UPDATED TUESDAY AUG 12 9:00 AM



Our macho hero a DESERTER??

Say it isn't so Ah'nold: ......."when he was 18, he joined the Austrian army in order to follow his strict diet. His stay was very short, however, as he deserted to take part in the Mr. Junior Europe competition....." from Absolute Ah nold
Seb at Sadly NO posting from Stuttgart is checking up on this story at the source

Ahnult dropped out of school and was jailed for his desertion:

Arnold trained seven days a week and for that he had to drop out of school and abandon the church. Besides training Arnold began a three-year apprenticeship as a carpenter. He competed in his first competition in Graz hotel and came in second place. In 1965 he enlisted in the Austrian army, and to compete in Stuttgart Arnold had to go A.W.O.L and for that he was jailed when he came back.

Ah'nulds "business degree" was from Wisconsin Superior by correspondence. Kind of like my 'Docterat in Brane Surgey' from Strasborg Secretarial Correspondance College fully accreditid by the YPAWPBS (you pay and we provide) Association. Any of you Repusicats have the Blahs and need a Limbaughtomy after reading this just let Nurse Ratched know. She has released our last patient for another run at the White House.
We did point out that although Ah'nulds English is suspect it is better English than is currently used in the White House so this find explains why GWB has "endorsed" the more macho Ah'nuld for "guvernator": This means that AWOL is trumped by desertion and my hero of T23D is a Chickenhawk Desserter from military service and would never make it on Operation Ivy Lightning

Visit this link to ex-lion tamer and read that Rush Limbo Mumbo Jumbo has labeled Ah'nuld as the GOP JOE Lieberman for Conservatives just as I indicate in the post below. Hell has frozen over - the Mumbo Jumbo and the Limbaughtomy are in agreement on something.

So many conservative pundits and online bloggers are busy telling us Democrats that any candidate to the "left" of 'GOP Joe' Lieberman cannot be elected. Their constant reminders that those who challenge the pReznit on the War for Oil will be seen as “weak” on national security are most considerate. I believe it is only fair that we Democrats recognize this new spirit of helpfulness and fair play that has been lacking in Republicans for so long. Isn’t it so nice of them to take the time to tell us how to win. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and sorry for all of the bad things I have said about Republicans. I intend to make it up to them and reciprocate right here and now.

All Republicans take note that there is only one way you will defeat the Democrats and retain the White House in 2004:
Dump Bush and nominate Ah'nold the bodybuilder for President.
Ah'nold speaks better English than Bush.
He is more macho.
He is certainly more intelligent.
His father was a Nazi like George’s grandfather.
He earned his money instead of living off of millions in contributions from his father’s friends or
Taking it from the government like Cheney.
Ah'nold is married to a Kennedy.
Rush Limbo Mumbo Jumbo thinks he is a liberal.
That makes him acceptable to those rare and coveted white male Democrats

Ah'nold is the logical choice. Don't pay any attention to that Constitutional thing about birthplace. You can ignore that like you ignore the law. Democrats like Ah'nold for President and he appeals to rich white men so he will solidify your base. He will certainly consolidate the Austrian immigrant vote.

We Democrats would hate to see you lose the White House next year after you worked so hard to steal it. We know you are all disgusted with the lying little dimwit Bush. Thank you for trying so hard to help us Democrats. We want to help you too.

Recent news puts HALLIBURTON in the headlines again: Cheney firm's rival is forced to drop oil bid

HALLIBURTON is Dick Cheney’s company, but there has been so much NEGATIVE information that it is difficult to keep it all in focus.

How did HALLIBURTON become the unrivaled supplier of MILITARY LOGISTICS and winner in the IRAQ OIL Lottery?

___ PART ONE

First the Pentagon under Dick Cheney paid KBR division of HALLIBURTON a total of 8.9 million dollars to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could provide logistic services:

In 1992, the Pentagon, then headed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave Brown & Root an additional $5 million to update the report. Brown & Root (now called Kellogg Brown & Root, or KBR) is a subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation, which Cheney, the U.S. vice president, headed as CEO from 1995 to 2000. Brown & Root was also awarded contracts in 1995 and 1997 to provide logistical support in the Balkans, where the U.S. military has been enforcing the 1995 Dayton Peace accord that ended the war in former Yugoslavia. Those contracts mushroomed to $2.2 billion worth of payments over five years, according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Privatizing Combat: The New World Order

It is astounding that we paid KBR division of HALLIBURTON near 9 million dollars under Defense Sec. Cheney to write the report that resulted in KBR division of HALLIBURTON’S receipt of 2.2 billion dollars for providing the logistics detailed in their own report under Halliburton President Cheney.!!!

In the late 1990’s Ken Starr launched an 80 million dollar investigation of the Clinton’s over a $58,000 failed investment in Whitewater, yet there is little mention of this obvious conflict of interest over massive amounts of money that continue to flow to HALLIBURTON. Perhaps it is because HALLIBURTON gave over $700,000 to candidates in the 2000 election cycle. All of those candidates were Republicans. END PART ONE - Much more to come.

__

Bloggers won’t match Limbaugh

This article from (Doctor) David Hill gives us the following assessment of the Limbaugh advantage over bloggers:

______"Last week, Rush Limbaugh was celebrating his 15th year of hosting a daily talk-radio show. That brings us to the potential “next big thing” in political communications, blogging. With some journalists and politicians starting to take the phenomenon seriously, should Rush and other talkers start to worry about competition from the “Blogosphere?” There is no doubt blogging is something to think about. Blogcount has estimated that there are more than 2 million blogs, though many never touch on politics. Although estimates are that just 4 percent of the online community reads blogs, they are followed by a better-educated and more upscale, influential audience than that for talk radio. I doubt that blogging or any specific bloggers will match Limbaugh’s record-setting pace for gathering influence in the political process. Blogging lacks four key elements in Limbaugh’s formula for success.
_____First, bloggers don’t match what Rush calls “show prep.” Rush is almost always armed for his shows with reams of data and analysis from a wide variety of news and information sources. His commentaries indicate that he has actually read his sources, thought about their meaning, and prepared his own in-depth analyses before trying to persuade audience members during his three on-air hours each day. By comparison, many bloggers’ preparations for their stream-of-consciousness commentaries seem limited to reading the ruminations of other bloggers and scanning Internet news. Because some bloggers, even prominent ones, spend so much time writing throughout the entire day, they don’t research their own ideas well enough to be persuasive."________

.
There is more if you click on the link by the pigture but I was struck by the Research question. I currently peruse 30 to 50 blogs a day plus the WaPo, NYT, Reuters, BBC, MoveOn, Truthout, Buzzflash, Counterpunch, LA Times, Boston Globe, etc and then I Google or Fazzle specific topics for data to plug into my blog. The very idea that Rush Limbaugh is well informed or accurate about his babblings is hysterical. Rush's hired monkeys bang away on their Selectrix Typewriters after reading Newsmax, the Drudge Report, WSJ Opinion Journal, The Right Wing News, and the Washington Times. Rush watches Faux News while he dines and they throw whatever sounds the most outrageous up for grabs on the EIB program. If that is research my cat is a PhD.
Here is a nice specific via Seb at Sadly NO.

_____"Nikita Dean responded with a tirade against all who voted to liberate the Iraqi people. He said that President Bush's statements that Saddam had tried to buy uranium "from Africa," that Iraq and Al-Qaeda were linked, that Iraq was on the verge of getting nukes, and that the secretary of defense knew where they were "wasn't true."
____"The facts? Saddam tried to buy nukes from three African countries other than Niger, and the British still stand by their intel on the Niger story. Plus, Saddam bought uranium from Niger in the 80s. We also have volumes of facts on Saddam's ties to Al-Qaeda. Dean grumped, "I will never send American troops abroad without telling the people the truth about why they're going there. That's why I think I'm electable." Keep thinking that. Keep dreaming." Rushbo Limbo Mumbo Jumbo

And this is the print stuff online not some slip of the tongue on the air. Name 3 countries that have "nukes" in Africa Rush and how about a modicum of documentation yourself - since volumes are available. Hell even Annthrax uses footnotes even if they are 95% bogus. These examples of RushResearch are available sentence by sentence but these happen to be well documented and in our view.
I don't have any idea about the next 15 years. The way things are going we may not see next year. But Rush and radio are dinosaurs. The web is the information source of the future and the dittoheads are not all that data friendly.

I TRIED TO THINK OF A BETTER ASSESSMENT OF AL GORE'S SPEECH BUT I COULD NOT


Go Read the Daily Kos on Soros 75 million dollar fund for everywhere but the South (and he is a lot smarter and richer than I am) and apply it to this assessment.

More of the Gore Speech on Bums Rush.

WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE IF AL GORE WERE THE PRESIDENT?
The early exit polls in FLORIDA were correct.
Had all the votes counted as intended Gore would be President.
We would be prosperous, people would be employed, the deficit would not exist,
the Rich would have gotten richer, the poor would not be as poor,
we would not be at war, soldiers would not be dying, Bin Lauden would be dead,
there would be no Dept. of Big Brother Security, there would be no Patriot Act
and the World Trade Towers would still be standing.


Cuomo Calls on Gore to Seek Presidency

Cuomo said that the Democrats are lacking a "positive agenda, one that the whole party can come around, and a guy like Gore - who has done it, who has it and who can point to it - I think he would be an advantage to the campaign." Cuomo's comments came one day before Gore was to deliver a speech at New York University on the Bush administration's handling of the U.S.-led war against Iraq and other national security issues.

Catch up on what Al has been doing lately.
Al Gore denounces President Bush's efforts in pushing for attack on Iraq

Gore talks of Iraq, al Qaeda -- and what he'd do differently

"Joined at the Heart" by Al and Tipper Gore

In search of the appeal of the INSTAPUNDIT



This seems like a good a day to take up a subject that has bugged me since I began blogging:
Why does INSTAPUNDIT continue to draw 75,000 on average hits a day?

Could it be the content? Let's take a look at todays slate:

Item one SKBUBBA IS SHAKING UP THE POLITICAL SCENE here in Knoxville. posted at 10:17 PM

Item two :NEWSWEEK MISQUOTES A BLOGGER: And pays the price:WHAT PRICE?
"Well, let's see: First, I'm 34 years-old, not 38. Second, I contributed $20 to Dean's campaign, not $25. Third, while I like and support President Bush I have never referred to him either in public or in private - and most certainly not on the record to a reporter from Newsweek magazine - as "my man."
That's 2 factual errors and a misquote in 62 words of copy. I'm sorry, but that's pretty shoddy journalism. . ." posted at 10:04 PM

Item three: HOWARD DEAN IS OBVIOUSLY A ZIONIST AGENT. posted at 09:41 PM

Item four: ZIRCONIUM AND DIRTY BOMBS: Jay Manifold has a post following up on something I linked to earlier. posted at 06:14 PM

Item five: FRATERS LIBERTAS THINKS that Republicans may be using gay marriage as an issue to split black votes away from the Democrats. posted at 06:05 PM
IT MUST BE A REALLY SLOW NEWS DAY.

Item one is of local interest to Knoxvillians but I am very happy that it will lead many new readers to the excellent South Knox Bubba

Item two takes on a paragraph in a Newsweek story that slips up by making a man 4 years older and contributing $5.00 more in a puff piece on Republicans funding Dean because they think it might save pReznit "too stupid to vacation someplace nice".
Wow - somebody should sue Newsweek for Slander
Just goes to show that MSNBC on MSN will use anybody or any publication no matter how "shoddy".
Oh wait Instapundit is used by MSN-MSNBC. nevermind.

Item three: Is about a Dean supporter who used a GIF from the IDF site. It has that typically misleading headline that Dean is a Zionist.

Item four: Is really about the ineffectiveness of a potential Saddam WMD but you have to read carefully to get it.

Item five: Offers the "thought" that Republicans are supporting the Marriage amendment to glean an increase over their 9% of the Black vote while gutting all of the "fabulous" Andrew Sullivan support.

Pandagon has a nice piece about the Instapundit Strawmen arguments to further support my quest for the answer to the question: Why do people read this?

After reading all of this if you are not totally bored to tears please comment and tell me in detail why not.

THESE ARE TRULY THE WORDS OF SOUTH CAROLINA SENATOR FRITZ HOLLINGS


At first I could not believe it. I thought it had to be a hoax but here it is in the Greeneville News direct from the Senators mouth.

"I'm truly worried about the country's direction. And a friend just mentioned you never hold back, but 'now you're leaving and not running, you're going to say anything and everything.'

"I said no I can tell you this categorically, we've got the weakest president and weakest government in the history of my 50 years of public service. I say weak president in that the poor boy campaigns all the time and pays no attention to what's going on in the Congress. Karl Rove tells him to do this or do that or whatever it is, but he's out campaigning. And I really don't think our friend Mark Sanford likes the job. As a result the state and the country – your state, my state, our country – is headed in the wrong direction with respect to our finances.

"You can see it at the state level. They are firing a thousand teachers.

"And at the national level, we've got Enron accounting galore. The President said two weeks ago on page one of his budget report that we have a $455 billion deficit at the end of next month; that's when the end of the fiscal year terminates. The truth of the matter is, you turn to page 57 of the report and you'll see it's $698 billion. And he admits to a $700 billion deficit, so you can see why the market goes down. Everyone sees who invests that there's no reason to invest because the interest rates are going up and you can't carry your investments." Big tip of the hat to MARU at WTF a favorite stop every day.

This IS a Deja Vu - Do not adjust your computer screen.

I just cannot believe that NOBODY picked up on this story
because I am outraged - maybe it was the weekend. So it's back on page one.
__________________________________________________________________


_____THE FLAG OF THE UNITED OIL CORPORATIONS OF AMERICA ___

First of the month financial news is always illuminating- if this doesn't PISS YOU OFF nothing will.
Bush Backers cite:
1) The decline in the "new unemployed" although the economy keeps shedding jobs
2) The increase in consumer spending and GDP although the one time 44 Billion dollar defense procurement accounted for that.

But Bush Backers have plenty to cheer about:
The big oil guys are VERY HAPPY: EXXON MOBIL scores big on war ChevronTexaco Profit Soars
ChevronTexaco Corp. CVX.N , the No. 2 U.S. oil company, on Friday said its quarterly profit quadrupled as refining and marketing margins improved and gas and oil prices rose closing the performance gap with more highly valued rivals Exxon Mobil Corp.

Halliburton shareholders and principals are estatic: Work in Iraq benefits Halliburton
Halliburton, the second biggest oilfield service company in the world, yesterday said work in Iraq had boosted revenue as it swung from a loss to record second-quarter net income of $26m, or 6 cents a share, compared with the year-earlier period. The Houston-based company credited the quarter's 11 per cent rise in revenue, to $3.6bn largely to increased activity in its Engineering and Construction Group (ECG) projects, including government services work in the Middle East.

Supporters at ENRON are pleased; Enron untouched in fight against corporate fraud
The Justice Department has proudly boasted of the hundreds of executives its Corporate Fraud Task Force has rounded up since its launch more than a year ago to fight white-collar crime. But the failure to bring charges against top executives at Enron, the signature case of the era, has loomed at least as large as prosecutors' many successes.

And the Defense contractors are already lining up for another trip to the trough in January:
Pentagon goes to Congress as war costs mount
When Lawrence Lindsey, then the White House's chief economic adviser, said in a published interview almost a year ago that he believed that the war in Iraq could cost anywhere from $100bn to $200bn (€88bn-€176bn, £62bn-£124bn), he was quickly admonished by his colleagues in the Bush administration.

How much looting, rape, and pillaging of our Treasury and our resources will it take before we throw these pirates out?
They say it is not about the oil but American Oil Corporations are taking record profits.
They say it is not about Halliburtion but those are the folks who are profiteering
They say it is not about corporate welfare and that privatization of public operations is cost effective but they do not punish the crooks.
They said this war would cost between 50 and 65 billion and it has already cost more with no end in site.
THEY ARE THE LOOTERS, RAPIST, AND PILLAGERS WHO ARE ROBBING US BLIND.

HELL and TEXAS may be the only two places GWB is welcome.
Crawford, TX, Tomorrow:
Intervals of clouds and sunshine. High 102F.
Wednesday:
Partly cloudy. High 104F.
Thursday:
More sun than clouds. Highs 98 to 102F.
Friday:
Mostly sunny. Highs 100 to 104F.

This is where George W. Bush goes for the entire month of August for a vacation. There are 11 other months in the year, any one of which would be less like the fires of hell than this one. So which one does he pick? Like we need more proof that Bush is NIXON without a brain?
It is a good way to avoid the PRESS.

HOW ANY DEMOCRAT WILL WIN THE WHITE HOUSE.
The early exit polls in FLORIDA were correct.
Had all the votes counted as intended Gore would be President.
We would be prosperous, people would be employed, the deficit would not exist,
the Rich would have gotten richer, the poor would not be as poor, we would not be at war,
soldiers would not be dying, Osama Bin Lauden would be dead, there would be no Dept. of Big Brother Security, there would be no Patriot Act and the World Trade Towers would still be standing.



Results of the 2000 vote (with Florida in the wrong color)

141 Votes compose the Hardcore South.
MO: 51-48 11 AR: 51-47 6 VA: 52-47 13 TN: 51-49 11 LA: 53-46 9 TX: 59-40 32
GA: 55-43 13 NC: 56-4314 AL, 57-43 9 KY, 57-43 Bush 8 MS, 57-43 7
SC: 57-43 Bush 8
Another 55 comprise the Hardcore Republican NRA – Pseudo-Christian States
OK, 60-38 8 IN: 57-4112 KS, 58-40 6 MT: 58-40 3 AK: 59-38 3 SD: 60-38 3
ND: 61-36 3 NE: 63-36 5 UT: 67-31 5 ID, 69-28 4 WY: 69-28 3
These 75 votes gave Bush the victory.
NV: 49-48 4 OH: 50-49 21
AZ, 51-48 8 CO: 51-47 8 WV: 52-48 5 = 46
FL: 51-49 Gore/N 25 NH 4 = 29

Gore would have carried Florida and New Hampshire without Nader in the race (or without the wholesale voter fraud in Florida) Gore could have carried Ohio and Nevada with a little more work. For a more detailed analysis see this at Reach Em High.
No Democratic candidate need forsake his liberal values to court the South.
By taking the states Gore won in 2000 and adding Ohio, Florida (read T Rex for excellent analysis)New Hampshire and possibly Nevada the White House will be Democratic in 2004

Cowboy Kahlil has a thoughful post on the state of the South and this is my response
The South needs another 25 years of evolution and education to reach a literacy and consciousness necessary to think outside the limited interests of the Christian Coalition and the NRA.

First I must list my SOUTHERN Roots.
Knoxville TN me 1946 Father 1918 Grand-father 1894
Cherokee Co GA. Great Grandfather 1869 Great Great Grandfather 1823
Bladen Co. Carolina 3 Greats Grandfather 1799 - 4 Greats Grand father 1773
Isle of Wight Virginia 5 Greats Grand father 1750 6 Greats Grandfather 1727
It is rumored that William Bozeman was an ancestor who was one of the most notorious slave traders of his time as a Dutch Sea Captain.
That’s 9 generations of Virginia, Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee in my blood
My great-great grandfather & his 6 brothers and 6 brothers-in-law all fought for Georgia in the War of Northern Aggression and survived through the Battle of Vicksburg. These were Georgia Southern Appalachian Mountain Men who quarried marble in the North Georgia Quarries and later came to Tennessee to quarry for the Washington Monument. No Bozeman from my branch of the family ever traveled north of the Mason-Dixon Line before my father. The Bozeman’s of my line have populated Meridian Mississippi where Jimmie Rogers, the father of country music, was son of Eliza Bozeman Cousin Col. John M. Bozeman was a famous wagon master and founded the Bozeman Trail that passed from Denver through Wyoming to Montana and the Northwest. We are Freemasons, Shriners, Southern Baptist, and Southerners born and bred.
My father was a Democrat elected County Judge of Knox County Tennessee for 25 years and East Tennessee is Republican 3 to 1. A Democrat has never held the 2nd Congressional District of Tennessee seat to my knowledge.

I grew up in the buckle on the Bible belt in a Southern Baptist Church surrounded by Republicans and exposed to their myopia in the political campaigns of my father. As a Senate Page at 14 I was made aware of differences in political thought early in life. I stood in front of a boarded up county high school when I was 20 handing out vote for my father cards only to be surrounded by 25 Republicans telling me my father was a Communist because he was for School Consolidation and "combining two systems (city and county schools) into one was the first rule of Communism". Now how can you possibly argue with ignorance like that?

Republican poverty stricken East Tennesseans have been led to vote against their own self interest all of their lives. They are proud of their ignorance (note the menu in the next Cracker Barrel you see). Rightwing pseudo-Christians have been moving to East Tennessee in droves for the past 30 years. They come to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg which are the most popular church group vacation destinations in the USA and they decide it is paradise on earth and they stay. Sevier Co. Tennessee is the fastest growing county in America and that growth is 100% Republican Archie Bunker's escaping from multi-cultural encroachment on their old northeastern and midwestern urban neighborhoods.

Like George Bush's IRAQ as a "magnet" or "flypaper" for terrorists, East Tennessee is a flypaper magnet for Rightwing Pseudo-christians. Forget about the South and any homilies you ever heard about Southern wisdom and common sense because none exists. It is like the young white male down at Midas Muffler with the pickup built around a boom box featuring the Stars and Bars and a gun rack. He makes $1,000 a month perhaps and believes he is in the top 5% of wage earners in America, and from whence he came in Cocke County, TN. he may well be. He believes when GWB gave out those big tax cuts to the rich he was a recipient. That kind of world view cannot be fought in a political campaign. His soul was sold to the Republican party by Pat Robertson and his heart by the NRA. These pseudo-christians are the 'kill a commie for Christ' variety who pray for the death of Supreme Court Justices because they upheld the separation of church and state. These pseudo-christians have nothing to do with the teachings of Christ and everything to do with the teachings of Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the Southern Baptist Convention.

The South is lost at present to intelligent literate compassionate liberal Democrats. More prosperity and self interest will not sway these voters - forget about compassion or the greater good. Fear and greed drive these people and they interpret the Constitution and the Bible to serve their misguided ends. It does not matter to them that it is against their own interests and the best interests of the nation and the world. It might be better if it actually benefitted them in some way. Write off the south and the 26 Senate seats and gain the White House. Concentrate on Ohio and Florida and New Hampshire and firm up Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Lieberman and Bayh (from Indiana) are wrong as is the Democratic Leadership Conference. The day Al Gore can win the current State of Tennessee is the day he will not be worth supporting. Any strategy that caters to the wrongheaded mentality of the pseudo-christian NRA loving South will be counter productive to the well being of the country. We need no greater evidence of this than this current disaster of an administration and the current condition of the economy (recession), unemployment (growing), deficit (a record), military (stretched too thin and dying) and our security (underfunded and ineffective). All of that being said you will notice that I have no hatred for these people and I wish them peace and enlightenment. I believe they have been led astray by the Pat Robertsons, Jerry Falwells, and Jimmy Swaggerts and particularly the Southern Baptist Convention.

CLICK ON GEORGE TO SEE WHY HE IS SCREAMING

TBOGG is ahead on this LIMBAUGHTOMY

Months Before Debut, Movie on Death of Jesus Causes Stir

Jackson Browne LIVES IN THE BALANCE

"I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
Read the blood in the ink of the headlines
Had the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Where a government lies to it's people
And a country is drifting to war."

There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where there business interests runs
On the radio talkshows and TV
You hear one thing again and again
How the USA stands for Freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends
A people in hunger and pain
Or the places with natural resources
Our businessmen can't wait to claim
And there are lives in the balance
there are people under fire
And there are children at the cannon
And there is blood in the wire.

"There are shadows on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names
They sell us our President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us everything from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars.
"I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight and to die
And there are lives in the balance
And there are People under fire
And there are Children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire."

_A LITTLE FUN AT THE EXPENSE OF THE VAST RIGHTWING CONSPIRACY__
More on INSTAPUNDIT CHICANERY about BBC Testimony
Glenn Reynolds would have us believe that BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan is the one who sexed up the 45 minute claim in the Blair WMD Dossier. Carefully read the extracts and you will see it is simply two Blair supporters attempting to put words into Gilligan's mouth. Shame on you Glenn. UPDATE here

______THE PAIN OF BEING GAY AND REPUBLICAN IN AMERICA_____
Andrew Sullivan is not quietly twisting in the wind over his hero's intended support of the Marriage Amendment. Even his revered Republican Leadership in the Senate has signed on to the effort.
The question of the day is will Sully move to Canada or change political stripes?

The FBI has estimated the Sept. 11 attacks cost between $175,000 and $250,000.



Investigators have traced the funding for the Sept. 11 attacks to al-Qaida accounts in Pakistan, Officials did little to clarify the Saudi role in the funding.
The FBI has estimated the Sept. 11 attacks cost between $175,000 and $250,000. That money, which paid for flight training, travel and other expenses, flowed to the hijackers through associates in Germany and the United Arab Emirates. Those associates reported to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who managed much of the planning for the attacks from Pakistan, U.S. officials said.

So 16 dedicated Islamic Zealots with $200,000, some boxcutters, and 16 airline tickets brought down the WTC and hit the Pentagon.
and THEY ACCOMPLISHED THE DEATHS OF 3000 AMERICANS

But look what else they have caused:
1) A massive mobilization of military might in Afghanistan costing hundreds of millions a month.
2) A more massive mobilization of military might against IRAQ costing a billion dollars a WEEK.
3) The enactment of the Homeland Security Bill creating the biggest bureauracy in recent history at a cost of billions.
4) The enactment of the Patriot Act that abrigded more freedoms that any act in recent history.
5) The largest deficits in our history along with the massive tax cuts by this administration.
6) The removal of Saddam Hussein opening the possibility of an Islamic State
7) The weakened monarchy in Saudi Arabia and removal of our military presence opening the way to a potential overthrow and another Islamic State.
8) This news will do nothing to stabilize the relationship between Pakistan and the United States.

Could anything encourage Islamic Zealots more than that kind of success?
What a return on $200,000 and 16 of their lives.

So here we are in a world where:
1) North Korea is flexing a nuclear capability
2) China is preparing to invade Taiwan
3) Iran is approaching nuclear capability
4) Liberia is a new drain on US military and financial resources
5) Afghanistan is requiring attention, manpower and money
6) Iraq is proving difficult to pacify and is draining 1 billion dollars a week. Soldiers are getting sick and committing suicide
7) We do not have enough troops to fully cover the current needs.

This administration and this pResident have left us dangerously overexposed and stretched too thin. The headlong dash into Iraq on false pretenses has opened us up to treachery at home and attacks on allies like Taiwan abroad. North Korea and China are salivating at our exposure and our weakness.
Our security has never been more at risk than it is today primarily because of our exposure in Iraq. An exposure we suffer because of the duplicity of our present misleaders.

BUSH MEETS POPE - Reads GOD'S latest message.

Rome 2003 Bush met with the Pope to compare notes on GOD's revelation as next in line to be attacked by the Axis of GOD. He told the Pope that God could not be against Robertson, Falwell, Sharon, and the Pope and that a Coalition of the Godly would drive evil from the world and make it safe for the wealthy.



I can't believe he is reading this to me.

Did he say GOD now speaks to both of us?

Be sure to join the 'caption contest here or at South Knox Bubba

16 words become 28 PAGES

The mystery of the Saudi pages deepens:

Even Senator Sessions, Republican of Alabama, who has carefully read all 28 pages only finds a few lines worthy of classification. Sessions, a ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, is puzzled by Bush's refusal to release most of the material. What is at work here? Is it simply more obtuse behavior from the pReznit who's bumbling remarks on the matter left much doubt if he had read what he has refused to declassify? Or is there a deeper mystery?

VISIT THE CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES #45
at Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Rush Limbaughtomy is featured under Politics

TAZ welcomes Hatamaran's Hairball to the RTB
along with Dreams of Flying Fish which he does often, and Bugly which he chases.

Around the web on Tuesday with some new friends considering an association. Here is a sample.

A Rational Animal humanizes victims of the hunt for Saddam very well written & not a pretty picture. It's not easy being green - white, black, brown, red, yellow or Alas a Blog.
Apathy Inc does the Young Repulsican meet in DC and throws up along with Blunted on Reality Democratic Veteran takes it further and writes a letter
Arms and the Man Resource.full, and Frog N Blog are all over the Pentagon's new terrorist futures market
Emma's Notes on the Atrocities takes on the atrocity that is the DLC and Pandagon piles on in a blistering analysis of their misconceptions.
Blah 3's scoop on the latest FIXER for IRAQ looks like Alabama's search for a new head coach.
Blowtorch Monkey Armada knows they fire guys that get it right,& keep those that get it wrong.
Down on Lieberman? Tell Folkburn why Down on Pryor? Ignatz tells us why.
Zota has a nice piece on the UC Conservative study for the TTLB showcase
Heller Mountain features more random notes on an undeclared world war.
Jesus's General hits the campaign trail and quits blogging.
You Live Your Life as if it's Real informs us that High Water is now The River
Mark A. R. Kleinman is disgusted with the 'nimble' and 'agressive' new US method of intelligence gathering involving kidnapping women and children.
Nurse Ratched sends Cheney to the padded room for some quiet time after Dean drills the veep in fund raising and T Rex backs her up.
OUT2LUNCH has a beautiful essay on William Gibson's new book juxtaposed with US oil interests in Sao Tome and the hell that has become of Liberia. Prometheus 6 has the truth in black and white. Rantavation's take on the truth and the cognitive dissonance of the war party is all gray.
Rook's Rant bids farewell to Hope
Sadly No has discovered that Andrew Sullivan is running out of things to say. No good news for Bush backers anywhere and that is good news for everyone else.
Suburban Guerrilla is my new hero with great posts on the Limbaughtomizer and Dr. Gonzo.
PLEASE STOP BY THE POISON KITCHEN AND VOTE IN THE ARI CONTEST. (I am sure you can find the right entry to vote for (Barry B) if you read through all the entries (Barry B) I am sure you will make the right decision (Barry B) But I feel it would be wrong of me to influence your decision (Barry B.) So I will not tell you who to vote for(Barry B,) because that would be wrong (Barry B.)
Tom at The Funny Farm finds this tax mistake anything but funny. Totalitarianism Today talks telecommunication in IRAQ. So does MCI the governments criminal communication corporation. Veiled 4 Allah asks what kind of America we want to live in - give her your answer. Reach em High advocates 100% replacement of all incumbents

STUCK ON THE FLYPAPER USING ELEPHANT REPELLANT

The latest spin has GWB as author of a brilliant strategy: “We are saving American lives at home because the Jihadists are being drawn to IRAQ like flies to shit” according to Dubya. “It is just like the Elephant Repellant I used to sell down in Midland to the shit-kickers so I could finance my (fruitless) oil search” he laughs, “You don’t see terr*er*rests in the USA so it must be working.” “Hell it only costs a Billion a week and most of that is going to my supporters and friends” “War is better than snake oil when it comes to clearing a profit”

The Flypaper Theory was evidently put forward by David Warren – the last remaining Conservative in Ottawa and possibly the only Canadian who cannot use being stoned as an excuse:

“Bush has also, quite consciously to my information, created a new playground for the enemy, away from Israel, and even farther away from the United States itself. By the very act of providing this lower ground, he drains terrorist resources from other swamps. This is the meaning of Mr. Bush's "bring 'em on" taunt -- is not a mistake. It is carefully hung flypaper.”

Instapundit links to a CNN paragraph on the magnetic qualities of Iraq___ "This is what I would call a terrorist magnet, where America, being present here in Iraq, creates a target of opportunity," Sanchez said on CNN's "Late Edition." "But this is exactly where we want to fight them. ...This will prevent the American people from having to go through their attacks back in the United States." __that echos David Warren’s essay that describes occupied Iraq as "flypaper" for terrorists. And, they both maintain, it's working. Sayeth Reynolds: You may have noticed that although people are upset about acts of terrorism there were no attacks in the United States. This doesn't meet the Occam's razor test. Are terrorists not striking the US because we met them on their home ground in Iraq -- or are they not striking the US because it's logistically difficult and terror strikes on America are comparatively rare anyway? And, oh yeah, how many terrorists attacking American soil have ever come from Iraq? Tacitus disagrees

So just to get all of this straight: The new/old theory is that we are spending ONE BILLION DOLLARS and EIGHT US SOLDIERS LIVES A WEEK in IRAQ as "FLYPAPER" to suck terrorists away from the USA so we can kill them in IRAQ.
Did anyone ask Congress about this or the American people?
A recent exchange on the South Knox Bubba Comment section between William Hobbs and Rush Limbaughtomy:

And yes, our survival is at stake. Or have you forgotten that 3,000 of us are already dead?

NO BILL We had (not) forgotten that 16 Iraqis (or was it Saudi Arabians –mostly) armed with box cutters and airline tickets furnished by Saddam Hussein (or was it Saudi Arabia) hijacked 4 airplanes in America and flew three of them into buildings. We lost more lives on the nations highways (41,000 a year) since 9-11. Is our survival at stake there? I didn’t think so.

If we don't decisively defeat or otherwise force out of power all of the Islamic wackos, there WILL be Islamic terrorists blowing us up here in our own shopping malls and pizzerias.

NO BILL We had forgotten that Saddam Hussein was an Islamic Zealot who believed he will achieve Paradise after death (or was he just another greedy bigot like so many here in the USA who believed he could buy paradise on earth with enough oil)

The thing about Iraq is, it has drawing the terrorists attention away from the U.S. homeland and drawing the jihadis to Iraq - as Glenn Reynolds points out today, pointing to a CNN story.

So permanent war in Iraq where we lose American Soldiers at more than one per day at the cost of ONE BILLION DOLLARS A WEEK is the answer to terrorists threats. – Good Answer Bill are you ready to pay for it perpetually?

Bush has created a trap for terrorists, and drawn their fire away from the American homeland, safeguarding us while killing increasing numbers of the enemy. This is classic military strategy and it is working.

For one BILLION DOLLARS AND 8 AMERICAN LIVES A WEEK THE BUSH STRATEGY IS WORKING. Isn’t that kind of like the old elephant repellant jokes? You don’t see any elephants around here do you? What was it? 10 years between WTC bombing attacks before IRAQ. So far it has been 5 months since the IRAQ ATTACK we only have 115 months plus to go before we know if this BILLION DOLLAR 8 LIVES A WEEK STRATEGY really works don’t we.

So it all boils down to 52 Billion dollars and 400 American lives a year to save the USA from a WTC every decade - 520 Billion and 4,000 lives.
________________________________________________________________________________

. . . . . . . . . . CHOOSE YOUR ASSOCIATES WISELY
. . . . . . . . . . .We are known by the company we keep


___________

_____IT IS ALL ABOUT THE DIFFERENT WAY WE SEE THE WORLD

35 Years ago this summer these words described the Liberal Vision

"For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.
"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.
"Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live."
This is the way he lived. My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:

"Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not."


LIBERALS___________Vs.__________CONSERVATIVES

Expansive______________________ Reductive
Inclusive_______________________ Exclusive
Educate _______________________ Imprison
Head Start _____________________ Juvenile Home
Privacy ________________________ Invasive
Pro Choice _____________________ No Choice
All the ships rise_________________ Zero Sum Game
Generous ______________________ Greedy
Love __________________________ Fear
Find Solution ____________________ Assess Blame
Share _________________________ Hoard
Community _____________________ Individual
Consensus _____________________ My Way or the Highway
Compromise ____________________ Strong Arm
Environmentalism_________________Corporatism
Spiritual________________________ Dogmatic
Tolerant________________________ Intolerant
Co-operate______________________Dominate
Placate_________________________Aggravate
Welfare________________________ Warfare
Serve__________________________ Protect
Defend_________________________ Prosecute
Elevate_________________________Persecute
Uplift __________________________ Hold Back
Assist__________________________ Impede
Compassionate __________________Vindictive
Permissive______________________ Controlling
Boundless_______________________Restrictive
Humanist________________________Eliteist
Diversity________________________Conformity

READ THE LATEST ANNTHRAX SCARE HERE

CORPORATISM RUN AMOK

These three stories from Corporate Watch have been absent from the mainstream press and they are devastating indictments of the Bush Administrations policies of World Corporatism. Read them carefully.

Halliburton Milks British Nuclear Submarines for Millions

By Solomon Hughes Special to CorpWatch July 25, 2003
ANOTHER HALLIBURTON INVESTIGATION - This one by the British.
Just outside of Plymouth on Britain's south coast are the Devonport royal dockyards, which have maintained ships for the British navy for hundreds of years. For the last three decades these docks have been the home for four nuclear powered "Trident" submarines, each carrying 48 atomic warheads that roam the world's oceans. In 1997 Tony Blair's Labour government sold the docks to Devonport Management Ltd. (DML) -- a consortium led by Brown and Roota division of Halliburton, and contracted the new owners to refuel and refit the nuclear engines, which involves stripping and replacing their radioactive parts once a decade.
Halliburton chief executive officer Dick Cheney took a tour of the dockyards in April 2000. "My general impression is that our British colleagues are far ahead of us in the US in the extent to which they have adopted changes in culture, attitude and style of operation that are required for successful privatization efforts," said Cheney, just months before he quit his job at the company to launch a successful bid to become vice-president of the United States.

Not surprisingly Cheney's new job as vice-president has coincided with a major increase in military privatization in the United States with Halliburton profiting handsomely from contracts to supply US troops around the world from Bosnia to Uzbekistan. Meanwhile Halliburton has allegedly been milking their British colleagues for as much money as they can get. The National Audit Office (NAO) was called in to investigate when Devonport project costs budgeted at $904 million in 1997 increased by over 50% by 2002.

It is simply amazing how much money Cheney has saved Britain and the USA while giving billions to Halliburton.
__________________________________________________________________________

Repeal Bush Immunity for US Oil Companies in Iraq

Source: Institute for Policy Studies Posted: July 23, 2003

WASHINGTON - Representatives of The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Government Accountability Project (GAP) today urged Congress to investigate - and repeal - an executive order signed by President George W. Bush that gives sweeping powers to U.S. oil companies operating in Iraq.

The two public interest organizations charged that President Bush far overreached a May 22, 2003, United Nations resolution that was designed to protect Iraqi oil revenues for humanitarian purposes when he signed an executive order that could place U.S. corporations above the law for any activities "related to" Iraqi oil, either in Iraq or domestically. Bush signed Executive Order 13303 the same day that the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1483, which sets up a development fund, from Iraqi oil revenues, for "humanitarian purposes."

"This order reveals the true motivation for the present occupation: absolute power for U.S. corporate interests over Iraqi oil," said IPS Senior Researcher Jim Vallette. "This is the smoking gun that proves the Bush administration always intended to free corporate investments, not the Iraqi people."

"In terms of legal liability, the Executive Order cancels the concept of corporate accountability and abandons the rule of law," charged Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project. "It is a blank check for corporate anarchy, potentially robbing Iraqis of both their rights and their resources."
_________________________________________________________________________

Enron Style Corporate Crime and Privatization A look at the U.S. Coalition of Service Industries

By Darren Puscas Polaris Institute June 20, 2003

The U.S. Coalition of Service Industries (CSI or USCSI) is the largest services oriented lobby group in the United States. With prime access to elite government and corporate circles, its various corporate members gain handsomely from international trade agreements, from IMF or World Bank handouts, and from privatization programs. As well, many USCSI corporate members have been embroiled in the corporate scandals that have rocked the U.S. and the world in the past two years. You can almost pick at random from the USCSI membership to find a corporation that is either privatizing public services, embroiled in financial controversy, or gaining from the misery imposed by an IMF loan.

The degree to which members of the USCSI were among the corporations most involved in the recent wave of corporate scandals is disturbingly high. For example, Enron, Andersen, and WorldCom were all USCSI members at the time they were hit with the scandals (Enron and Andersen have since left the coalition). Enron was the company that hid debt from its books in order to artificially inflate its value to shareholders and was also heavily involved in the illegal trading which led to the California energy crisis in 2001. Andersen was Enron's accountant who let this all happen. And Worldcom was the corporation that inflated profits by nearly $4bn through deceptive accounting and later went bankrupt (only to reemerge as MCI). And, we shall see, this is just the tip of the iceberg, as many other USCSI corporations were heavily involved in various forms of illegal and unethical activity.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HALLIBURTON

Mother Jones July 23, 2003 Issue is featuring a fascinating (and frightening) map of the Halliburton empire. Created by Michael Scherer, this interactive map lets you explore the tax havens, defense-related contracts, and federal energy subsidies in the company's global web consisting of offices in 70 countries and annual revenues of $12.6 billion.
Since Dick Cheney took over as CEO of Halliburton in 1995, after serving as secretary of defense during Gulf War I, the company has had tight political connections -- revenues rose 26 percent in his first year. "Federal investigators looking into charges that Halliburton defrauded taxpayers said that company officials "had the upper hand at the Pentagon because they knew the process like the back of their hand."
Scherer shows that Halliburton continues to remain well-connected. The tax dollars the company receives -- $2.2 billion in defense-related contracts and generous subsidies for profitable pipeline projects -- "couldn't come at a better time for Halliburton," Scherer states, "its share price has collapsed under the weight of asbestos lawsuits, a federal investigation into its accounting practices, and a drop in oil prices." And Halliburton adds insult to injury to the American people by avoiding paying taxes, Scherer notes. "In 1995, the company had nine subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other countries that serve as tax havens. By 2002, it had 58."

anyone reading this grim report on corporatism may wish some international comic relief.

THE BUSH OIL CONSPIRACY. Follow the money.


THE ABCD's of the Bush war machine.

A.) FIND THE SETUP
Fraud Traced to the White House How California’s energy scam was inextricably linked to a war for oil scheme - Seeing the Forest from Blah 3
B.) BUILD A PROPAGANDA MACHINE
November 3, 2002 HADLEY NAMED KEY MAN IN "MARKETING" OF WAR ON IRAQ
The goal of building fresh public support for U.S. policy to invade IRAQ falls to NSC deputy Hadley. Cheney delivered a public indictment of Hussein at the end of August, while Bush presented a bill of particulars to the opening session of the U.N. General Assembly two weeks later. Randy Scheunemann, exec. dir. Committee for the Liberation of Iraq said Capitol Hill offices have been "getting a lot of calls against and not many for the war." The Committee's methods will borrow heavily from the NATO effort, including sessions with opinion makers, contacts for journalists and mass marketing when the time is ripe. The approach is a familiar one to the Bush administration. Hadley co-founded the NATO project. Board members included Rice, Wolfowitz and U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick. Cheney and Powell advise the group
C.) START A WAR
D.) SEE THE RESULT
Is Halliburton building a SECRET pipeline to Kuwait? This guy thinks so:
Theft of Iraqi Oil: Palm Bay man has eye for detail Balochistan Post
Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War
Iraq rebuilding contracts awarded Halliburton, Stevedoring Services of America get government contracts for early relief work. The first contracts for rebuilding post-war Iraq have been awarded, and Dick Cheney's old employer, Halliburton Co., is one of the early winners.
Cheney, Halliburton and the Spoils of War oil-services company provides construction and military support services - a triple-header of wartime spoils.
Will Halliburton Clean Up? Cheney Co. stands to make millions rebuilding Iraq.

A WARM WELCOME FOR UDAY TODAY
A special place awaits you Uday but NO virgins.

This is one of 5 Republican Supporters who qualify as AMERICAN SUCKERS
Jack Gesteves, 28, Birmingham, AL, Software “I don’t vote for pussies.”

Jack voted hard right and never made the connection with his weed consumption because only dumb black street types ever got caught. Then he misses a stoplight and forgets to toss out the joint on the dashboard, and the cop spots it. Next thing, boom, gun in the face, cop yelling, cuffed and booked…then it turns out he was driving near a school—ten blocks or so, some Elementary School Jack never even heard of. That makes it a mandatory ten-year stretch. Jack stares at his lawyer waiting for the punch line, because it has to be a joke. Nope. Ten years. Ten years as somebody’s bitch, sold to a new guy for a carton of cigarettes, because he had a joint that night instead of a gin & tonic. Jack remembered one night while getting fucked in the ass that he’d actually voted for that mandatory-sentencing deal. And even though he’s trying to find a way to kill himself before they sell his little white ass to the Black Muslims in D Block, he still, you know, believes we’ve got to do something about this drug thing, come down hard on it. He still wouldn’t vote for any tie-dyed loser who was soft on drugs.

How do so many vote Republican when it is clearly against their best interest?

Fans of Cowboy Kahlil shoud stop by and offer their sympathy today

PICTURES OF THE WEEK dumbya and Blair - no comparison


No W that is just another statue -

-----------------

we still don't have Osama or Saddam ________Click the pic for Black Box Voting

BUSH brings in BLAIR to take the blame. .......... BUSH in the African Bush.
"No finger pointing here." says Bush .... "You can clearly see I was in Africa I saw
____________________________________Saddam buying Uranium" GWB


I once compared Tony Blair to Colonel Nicholson -- the British officer whose warped sense of duty leads him to collaborate with his Japanese captors in The Bridge On the River Kwai. But the more I listen to Blair -- as in his speech to Congress today -- the more I'm reminded of Kurtz, the crazed colonial administrator in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. With these words and more Billmon has literally and eloquently dissected Blair and his speech to Congress

WHO THINKS THEY ARE IN THE UPPER ONE PERCENT OF THE COUNTRY WEALTH WISE?

I found this quote and it confirmed a suspiscion that began when the guy installing my muffler down at the local Midas told me that he was real happy about the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy like him because it was the welfare people that were causing the deficits. Is Bush's popularity predicated on a mass delusion that folks making as little as $24,000 a year believe they are wealthy and benefit from the Bush cuts?

""Us versus Them" casts a heavy pall across all the vastness of Bush country. There are the "haves" versus the "have-nots" with an absurdly large number of the have-nots believing they are the haves.
(A recent poll showed that a noticeable percentage of people making $39,000 a year thought they were in the upper one percent of the country.) These delusional haves, who think the new tax breaks are designed for THEM, are more disdainful of the poor than the rich are."

It is easily demonstrable that unless you make more than $100,000 a year that the federal tax cuts will be absorbed by increased state and local tarriffs, nevermind what the cost will be for your children. Maybe Bush is popular because many people are just plain dumb.

UPDATE: If you wish to log your discontent with Mark Shapiro and ESPN a good place to start is on the ESPN NFL message board Visit and leave a piece of your mind.

Limbaugh ESPN blabber ''Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.''


ESPN TEST: survive 8 hours with Sapp, Lewis, and Rice AFTER they hear selected quotes.
''They (Blacks) are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?''
Mark Shapiro, ESPN's executive vice president of programming and production, claimed that the move was made to ''give fans a voice.'' THAT IS THE RACIST ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE LUNATIC FRINGE FANS VOICE OF COURSE
An Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist who called Limbaugh a ''blowhard'' said, ''I'm going to step out on a limb here and assume that not many so-called feminists hunker down to ESPN's `Sunday NFL Countdown.'' The fascinating thing is that on the first day of the news about Limbaugh's hiring by ESPN, no straight news stories went out on a limb to remind readers about Limbaugh's past. The past would seem significant, since he is about to pontificate on the NFL, where well over half the players are African-American. Limbaugh has feasted off berating people of color. African-Americans have come in for supercharged blasts of his hot air. Limbaugh has always had crime and black people on the brain., ''Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?'' ''Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.'', ''The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.'' When Spike Lee said that African-American children should be allowed to skip school to see his movie on Malcolm X, Limbaugh said: ''Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on their way out.''. When a Mexican won the New York marathon, Limbaugh said, ''An immigration agent chased him the last 10 miles.'' ''Let the unskilled jobs, let the kinds of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do - let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.'' Limbaugh's popularity is symbolic of a United States that still quietly buys into his stereotypes.. Limbaugh once complained about African-Americans: ''They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?'' ESPN and Disney should be made to care about hiring someone to cover a majority black sport who does not care about black people. Most important, newspapers should care, even if ESPN and Disney do not.

RECORD breaking REPUBLICAN RESIDENTS RED INK is drowning our country.
Fiscal irresponsibility is unsurpassed in history.
BUDGET DEFICIT GROWS BY 50% TO 450 BILLION and may surpass that.


The deficit for the last two years of this Residents term is greater than any in history. It is official now: this administration intends to bankrupt America while lining the pockets of the wealthy. Fiscal conservatives are Democrats not (cut)Tax and Spend Republicans. The Resident is caught in a war we did not need for a price we cannot afford to pay. Newsweek poll of 33,000 shows 77% want Bush out.
From the Daily KOS
And why do the Republicans need to spin the deficit? Because it'll be in the range of $400-450 billion each of the next two years (probably more) -- far surpassing the previous record of $290 billion notched by papy Bush. And far surpassing the administration's previous bogus estimate of $300 billion.
Republicans say the more important measure of red ink is how it compares to the size of the U.S. economy, because that illustrates the government's ability to afford carrying the debt.
Even gauged that way, a shortfall 4 percent as big as the economy — as this year's and next's will probably be — begins to approach the dimension of the deficits of the 1980s and early 1990s that both parties agreed were untenable. The GOP has blown away any semblance of rationality. Also covered by Angry Bear and Atrios

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated; From JOINT RESOLUTION 114 October 10, 2002 Read this in total for the first time and you will be amazed at the detail of the lie.

BUSH moves to "PASS THE BUCK" Resident refuses responsibility.
Cites "DARN GOOD" intelligence - at least "they are smarter than I is."
"Who lied in George Bush's State of the Union speech" is big mystery in WHODUNIT
Condi is officially toast states THE LIKELY STORY and Notes from Atlanta has a great switch on the Clinton phrasing. Lean Left has a different lie covered, and Prometheus Speaks has simply "moved on"

"When you've got the world by the balls, just squeeze."

From Rice's appearance today on CNN's Late Edition:
BLITZER: Supposedly, it [request to send Wilson] came at the request of the vice president.
RICE: No, this is simply not true, and this is something that's been perpetuated that we simply have to straighten out. The vice president did not ask that Joe Wilson go to Niger. The vice president did not know. I don't think he knew who Joe Wilson was, and he certainly didn't know that he was going. ..They did not brief it to the president, the vice president or any senior officials.

From a newly-released article in Time:
When it got to Washington, the Iraq-Niger uranium report [the forged documents] caught the eye of someone important: Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, told TIME that during one of his regular CIA briefings, "the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report." Cheney's interest hardly came as a surprise: he has long been known to harbor some of the most hard-line views of Saddam's nuclear ambitions. It was not long before the agency quietly dispatched a veteran U.S. envoy named Joseph Wilson to investigate.
Is Cheney hanging Condi out to dry?
FROM SADLY NO
Joseph Wilson was "the Deputy Chief of Mission, the acting ambassador at the US Embassy in Iraq 12 years ago during Desert Shield, the lead-up to the first Gulf War." Vice-President Cheney was "Secretary of Defense from March 1989 to January 1993, [and] directed [...] Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East." Wilson was the last US diplomat in Iraq, and met with Hussein and several high ranking diplomats after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. And somehow we're supposed to believe Cheney might not have known who Wilson was? I don't think so.
The 16 words are also covered by The Blue Bus and Catalyst
So that chiding White House official was right: there was more to the picture. But I'm afraid the bigger the picture gets, the more it looks like a pattern of dishonesty.

Bush's position was at odds with those of his own aides, who acknowledged over the weekend that the CIA raised doubts that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger more than four months before Bush's speech. The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring.
For a complete workup on the sordid "PASS THE BUCK" affair this is an excellent source.

WHY THERE IS A GREATER DOWNSIDE TO THE URANIUM LIE.
(cry wolf in IRAQ and who will help cover the real threat in NK?)
North Korea Says It Has Made Fuel for Atom Bombs

North Korean officials told the Bush administration last week that they had finished producing enough plutonium to make a half-dozen nuclear bombs, and that they intended to move ahead quickly to turn the material into weapons, senior American officials said today. The new declaration set off a scramble in American intelligence agencies — under fire for their assessment of Iraq's nuclear capability — to determine if the North Korean government of Kim Jong Il was bluffing or had succeeded in producing the material undetected. Covered in more detail by Billmon">BILLMON and Blah 3

In the 'Might be tight in NYC between W and Son of Sam if psychotic felons allowed on ballot' dept:
IS ANYTHING MORE HOSTILE THAN AN ANGRY NEW YORKER??
RNC NOT WELCOME
The BIG APPLE gets ready to hang out a huge "not welcome" sign.

Gore, Al ....................................Bush, George W.
4,107,697................................ 2,403,374
60.21........................................ 35.23

These results were almost 2 to 1 statewide for Gore.
In NYC the margin was even greater.
GWB in NYC after stonewalling 9-11 Comm. with "explosive" revelations predicted.
Without doubt the most hostile territory the RNC will encounter outside of Hollywood
No surprise if convention dumps BUSH for Pataki so delegates get out of town alive.

A little Sunday study of the Religion of George W. Bush

The Gospel According to Bush: Good Christian George?

Consider the abundance of empirical evidence that George Bush and his regime are pathological liars, unabashed tools of the ultra wealthy, and no friend to the working man. What then results in their popularity with the multitudes? Aside from the compliant corporate media as a propaganda machine there is the compliance of pseudo Christians like Falwell and Robertson who abet the myth that Bush is "Christlike" which IS what "Christian" means. This is a good time to notice the pseudo Christianity of Pat Robertson who now seems to think W may not be such a good Christian since he seems to favor replacing "Christian" Liberian President Taylor. Of course Pat Robertson's 7 million dollar investment with Taylor in Liberian Goldmines has nothing to do with that.

What kind of man was Jesus Christ? He was a peacemaker.

1) Is George "Bring Em On" Bush a peacemaker?
No. Bush has the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands.
2) Jesus shunned wealth and possessions. Does Bush shun wealth and possessions?
Hardly. He covets wealth, especially oil; none more so than Iraqi oil. His policies have placed huge burdens upon the working poor in America while giving more wealth to the rich.
3) Jesus Christ spoke profound truth in the form of parables. Does Bush speak truth?
He lied repeatedly about the threat posed by Iraq. Bush stated time and again that there is a demonstrable link between the events of 9/11, Al Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein and of course he lied about the Uranium in Africa, the job production of his tax cuts for the rich, and his commitment to education.
4) Jesus Christ life was given to the needs of the outcast, the poor and oppressed. What has Bush done for the working class people?
The answer: absolutely nothing. Bush continues to give ever more welfare to his rich associates and corporate cronies Halliburton, Bechtel, Worldcom, the Carlyle Group. Bush, like all neo-conservatives, staunchly opposes raising America's pathetic minimum wage to an actual living wage. This is detrimental to the family structure and has a perverse effect on the entire social fabric. Bush is a purveyor of class warfare; the avowed enemy of organized labor. He is one of the ruling classes endowed with special privileges that ninety-nine percent of us don't have. His policies always have a common denominator: they disproportionately aid the rich and harm the poor.