Thought for the Day

"Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him."

- Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H

Name them. Maim them. Kill them.

From the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq, air strikes and attacks by the U.S. military have only killed "militants," "criminals," "suspected insurgents," "IED [Improvised Explosive Device] emplacers," "anti-American fighters," "terrorists," "military-age males," "armed men," "extremists," or "al-Qaeda."

The pattern for reporting on such attacks has remained the same from the early years of the occupation to today. Take a helicopter attack on Oct. 23 of this year near the village of Djila, north of Samarra. The U.S. military claimed it had killed 11 among "a group of men planting a roadside bomb." Only later did a military spokesperson acknowledge that at least six of the dead were civilians. Local residents claimed that those killed were farmers, that there were children among them, and that the number of dead was greater than 11.

Here is part of the statement released by U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq, Maj. Peggy Kageleiry:

"A suspected insurgent and improvised explosive device cell member was identified among the killed in an engagement between Coalition Forces and suspected IED emplacers just north of Samarra. … During the engagement, insurgents used a nearby house as a safe haven to re-engage coalition aircraft. A known member of an IED cell was among the 11 killed during the multiple engagements. We send condolences to the families of those victims and we regret any loss of life."

As usual, the version offered by locals was vastly different. Abdul al-Rahman Iyadeh, a relative of some of the victims, revealed that the "group of men" attacked were actually three farmers who had left their homes at 4:30 a.m. to irrigate their fields. Two were killed in the initial helicopter attack and the survivor ran back to his home where other residents gathered. The second air strike, he claimed, destroyed the house killing 14 people. Another witness told reporters that four separate houses were hit by the helicopter. A local Iraqi policeman, Capt. Abdullah al-Isawi, put the death toll at 16 – seven men, six women, and three children, with another 14 wounded.

More on AntiWar ...

My comment: I don't know what the real story is, but I do know that the first casualty of war is truth.

There's a lesson in here somewhere ...

"Hello seeker! Now don't feel alone here in the New Age, because there's a seeker born every minute."

-- Firesign Theatre

A Question of Impeachment

Democrats took it off the table ...

... so ... the Culture Project it on the stage ...

Catch up on the arguments for impeachment with the Culture Project.

Culture Project brings crucial and timely concerns to the fore once again with a new, unique series that gathers some of the most brilliant and visionary minds of our time to explore and debate the case for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

You may not agree that there's a legitimate case for impeachment, but in a free and open society, when so many knowledgeable, well educated people who care about the future of the country think there is a case ... perhaps we owe it to ourselves to at least hear them out before we fully close out minds to the possibility.

We should at the very least measure the merits of their case on the scale of the case made against William Jefferson Clinton.


... or see one segment of the full presentation here.

A Legacy of Shame

Noma Bar has a talent for creating convincing likenesses by combining a few elegant lines with brilliantly-incorporated symbolic graphical elements. It’s a combination of political cartooning and caricature.

Mr. Bar was born in Israel and lives in London, where he does lots of work for The Guardian, Time Out London, etc. You may order a book of his work and see a few more images here, and there are many other illustrations viewable around the web.

On taking off your shoes so you can count to twenty ...

from Wonkette

The Pentagon has said that 4,471 soldiers sustained injuries to their brains in Iraq and Afghanistan as of September 30th. There’s just one teeny-tiny problem with that number, which is that the the Army, Navy and Department of Veterans Affairs have either seen or treated more than 20,000 soldiers for brain injuries than the Pentagon reports have been injured.

The new numbers come from a variety of sources, including VA records and 4 U.S. bases that have supplied multiple units to the conflicts. The Pentagon’s explanation? If they don’t notice that soldiers are fucked up before they leave Iraq or Afghanistan (even if they sustain the injuries there), then they aren’t counted as official casualties. Also, I’m sure that this counting method in no way affects their ability to get treatment or receive VA benefits because our government wouldn’t do that. Nope.

Thought for the Day

"We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it."

-- Dave Barry

Fasten your seat belts ...

... it's going to be a rough ride.



It is entirely possible that all of the U.S. banks are currently bankrupt. Just because Citicorp generates billions of dollars every day in revenue doesn't mean that it has any equity left. Between 2005 and 2007, over a quadrillion dollars of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) were underwritten. A one percent writedown would amount to at least a trillion dollars worth of losses. Most CDO analysts at the large investment banks have already publicly stated that they expect at least several hundred billion in writedowns, although to date, less than a hundred billion has been announced.

More from Ann Lee on Huffpo ...

My comment:

So, where do you think that's all going? Projections of several hundred billion in write downs with only less than one hundred billion "recognized"? If you think the housing market is depressed now, well, you ain't seen nothing yet! Just multiply what you're seeing in your neighborhood by the "several" (twice, three, four times? more?) that still haven't hit the books. Foreclosure rates are at an all time high. (1, 2, 3)

Profit is a wonderful thing. Government regulation outlines how one can legally make profit. Without government regulation, any way you can make profit is legal. There has been little government regulation of lending practices for the last decade and a half ... from the time the Republicans took control of Congress in the mid-90's to now. The current credit mess is the result lenders making loans that never should have been made ... on the premise of leverage. Leverage is using the assumed future value of a purchase to finance the purchase. Leverage, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. What is bad, however, is when lenders allow people to leverage their home purchases based on the assumption that the value of the purchase would ALWAYS increase. Obviously, that doesn't ALWAYS happen. The problems start when that planned increase in value doesn't happen; when the market reverses, and all these people who shouldn't have been taking on debt they couldn't afford get a dose of reality.

The only time leverage is useful and productive and secure is when you have alternatives. On the other hand, when it's the only way you could buy that .... thing ... whatever that thing is ... the practice is very questionable.

But, no. We need "business friendly" legislation. Profit is the priority! Regulations (those laws and rules that define how profit can legally be made) get in the way of making profit. The "invisible hand of them market" will correct for any problems that might arise.

Well, even if that were gospel truth, it takes time and people who are living from paycheck to paycheck don't have that kind of time.

It's going to take the better part of the next decade for the economy to recover from the effects of this hiccup. Taxpayers are going to end up footing the bill and that means you and your children are going to pay for the "fiscal responsibility" of so called conservative policies that have not favored regulation. The guys who lobbied for that legislation --- the bankers, mortgage lenders, and hedge fund managers are not going to be paying for their mistakes --- you are. You and your kids are. For years ... because this is going to be bigger than the last fiasco, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Much bigger.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that the national economy is different from your household economy. The only difference is the number of zeros involved. Otherwise, it all boils down to income and expenses. Leverage is debt ... and debt has to be repaid at some point.

For years people in the financial "industry" have been telling everyone that there's "good" debt and "bad" debt ... that a mortgage was "good" debt. The current situation is underscoring the point that there is only one kind of debt ... debt that has to be repaid. That mortgage ceases to be "good" debt when the price of housing falls. It's not "good" debt when you owe more on your house than you can sell it for. The decrease in value comes out of your equity, not out of what you owe.

If you voted for Republicans during the last decade and a half, I hope you're happy with the results. They've been all in favor of borrowing ... I wonder how they feel about paying back. Actually, it probably doesn't bother them one bit ... its your children who'll be paying back on the debts they incurred

My grandparents and my parents lived through the depression. I was told about the depression. I was also told it could never happen again ... that government regulations were in place that would prevent such a thing from ever happening again. Well, I've always been a skeptic.

If you didn't listen to the stories from your great-grandparents, your grant parents ... and your parents (if they had their heads firmly screwed on) ... listen now. Things are going to get tougher than you ever imagined. Could I be wrong? Sure, I could be wrong. But wouldn't it make sense to prepare for some very rough times and find out I was wrong than to not listen and get blind sided by some very troubled times?

French Computer Calculates George Bush Should Go To Jail For 2 Million Years

Written by Monkey Woods
Story written: 22 November 2007

A computer that analyses and compares data to come up with logical and mathematical solutions, has determined that, based on recent custodial sentences handed down to terrorists responsible for terrorism on both sides of the Atlantic, US President George W. Bush should probably go to jail for nearly two million years!

The French computer, known as SEDAM (Systeme et Data Analytique Mathematical), used information fed to it about the perpetrators of the World Trade Center atrocity and London bombings - their motives, actions, subsequent defences and eventual punishments - and calculated what would happen to the American President if the same rules of Law were applied.

More on Spoof.

For the glory of God

by Dan Gardner, Ottawa Citizen

Gazing down from the 40th floor of a lower Manhattan skyscraper, Richard Dawkins shakes his head. "What a symbol," he growls.

In the evening drizzle, the city is a jungle of glitz and twinkling lights but Dawkins' attention is fixed on a flood-lit crater directly below us. It is Ground Zero, the footprint of the twin towers, still barren six years after the atrocity that made the world gasp. At the bottom of the vast hole, backhoes scrape into the night.

What does this symbolize, I ask? "Religious bigotry," he answers crisply. Not a twisted version of Islam. Not Islam as a whole. No, for the Oxford professor, biologist, renowned science writer, and author of the notorious bestseller The God Delusion, the void below is what religion itself hath wrought.

"The people who did this terrible thing were sincere, deeply religious, believed they were right, believed they were doing the will of their god, firmly believed they were going straight to heaven for doing what they thought of as a wonderful deed," Dawkins says. "They had just one thing wrong with them. They believed. They had faith. And it was their faith that drove them to it."

In New York to attend a conference on secularism sponsored by the Center for Inquiry, Dawkins has slipped out of what must be an exhausting reception with several hundred enthusiastic atheists. This evening, the heretic is a prophet and everyone wants to see him, to shake his hand and give thanks unto him. A British television crew records his every smile and nod. He could be forgiven for being a little distracted this evening.

But whatever one may think of the man dubbed "Darwin's Rottweiler," there's no denying the speed and precision of Dawkins' mind. Even harried like a royal on holiday, the man talks like a scalpel cuts.

"I wouldn't for a moment suggest the majority of people would do anything remotely so terrible, indeed anything terrible at all, but there is a logical pathway that leads from religious faith to doing the most appalling deeds."

Accept that there is a God. Accept that He is involved in the world's affairs. Accept that the Bible or the Koran is His holy word. "Once you've got that in your head, then a reasonable person can progress step by step to the conclusion that the right thing to do, the righteous thing to do, is to destroy thousands of lives."

In the Ottawa Citizen. (No longer available.)

On RichardDawkins.net.

Self Portrait with Cigar

Self Portrait with Cigar

Temperature is in the 60's. Flannel shirt is advisable - the winter ensemble. Smoking is an outdoor activity. Someday a park bench, but for now, a chair stolen from the back patio will do.

It's Only Rock and Roll

or see the video here ...

Definitely NOT rap!

What Do Conservatives Spend Their Time Thinking About?

One answer is provided by Conservapedia's most viewed list:

1. Main Page‎ [1,932,125]
2. Homosexuality‎ [1,623,810]
3. Homosexuality and Hepatitis‎ [518,013]
4. Homosexuality and Parasites‎ [431,280]
5. Homosexuality and Promiscuity‎ [422,076]
6. Gay Bowel Syndrome‎ [400,972]
7. Homosexual Couples and Domestic Violence‎ [373,928]
8. Homosexuality and Gonorrhea‎ [332,067]
9. Homosexuality and Anal Cancer‎ [294,328]
10. Homosexuality and Mental Health‎ [293,670]

I'd like to add something witty, but really, what is there to say after that? Especially since I can barely stop laughing.

2008 Olympics Contest

WIN 2 TICKETS AND ALL EXPENSES PAID INCLUDING AIR FARES TO THE 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES IN BEIJING, CHINA.

To participate is very easy, just view the attached photo, correctly
answer the following questions and send your answers to:
International Olympic Committee, Private Bag, Lausanne, Switzerland.

1. Which student seems to appear tired / sleepy?
2. Which ones are male twins?
3. Which ones are the female twins?
4. How many women are in the group?
5. Which one is the teacher?

Good Luck!



Guess you won't be going, either.

How Bush Screwed Our Thanksgiving

by Blake Fleetwood

There is a compelling article in yesterday's New York Daily News by Pulitzer Prize winner William Sherman.

Sherman shows that there is not much for us to be thankful for in terms of the cost of food we put on the table this week.

Consumers are getting slammed with the biggest increase in food prices in a decade --- fueled by a perfect storm of rising grain prices and a falling dollar.

Poultry - including your Thanksgiving Turkey - and dairy products have risen the most. A glass of milk costs New Yorkers up to 42% more than last holiday season.

The wholesale price of eggs has soared 86% compared to last fall, at one point.

"I'm spending $50 to $80 more a week on food than last year, according to one Harlem shopper.

The surge is driven by a ripple effect - the Iraq war, the rise in oil prices, the growing deficits -- and a confluence of factors beginning with corn and wheat crops diverted to ethanol production, according to economists.

More after the click ...

My comment: See "Unintended Consequences" or why it's better to have a Rhodes Scholar(1) or at least an actual war veteran(2) you might not particularly like in the most powerful office in the free world than a draft dodging, C-student cowboy who got through school on a social promotions with whom you think it might be fun to have a beer(3).

Finally! Car names that make sense

Volvo Vermont: A sporty wagon that runs on anything from Whole Foods. The limited Carl Kassel edition has a sound system that lowers all music and voices a full octave. The Vermont horn blasts Howard Dean's "Yeah!," which has proved to stop momentum dead in its tracks.

BMW 90210i: Dream no more, celebutantes. The latest BMW anticipates every whim. Paparazzi pusher attached to the grill. Built-in doggie bowl for Sparkles. The owner's manual even refers to the glove compartment as the panty compartment. OneStar, a GPS unit preprogrammed with locations of the nearest rehab locations, comes standard. Sensing quiet desperation, it consoles, "You're hot enough to be a reality-TV star."

Dodge Dixie: From south of the Mason-Dixon line comes a sturdy pickup for hauling bales of hay or commuting around Charlotte. Under the hood: 400 horses of NASCAR-inspired American moxie. Because sometimes getting from Cracker Barrel to Wal-Mart requires Dale Earnhardt Jr. speed. Bed liner comes in fleece to help make country music lyrics come true. "Let's get a little mud on the tires." Wink. Wink.

More after the click...