Ok so I was reading a Reuters news story online, when I came to this statement:

"[Army Chief of Staff Peter] Schoomaker acknowledged up to 25 percent of the Humvees in Iraq still had the low grade of protective armor, but he said all should be equipped with higher grade armor in September."

Wait a minute. After the big stink up last year with the one soldier asking Rummy why they had to use trash to armor their humvees, you are telling me that STILL a full 25% of the humvees do not have the full body armor? Are you kidding me?! After all the talk about how production of this armor would be ramped up?! Come on!

What could possibly be the excuse for this? Support our troops is the Republican mantra, supposedly aimed at us on the left, wrongfully claiming that since we are against this war that we are against the troops! But yet they aren't supporting the troops, there is NO excuse for why after nearly 2.5 years in Iraq our military does not have all the armor, all the supplies, that it needs.

Unacceptable.

File this under funny.

Man to try to seize home of Supreme Court justice

"A California man, angry over a U.S. Supreme Court decision expanding government power to take private property, says he will try to use the ruling to seize the New Hampshire home of Justice David Souter and convert it into a hotel to be named the Lost Liberty Hotel.

Souter voted with the 5-4 majority last week when the Supreme Court ruled a Connecticut city could use its powers of eminent domain to take private homes to make way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.
...
'It's solely for the purpose of showing (Souter) that his decision was unjust,' he said. 'We hope to make a profit as well but I don't agree with eminent domain so the irony is that we are going to use eminent domain against him.'

...the hotel would be called the Lost Liberty Hotel and would include a restaurant called the Just Desserts Cafe..."

I haven't mentioned this Supreme Court ruling which can give private developers the ability to take your home away if they can convince the local municipality that this private business would produce more tax revenue or boost a local economy then they can take your home away.

Anyways I think this is funny. I like the inherent irony, and the catchy names; Just Desserts Cafe. Good stuff.

Senate Votes to Boost Veterans' Health Aid

"The Senate voted Wednesday spend an extra $1.5 billion on veterans' health care this year as the Bush administration agreed to ask Congress for more money to cover a politically embarrassing shortfall.

The 96-0 vote was a response to the Veterans Affairs Department's announcement last week that its health care costs had risen faster than expected, forcing the agency to shift money among accounts to cover the shortage."

Bravo! This should be defense funding priority #1. No ifs, ands, or buts. Good for the Senate for helping prod the powers that be to get on the horse and make this additional funding happen.

17 Aboard Downed U.S. Copter Feared Dead

"U.S. military officials said Wednesday they feared all 17 troops aboard a special operations helicopter were dead after hostile fire downed the craft and it slid or rolled into a rugged mountain ravine in eastern Afghanistan.

If those aboard were confirmed killed, the crash would be the deadliest blow yet to American forces in Afghanistan, already grappling with an insurgency that is widening rather than winding down.
...
Only eight months ago, Afghan and U.S. officials were hailing a relatively peaceful presidential election here as a sign that the Taliban rebellion was finished. That bravado has been yet another casualty in a war some feel could escalate into a conflict on the scale of Iraq's.
...
The Taliban have stepped up attacks, and there are disturbing signs that foreign fighters - including al-Qaida - might be making a new push to sow mayhem..."

Upsetting, and disturbing. I really hope that Afghanistan does NOT turn into a situation like we have in Iraq. I'm trying not to be too partisan tonight, but let me just say this. I believe THIS is where our forces should have been this entire time. The fact that we may now be having an insurgency like what we have in Iraq makes me think that if we kept our full forces in Afghanistan instead of shifting most to Iraq, that we may not only have caught Bin Laden and many other top deputies, we may be looking at a much better situation there then there is now.

You know everyone says that by going to Iraq we brought the fight on terrorism there, and the terrorists have come there to fight. So we keep them away from the homeland. BUT could we not have done the same thing in Afghanistan? I submit that the answer is yes.

Ok partisan off.

Lastly:

Freedom Tower Features Attack Precautions

"The newest plan for the Freedom Tower at the former World Trade Center site features a more bomb-resistant design pushed well away from the street and incorporating heavily protected elevators and utilities.

The details are part of a redesign detailed Wednesday for the soaring skyscraper in lower Manhattan, a project that has been delayed by bureaucratic squabbling.

The new design for the 1,776-foot tower is meant to make it more resistant to truck bombs. The building will now be 90 feet - instead of 25 feet -— from West Street..."

I think I like the new design. I didn't like the original design, I liked some of the other designs that were up for consideration. I know this new redesign is less interesting architecturally, but it reminds me of the old towers, and I think that is very apt. A light reminder of what was with a nod to the future of what will be.

Fitting I believe.

Top of the week to ya!

First up, why is no one listening?

Halliburton Iraq deals described as contract abuse

"A top U.S. Army procurement official said on Monday Halliburton's deals in Iraq were the worst example of contract abuse she had seen as Pentagon auditors flagged over $1 billion of potential overcharges by the Texas-based firm.
...
'I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR (Kellogg Brown and Root) represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career,' said Greenhouse, a procurement veteran of more than 20 years.
...
What concerned Greenhouse most was that the oil contract, which had a top value of $7 billion, was given to KBR without competitive bidding."

Seriously, I don't care how you spin it, you righty kool aid drinkers, this is very fishy, and needs to be gotten to the bottom of. We are talking about $1 BILLION! This is OUR money. I'm not sure if people realize this or not. But it is our taxpayer money that is going to the honorable job of "fighting the war on terror", but in actuality alot of this money is going into the pockets of these war profiteers, oh sorry contractors. There is big business in war, and it is becoming more and more industrialized. We need to stop and think about what the real motivations of everyone involved are.

Think about it.

Then there's this:

Experts say US complacent on nuclear terror threat

"Four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration and the U.S. Congress are showing signs of complacency about the threat of a terrorist nuclear attack that could cripple a major city and shatter the economy, nuclear security experts said on Monday.

At a public forum sponsored by the former Sept. 11 commission, the experts said the government must do more to secure bomb-making materials worldwide, prevent proliferation, and promote international cooperation on security."

Hmm that sounds familiar, did a certain candidate for President mention this as our top national security priority? And didn't some other guy who is still President agree that this was our top national security priority?

So what the HELL happened?!

Oh well, not that important I guess.

And finally tonight:


Former Political Foes Take Maine Boat Ride

"Former President Bill Clinton joined his one-time political foe, former President George H.W. Bush, for a boat ride on the Atlantic Ocean after attending a book-signing Monday in South Portland.
...
The 1992 election rivals became friends when they led fund-raising as part of the relief effort for victims of the Asian tsunami. Bush extended the invitation after learning that Clinton would be in Maine for a book signing."

See if bitter political foes can become boating buddies then maybe there is a chance for Coke and Pepsi.

So Rove made some comments recently only miles from ground zero in downtown Manhattan.

W.House rejects apology for Rove's Sept. 11 remarks

"Speaking to the Conservative Party of New York State on Wednesday night, Rove said: 'Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.'"

F*** you Karl Rove, what you are doing is hurting our country. You are seeking to further divide our country, to demonize people in this country who land on the left side of the spectrum. And its NOT RIGHT!

We love our country, we cried just as much as Republicans did when those buildings came down. We were so devastated, just like everyone else in this country. We lost loved ones in those buildings just like you Republicans did! We will never be the same EVER EVER EVER EVER AGAIN just like you Republicans.

To politicize this horrible horrible tragedy just makes me sick. It made me sick when shrub did it during his campaign, and it makes me sick that you, Karl Rove, you satanic bastard, continue to do it now.


NYC mayor, Bloomberg said it pretty well:

"In New York, Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, citing the families and survivors of those killed in the hijacked airliner attacks, said, 'No one has ever raised issues of ideology or partisanship.'

'We owe it to those we lost to keep partisan politics out of the discussion,' Bloomberg said."

YES yes we do! You are a bastard!

But let me just say this. What don't you understand about liberals saying that we need to understand why they hate us? Why they did this? Have you not heard one of the oldest proverbs: "Known thine enemy." ? Why is this so hard for you to understand? This does not mean that we want to offer "therapy" for these barbaric killers. It means if we want to have a chance to defeat these terrorists, then we need to know why they are doing this so that we can defeat them from the root.

Who cares about the environment? We'll all be dead before anything bad happens. Well apparently the Senate agrees.

Senate Defeats Move to Cap Climate Gases

"The Senate soundly defeated a proposal Wednesday for mandatory reductions in heat-trapping pollution that may be warming the Earth."

This just makes no sense to me. This proposal would have capped the greenhouse gases emissions at the year 2000 levels. YEAR 2000! We are only talking about 5 years ago. Look, climate change IS happening. Global warming IS happening. And what does shrub say we should do about it?

"It was a victory for President Bush's policies that focus on voluntary actions by industry to address the problem."

Voluntary actions, riiight, yeah ok the industry is just going to voluntarily rein in emissions. Ok they don't care about the environment, they care about making money. This voluntary action plan is nothing more than a mask for the real plan which is, "F*** the Environment - (We've got money to make)".

Well ladies and gents, we'll all get fat and rich and all of shrub's business cronies will be rolling in it, meanwhile we are destroying the only planet we have. Oh well, better luck next time.

OK so blogger just completely ate my post. And it was a good one. How frustrating. My loyal readers you will be deprived now. So sorry.

Basically here is the gist of what I was saying:

Ok I know it is all the rage these days to increase the amount of government secrecy to a point where any info we actually get is a trickle so that in the future when any bit of information actually is released the wonderful mainstream media will jump for joy at how open and accountable this administration is being to give us this nice little morsel of information.

This country was created to have transparency of government in order for this representative democracy to work. It is time that the mainstream media woke up and realized that what this administration and its cronies are trying to do is remove the very things that this country was created upon, so that it can have free reign to do as it pleases.

So here is the link to the story I was covering in my post.

Lawmakers chide Pentagon over U.N. treatment

"U.S. lawmakers took aim at the Pentagon on Tuesday for hiding information from U.N.-mandated auditors about U.S contractor Halliburton, with Republicans calling it an embarrassment.
...
'This is a self-inflicted wound, a needless failure to meet transparency obligations,' Rep. Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, told a U.S. House of Representatives panel.

...An audit by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found the U.S.-led authority there could not properly account for $8.8 billion of Iraq's money.

Texas-based Halliburton... ...was paid about $1.7 billion out of these funds to bring in fuel for Iraqis under a sole source deal its unit Kellogg Brown and Root had with the U.S. military.

U.N. auditors asked for a full accounting of Iraqi money given to KBR and documents were finally handed over after much wrangling but portions detailing potential overcharges by KBR were blocked out.

'It hid almost every meaningful number or reference to question an unsupported contract cost, the very matters of most concern to them and, frankly, to us," said Shays.'"

Ask yourself one question. What does a subsidiary of Halliburton have to hide in a financial accounting statement?

This is the question that needs to be asked. I hope that this committee gets all the information it has asked for, and if it does not then the media need to shine a light on this.

Ok I had to run before I could finish my post on Friday. Rep Bud thanks for your comments, I'm glad to see that you are so upset about the memos that you feel the need to post a link to the wingnut national review about this story. What do you think they are going to say? Granted the Milbank Opinion piece is interesting in its disdain, from a source such as he, but I digress. The point still is that he is a Congressman and he has a right to hold a hearing in the House. He has the signatures of 122 House members, and over 250,000 citizens, so I hardly think it is as you characterize it, simply some crazy lefty Congressman. But fear will do that to you I suppose.

Now on to what I wanted to get to on Friday.

First the link.

"Woodward reports that just five days after Sept. 11, President Bush indicated to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that while he had to do Afghanistan first, he was also determined to do something about Saddam Hussein."

Nothing too new here, to people such as me that pretty much know that this is the way things happened. But lets see what else?

"'Gets to a point where in July, the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ...Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this.'"

Now THIS is bad! If this is proven to be true, I don't think anyone can explain this away, or make it seem right. More disturbing to me then secretly appropriating money with Congress's knowledge, is the fact that money was secretly taken away from fighting the war in Afghanistan to plan this misguided war plan in Iraq.

Lets close on the words of Tommy Franks, according to Senator Graham:

"In an excerpt read on the program, the senator said Franks told him 'his men and resources were being moved to Iraq, where he felt that our intelligence was shoddy. This admission was coming almost 14 months before the beginning of combat operations in Iraq and only five months after the commencement of combat in Afghanistan.'"

This is wrong. It no doubt cost us valuable time in defeating remaining Taliban and Al Quada fighters in Afghanistan. The source of the attack on our homeland on September 11, 2001.

Ok this is breaking. But lets start earlier, yesterday to be exact.

Democrats Urge Inquiry on Bush, Iraq

Rep. John Conyers asked to hold a hearing on the "Downing Street Memo". The republican controlled House refused to grant space to hold this hearing in the normal hearing rooms, so Conyers held the hearing yesterday in the BASEMENT of the House.

"The Democratic congressmen were relegated to a tiny room in the bottom of the Capitol and the Republicans who run the House scheduled 11 major votes to coincide with the afternoon event."

Now ask yourself a question. Why if there is no story here, would Conyers be refused a room in the House, AND why would Republicans in the House schedule 11 major votes the same afternoon?

"The White House refuses to respond to a May 5 letter from 122 congressional Democrats about whether there was a coordinated effort to 'fix' the intelligence and facts around the policy, as the Downing Street memo says.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan says Conyers 'is simply trying to rehash old debates.'

Conyers and a half-dozen other members of Congress were stopped at the White House gate later Thursday when they hand-delivered petitions signed by 560,000 Americans who want Bush to provide a detailed response to the Downing Street memo."

Despicable! The president refuses to allow a member of Congress into the Whitehouse to deliver a letter and over 500,000 signatures to him????!!! How DARE he! I hope this f***er goes down!

Now to the breaking stuff.

More on this later.

Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, upon reading this news item today, I now welcome you to my list of completely worthless human beings. Who else is on that list you ask? Well just esteemed fellows as Jessie Helms, Patrick Buchanan, David Duke (KKK), Tom DeLay, etc.

Romney to Back Plan to Ban Gay Marriage

So you ask what would make me say such a thing, as what I said just above? Ok so a little background.

"Gov. Mitt Romney said Thursday he will support a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Massachusetts, the only state where it is legal.

The Legislature was already working on a proposed amendment that would ban gay marriage but also would allow Vermont-style civil unions. The new proposal drops the civil union language, meaning such unions would remain illegal in the state.
...
Romney previously supported the original amendment proposal, but he said at the time the only reason he did so was because it would ban gay marriage."

So now with that little background, here is the quote that had my feathers all ruffled.

"'If the question is, 'Do you support gay marriage or civil unions?' I'd say neither,' Romney said last year. 'If they said you have to have one or the other, that Massachusetts is going to have one or the other, then I'd rather have civil unions than gay marriage. But I'd rather have neither.'"

What a F**KING homophobic d***head!! You know its one thing to be against gay marriage, and say that you have nothing against civil unions, since your good BOOK doesn't say anything about that. But its another thing entirely, a whole other level, to say that you would prefer NEITHER gay marriage, OR civil unions, and to say it TWICE in this quote.

To basically say to all gay people, "go F*** yourselves! You are not worthy of being recognized as people. You are lower than dirt!" I think I have heard that before, and it sounds alot like some other evils in our past. It amazing that we are willing to repeat it because The Book says to.

Can we not see that the damage and destruction that this good book and all its incarnations have caused FAR outweigh its positive effects? Stop taking the thing literally for God's sakes! Its been distilled and translated for centuries, how can you take it literally?

JESUS CHRIST!

Wake up people!

This IS the same as the persecution of the Jews in Germany.
This IS the same as the racism directed at African Americans before and during the civil rights movement.
This IS a recipe for hate leading to immoral behavior.

Wake UP!!

Schiavo Autopsy Shows Massive Brain Damage

"The autopsy released Wednesday on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding she was severely and irreversibly brain-damaged and blind as well. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused before she collapsed.
...
The autopsy showed that Schiavo's brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age and that it bore signs of severe damage.

'This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons,' said Pinellas-Pasco County Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin, who led the autopsy team. He also said she was blind, because the 'vision centers of her brain were dead.'"

Enough. Let her rest in Peace as I believe she wanted. Everyone come down off of your idealogical high horses. What I said in this blog earlier has been proven to be true.

One last word:

"Experts said that the autopsy demonstrates how difficult it is for people to recover from severe brain damage.

'People should understand that sometimes, for known or unknown reasons, individuals sustain massive brain injury that for which healing is not possible,' said Dr. Karen Weidenheim, the chief of neuropathology at Montefiore Medical Center in New York."

File this under NO SH*T! (sorry Rep Bud, at least I * out a letter)

Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan

"A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a 'protracted and costly' postwar occupation of that country.

The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq."

It's a sad reality when even this report doesn't surprise me at all. Why are people not outraged? It's one thing to lie to us to take us to war, it is just gross incompetence to not have a plan for after the war, or to ignore plans that were drawn up.

This has cost us dearly. Cost us over 1600 of our men and women. Cost many many more Iraqi lives. And cost us many many billions of dollars.

...And they didn't have a plan... Despicable.

Microsoft joins Yahoo!, Google in censoring China's web

"Users of Microsoft's new China-based Internet portal were blocked from using the words 'democracy', 'freedom' and 'human rights' in an apparent move by the US software giant to appease Beijing.

Other words that could not be used on Microsoft's free online blog service MSN Spaces include 'Taiwan independence' and 'demonstration'.
...
Microsoft is not the only international tech company to comply with China's stringent Internet rules.

Yahoo! and Google -- the two most popular Internet search engines -- have already been criticized for cooperating with the Chinese government to censor the Internet."

Sad sad that global internet companies such as these would agree to effectively censor the internet to appease a communist government. It does not bode well for the future of free unfettered worldwide communication across the internet. What happens when another government asks a Google, or a Microsoft to censor some other aspect of their internet domain? Then what? It's a slippery slope.

Well I don't want to think too much of this but.

Public Broadcasting Targeted By House

"A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as 'Sesame Street,' 'Reading Rainbow,' 'Arthur' and 'Postcards From Buster.'

In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters -- starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million."

It wouldn't be so disturbing if recent events had not made it seem that Republicans had it out for PBS.

"Several denounced the decision by the panel, which has 10 Republicans and seven Democrats, as payback by a Republican-dominated House after years of complaints from conservatives who see liberal bias in programs carried by the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio."

The problem is our media is more and more controlled by huge corporate interests. I think that is a huge part of the media problem. Revoking federal funding for public broadcasting could very well eliminate the one oasis in this corporate controlled desert that is the news media, and broadcasting in general.

Then there is this:
GOP Chairman Walks Out of Meeting

"The Republican chairman walked off with the gavel, leaving Democrats shouting into turned-off microphones at a raucous hearing Friday on the Patriot Act.

The House Judiciary Committee hearing, with the two sides accusing each other of being irresponsible and undemocratic, came as President Bush was urging Congress to renew those sections of the post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism law set to expire in September."

Yeah way to hold an open and honest discussion on the validity of the provisions of the Patriot Act. Way to abuse your power. Way to be a complete ass.

And last but not at ALL least:

Poll: Bush Job Approval Dips to New Low

"When it comes to public approval, President Bush and Congress are playing 'how low can you go.' Bush's approval mark is 43 percent, while Congress checks in at 31 percent, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll found."

Keep FALLING buddy! You are after all, a horrible, horrible president.

Ok, get ready for the whirlwind. Today I am going to quickly hit on several political topics. Ok here we go.

White House defends editing of climate reports

"The New York Times reported Wednesday that Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, changed descriptions of climate research approved by government scientists.

The Times said that Cooney, a lawyer and former lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute, made notes on drafts of reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research."

Well I don't think anyone should be surprised by this. I mean this administration just keeps saying that there is not enough information on this global warming "theory", and uses that claim as an excuse for inaction. Its disgusting.

Morally reprehensible.

NEXT: A Defeat For Users Of Medical Marijuana

"The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the medical marijuana movement yesterday, ruling that the federal government can still ban possession of the drug in states that have eliminated sanctions for its use in treating symptoms of illness."

Sorry folks, you can have all the Oxycontin, and Zoloft, and ambien, and prozac, and Valium, and Vicodin, and ....

But you CAN'T have any marijuana so that you have an appetite while you are going through chemo and radiation treatment. I mean come on, no company controls the distribution of Marijuana, I mean you can grow it in the ground! So there is no patented formula. Yeah sorry folks.

NEXT: Democrats vow to stand firm in blocking vote on UN nominee Bolton

"An up-or-down vote on John Bolton's controversial nomination to become Washington's UN ambassador will be blocked indefinitely, unless the White House produces classified documents about the nominee, the US Senate's top Democrat said.

Speaking on CNN television Thursday, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he had made his demands clear to US President George W. Bush, who so far has yet to comply.

'The president is obstructing the vote on John Bolton,' Reid said. 'We've told him what we wanted. The ball is in his court,' Reid said."

John Bolton is a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States of America. Mark my words! It is a grave mistake to have this man be our representative to the United Nations.

And furthermore, who does shrub think he is? An equal branch of government (the Legislative branch, ie. the Senate) has asked for information. It is your obligation as a member of another branch of our government (the executive branch) to provide that information in order to not stifle our government process. You disgust me! I can't believe you are in office still.

You are a horrible horrible president, and you are moving us more and more towards a consolidated power of government into one extremely powerful executive branch. And best of all, you are doing this under the nose of most of America, without them having any idea.

Well I am watching!

AND FINALLY: Bush pushes Congress to renew anti-terrorism law

"President Bush urged the U.S. Congress on Thursday to renew major provisions of the USA Patriot Act and rejected critics who have complained the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law erodes civil liberties.
...
The Patriot Act was approved by overwhelming margins in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the tense weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but civil liberties groups and some members of Congress say the law has gone too far, putting American freedoms in danger.
...
'The Patriot Act has not diminished American liberties. The Patriot Act has helped defend American liberties,' Bush said."

Are you KIDDING me?!?!?!?! You DARE to say that this law has defended our liberties?! This law has, in one fell swoop, harvested our most precious civil liberties that we have had since the founding of this fine country! While this law has a few needed reforms to help to better protect us from terrorist attack, it has MANY MANY more that can only be described as a desperate and devious attempt to regress our sacred liberties in order to do what I don't dare to think of.

"Sen. Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, accused Bush of presenting a 'false choice' by focusing his speech on parts of the Patriot Act that are not controversial and glossing over areas where lawmakers say it could be improved.

'He once again ignored bipartisan concerns about the Patriot Act, and presented a false choice to the American people -- that we have to reauthorize the Patriot Act without any changes or leave our country vulnerable to terrorist attacks,' he said."

EXACTLY. Enough said!



WAKE UP!!

Ok, don't fear my loyal readers. I am back. After the longest absence from my blog since I started, I am now back to bestow much political stew upon you all. Ewwww!! That sounds gross, bestow political stew upon you? Hope it's not chunky.

First off, the "Downing Street Memo".

'Downing Street memo' gets fresh attention

In case you hadn't heard about it, this memo is a memo on a meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and most heads of British intelligence that took place on July 23, 2002. Several months before the Iraq war began. At a time when shrub claimed that he still hadn't decided to go to war, before he had gone to the UN.

So apparently during this meeting,

"...the head of Britain's MI6 intelligence service that in 2002, the Bush administration was selectively choosing evidence that supported its case for going to war and ignoring anything to the contrary. The war began in March 2003.

'Intelligence and facts were being fixed' by the Bush administration 'around' a policy that saw military action 'as inevitable,' the newspaper quoted from the memo."

Now my progressive peers in the blogging world and elsewhere have pointed to this as a "smoking gun" that shrub willingly manipulated intelligence to support going to war, and had already made up his mind when he told us that he was still trying to find a peaceful solution.

I, however, have not wrote about this until now, because I don't see this as a "smoking gun". To me the only thing that this memo itself can prove, without any further testimony from someone else, is that this Intelligence chief, Richard Dearlove, THOUGHT that this is what shrub was doing.

Let's get this straight, I am not saying that he didn't manipulate intelligence, because I believe he did. But we need actual proof of this, and I'm sorry but this memo is not that proof. This memo can only prove that this intelligence chief made this statement, it can't prove what his reason for saying that was, besides his opinion.

BUT I am mentioning it now, because a reporter asked Blair and shurb at their press conference about it yesterday. And strangely now Blair seems to deny that this was said, at least that is what I read somewhere. I can't find that source now, so anyways take it for what its worth. Things smell fishy, and he got away with it, that is the worst thing.

"Wolfowitz takes the reins of the globe's largest lender to poor countries amid lingering reservations over his role as the architect of the U.S. war in Iraq."

Here's hoping Wolfowitz and his hair can actually do some good over at the World Bank.

Oh and then there is the Amnesty International report.

ABC News: Cheney Offended by Amnesty Int'l Report

Well I'm offended by this administration's actions with regards to detainee treatment and with their refusal to accept any responsibility for maintaining an environment where this sort of disdain for the Geneva Convention is accepted.

I'm done for tonight. Tomorrow is a mayoral debate for Albuquerque mayor candidates. I might report on this local race tomorrow.