Freedom Agenda?

I don't believe this is the correct way to spread freedom. With Bu$hCo's brain, however, I suppose it makes sense, after all, the NRA runs the country.

Bu$hCo's brain before heat is applied. You know the rest.

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23-16

Packers win. The two sorry WATB from Little Falls, MN, who came down to watch the game are crying, heehee. Mrs. coldH2O & The Kid made a great mid-afternoon dinner, venison roast, red potatoes, carrots, rutabagas, & fresh, warm bread. & even though it's raining outside, inside all are happy, except of course, the two sad Vikings fans. Now, if only Bu$hCo would be impeached. Now that would be a Super Sunday.

More here. Warning, dancing cat ahead, if you click the link.

Action, Now

From John Amato at Crooks & Liars.

Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-225-3121. We need to let our representatives know that Bush cannot attack Iran.

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Bu$hCo Assministration Is Just Scum

Spotted Owls apparently taste like chicken to Cheny.

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Farve!

Bret just broke Marino's touchdown record & the Pack leads the stinking Vikings 7-0. Suck on that Belichek.

5-0

Barely, but fairly.

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Yeah, Let's Keep Spending Billions In Iraq

This kid didn't need any help, any help at all. Most of Jesse Miller's life, BTW, was spent under Tommy Thompson's governorship. Just saying.

The 19-year-old escaped inmate accused of threatening the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus had 54 different homes from age 4 to age 18, according to court records.

My emphasis.

Worldwide Day Of Play

The Twins are visiting & their Mom, The Kid, says that the Son-in-Law's Father's cousin wrote this book about play. & since it's the Worldwide Day of Play, Nickelodeon has gone black. Er, not so much. Only one of the network's channels is black & it's only until 3 p.m. I suppose it's better than nothing. & I do like play, so I'll be rolling around with the babies today, right after they wake up from their naps. I spent the early morning felling dead maples, the maples in the horse paddock. The horses, through boredom according to my vet, have chewed the bark off all of the maples, but have left the basswood bark alone. The maple is great firewood because it is dry while it's still standing. It will keep the house warm this winter. In anticipation of the arduous play later today, I'm going to watch the Badger game in my recliner & maybe rest my eyes. Yep, that's my story & I'm sticking to it.

Bruce

Just good.

UPDATE: Here's what Bruce said as an intro to one of the songs.

This is a song called Livin' In the Future. But it's really about what's happening now. Right now. It's kind of about how the things we love about America, cheeseburgers, French fries, the Yankees battlin' Boston... the Bill of Rights [holds up microphone, urging crowd to cheer] ... v-twin motorcycles... Tim Russert's haircut, trans-fats and the Jersey Shore... we love those things the way womenfolk love Matt Lauer.

But over the past six years we've had to add to the American picture: rendition, illegal wiretapping, voter suppression, no habeus corpus, the neglect of that great city New Orleans and its people, an attack on the Constitution. And the loss of our best men and women in a tragic war.

This is a song about things that shouldn't happen here happening here.

So right now we plan to do something about it, we plan to sing about it. I know it's early, but it's late. So come and join us.

This via First Draft.

No Surprise

Here.

The Interior Department’s program to collect billions of dollars annually from oil and gas companies that drill on federal lands is troubled by mismanagement, ethical lapses and fears of retaliation against whistle-blowers, the department’s chief independent investigator has concluded.

The report, a result of a yearlong investigation, grew out of complaints by four auditors at the agency, who said that senior administration officials had blocked them from recovering money from oil companies that underpaid the government.

My emphasis.

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Housing

Since I'm involved, locally, with providing affordable housing for low & moderate income folks, I've always been concerned with the subprime market. The fears of the DFH I work/ed with, have apparently come true, but, of course, we are still wrong, even if we were right. That the Bu$hco ReThugs for you. & I'm sitting on the ceiling right now.

Existing home sales slumped again last month, and a large home builder reported its worst-ever quarterly earnings today as fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis continued to cause havoc in the housing sector.

My emphasis.

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More Like This

C & L has a good catch from MSNBC. The Democratic Party ought to take this as a great lesson in how to deal with the dork ReThugs.

Shuster: “But you weren’t appreciative enough to know the name of this young man, he was 18 years old who was killed, and yet you can say chapter and verse about what’s going on with the New York Times and Move On.org.”

[Snip]

Shuster: “But don’t you understand, the problems that a lot of people would have, that you’re so focused on an ad — when was the last time a New York Times ad ever killed somebody? I mean, here we have a war that took the life of an 18 year old kid, Jeremy Bohannon from your district, and you didn’t even know his name.

My emphasis.

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Priorities

From The General.


Via Beckett's manservant.

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Baiting

I'm against baiting bears or deer for the purpose of an easy hunt. So imagine how I felt when I read this. It is just about the most inhuman, cynical method of fighting a war that I can imagine. What the hell are these people, these great warriors, thinking?

A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of "bait," such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.

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Give It Some Thought

Kind of a cool idea, although I know a lot of kids in my neck of the northern midwest who could use a laptop of this caliber. Nonetheless, a person might think about this as a way of giving to the world, since Bu$hCo has taken so much away.

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Heh

I like this last sentence from an obit in the Rhinelander Daily News.

In memory of Ron, take someone you care about fishing, and then outfish them.

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Good

A strike has been called by the UAW against GM.

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Just Criminal

Moron Bu$hCo's vanity war is really expensive, as if we didn't already know that. It's a half a million a minute. Think about that for a minute.

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3-0

31-24 Packers over the Chargers. Not a bad start to the season.

Elephant Appreciation Day, Yesterday, Damnit

I kid you not. I had cut out a whole bunch of elephant puzzles for the lovely & darling Twins, but they were up here visiting so I had no time to finish them. You know, this grandfather thing is exhausting, what with carrying them around the house, showing them off at The Black Cat Coffeehouse (yes, no WiFi yet, crap), the bakery, the local food coop, the only high school in town & the vet's office. The problem with elephants, as the wise & good-looking Dave at the recycling center said, "I've sort of lost my enthusiasm for elephants." He is a great Democrat, married to a great Democrat, & father to three great Democrats. Now y'all will understand. So, to celebrate Elephant Appreciation Day, albeit a day late, Mrs. coldH2O & I, along with The Twins & their manservant, the Son-in-Law & their Stenographer, The Kid, have send out 44 postcards to the spineless, gutless Democratic senators who voted to condemn MoveOn's truthful ad concerning Gen. Betray-us. We also sent in $22 apiece in your dishonor. The Mrs. & I are particularly disheartened by our Sen. Kohl's vote, & The Kid & The Son-in-Law, as well as The Twins are pissed about their Sen. Klobuchar's vote. You, my loyal four readers ought to do the same. You can go to The Dave Blog & download the postcard for printing. As usual, my admonition is accompanied by the obvious tenet that it will make you feel good.

Even Indiana

The state that was the capitol of the evil KKK, now finds itself full of leftist dirty fucking hippies because they finally woke the hell up.

More than half the people surveyed in a statewide poll released Friday believe the United States should withdraw its forces from Iraq within the next year.

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A Win Is A Win

No matter how barely it is. & we're 4-0, suck it Notre Dame.

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3 Dead Blue Whales

I really hate to ask these questions, but are Governor Arnold's bodily fluids being pumped into the ocean? & are they the reason for the dead whales? I've never seen a Blue Whale in the blubber, but the Humpback, Fin, & Minke Whales Mrs. coldH2O & I saw in the Bay of Fundy a dozen years ago were very impressive.

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Nice

I'm happy about this.

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We Sure Have Helped Those Iraqis

Cholera.

Here's a bit on the disease from my old standby, Wikipedia.

Symptoms include those of general GA tract (stomach) upset and massive watery diarrhea. Symptoms may also include terrible muscle and stomach cramps, vomiting and fever in early stages. In a later stage the diarrhea becomes "rice water stool" (almost clear with flecks of white). Symptoms are caused by massive body fluid loss induced by the enterotoxins that V. cholerae produces. The main enterotoxin, known as cholera toxin, interacts with G proteins and cyclic AMP in the intestinal lining to open ion channels. As ions flow into the intestinal lumen (lining), body fluids (mostly water) flow out of the body due to osmosis leading to massive diarrhea as the fluid is expelled from the body. The body is "tricked" into releasing massive amounts of fluid into the small intestine which shows up in up to 36 liters of liquid diarrhea in a six day period in adults with accompanying massive dehydration.[4] Radical dehydration can bring death within a day through collapse of the circulatory system.

DFHs Correct Again

Via Wolcott, we get this truth-telling post.

Bite me. In a "very overt" kind of way.

First off, withdrawing the troops would be a rejection of Bush's leadership, and the GOP's leadership, and neither has "earned" anything except the disgust and hatred of the vast majority of the American people. Second, "we must not ever hurt the General's feelings!" as a rationale for anything is puerile and idiotic and a load of shit. General Petreaus is not our leader, and this is not his war. Nobody voted for him. And nobody's going to vote for anyone who wants to cower behind his uniform, either.

Americans apparently know basic civics a doucheload better than Senator Graham, and his party is going to learn this in 2008.

My emphasis.

This Is The Actual Real Honest Cover Of The October 1, 2007, Cover

& how true it is.

Not One Red Cent

It's time to stop enabling the spineless, gutless Democratic Party. Please, join with others who have had enough. Let's face it, many of us have been loyal voters. l sure have, since my first vote in the basement of West Elementary School. I voted for Bill Proxmire, BTW. I've been pretty disheartened by the Dems, particularly the last year, the year in which they controlled Congress because we voted them in to end this disgusting, vanity war of Bu$hCo's. I'm tired of all the whining about not having 60 votes, Jesus Fucking Christ, they caved into the moron, fuckwit last spring. So I'm done with giving them money, on the national, state, & local level.

Yeah, We're All Color Blind Now

Good post about the lack of progress in even admitting that racism is a real fact in this country of ours.

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Astute, Damn The Man Was Astute

Joseph L. Galloway has an editorial in which he quotes H.L. Mencken.

"On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Boy, was he correct.

This Is This The 21st Century

...yet the Minneapolis Trib runs an editorial about municipal water safety. I wonder why the conservative rule of the last twenty-seven years hasn't had the market fix this problem. Unbeliveable.

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Jena 6

No this isn't a Cinemax soft-core movie, but I implore, I urge, I demand that my loyal four readers go sign this petition. What happened/happens in Jena, LA, needs to stop & people need to be held accountable. For those among us who are too young to remember the hoses, the billy clubs, the dogs, the angry white people on the teevee back in the day, this struggle didn't end. Racism is deep, & with a soft apology to the great Buffalo Springfield, & into your heart it will creep. We need to keep fighting this conservative sewer-mentality. We don't have to like a kid, but we cannot, cannot, put a noose in a tree. That sort of statement only hurts America.

AAARRRGGGG

My Pirate Name Is...

Dirty Jimmy Jailbird

What's Your Pirate Name?

OK, This Sounds Like A Plan

ntodd has a plan. Man, the boy has the energy & the commitment to end this stupid war against nothing. The best part of the plan is that you don't have to drive to Washington, D.C., it's a Bourgeois Town, after all.

Home of the brave, land of the free
I don't wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues

Gonna spread the news all around

More from ntodd-

* Wear and distribute black ribbons and armbands
* Buy no gas on Moratorium days
* Pressure politicians and the media
* Hold vigils, pickets, rallies, and teach-ins
* Hold special religious services
* Coordinate events in music, art, and culture
* Host film showings, talks, and educational events
* Organize student actions: Teach-ins, school closings, etc.

Via Not Atrios.

2-0

Who'd a thunk?

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One Positive Thing About Being A Geezer

The occasional flashback thanks to a piece of great music.

Via Firedoglake.

god

And what was the Enlightenment’s proffered cure? It was to translate questions about religion into psychological and anthropological questions. The problem was changed from “What does God want from us?” to “Why is man constantly asking what it is that God wants from us?” The thinker most centrally responsible for this interrogative substitution was the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and the answer he gives is: because man is a frightened ignoramus. Knowing enough to be terrified of his own mortality but knowing little else about objective nature and thus understandably alarmed, man creates an omnipotent being who can be supplicated and obeyed, a conception that then ends up tormenting him with new fear. Religion, Hobbes thought, comes from a dark place in the psyche.

While the author of the book being reviewed doesn't agree with the above, I sure do. "...a dark place in the psyche", indeed. & while I am severely interested in religion, western religion, in particular, has done very little to advance the human condition in positive ways. Just look at how marginalized Dorothy Day became, while that ghoul Theresa is probably going to become a Roman Catholic saint.

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Eva Crane, R.I.P.

I expect the Shutterwi's home to be draped in black crepe paper when they read this obit. I suppose we'll have to put up with black armbands for awhile, as well.

For more than a half-century Dr. Crane worked in more than 60 countries to learn more and more about honeybees, sometimes traveling by dugout canoe or dog sled to document the human use of bees from prehistoric times to the present. She found that ancient Babylonians used honey to preserve corpses, that bees were effectively used as military weapons by the Viet Cong, and that beekeepers in a remote corner of Pakistan use the same kind of hives found in excavations of ancient Greece.

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This Is A Positive Development

Jeanne Shaheen will run against the ReThug Sununu.

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Well, Well

& I was wondering where Shutterwi vacationed this year. It appears he went to Sicily, &, Mrs. Shutterwi, with his girlfriend.

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Light Posting

The Twins are visiting, posting may be replaced with cuddling, eating ice cream(doctor's orders), & playing the baby throws it on the floor, dipshit grandfather picks it up, over & over & over & over & over &...

Success In Anbar Province?

Apparently, not as successful as Petraeus says. But as a commentor below says, more of the same.

The leader of a group of local Sunni tribes cooperating with American and Iraqi forces in fighting extremist Sunni militants in Anbar Province was killed by a bomb today, Iraqi police officials said, in a blow to an effort President Bush has held up as a model of progress.

The Sunni leader, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, who met and shook hands with Mr. Bush during his visit to a military base in the province last week, led the Anbar Salvation Council, an alliance of clans supporting the Iraqi government and American forces. Initial reports suggested he was killed either by a bomb in his car or by a roadside bomb close to his car near his home in Ramadi in Anbar Province, the sprawling region west of Baghdad.

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"atomically unstable carbon 14"

The neighborhood really did go to hell, but with no handcart, I don't think the wheel was invented yet. Damn science.

The case isn't closed yet, but modern humans are looking awfully guilty in one of the biggest whodunits in prehistory: the case of the demise of the Neanderthals.

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The Surge Is Working, Really, Really, It's Working

Not.

A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq’s rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress toward reconciliation and a functioning government here.

Willie Tee, R.I.P.

News here.

Willie Tee's homepage here. Another sad day in NOLA.

One More ReThug Gone?

We can only hope the Vitter will be pummeled by his colleagues as was Bathroom Boy Craig. I suppose, however, that being gay is much worse than being a fornicating adulterer.

The woman, Wendy Yow Ellis, claims that she had intercourse with Vitter in a French Quarter apartment at Dauphine and Dumaine streets in 1999, the year the Metairie Republican was elected to Congress.

Ellis, whose maiden name is Wendy Yow, said Monday that she took the polygraph test because Vitter tried to impugn her credibility at a news conference in July, when he denied news reports about his involvement with prostitutes in New Orleans without being specific.

Oh Yeah, Big Fucking Change

After yesterday's little show in the House, Dan Froomkin has a round-up. Some high(low)lights.

"The plans outlined by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, would retain a large force in the country -- perhaps more than 100,000 troops -- when the time comes for Bush to move out of the White House in January 2009."
....
"Nothing new was said, for example, on how the administration intends to try to break apart the governmental gridlock in Baghdad, which has obstructed the administration's plan to bring about national reconciliation through agreements by the national government. . .
....
Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks write in The Washington Post: "If Gen. David H. Petraeus has his way, tens of thousands of U.S. troops will be in Iraq for years to come."
....
Susan Page writes in USA Today: "Those who wanted to hear a new plan charted by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker didn't get one. Instead, the two men asked a restive Democrat-led Congress to wait until at least next March before trying to reshape the U.S. mission or bring home most American troops. . . .

"[W]hat had been cast as a potentially defining day for U.S. policy in Iraq seemed like something else: a clear sign that the political standoff over Iraq is unlikely to end anytime soon."
....
"It's clear by now that playing for time is the real White House strategy for Iraq. Everything else is tactical maneuver and rhetorical legerdemain -- nothing up my sleeve -- with which the administration is buying time, roughly in six-month increments."

One key aspect of that strategy: "[I]f anyone mentions that Congress is supposed to decide what wars this nation fights, not generals or diplomats? Attack them for impugning our nation's finest -- and give that can another kick."
....
Charles H. Ferguson blogs for washingtonpost.com: "How convenient that they predict it will be possible to begin withdrawing troops just a few months before the next presidential election. How sad that such good men as General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are being misused in this way. And how clear it seems that any realistic, honest reassessment of U.S. policy in Iraq must come from Congress and from the next president, rather than from this administration."
....
If the American people want to end this war faster, they will have to vote to do so -- again, since that is what most of them thought they were doing in 2006."

Sports Report

Mrs. coldH2O & I listened to the Packer game on the radeeoo this afternoon. It was a lucky, but gratifying win for the Pack. Sadly the stinking, worthless Vikings also won. I don't link to evil-doers. Meanwhile, the Badgers eked out a victory against some team from Nevada. The game drew the third-largest crowd in the Nevada's school history, a crowd of 38,250 fans, 38,250? Well, everybody is undefeated, so to quote Tom Friedman's comment - Suck on this. Yeah, I'm a real grownup, but, well, you know.

We Are Just Better Than Conservatives

I think single minded in describing Bu$hCo is way too generous. But it doesn't surprise me that liberals/progressives, not only stay on top of the life of the mind, but also are more willing to change the way they live according to the new facts, the new reality. Hat tip to Mr. Shutterwi, & I use the term Mr. quite loosely. He's mad me for going to a wedding this weekend that had a lot of cute women of all ages. I even danced briefly with a hot California number.

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

Scientists at New York University and UCLA showed through a simple experiment to be reported Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

This Is An Important Issue

NOTE: I never served in the military, in fact, had it not been for a bad right knee, I'd be a Canadian citizen right now, enjoying their great medical system, but that's for another post. I do believe that a person has every right to make comments, take positions, & support ideas about a topic, whether or not they have actually experienced anything about that topic. That said, to continue to allow the ReThugs to portray themselves as John Wayne, who, BTW, did not serve in the military, is just plain wrong. & this is particularly true since the bastards want to just keep killing people, as if that action is a replacement for their small penises. Booman has the story. Now my loyal four readers are an extremely intelligent lot, so this will not be news to them, but we all need reminders. A few highlights.

AWOL Bush
....
Cheney received five deferments
....
Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Trent Lott, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Frist...all managed to get deferments.

Go read it.

Well, He'd Be Correct

Bill Richardson has an op-ed in today's Washington Post. He says, in my opinion, what the Democratic Party ought to say as a starting point in getting us the hell out Iraq, an illegal, vanity war that has killed tens of thousands. I would encourage my loyal four readers to let Mr. Richardson know that you agree with him & to urge the Party to adopt this minimalist position as a beginning.

Logistically, it would be possible to withdraw in six to eight months. We moved as many as 240,000 troops into and out of Iraq through Kuwait in as little as a three-month period during major troop rotations. After the Persian Gulf War, we redeployed nearly a half-million troops in a few months. We could redeploy even faster if we negotiated with the Turks to open a route out through Turkey.

As our withdrawal begins, we will gain diplomatic leverage. Iraqis will start seeing us as brokers, not occupiers. Iraq's neighbors will face the reality that if they don't help with stabilization, they will face the consequences of Iraq's collapse -- including even greater refugee flows over their borders and possible war.

Nothing Here To See

Just move on, by 2050, there will be nearly nothing left to see. Remember, we must protect our economy at all costs, all costs.

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Austria/Australia, It's All The Same To President Moron

I sure hope the Pope knows knows where he's at, because our President, the Dear Leader of America, doesn't.

The German-born Pope Benedict XVI offered a silent prayer at the spare Holocaust memorial at Judenplatz here today, saying earlier that his visit to Austria was aimed partly at showing “repentance” for crimes against Jews during World War II.

Bu$hCo claims Jesus is his favorite political philosopher. (I know, I know, ed.) He also has a big, amorphous shoulder to cry upon. Given Bu$hCo's awful record as a killer while Governor of Texas, you would think that his professed religious beliefs would require him to ask for repentance, not get the Big Girl's celestial garments all wet. I suppose it's like Romney's dog crapping all over his sacred underwear.

Absolutely

They'll say you're beholden to the left? Guys, they're gonna say this anyway, so why not BE beholden to the left? To the left of your party that has won over a country while you were dithering around trying not to work too hard. To the left of your party that was saying "stop this madness" long before you realized there was a bandwagon to jump on and ride to victory. To the left of your party that is made up of your voters, your supporters, your donors, your AMERICANS, who deserve a voice and a vote and deserve better than you've been giving them. To the left of your party, which was right about this war, and deserves to be thanked, not disregarded.

More good words here.

More On The Bee Die-Offs

We can put away, apparently, some of the wilder theories about why honey bees are dying. It seems Israeli acute paralysis virus is now thought to be the leading candidate. Of course, the scientists don't know for sure, hey, that's what makes it science, sort of. I love science, I say again, but don't much care for scientists. All the bees may die while they dither. I know I shouldn't be so hard on them, but....

Now, one bee disease, called Israeli acute paralysis virus, seems strongly associated with the beekeeping operations that experienced big losses, a large research group has concluded, although members of the team stressed that they had not proved the virus caused the die-offs.

Worst President Ever

Via Dan Froomkin, we get the following concerning the decision to disband the Iraqi army early in this war. The fucking moron of a president can't even remember his position, much less take responsibility for the disaster that followed. I am not suggesting that by not disbanding the Iraqi army we wouldn't be in the deep shit we're in, but that this is another example of how Bu$hCo has screwed this up beyond belief. Read & weep for the dead.

One of the most shocking revelations of Draper's book was Bush's nonchalant response to questions about the disbanding of the Iraqi army -- widely seen as one of the biggest mistakes of the occupation.

As Richard Wolffe writes for Newsweek: "According to Draper, Bush was unaware that his own viceroy in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, was going to stand down the Iraqi army. 'Well, the policy was to keep the army intact,' Bush told the author. 'Didn't happen.' Since then the White House has tried to explain that Bush was actually referring to the melting away of the army, not the disbanding order."

Bremer told the New York Times on Monday that Bush was told in advance about the disbanding of the army.

And today, Bremer writes in a New York Times op-ed: "The decision not to recall Saddam Hussein's army was thoroughly considered by top officials in the American government. At the time, this decision was not controversial. . . .

"On May 22, I sent to President Bush, through Secretary Rumsfeld, my first report since arriving in Iraq. I reviewed our activities since arrival, including our de-Baathification policy. I then alerted the president that 'I will parallel this step with an even more robust measure dissolving Saddam's military and intelligence structures.' The same day, I briefed the president on the plan via secure video. The president sent me a note on May 23 in which he thanked me for my report and noted that 'you have my full support and confidence.'"

Off Topic

I think this has been discussed several years ago, but I'm going to bring it up again. I've been watching the U.S.Open Tennis Championships & have to admit that all the damn grunting, etc., from both genders is highly annoying.

Trouble Ahead

I suppose I'll be labeled an anti-Semite for linking to this report, but the accusation will not be true. lsrael is not different from other countries, it ought to defend itself. This defense, however, cannot be open-ended & without consequence. Killing people never accomplishes what a country thinks it will, & killing people indiscriminately only coarsens not only Israel, but the entire world, as well.

In its harshest condemnation of Israel since last year’s war, Human Rights Watch charged that most of the Lebanese civilian casualties came from “indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes,” according to a report released today.

In a statement issued before the report’s release, Human Rights Watch said there was no basis to the Israeli claim that civilian casualties resulted from Hezbollah guerrillas using civilians as shields. Israel has said it attacked civilian areas because Hezbollah set up rocket launchers in villages and towns.

More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict last summer, which began after Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. They are still being held.

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Predictable

This is why I get so irritated at those among us who condemn the use of psychotropic drugs in persons of any age. It is so easy to think that we are over medicating people, especially children. It is also easy to condemn people for needing help with depression. I am no friend of either the medical industry or big pharma, but to deny the need for these medications is stupid. I would also say that the lack of trained professionals in child psychology in rural areas of the country leads to the use of medications without the concurrent talk therapy. To those of you who think we are over medicating, I'd advise you to talk to the family of one of the dead children.

In the year after the change in labeling, the suicide rate rose 14% among those younger than 19, the largest increase since the government started collecting suicide statistics in 1979, said biostatistician Robert D. Gibbons and his colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

A similar drop in prescriptions in the Netherlands led to a 49% increase in youth suicides over a two-year period, the team reported. They estimated that every 20% drop in antidepressant use among all ages in the U.S. would lead to a nearly 10% increase in suicides, an additional 3,040 deaths per year

My emphasis.

Billy Joel?

Billy Joel?

Via The Twins Mama comes this. Lots of time, but it is a great example of what can be done using the tubes of the internets.

Strange Fruit, Indeed

Hell of a post, here. This is so true. Even in the woods in northern Wisco, we watch how the Anishnaabeg are treated, talked about, educated. We watch the Guatemalans who have been brought in by a local ReThug to work for next to nothing being housed in substandard rentals. We watch & do what we can, whether it's Spanish signs in the window of the local co-op, (but no signs in the language of the local indigenous people!), a church opening its doors for the immigrants, (I thought all church doors were always open. My bad.) or learning how to cook with curry.

We walk on eggshells still, many of us—gauging our effect on the surrounding environment, even the most bodacious of us, internally faltering for a moment when we enter certain surroundings. Letting that painful question be heard for the briefest second—“Is it okay for me to be here?”—before plodding forward defiantly...and sometimes with great trepidation.

That is the damage of institutionalized racism. Its “mark”, if you will. That hesitation. How does the old saying go?

“He who hesitates is lost.”

And sooooooooo many Black folks have hesitated over the years, decades and soon it will be centuries, that they—we—have become lost.

Understand something. It is the year 2007. Where we joke about, “Where is my flying car? My monorail? The 3.5 jet-packs per family we were promised?”, mocking the progress we were supposed to have made, based on futurists predictions.

It is the year 2007. And as much as we may try to think otherwise, we live in a country where White teenagers will still fight over who can, and who can not sit under a fucking tree during recess at school, based on the color of their skin. For all the crowing about the “browning of America”, and how the kids are un-learning the racism inculcated in the American fabric, this incident should give every one of us pause.
....

We can sing “kum-ba-ya” til our throats sound like Miles Davis after a bender of Sloe Drano Fizzes, but at the sick core of America, racism still infirms this country's aspiration to greatness.

I use the word “infirms”, loosely. Because the pat analogies about America's racial “sickness” are so very, very flawed. Racism in America isn't a wound,—as so many describe it. No. Wounds heal. And it isn't a cancer—because you can remove a cancer, should you catch it early enough, or if not—at least bomb it with enough countering toxicity where you can seriously impede its progress.

Racism in America is neither of these things—a wound, or a cancer.

It is quite simply...akin to a living, festering parasite that feasts on the very soul of the country, and what makes it work. It's a vicious tapeworm. Picked up long ago, and living there, deep in the American belly...it's very guts, in fact. Not killing, mind you...but in there nonetheless, all slimy and sickening, so intwined with what makes this place simply exist, that it's supremely difficult to remove.

And the host knows it's there. Knows it slows and sickens it with every step forward. But in the end...does nothing about it...because the effort to remove the parasite is “just too great”.

Too costly.

Via Susie Madrak.

Miyoshi Umeki, R.I.P.

I remember watching Sayonara. Obit here.

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If There Was A God

I'd thank her for this.

When his church announced last week that Dr. Kennedy would not return to the pulpit -- he preached his final sermon Christmas Eve -- the Rev. Harold McSwain, pastor of a United Church of Christ in Fort Lauderdale, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: "I've had to deal with a lot of wounded people coming to me in tears and in anger because of the kind of hate he fosters."

My emphasis.

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More Of The Same Part Nine Hundred Eighty One

Glenn Greenwald takes apart the boneheads in D.C. All I know is that the dirty fucking hippies down at The Black Cat Coffee House were right about everything in regards to this stupid war on Iraq/Terror/Iran & the slimy Joe Lieberman types were wrong about everything.

It is hard to overstate the bitterness and resentment which the Serious Pro-War Beltway Elite like Hiatt, who were wrong about everything, still harbor towards those, such as ElBaredei, who were right about Iraq, principally because those who were right serve as an ongoing, painful reminder of what poor judgment the likes of Hiatt possess, of how untrustworthy are the foreign policy pronouncements of the Serious People in Hiatt's world. Thus, Hiatt's attack on EdBaredei begins with the complaint that he "was lionized by opponents of the Iraq war" for being right. That's because in Hiatt's world, having been right on Iraq -- and being "lionized" by war opponents -- are actually hallmarks of unseriousness. Ask Scott Ritter (if you can find where he can be heard). Or Howard Dean.

Oops, via Atrios.

Bad Economics

Via RLK. Tell me again Hank Martinsen, how great the Bu$hCo economy is.

Mixter's Cow, Minnesota Edition

Mixter, who is running for Congress, I believe, has this cow fascination. I have a previous post about a cow for Mixter & recently came upon this cow, at the junction of I35 & 70, just west of Grantsburg, Wisco. Maybe there's a road trip in it for Mixter, oh, the cow was for sale, Xmas, anyone?

Interesting

Mrs. coldH2O is a German & a lapsed-Roman Catholic. Please send me sympathy money. Just kidding, dearheart. Here's an interesting story from one of the McClatchy papers. I didn't know about this particular strain of Germanness in the country, too bad it didn't have the progressive effect the Germans had in Wisco.

Old Bees

Really old bees.

Crikey, Ouch Is Right, Matey

Via Dependable Renegade. Dear Leader is falling, falling out with everybody.

Later, the Governor-General was represented at Sydney International Airport at the arrival in Australia of the President of the United States of America, the Honourable George W. Bush, by Colonel Bill Monfries, an Honorary Aide-de-Camp.

Post Labor Day Reminder

Post Labor Day reminder. Via C&L.

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Jeez Louise

Via Dependable Renegade.



I need to get out more.

Guru of the groove

Billy Delle remembers owning his first rhythm-and-blues records about age 12. With a combination of birthday and Christmas money, he bought an adapter that allowed him to play 45s through radio speakers, and three singles to play on it:

"Night Owl" by Tony Allen and the Champs, "At My Front Door" by the El Dorados and "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard.

Read the rest here.

On The Road

Truly.

The master class starts wars. The lower classes fight it. Governments lie. The voice of the government is often not the voice of the people.

Speak up, act out! Silence is complicity. Be the gadfly of the state and also its firefly. And if you have two loaves of bread, do as the Greeks did: sell one with the coin of the realm, and with the coin of the realm buy sunflowers.

Wake up! The world’s on fire!

Have a nice day!

Labor Day 2007

Hope you're having a great day.

The Twins First Birthday Party In Pictures

Now Mr. Shutterwi, see link on right, called me at 11:30 this a.m. to complain about no blogging of The Twins partay, well, as you can see from the previous post, things went FUBAR, but thanks to Mrs. coldH2O & her camera, I did take a few shots, well, 55 to be precise, but I won't bore you with all the pics. Here are the ones I picked. With headings/commentary from yours truly.

Miss Marigny & her birthday dress.

The birthday cupcakes & candles.

The Twins & their weird birthday hats.

The family.

Mama & Marigny.

Dada & Lucy.

Some of the assembled guests. The action in the foreground is an attempt at the Minnesota mind meld.

Two dads/ three babies. One is sort of hidden.

Four babies, one adult arm.

Part of the food table.

Cousins & second cousins. We were very happy to see Andrew.

SNAFU

So today's the weekend birthday party for The Twins. I have to admit that I am remiss, since both my batteries for my camera are dead. I ran all over Mpls. this afternoon looking for a replacement & finally found one, but it needed to be recharged so bought a recharger. Unfortunately, when I got back the the party, the charger was not made for the battery I bought. I then downed a couple of beers very quickly so that I would know enough not to back to the batteries r us or whatever the place was named. I did take a bunch of pics with Mrs. coldH2O's camera & will need to download those to my laptop. Suffice it to say, Mr. Shutterwi will not be pleased. He's probably already pissed off that I shirked my blogging duty by not doing an all day long live-blogging of the blessed event. Later.