For $350 you can help a needy jew get to israel

I was watching TV in a hotel tonight. actually, it was just in the background, when i heard the phrase above. I watched this infomercial, basically raising money to get jews to Israel. it was just really bizarre. funniest part? they made a big deal that you could help a jew get to israel for $350, but--now get this--you can get TWO jews to Israel for a mere $700. At that price, it's two for the price of TWO! yeah!

Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq

OK, here's what we have to consider:
since the surge, there are now more dead US soldiers. not just in total number, but in the rate that they are occurring.
Pairing that with the link above, you can see the sectarian violence/civil war is getting more and more deadly.

So...is this a failure of the 'surge' policy, or is this the natural result when violent people come in conflict with an increased military/law enforcing presence?

What an Approprite Way to Go

If you haven't heard, Jerry Falwell died today.

...of a bowel obstruction.

In an attempt to overcome the worst in my nature, i will limit my comments to that above.

A Residual Problem

When you attack nations that have no WMD's (Claiming they do), and avoid nations that actually HAVE WMD's, the message becomes clear. Get WMDs for real and you won't be attacked. Iran appears to have figured out how to properly enrich uranium.

Breaking News!

It appears that I may be on the CBS Evening news (Friday?) for my work with children trying to get medicaid coverage (and our resulting high infant mortality rate). more later...

28

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have hit bottom. at least 6 months ago i predicted that Bush would never dip lower in the polls than 28%. We've not hit that basement. at the time I felt that no matter how bad or inept it got, this president would still enjoy a minimal amount of blind devotion that has been cultivated for the last 15 or so years. While even that has its limits, i saw (and see) 28% as the limit. If there is any substantive drop in approval from this point, it will be more than just trouble for the president. If there is a real drop paired with a serious revelation of wrongdoing or real heinous activity...if that pair appears, you can expect serious talk of impeachment.

If i could meet...

About 10 years ago, i first started to get the notion that i'd like to meet someone famous. I've had heroes and bands and actors, etc. all my life. I've never really had any real desire to MEET anyone. sure i'd be glad to meet Harrison Ford when i was in 2nd grade, but i never really thought "I WISH i could meet so and so".

...Until about 10 years ago.

I'd moved to New Orleans and realized that my favorite band, Elastica, was broken up (essentially) and I'd never seen them live. more to the point, they'd played live in New Orleans, a mere few hours from where i was living as a fan, and it never occurred to me to even go see them. Now I can't. it just seemed so stupid of me. I was sitting there thinking I'd like to SEE some of these people i like. maybe even MEET them. i mean, why not? I could maybe even MEET someone i liked. Just then I realized it would be GREAT to see Sinatra. within a year he was dead.

A few years later I found Hunter S. Thompson. i started reading any and everything i could get my hands on when it comes to HST. It came to my head, you know, I could maybe even MEET Hunter Thompson. It may be a real disappointment. It might take a TON of effort or planning, but I could arrange something and maybe just say "Hi" or "I like your work". I wanted to have that some contact. It was strange to see that, but it felt nice to say 'why not'? Maybe it would not be meaningful, but rather it would be a way to touch something that was important to me or see it in front of me in a way that was immediate. That it wasn't a radio wave beamed to my world from across a continent. These things had never really occured to me.

a year or 2 later he was dead too.

I've seen a few people that meant something to me in the last few years. Now I've figured out someone else. John Waters. It isn't even that I'm a die hard fan of his movies (though i do like them). It's just every time i see him do an interview, I cannot help but finding interest or connection in some way (often related to how he views Baltimore). Anyway, just a thought. hopefully I can meet him before he's dead (i have a bad track record here). He seems pretty personable.

Hey, i have friends in Baltimore. maybe i could buy him a cup of coffee...?

More Fetus Fealty

Not much of a comment from me on this (See below), but follow the link above and see a great article by one of my favorite legal columnists, Dahlia Lithwick. She delivers a very interesting read on the recent abortion case decided by the Supreme Court. here's a snip:

And then Kennedy quickly returns to the business of grossing us out. With a stirring haiku about how "respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child," the justice interpolates himself between every one of those mothers and every child she might ever bear. Without regard for the women who feel they made the right decision in terminating a pregnancy, he frets for those who changed their minds. ("It seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.") (The "infant," not the "fetus.") As both the dissenters and my colleague Emily Bazelon

have pointed out, this portrayal of a rampant epidemic of regretful women may or may not be scientifically accurate. (The American Psychological Association doesn't think so.) But even if the numbers of women who would truly choose differently if they could choose again are larger than most of the medical literature indicates, one might question whether such women should be the pole star of national abortion policy.

Nobody disputes that whether or not they decide to go through with an abortion, women face a heart-wrenching choice. But for Kennedy only those women who regret the decision to abort illuminate some deeper truth. And Kennedy's solution for these flip-flopping women is elegant. Protect them from the truth. "Any number of patients facing imminent surgical procedures would prefer not to hear all details," he concedes. "It is, however, precisely this lack of information concerning the way the fetus will be killed that is of legitimate concern to the state." In Kennedy's view, if pregnant women only knew how abhorrent the procedure was, they'd always opt to avoid it. But as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in dissent, Kennedy doesn't propose giving women more information about partial-birth abortion procedures. He says it's up to the Congress and the courts to substitute their judgment and ban the procedures altogether. ("I'm sorry Bianca, there is a procedure out there that may be safer for you, but some day, you will thank me for sparing you from it.")

Posturing for the Fetus

Have you heard of "partial birth abortion"? well, that term is not a medical term. it's made up by abortion opponents so that they can have a strawman procedure to 'ban'. this gets the
public used to the idea of banning abortion procedures. the procedure is extremely rare and virtually never used as anything but a last result. More to the point, it is usually ONLY used when something is going seriously wrong.

The legislature has attempted to ban certain late term abortions, termed 'partial birth abortions', but always failed due to the unwillingness to include exceptions for the health of the mother. Even President Clinton said he would have signed off on the ban had the exceptions for the mother's life been made. Previously, the US Supreme Court struck down the laws because they always lacked this exemption. I have yet to see whether there are any preserved exemptions for the mother's life. if not, the court has just reversed itself.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how - not whether - to perform an abortion.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

One of the Giants in literature has died. Click and read. I don't think i'd do him justice here today.

One More Cook for the Stew?

from the Washington Post:

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

OK, it may just be me, but it seems that the real problem isn't that they can't find someone to the job. the problem is that they feel the need to have such a "Czar" in the first place. Think about it. we have 2 wars, so to speak, and evidently this is too much for the President, the Sec. of Defense, and the joint chiefs of staff? I'm sorry, but if we could manage WW1 and WW2 without a "Czar",but we cannot do the same now...? Well then, the Administration is simply finding new depths to its incompetence.

We were at the beach...Everybody had matching towels

I've had the song "Rock Lobster" (by the B-52s) in my head for weeks now. i think this is the culprit. I've been feeling sorta hypnotized, honestly.

I Got a Letter this Morning, How Do You Recon it Read?

...It said hurry hurry, cause that gal you love is dead.

Surge Report Card

A couple of months ago, there was a big uproar on whether to 'surge' more troops into Iraq. That surge is happening now. so, how well is it working out?

As expected.

More peaceful where the troops are. More dangerous where they aren't. Baghdad violence is down. deaths of US soldiers and Iraqi citizens outside Baghdad are up. How would you grade that?

D+

The Friday Dump

I heard the white house was gonna dump a bunch of new emails and records friday. this didn't bode well for them. they (anyone) dump the bad stuff on fridays because it means they don't have to put up with a week of news cycles chewing it up. it might, just might, slide away.

well, this one won't. Alberto, Mister "was not involved in any discussions about what was going on" Gonzales has now been revealed, through records, that he did approve the firing of the US Attorneys for political payback. the documents only came after the game was up. Gonzales' deputy had agreed to testify.

The sad, funny thing was that the records show the sad attempts they were making to justify the firings, and those all became the very same crappy talking points the Republicans have been using! immigration issues, voter fraud, etc. it's just pathetic. here's the quoted blueprint:

"The one common link here is that three of them are along the southern border so you could make the connection that DOJ is unhappy with the immigration prosecution numbers in those districts," Tasia Scolinos, a senior public affairs specialist at the Justice Department, told Catherine Martin, a White House communications adviser, in an e-mail.

If they want to operate the federal prosecutor office as a political arm of the GOP, they should just say so. it would have been so much easier than this. Are ANY of the policies untainted by deceit? any?

I guess this leaves me with one thing in my mind. is anything better for america after this presidency? seriously. anything?

Finally, to echo the faux concern and apprehension i heard ad nauseum during the Clinton years: with these lies, WHAT WILL WE TELL THE CHILDREN?!

Trouble Brewing?

You may have caught this story (Above link). 15 British marines were taken captive today after doing a routine inspection of an Iranian ship in the Persian Gulf. Upon completing their inspection, the men were surrounded by Iranian naval ships and taken into custody. The British are demanding their immediate release.

That's the story up to this moment.

Edwards Suspends His Campaign

In a bit of sad news, John Edwards has suspended his campaign for president. Sen. Edwards cites the return of his wife's cancer. It appears that the cancer has spread to her lungs. This may actually be the first step to ending the campaign (the press conference is airing live as i type this, on hold with an insurance company and no where near a TV). I hate that they are going through such a terrible time and it would be even worse if the US loses its chance to have, what i consider, the best potential president without regard to party.

UPDATE!

Sen. John Edwards will stay in the race for President! GREAT NEWS!

Elections Have Consequences

This comes directly from crooksandliars.com:

During today's hearings on global warming, global warming denier James Inhofe was asking Al Gore questions, but didn't want to hear the answers because he thought the responses would take "too much time". Barbara Boxer then explained to Inhofe how things work in Senate now.

Download (13591) | Play (10519) Download (7515) | Play (8075)

Boxer: "You're not making the rules. You used to when you did this, you don't do this anymore. Elections have consequences"

As You May Have Heard...

Karl Rove and Harriet Miers have been called to testify about their role in dismissing US attorneys that were investigating and prosecuting Republicans. It has been said they'll be subpoenaed if they do not come forward.

Well, evidently, the White House will allow Rove and Miers to testify about the issue...as long as they aren't under oath, It is held behind closed doors, and no transcript can be kept! yeah right!

I have heard the firings are OK because they are political appointments of the president, thus they serve at his pleasure...well, that's only part of the picture. It CAN be done, but it doesn't mean you can hide the fact that these firings were done because the attorney's weren't helping to smear democrats and they were catching GOP crooks. The President has a right to make certain decisions, however, in this case, it wasn't HIM but rather his Attorney General calling the shots.

More to the point, the there is no right to lie before congress about what you did, and THAT is where this story gets them in trouble. The act would've gone away if they hadn't lied about the attorneys, smearing their names by saying they were 'no good'. These were REPUBLICAN appointees, i might add.

They just weren't crooked enough. Heh.

The Company You Keep

Chiquita (Bananas) Brands International has just plead guilty to funding Columbian terrorists in order to aid their domination of Fruit exports in the area. Guess who was also a major donor to the President and to Republicans at the time? At least the justice department got them. $25 million in fines are to be paid...i hear.