fire department whose son was killed in the World Trade Center attacks. “All he did was give information on the TV. He did nothing. He stood there with a TV reporter and told everyone what was going on. And he got it from everybody else down at the site.”

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Some Good News From "The View"

Lisa Ling's departure from The View is the reason that Elisabeth Hasselback is a co-host. Lisa Ling was an intelligent and adventurous addition to the talk show after they canned the first dumb blond and I was pretty disappointed when she left. But, the girl with wanderlust is finally settling down a bit. She got married!

Lisa Ling, correspondent for the Oprah Winfrey Show and National Geographic Channel, married Chicago-based doctor Paul Song on Saturday evening in Los Angeles, her rep tells PEOPLE.



The bride walked down the aisle in a stunning, bright red Vivienne Tam dress in front of 550 family and friends including her journalism mentor Connie Chung and actresses Kelly Hu and Diane Farr.



"It was great!" says Numb3rs star Farr of the event held at Los Angeles's Union Station.



Even preparing for the Asian-themed ceremony proved memorable. "My husband [marketing executive and Song friend Seung Chung] went shopping in Chinatown," says Farr , "We came with a whole crew so he bought 10 outfits – everything from pajamas to silkies. Then we had a dress-up party at my house."



Ling, 33, and Song, 41, got engaged over the holidays after he surprised her by flying their families to Chicago for the proposal which took place in a private dining room of Charlie Trotter's restaurant.



Ling met Song, a radiation oncologist at Chicago's Little Company of Mary Hospital, through mutual friends in 2006.



Currently living apart – Ling in Washington, DC, and Song, in Chicago – the couple plan to settle in Los Angeles. The change, say friends, will be good for Ling. As she told PEOPLE in 2003, "I hope my desire to travel so much isn't forever because it's not the most conducive lifestyle for a relationship or a family by any means."

Well, yay Lisa! He's cute girl!

Not Liking This

As much as I hate Fox News and have even deprogrammed the channel out of my remote control, I wouldn't support it's removal from the air.

Venezuela's most-watched television station -- and outlet for the political opposition -- went off the air after the government refused to renew its broadcast license.



Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), which has been broadcasting for 53 years, was replaced by a state-run station -- TVes -- on Monday. The new station's logo began running immediately after RCTV went off the air.



Leading up to the deadline, police on Sunday used water cannons and what appeared to be tear gas to break up thousands of demonstrators protesting the government's decision to close the country's most-watched television station.



The protest began in front of National Telecommunications Commission headquarters after members of the National Guard seized broadcast equipment, including antennas, the result of a Supreme Court order on Friday.



During the clash, two or three bullets were shot into a nearby traffic light, police said. Soon afterward, the director of the Metropolitan Police, Juan Francisco Romero, pointed to the light, and said on television that police were "not going to accept the situation."



It was not immediately clear who had fired the shots.



Police told The Associated Press that at least four officers were slightly injured after some of the protesters threw rocks and bottles.



After police stopped using the water cannons, the crowd regrouped, and video of the scene showed a peaceful mood, with people waving flags and chanting as night fell.



Inside the studios of Radio Caracas Television, employees cried and chanted "Freedom!" on camera, AP reported.



"We are living an injustice," presenter Eyla Adrian said, according to AP. "I wish that tonight would never come."

Mercenaries Blacken The Water In Iraq

I'm a KPFA junkie and have learned all too well about how Blackwater came into existence and the kind of role they play in Iraq and other places. Seriously, it boggles the mind how much power and money this company has. It is downright scary. So, the fact that their employees feel they have a license to shoot and kill Iraqis at will, is no surprise. Of all the troubles we have in Iraq, we definitely don't need this.

Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.

Blackwater confirmed that its employees were involved in two shootings but could neither confirm nor deny that there had been any casualties, according to a company official who declined to be identified because of the firm's policy of not addressing incidents publicly.

Blackwater's security consulting division holds at least $109 million worth of State Department contracts in Iraq, and its employees operate in a perilous environment that sometimes requires the use of deadly force. But last week's incidents underscored how deeply these hired guns have been drawn into the war, their murky legal status and the grave consequences that can ensue when they take aggressive action.

Who will Blackwater be shooting next? American soldiers? Do you think they would be prosecuted?

Totally Inappropriate!

What the hell kind of thing is this to say at a commencement ceremony? It is supposed to be an inspiring and motivational occasion. How is justifying violating the Geneva Conventions supposed to inspire young people to do anything but hate?

Vice President Dick Cheney criticized the notion of applying the Geneva Convention to individuals captured in the course of the war on terrorism in a Saturday commencement address at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

"Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States," the Vice President said in the Saturday morning speech. "Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away."

Cheney delivered the remarks in the context of moral and ethical lessons that the graduating cadets at West Point had learned in the course of their study.

It's Not A Victory If Everyone Leaves

It looks like Operation Freedom is rendering Iraqis free to leave!

Iraqis are clamoring to get out of Iraq. Two million have fled so far and nearly two million more have been displaced within the country. (That’s a total of some 15 percent of the population.) Save the Children reported this month that Iraq’s child-survival rate is falling faster than any other nation’s. One Iraqi in eight is killed by illness or violence by the age of 5. Yet for all the words President Bush has lavished on Darfur and AIDS in Africa, there has been a deadly silence from him about what’s happening in the country he gave “God’s gift of freedom.”

It’s easy to see why. To admit that Iraqis are voting with their feet is to concede that American policy is in ruins. A “secure” Iraq is a mirage, and, worse, those who can afford to leave are the very professionals who might have helped build one. Thus the president says nothing about Iraq’s humanitarian crisis, the worst in the Middle East since 1948, much as he tried to hide the American death toll in Iraq by keeping the troops’ coffins off-camera and staying away from military funerals.

But his silence about Iraq’s mass exodus is not merely another instance of deceptive White House P.R.; it’s part of a policy with a huge human cost. The easiest way to keep the Iraqi plight out of sight, after all, is to prevent Iraqis from coming to America. And so we do, except for stray Shiites needed to remind us of purple fingers at State of the Union time or to frame the president in Rose Garden photo ops.

Freepers Are Crazy

The one thing that seems to be pretty constant about conservative sites and blogs is the lack of openness to different opinions. I'm not Giuliani fan but I just cannot fathom banning people from a site because they support him. These people are crazy!

Over the past few weeks, chaos has reigned in the “Freeper” community as members sympathetic to the former mayor's candidacy claim to have suffered banishment from the site. They were victimized, they say, by a wave of purges designed to weed out any remaining support for the Giuliani campaign on the popular conservative web forum. Another significant chunk of commenters have migrated away from the controversial site over the action, according to a number of former site members and conservative bloggers who have been tracking the situation.

In a plaintive post on the blog “Sweetness & Light,” exiled commenter Steve Gilbert, who says he does not support the former mayor’s campaign, blasted the site’s new “anti-Giuliani, anti-abortion jihad.” Since George W. Bush was elected president, he wrote, “there haven’t been any large scale [Free Republic] purges to speak of – until now.”

The fight began one month ago, when site founder Jim Robinson posted an anti-Giuliani manifesto titled: “Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee would be a dagger in the heart of the conservative movement.” Then the virtual ax started to swing. Longtime posters to the freewheeling discussion threads, used to serious no-holds-barred web etiquette, were still stunned by the intensity of the anti-Rudy activity; conservative blogs buzzed with the development.

“Jim Robinson has been going on a tear demonizing Rudy Giuliani, because Rudy (agreeing with the vast majority of Americans), is personally opposed to abortions on a moral level…” complained a user on the GOPUSA Web site. “Anyone who posts any support for Giuliani at the site, if it's at all forceful, will be banned.”

Wow!

This Is Going To Be Good

... and rather sad. I said here, that I was going to enjoy Obama's eloquent smack downs. In response to Obama's criticism of McCain's view of Iraq, all McCain could do is shoot back with an attack on Obama's spelling capability.

Obama, responding in part to McCain's criticism of his recent Iraq war vote, issued a May 25 press release arguing that "the course we are on in Iraq" is not "working." Obama said "a reflection of that [is] the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket" and other military protection when walking through a Baghdad market during a trip to Iraq in April. In a response the same day, McCain took issue with Obama's spelling: "By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket." In his report on McCain's attack, Viqueira cited Webster's New World Dictionary to prove that "flack" is an alternative to "flak."

1. There is more than one way to spell flak/flack.


2. Obama may not have grown up "black," but he certainly has learned how to "play the dozens" at an intellectual level and old white men with temper problems are no match. John McCain better ask somebody.
   

Rosie Punks Out

I'm disappointed in Rosie. I understand she didn't like the way things went down a couple of days ago but she could have sucked it up and finished her last three weeks. This is a cop out. I thought she had more balls than this.

ABC has just announced that Rosie O'Donnell will not be back on "The View."

Brian Frons, President of ABC Daytime, issued the following statement:

"We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to 'The View' and wish her well."

Barbara Walters said: "I brought Rosie to the show. Rosie contributed to one of our most exciting and successful years at "The View." I am most appreciative. Our close and affectionate relationship will not change."

For her part, Rosie said: "I'm extremely grateful. It's been an amazing year and I love all three women."

I guess I'll have to endure pundits on all of the cable networks going on and on about this all weekend (a long one at that). I'll have to watch the segment of "the fight" again. Yes, the argument was heated but was it that bad? I guess you had to be there but is this more about Rosie's feelings being hurt because she thought that Elisabeth was her friend? I guess that kinda dispels the notion that Rosie isn't really a "girl" because she is letting hurt feelings get in the way of business. I think people who support Bush and this war are imbalanced and Elisabeth is no exception. Rosie even had "The Donald" in her camp on this one:

"Well I am obnoxious, so on that she's right I must say but, y'know, Elisabeth is not a very smart person, she's one of the dumber people in television. To see that she supports the war, and she's solidly behind the war, give me a break. This one, I think, Rosie should win, but Rosie's not much herself… I think anybody who's against the war in Iraq is the winner in this fight because, to justify the war in Iraq, only an imbecile could do that."

I'm kinda pissed that yet another View host leaves unceremoniously and without a going away party and recap of their best and worst! Why do folks insist on messin' with my television proclivities?

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He's Baaack

al-Sadr has reemerged and wants us to get out!

Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite nationalist cleric, preached openly at Kufa before about 1,000 worshippers for the first time in many months on Friday, AFP reports in Arabic at Sawt al-Iraq He preached in his kafan, or burial shroud, a sign of defiance and willingness to be martyred. See the picture, here].

He said, "I renew my demand that the Occupation depart or set a timetable for withdrawal."

He added, "I demand that the government not extend the Occupation even one day, since it has no authority to do so, especially after the signatures that were gathered from members of parliament and the million-man demonstration that came out to demand that [departure]."

On May 10, a majority of members of the Iraqi parliament signed a petition demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops and presented it to speaker of the house, Mahmud al-Mashhadani.

At the end of his sermon, Muqtada chanted "No, no to evil! No, no to America! No, no to Israel! No, no to Satan! No, no to colonialism!" and his congregation shouted the slogans with him.

Nice ... I suppose we are going to "stand up" until he "stands down."

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Barack Smacks Down The Real Varmints

One thing I am going to enjoy about Barack being in the campaign is his eloquent smack downs. While McCain is taking jabs at Romney's "varmint gun", Barack is tackling the facts.

Barack Obama has just unleashed the following statement hammering John McCain and Mitt Romney for criticizing Obama's vote with the majority of Americans and against the no-timetables Iraq War funding bill. Both of them lobbed familiar attacks at Obama -- surrender, white flag, blah, blah, blah. Obama's response:

“This country is united in our support for our troops, but we also owe them a plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else’'s civil war. Governor Romney and Senator McCain clearly believe the course we are on in Iraq is working, but I do not.

“And if there ever was a reflection of that it's the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago.

“Governor Romney and Senator McCain are still supporting a war that has cost us thousands of lives, made us less safe in the world, and resulted in a resurgence of al-Qaeda. It is time to end this war so that we can redeploy our forces to focus on the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and all those who plan to do us harm.”

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Cannon Fodder

How easy it is for President Bush to proclaim that this will be a bloody summer when none of the blood will be his.

The U.S. military announced day the deaths of six more soldiers in Iraq, hours after President Bush predicted a "bloody" summer lay ahead.

Five of the soldiers died on Thursday while another was killed on Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.

April was the worst month this year for the U.S. military since the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, with 104 soldiers killed. About 90 have been killed in May so far.

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How Do You Ask A Man ...

... to be the last man to die before September?

The Dems claim they didn't have the votes but I just find this new bill an absolute slap in the face.

Today, I voted for both the $22 billion supplemental funding for domestic programs and the $98 billion supplemental funding for our troops in Iraq.

The Democrats in Congress have already sent a supplemental to the president that would have set benchmarks and timelines for the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Instead of demonstrating to the American people and the Iraqi Government that our commitment is not open-ended, the president vetoed our bill and refuses to recognize that this war cannot be won militarily.

Some have suggested that since the president refuses to compromise, Democrats should refuse to send him anything. I disagree. There is a point when the money for our troops in Iraq will run out, and when it does, our men and women serving courageously in Iraq will be the ones who will suffer, not this president.

Patience has run out and I feel a change in direction happening within the chambers of Congress. While we don't have the votes right now to change the president's policy, I believe that come September we will have the votes from both Democrats and Republicans to change policy and direction. In September, General Petraeus will report back on the progress of the surge, and Congress will take up both the $460 billion base defense appropriations bill and the $141 billion Iraq supplemental. The surge is not producing the results that were promised. And, based on my discussions with Iraqi Government officials, I don't believe they have the motivation to bring about the political and economic benchmarks agreed to. This is why September will be key.

We have lost 418 of our fellow Americans since the president announced his surge, and come September, with your help, we can convince my colleagues from across the aisle that enough is enough.

Come September, huh? How many more soldiers will die between now and September?