Merry Christmas AND Happy Holidays

Scooter

I just love this! :o)

October 31, 2005 Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Happy Halloween

Eat, Drink, and Be Scary!

Oh, and beware of the full moon...

some spooky music

You Were Marrrrrvelous

Bob Denver

9 Jan 1935 to 2 Sept 2005 (complications from cancer)

Thanks for the laughs, little buddy.

Theme from Gilligan's Island

World Pledges To Help

HURRICANE Katrina has devastated New Orleans and US Gulf Coast states, killing hundreds of people and possibly thousands, and drawing support pledges from rich and poor, traditional friends and foes of the United States.

The US State Department or country officials have said offers of help had been received from: Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Greece, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

International organisations and religious institutions also offered help ranging from medical teams to tents to cash donations. They include NATO, the Organisation of American States, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organisation, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Cor Unum, the Vatican's central charity organisation.

A US State Department official said a needs assessment was being done to determine which offers would be accepted.

The United Nations has offered to help coordinate international relief.

Following is a list of some of the aid offered by governments.


AUSTRALIA: "We're going to provide $A10 million and the bulk of that money, if not all of it, will go to the American Red Cross," said Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

CHINA: China offered $5 million in aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina which devastated the Gulf Coast ahead of President Hu Jintao's US visit. If needed, the Chinese government is also prepared to send rescue workers, including medical experts, officials said.

JAPAN: Will provide $US200,000 ($262,777) to the American Red Cross to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said. Japan will also identify needs in affected regions via the US government and will provide up to $US300,000 ($394,166) in emergency supplies if it receives requests for such assistance, the ministry said.

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Armed Forces, responding to requests by the United States Texas Army National Guard, has sent three Chinook helicopters to Fort Polk, Louisiana, to help in relief efforts. The government said the Chinooks would help to ferry supplies and undertake airlift missions.

SOUTH KOREA: Has pledged aid and is waiting for a US response, a government official said. "We have sent our intention to offer recovery aid," a Foreign Ministry official said.

SRI LANKA: Will donate $US25,000 ($32,847) to the American Red Cross.

CANADA: Offered to help in any way it can and the navy is preparing a ship full of emergency disaster relief supplies to be sent when a request comes.

CUBA: Cuban President Fidel Castro offered to fly 1100 doctors to Houston with 26 tonnes of medicine to treat victims.

MEXICO: Is sending 15 truckloads of water, food and medical supplies via Texas and the Mexican navy has offered to send two ships, two helicopters and 15 amphibious vehicles.

VENEZUELA: President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the United States, offered to send cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area.

EUROPEAN UNION: EU countries are ready to give the United States oil if it requests help, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said. But British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said this was not what the EU had in mind when it discussed how to help.

FRANCE: Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said France was ready to offer help, and said: "We have rescue teams based in the Caribbean and we are naturally ready to provide aid to the Americans, and that is what we have told them."

GERMANY: A German Army Airbus plane landed in Florida with 10 tonnes of food rations to be transported to the disaster area; a second plane was being prepared, a Defence Ministry spokesman said.

ITALY: Has offered to send aid and evacuation specialists, Italy's civil protection unit said. Authorities have prepared two military transport planes to fly amphibious vessels, pumps, generators, tents and personnel to New Orleans and other areas. They were awaiting word from US officials, the unit said.

NETHERLANDS: Will provide teams for inspecting dykes and for identifying victims if there is a formal request from the United States. It will also send a frigate from Curacao to New Orleans shortly to provide emergency assistance, the government said.

RUSSIA: Has offered to help with rescue efforts, but is still awaiting a reply from Washington. "Above all with heavy transport planes, which can be loaded with helicopters and generators - as there is no electricity in the area of the catastrophe," Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

SPAIN: Expects to receive a formal request to release petrol stocks to the United States and is prepared to grant it, an Industry Ministry spokesman said.

SWEDEN: The Rescue Authority said it was on stand-by to supply water purifying equipment, healthcare supplies and emergency shelters if needed.

IRAN: Has offered to send humanitarian aid to a country that has labelled Iran part of the "axis of evil". "The victims have complained about the lack of timely assistance and we are prepared to send our contributions to the people through the Red Crescent," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.

ISRAEL: Sending health and defence officials to the US to help coordinate aid. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his cabinet: "I would like to point out that the United States has stood with us during difficult days and it is our duty to assist in the areas in which we are able to help."

QATAR: Pledged $US100 million ($131.39 million) in aid to the disaster victims, the official QNA news agency reported.

SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Refining, a Houston-based subsidiary of state oil firm Saudi Aramco, will donate $US5 million ($6.57 million) to the American Red Cross to support relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

RED CROSS/RED CRESCENT: The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is sending 80 disaster experts from more than 10 countries in response to a call from the American Red Cross. They will support volunteers providing food and shelter, the Federation said.

COR UNUM: Pope Benedict announced he had asked the Vatican's central charity organisation, Cor Unum, to coordinate Catholic aid for hurricane victims. "We have all been pained in the last few days by the disaster caused by the hurricane in the United States of America, particularly in New Orleans," Pope Benedict said.

Source: www.news.com.au

Help

I am so ashamed of my government. As far as I am concerned, idiot Bush and our elected officials (at more than just the federal level) have blood on their hands... in fact, they're swimming in it.

Please give what you can to the victims of Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana and the neighboring states.

The Red Cross

This morning i put together a little mini-concert for the left behind.

Click Here

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music

-- Aldous Huxley

A History of Violence - David Cronenberg

Wow, reviews don't get much better than this for a director!

From Village Voice:

1. A History of Violence [opens September 23] Tense and disconcerting, David Cronenberg's latest masterwork is a brilliantly directed psychological thriller/neo-western that more than fulfills the philosophical and political dimensions of its title and confirms its maker as the greatest director working in the English language today.



I'm sooo looking forward to this movie!

Men More Intelligent Than Women

From BBC News: A study to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests.

of course, there are exceptions

Fallen Heroes

75 GIs killed in August

54 GIs killed in July

78 GIs killed in June

80 GIs killed in May

1,875 GIs killed war-to-date

14,000 GIs wounded war-to-date

www.icasualties.org

The Surgeon General has reported that over 60% of Iraq combat vets now, or will suffer either Combat Stress Syndrome or Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome...

That would be some 250,000 hurting GIs...

photos of the fallen

Washington Post Article - Call It A Day

No-Win Situation
Call It a Day
We've Done All We Can Do in Iraq

By Andrew J. Bacevich

Sunday, August 21, 2005; Page B01


The banner decorating the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, when President Bush announced an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq, turns out to have been accurate after all. If only the president himself had taken to heart the banner's proclamation of "Mission Accomplished." For by that date, having deposed Saddam Hussein, the United States had achieved in Iraq just about all that it has the capacity to achieve. The time has come for Bush to dig the banner out of the closet, drape it across the front of the White House and make it the basis for policy instead of continuing under the inglorious banner of "Mission Impossible."

Ironically, ever since the presidential victory lap of two years ago, the Bush administration has been in the forefront of those insisting that the U.S. mission in Iraq is not accomplished -- that there is ever so much more that the United States can and must do on behalf of the Iraqi people. Hence the grandiose U.S. promises of reconstruction, economic and political reform, and nation-building.


The chief effect of efforts to fulfill these promises has been to convert a short, economical and purportedly glorious war into a long, costly and debilitating one.

Moreover, senior U.S. military leaders have increasingly concluded that the long war is an unwinnable one. "[T]his insurgency is not going to be settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be settled, through military options or military operations," Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, acknowledged earlier this summer. "It's going to be settled in the political process." However self-serving it may be -- the military's eagerness to offload responsibility for the course of events in Iraq has become palpable of late -- Alston's analysis is correct.

Alas, the Bush administration adamantly insists that any such political process can only proceed with constant American coaching and oversight. Underlying this insistence is the assumption, seldom voiced openly, that the Iraqi people are incapable of managing their own affairs. They need us.

Do they? In fact, apart from consuming $300 billion and many thousands of lives (including more than 1,850 U.S. soldiers), the attempt to tutor Iraqis on their journey to American-style freedom has yielded results quite opposite from those intended: Rather than producing security, our continued massive military presence has helped fuel continuing violence. Rather than producing liberal democracy, our meddling in Iraqi politics has exacerbated political dysfunction. And by signaling the importance that it attributes to satisfying the core interests of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds alike, Washington has encouraged all three factions to increase their demands. Convinced that the Americans will never permit a cataclysmic collision, each faction is committed to playing a high-stakes game of chicken. If Iraq in August 2005 qualifies as the political equivalent of a clapped-out, self-abusing dependent, then the Bush administration ought to be recognized as being an enabler.

Wisdom requires that the Bush administration call an end to its misbegotten crusade. While avoiding the appearance of an ignominious dash for the exits, but with all due speed, the United States needs to liquidate its presence in Iraq, placing the onus on Iraqis to decide their fate and creating the space for other regional powers to assist in brokering a political settlement. We've done all that we can do.

Getting out now makes sense not just to avoid further running up our bill, but because doing so holds out the prospect of a more favorable result. Granted, constructing a positive case for withdrawal requires a redefinition of purpose. From the outset, the Bush administration has focused on the wrong political objective. Rather than attempting to democratize Iraq as a first step toward "transforming" the Middle East, our proper aim should be to stabilize the country so that we can concentrate our energies on containing and eventually reducing the threat posed by violent Islamic radicals.

Stability -- defined as preserving a unified Iraq and reducing the insurgency -- cannot be imposed. It can only be negotiated by the various factions constituting the Iraqi polity. The issues dividing those factions are by no means trivial. But their common interest in maintaining the integrity of the state is also great. Announcing the U.S. departure will concentrate the minds of Iraqi leaders of all stripes. It will clear away any misconceptions regarding the consequences of secession.

In addition to assuming that Iraqis require American supervision, the Bush administration's insistence on staying the course also implicitly assumes that a U.S. withdrawal would leave a dangerous political vacuum in the region. But this assumption too is suspect. More likely, the American departure would foster a political dynamic in which Iraq's neighbors would exert themselves to keep Iraq from spinning out of control -- not out of any concern for the well-being of the Iraqi peoplebut out of sheer self-interest.

Among the autocrats holding sway in the Persian Gulf, Saddam Hussein was the last remaining quasi-revolutionary. The regimes that control Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and even Iran are not maneuvering to overturn the political order in the region. This is not to say that they are benign. But they do share one overriding interest, namely preserving their own hold on power -- an objective not at all served by allowing Iraq to wallow in perpetual turmoil. Iraq's neighbors have a compelling interest in facilitating a political process that just might bring a semblance of order to that country. For religious, cultural and historical reasons, they are also far better positioned than the United States to offer assistance that might actually prove helpful.

Will a U.S. withdrawal guarantee a happy outcome for the people of Iraq? Of course not. In sowing the seeds of chaos through his ill-advised invasion, Bush made any such guarantee impossible. If one or more of the Iraqi factions chooses civil war, they will have it. Should the Kurds opt for independence, then modern Iraq will cease to exist. No outside power can prevent such an outcome from occurring anymore than an outside power could have denied Americans their own civil war in 1861.

Dismemberment is by no means to be desired and would surely visit even more suffering on the much-abused people of Iraq. But in the long run, the world would likely find ways to adjust to this seemingly unthinkable prospect just as it learned to accommodate the collapse of the Soviet Union, the division of Czechoslovakia and the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

What will pulling out of Iraq mean for the United States? It will certainly not mean losing access to Iraqi oil, which will inevitably find its way to the market. To be sure, bringing the troops home will preclude the Pentagon from establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq -- but the Bush administration has said all along that we don't covet such bases anyway. In addition, withdrawal will put an end to extravagant expectations of using Iraq as a springboard for democratizing the Islamic world -- but that notion never qualified as more than a pipe dream anyway.

For Bush personally, the consequences of leaving Iraq might be the most painful. The prospect of looking antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan in the eye to explain exactly what her son died for will become even more daunting. But as it is, the president can't dodge that question indefinitely. Postponing the issue simply swells the ranks of those with similar questions to ask.

Andrew Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran and professor of international relations at Boston University, is the author of "The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War" (Oxford).

article found here

Bush Drive-By

in case you missed it

Wilkerson - Lowest Point In My Life

Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'

(CNN) -- A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

Wilkerson is one of several insiders interviewed for the CNN Presents documentary "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program pieced together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be "dead wrong."

Powell's speech, delivered on February 5, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it,'" Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Wilkerson and Powell spent four days and nights in a CIA conference room with then-Director George Tenet and other top officials trying to ensure the accuracy of the presentation, Wilkerson says.

"There was no way the Secretary of State was going to read off a script about serious matters of intelligence that could lead to war when the script was basically un-sourced," Wilkerson says.

In one dramatic accusation in his speech, Powell showed slides alleging that Saddam had bioweapons labs mounted on trucks that would be almost impossible to find.

"In fact, Secretary Powell was not told that one of the sources he was given as a source of this information had indeed been flagged by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a liar, a fabricator," says David Kay, who served as the CIA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. That source, an Iraqi defector who had never been debriefed by the CIA, was known within the intelligence community as "Curveball."

After searching Iraq for several months across the summer of 2003, Kay began e-mailing Tenet to tell him the WMD evidence was falling apart. At one point, Wilkerson says, Tenet called Powell to tell him the claims about mobile bioweapons labs were apparently not true.

"George actually did call the Secretary, and said, 'I'm really sorry to have to tell you. We don't believe there were any mobile labs for making biological weapons,'" Wilkerson says in the documentary. "This was the third or fourth telephone call. And I think it's fair to say the Secretary and Mr. Tenet, at that point, ceased being close. I mean, you can be sincere and you can be honest and you can believe what you're telling the Secretary. But three or four times on substantive issues like that? It's difficult to maintain any warm feelings."

from cnn.com: here

Cindy Sheehan

Ms. Sheehan - I'm so sorry for the loss of your son. keep fighting the good fight.


and to Mr. Mortensen - you are a class act, on and off the big screen.



Matt Wuerker, Washington, D.C.



Joe Heller, Green Bay



Mike Lane, Baltimore Sun



Larry Wright, Detroit News



Chan Lowe, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel



Drew Sheneman, Newark Star



Ed Stein, Rocky Mountain News



Mike Thompson, Detroit Free Press



Tim Menees, Pittsburgh Post



Mark Streeter, Savannah Morning News



Lalo Alcaraz, LA Weekly