As with many other Americans this Memorial Day is one I'm finding myself much more in tune with the meaning of the day than in years past.

This day we honor our war dead. Here is a list of American war dead from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their sacrifice for their nation is immeasurable. Thank you.

The United States currently has thousands of men and women serving in these regions. Many of them don't get regular mail. This site will hook you up with a person serving in the military and let you know what they might like to receive. I'm hoping my kids and I can put something together and send it off this week. This site offers a list of suggestions for what to send.

AFP is reporting that Vice President Dick Cheney coordinated a huge Haliburton Iraq contract despite Cheney's denials, according to a Time magazine story.

A March 5, 2003 email from an Army Corp of Engineers official details how Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith coordinated his approval of the huge Haliburton no-bid contract with the Vice President's office before submitting it to the White House for Bush's approval. Three days later Haliburton "won" the contract.

"As vice president, I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government," Cheney told NBC's "Meet the Press" in September, Time said.

Time magazine's latest issue which hits the streets tomorrow has the whole story.

Cheney of course was Haliburton's CEO until he accepted the VP slot in 2000. Since then he has repeatedly denied having any personal interest or stake in Haliburton. This despite the fact that Haliburton is alleged to have formed a key constituent of the Cheney Energy Taskforce which the VP has fought tooth and nail to prevent anyone from finding out details of. Enron and others are also alleged to have formed core constituents of that same Energy Taskforce.

Didn't the Bush/Cheney team promise in 2000 to restore honor and dignity to the White House? They inherited a balanced budget with projected 10 figure surpluses. Four short years later we're running projected 10 figure deficits. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq account for only a small fraction of that spending.

All of this begs the question: Is the Bush Administration Enroning American? And who are they really serving - Corporate America or We The People?

Props to Carla for coining the phrase, "Enroning America" last year sometime.

Nods to Graham Parker for the lyrical title inspiration.....

The Bush peeps have offered up their proposal for the 2006 budget..and surprise! There's a fascinating round of domestic spending cuts, according to this Washington Post piece.

Interestingly enough the cuts are coming to programs that Bush has been touting on the campaign trail (psst...and one of the programs being cut isn't Iraq):

Department of Education: cut from $1.7 billion to $1.5

Department of Veterans Affairs: cut to below 2004 levels

WIC Nutrition Program: cut by $122 million

Head Start: $177 million (or 2.5% of it's budget)

Bush's homeownership program (one of his campaign stump speech staples) would essentially go away.

National Institutes of Health: cut by 2.1%

HOMELAND SECURITY:cut by $1 billion

But we sure have buckets of money to send to Iraq...to the tune of $55-$75 billion next year.

Fallujah is one of the regions in Iraq where much of the fighting has gone down between the US and the Al Sadr faction. There is a peace agreement in place negotiated with the US and local factions. Fallujah is now under the security control of a Saddam-era general.

It would seem the peace agreement doesn't stop Fallujah from becoming an Islamic fundamentalist state within Iraq, however.

This piece from Signon Sandiego says,

With the departure of the Marines, the position of the U.S.-appointed civil administration has been weakened in favor of the clerics and the mujahedeen who resisted the U.S. occupation. That is a pattern that could be repeated elsewhere in Iraq after the occupation ends June 30, unless other legitimate leaders come forward to replace those tainted by association with the occupation.

Fallujah, which calls itself the "City of Mosques," provides the religious fundamentalists with fertile ground for wielding power. The city's estimated 300,000 residents are known for their religious piety.

Women rarely appear in public and when they do, they are covered from head to toe in accordance with Islam's strict dress code for women. The lives of men revolve around Islam's tradition of praying five times a day.

Unlike other Iraqi cities, Fallujah has never allowed liquor stores. Its famous kebab restaurants have prayer rooms, an unusual feature in most Muslim nations. Many of its adult male population wear beards, a hallmark of religious piety.

However, steps taken by the mujahedeen over the past month have gone beyond simply encouraging piety.

On Sunday, for example, scores of masked mujahedeen, shouting "Allahu Akbar," or "God is Great," paraded four men stripped down to their underpants atop the back of a pickup truck that drove through the city. Their bare backs were bleeding from 80 lashes they had received as punishment for selling alcohol. They were taken to a hospital where they were treated and released.

Residents said a man found intoxicated last week was flogged, held overnight and released the next day.

Fallujah's women hair stylists shut down their shops several months ago after repeated attacks blamed on Muslim militants.

On Tuesday, the mujahedeen expanded their "clean up" campaign. About 80 masked, armed men, accompanied by local police, forced hundreds of street hawkers at gun point to clear out from the streets and confine their businesses to designated areas.

The masked men later moved to the city's used car market and "persuaded" dealers to move away from the city center because they were blocking traffic. In both cases, the police stood by without intervening.

According to residents, barbers have been instructed not to give "Western" haircuts – short on the back and sides and full on top – or to remove facial hair. Four youths with long hair were stopped at a market by mujahedeen on Sunday and marched to a public market where they were shorn.

"Are we Muslims, or not?" asked Abdul-Rahman Mahmoud, a 40-year-old father of three. "We are. So, we must apply God's laws. The mujahedeen's word is heard and respected, and the same goes for our clerics."

Congratulations Bush and Company. You're turning Iraq into Afghanistan.

Heh...thought this would be about John Kerry, did ya?

Nope.

Republican Senator John Warner (Virginia) is rocking the GOP boat. As Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Warner is responsible for the hearings into the Abu Grahib prison torture scandal.

Warner's hearings have been held very much in the public eye to the dismay of his colleagues in the House and some GOP Senators.

Warner hasn't gone out of his way to hurt the GOP with the hearings and according to the Washington Post story has the full backing of Majority Leader Frist.

The whining from the Bush machine on both sides of the aisle is reaching fever pitch, however:

John Cornyn (R-Texas)"a real distraction from trying to win the war, especially at this most fragile time."

Tom DeLay (R-Seventh Circle of Hell)"We should not allow it to distract us from the war at hand."

James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma)"I think he should stop the hearings at this point; we've heard enough. We have a war to win, and we need to keep our talents concentrated on winning the war as opposed to prisoner treatment."

As an aside....notice how these guys all use the same language? I wonder who's in charge of sending out the talking points..?

Haider Hamoudi, an Iraqi-American USAID contractor living in Baghdad, has a very interesting OP-ED piece in today's Asia Times called Joggin in the twilight zone. I highly recommend reading the entire piece.

One thing really jumped out at me as I read the story. It's something that Hamoudi mentions offhand as he's describing the scenery he sees as he's jogging inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. Here he's talking about the Rasheed Hotel which is inside the Green Zone - that part of Baghdad which houses the CPA and which is under exceptionally high security.

The Rasheed's most famous ornament, a mosaic of the first president Bush - George H W - in the central lobby, was removed by the US forces soon after their arrival. The hotel is now the domain of the occupation forces and is not open to the public. It is also the target of frequent mortar attacks, as it lies dangerously near the entrance to the Green Zone. My badge gets me inside, and at times I do venture in for a cigar or the pirated digital video discs (DVDs) sold in the lobby, but for the most part I avoid the place. It is too stark a reminder of the most negative aspects of the occupation. I have nothing against all the US soldiers being compelled to fight this war, and my greatest sympathies extend to them, but I still don't feel comfortable watching armed and jackbooted 20-year-olds from the backwoods of the United States tracking dirt around Baghdad's finest hotel.

Now... I'm wondering why pirated DVDs are being openly sold inside the one area of Iraq which is totally and completely under U.S. control and which one has to have a pass or badge to even enter? Here in the States we've got record companies suing kids for downloading copyrighted music files from the internet. We've been riding China for years now to crack down on pirated music and movies. And we're allowing pirated DVDs to be openly sold in the Green Zone? Is this how we demonstrate our respect for law and order?

Lately as I've been reading my emails and cruising bloggerdome...I've noticed that there's a prevailing skepticism about the new terror attack warnings. There appears to be the notion that the Bush Administration trots out the "terror alert" beast whenever Bush's poll ratings go on the snide.

Being one who likes to feed the beast...here's a bit of grist for this mill:

In yesterday's reporting in the New York Times, David Johnston has the following:

Contradicting news reports Tuesday saying that new information pointed to a specific threat, the officials said Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller had no new intelligence to suggest that an attack was being planned or that preparations were under way.Instead, the officials said they would issue a new call for public awareness and ask again for the public's help in apprehending suspected terrorists who have long been sought by the F.B.I. and whose names are on the bureau's Web site.

I thought it was kind of weird that this stuff was trotted out and Ridge didn't bother to raise us to fuschia...chartreuse..or whatever the next color up the ladder is.

The New York Times has finally seen the error of their ways.

I've personally thought that their reporting in the lead up to the Iraq invasion was abyssmal. Times reporter Judith Miller was especially bad in her reliance upon sources such as Ahmed Chalabi (who was known even then as a nefarious character).

In this mea culpa the Times editorial staff admits to a series of errors and bad judgement on some of their stories:

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.

The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one.

The Times states specific stories that it feels lacked the proper rigorous research. Further, they show that stories that debunked some of the page one pieces that needed more research (such as the aluminum tubes for nukes in Iraq) were often buried on page 15 or some such several days later.

I plan to see if the Times holds themselves now to their new decree:

We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight.

David Brock over at Media Matters for America is taking the fight directly to Rush Limbaugh and Donald Rumsfeld.

Rush's show is broadcast for one hour per day to the troops on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. The Service is funded at taxpayer expense.

Brock has sent a letter to Rumsfeld requesting that Rush's program be removed from the the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. Brock asserts in the letter that Rush is broadcasting "pro-torture propganda" over the radio and that these comments are fundamentally unAmerican (not to mention against the direct orders of the military command). Brock also says that these comments could inflame anti-American sentiment.

Brock has a petition on his site where folks can sign on to the letter to Rumsfeld to request that Rush be removed from the Service.

Brock's letter is obviously very negative about Rush. Interestingly though..he draws on his former conservative hack roots to tug at the heartstrings of people in general to drive his point home:

As we approach Memorial Day, and as Americans honor our soldiers, the men and women of our military deserve better than to be subjected to a radio host who excuses the worst among their ranks rather than celebrating the best, and who continually uses prejudiced rhetoric that divides rather than unites Americans. I look forward to your response and hope the Department of Defense will send a clear signal to our troops that it does not sanction Mr. Limbaugh's remarks.

I think I can hear the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" playing in the background when I read that last paragraph.....

John Kerry has been pushing very hard lately on the notion that he is a centrist. The Washington Post has a piece that discusses Kerry's targeting of "swing voters" and disaffected Republicans. This strategy pushes a prevailing centrist theme. The piece also says that Kerry privately reassures his liberal voters that he will continue to support their core issues.

In my opinion, this is a double edged sword. In the end it may push the election to Kerry (although with the beating Bush has rightfully been taking over Iraq and certain sectors of the economy Kerry doesn't have to do much right now to capitalize). This also reinforces the notion though that there isn't much difference between Democrats and Republicans.

This is an irritant to me. I see some very fundamental differences between the parties and between the basic ideologies that each party generally adheres to. While the Republicans tend to be more lock step on their ideas and Democrats tend to be a much more loose affiliation, there are some general themes where the parties don't see eye to eye.

I definitely want to see Kerry win this thing..and I want him to do what it takes to convince voters that he's the guy. But I hope he doesn't do it at the expense of the Democrats being viewed as "Just like Republicans only with a conscience"...or some such.

Tom Paine.com has a link to the Drum Major Institute's review of the voting records of the Senate and the House. The legislators are given a grade based on their voting record on bills friendly to "middle class values".

TomPaine.com describes the Drum Major Institute as "public policy think tank".

This report shows that Democratic legislators vote far more often for bills consider "friendly" to middle class values. Those values as outlined by Drum Major include:

*Making ends meet

*Affording every day essentials

*Saving for the future

*Obtaining affordable health insurance for themselves and their family

*Avoiding bankruptcy

These were the reports "main findings":

MAIN FINDINGS:
∑• The Senate, overall, earned a B for its support of the financial stability of the American middle class. However, this
average grade masks great disparities. Votes broke down, for the most part, along party lines.

• While almost all—96 percent—of Democratic Senators received an A, fully one quarter of Republican Senators received an
F for their failure to support the middle class.

• Senators Kyl (R-AZ), Allard (R-CO), Chambliss (R-GA), Craig (R-ID), Crapo (R-ID), Lott (R-MS), Burns (R-MT), Gregg (R-NH),
Sununu (R-NH), Nickles (R-OK), Cornyn (R-TX), Enzi (R-WY), and Thomas (R-WY) all scored lowest in their class with grades of F.

• The House of Representatives, overall, did a poor job of voting with the middle class, receiving a less than acceptable
grade of C. As with the Senate, however, there were great disparities: 36 percent of the House received a failing grade,
while 21 percent earned an A.

• Party divisions were especially evident in the House. Overall,
only Democrats voted consistently for the middle class.

• 66 percent of Republican members of Congress received an F,
compared to 1 percent of their Democratic peers.

• Two pieces of legislation garnered strong support from both
parties: the Unemployment Compensation Amendment Act
of 2003 (HR 2185) and the American Dream Downpayment
Act of 2003 (S 811).

This week US District Court Judge Robert Jones freed Oregon resident Brandon Mayfield from "material witness" status with the US Justice Department. See the Friday, May 21 post at Voice of a Veteran for the piece from the Oregonian newspaper.

Mayfield was detained as a material witness by the FBI. He was held in jail for two weeks without being charged with a crime.

Spanish authorities had sent the FBI a set of fingerprints that they'd lifted from a bag near the site of the Madrid train bombing. The bag was found in a van parked near the site. Mayfield's name was one of six came up as a possible match to the fingerprints. The FBI never actually had the original fingerprint from the site. They had a copy of the print.

The day after the fingerprint was submitted to the FBI, the Spanish authorities linked the fingerprint to an Algerian man. Despite the Spanish authorities insistance that Mayfield was not the man whose fingerprint they found, Mayfield continued to be held.

According to the affadavit filed against Mayfield by prosecutors, Mayfield handled the child custody case involving one of the defendants in the Portland Seven federal jihad case. A phone call was made two years ago on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks between Mayfield's residence and an Ashland man who runs an Islamic charity. That man, Pete Seda, now is on a federal terror watch list. Mayfield's law firm was listed in a business directory run by a Portland man who was a business associate of Wadih El-Hage, Osama bin Laden's personal secretary. El-Hage was convicted in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Mayfield was observed driving to the Bilal mosque in Beaverton "on several different occasions." This appears to be the real impetus for holding Mayfield.

So essentially Mayfield was held by the FBI because they didn't use the original fingerprint to do the indentification...and because he's a Muslim who's name was on paperwork for child custody case for some bad guys...and his name was in a business directory who had a business association with another bad guy.

Mayfield was also subjected to the USA Patriot Act. His home was searched without permission and his phone was wiretapped without the regular warrants.

Todd Pearson has a piece at Centerfield on a possible deal between the Coalition Provisional Authority and al-Sadr. Todd makes a valid point in that using blunt force against al-Sadr seems to have only increased his popularity. But, cutting deals with Iraqi insurgent groups is a mixed blessing at best.

The Associated Press has a report out on how Fallujah is emerging as an Islamic mini-state. I'm not sure how Rumsfeld and Bush expect cutting a deal with al-Sadr will turn out differently. The point being that this strategy seems counterproductive to the stated goal of freeing the Iraqi people so that they could live in a democracy. First Fallujah and now al-Sadr, not to mention the Kurds in the north - all well armed groups with their own agendas.

I know, nobody is talking about it. But, why not? Eliot Spitzer, the dynamo Attorney General of New York, just oozes law and order. This guy plays hardball with the best of 'em and wins. And he's usually in the corner of the little guy... taking on Big Business while the SEC seems to be spending most of it's time playing catch up to Spitzer's lead.

Spitzer is on the cutting edge of keeping internet business toeing the straight and narrow too. He's taken on PayPal, VeriSign, and spammers (more spammers). He is already controversial with allegations by the anti-abortion crowd that he's in bed with the abortion industry. But, anyone taking on all comers like he has is bound to be considered controversial by somebody.

Two great interviews of Spitzer from the second half of last year, here and here. Here is a bio on Spitzer.

The Associated Press is reporting that Al Queda or other terrorists are planning a major attack here in the United States sometime this summer. A top counterterrorism official speaking on condition of anonymity said, "There is clearly a steady drumbeat of information that they are going to attack and hit us hard."

What I really, really, really don't understand is why President Bush's own statements about Osama bin Laden aren't part of the context here in terms of the media.

"The important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our Number One priority and we will not rest until we find him!" George W. Bush, Sept. 13, 2001

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." George W. Bush, March 13, 2002

That is a major league flip-flop!

"Just a few bad apples"...? Not so much.

Apparently the prisoner abuse is more widespread than we were previously told, according to an Army survey.

Okay...time for one of those station breaks where we get to be shallow and lazy....

I need some good book recommendations. What are you all reading out there that you think is great? I'm planning to wade through Bill Clinton's book. I have Clarke's and Woodward's on the "to buy" list. I'm hoping to get some good fiction. I just picked up The Devil Wears Prada, To Have and to Hold and Rule of Four. Other suggestions?

What movies have you seen recently? What are you planning to see? (I saw a review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Newsweek and it looks pretty fantastic.) My kids are bugging me to take them to Shrek 2. I'm considering The Stepford Wives when it comes out..and I'm wondering if it's worth $7 to drool over Brad Pitt's biceps in Troy.

Thoughts?

(Thanks Adam Sandler..for the lyrics that inspired this title)

Despite our apparent efforts, Al Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists out there. Some are reportedly in the United States preparing a strike for this Summer.

According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies(IISS), Bin Laden's network appears to be operating in more than sixty countries. The report suggests that US efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq have boosted Al Qaida's recruiting efforts.

(Duh)

Researcher Christopher Langton of the IISS said it could take up to 500,000 US troops to bring stability into Iraq.

So are we really going after Al Qaida or aren't we? I really need someone to give me an explanation as to why we have concentrated so much effort into Iraq when the main problem and the main enemy is Bin Laden.

The citizens of the EU are going through one of the greatest exercises possible. They're debating how to establish their constitution.

This piece in the Boston Globe discusses the struggles and stresses as the European Union tries to come together on a body of law.

I'm a major US Colonial History fan. I love to read about the founding fathers and their passion for putting our nation together. Their foibles and struggles have always fascinated me. Their love of country and their extreme devotion to the American experiment was always been so moving to me. Today as I read this section of the piece I actually got tears in my eyes. It gave me such a pang for our nation...especially considering the circumstances of where our nation is right now....

The bitter debate is over big issues still on the table such as the legal force of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the voting weights for EU countries, and whether or not nations will have veto power in such areas as taxation, foreign policy, and EU funding.

There are other deeply emotional issues, such as whether or not the preamble to the constitution should include a reference to ''God" or to Europe's ''Christian tradition," as has been proposed.

So far the preamble has no mention of God or Christianity, and the fiercely secular French government is insistent that to have any such mention would violate the separation of church and state.

Italy, Spain, and Poland -- Europe's most Catholic countries -- have been adamant that Europe's history of Christianity be recognized as part of what binds these countries.

But the most profound battle lines in the debate have been drawn between London -- which seeks to temper and tone down what it sees as too much integration of the countries and a loss of independence -- and Paris and Berlin, which want closer cooperation among European countries in fields such as tax, social policy, and justice.

Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison have to be smiling....

The Wall Street Journal has this Battleground States poll map which shows the recent Zogby polling for the most closely contested states.

As far as I can tell, Kerry leads all states but three.

Apparently Bush's coattails cut both ways, too.

The latest polling gives the edge to Democrats in some hotly contested races:

Alaska
KTUU poll. 4/27-5/1. (4.4%)

Knowles (D) 45
Murkowski (R) 45
Undecided 8

Colorado
Tarrance Group 4/27-29(4.5%)

Salazar (D) 52
Coors (R) 41

Illinois
Wilson Research Strategies 5/4(5%)

Obama (D) 44
Ryan (R) 28

Kentucky
Louisville Courier-Journal. 5/5-11 (3%)

Bunning (R) 50
Mongiardo (D) 27

North Carolina
Mason-Dixon. 5/14-17(4%)
Bowles (D) 45
Burr (R) 35
Undecided 20

Ohio
Penn, Schoen and Berland (D). 4/18-19(3.4%)

Voinovich (R) 47
Fingerhut (D) 32

Oklahoma
Tulsa World. 3/26-4/5 (3.4%)

Carson (D) 37
Coburn (R) 35

Pennsylvania
Bennet Petts and Blumenthal 5/2-3 (4%)

Specter (R) 52
Hoeffel (D) 40

South Carolina
Global Strategy Group 3/14-18. (3.9%)

Tenenbaum (D) 47
Condon (R) 40

South Dakota
Mason-Dixon. 5/10-12. (5%)

Daschle (D) 49
Thune (R) 47



Oklahoma, Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado could be possible pickups for the Democrats, if this keeps up.

All other things remaining the same this would tip the Senate to the Democrats. Voinivich doing so shakily in Ohio is a real surprise to me. I had previously thought he was pretty untouchable.

Jack Wheeler, pundit extraordinaire from NewsMax has a new reason he's developed that the Abu Grahib prison torture scandal is "phony".

According to his op-ed in the Washington Times, the scandal is phony because there are no calls for Brigadier General Janice Karpinski to resign. Wheeler asserts that the reason she's not being asked to resign is because she's a woman.

Wheeler further goes on to say, Mr. Rumsfeld stood straight up to the world and accepted responsibility for Abu Ghraib. He took it like a man. War is not woman's work. It is man's work — not because men are more brutal or stronger, but because they can endure the stresses of combat and be accountable for the failures those stresses inevitably create. They don't whine, deviously evade, blame others, make up excuses and whimper, "It's not my fault!" If they do, they are despised and looked upon with contempt by their male comrades.

Besides the obvious sexually stereotypical and misogynitstic silliness of the above Wheeler quote, it's fascinating to me that Wheeler is so blatantly duplicitous. According to Wheeler...the scandal is phony because Karpinski hasn't been asked to resign...but Rumsfeld took responsibility "like a man" ....and nowhere does Wheeler call for his resignation. He says in the piece that Karpinski's superiors knew she wasn't doing her job properly. So where's the call for their resignations from Wheeler?

President Bush will be giving a speech this evening apparently to reassure Americans about the situation in Iraq.

With Bush's approval rating on the Iraq situation hitting all time lows on virtually every aspect of the issue, it appears Rove and company are trotting him out in an effort to right the sinking ship.

I have spent some time today trying to think what Bush could say to change my mind about him. The only thing I can come up with is, "I resign for the good of my country."

Not likely to happen, eh?

In last week's Miami Herald former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala has a piece on what she calls the "crisis" in health care insurance.

Ms. Shalala notes that roughly 44 million Americans have no health insurance and can't get the basic health care services that they need. This problem is putting a huge economic burden on the citizens of the United States.

Skyrocketing health care costs are putting a huge burden on small businesses too. Many can no longer afford to offer health insurance to their employees. It's simply not financially viable for them to continue to offer it. This leaves hundreds of thousands of Americans with no health insurance.

It's become a vicious cycle. Employers are unable to offer health insurance because of the rising costs. Individuals with no health insurance don't go in to see a doctor until they are very ill and the cost for treating them is much greater than it would be had they gone in earlier. As they have no insurance they can't possibly pay the entire cost, in general. Thus hospitals and doctors must charge inflated rates to cover the cost of those who cannot pay.

A single payer universal health care system would cover everyone. In the end it could even be the cheaper alternative to the current system...as I'll address in the next post.

the daily kos has a piece on their site that explains why it looks like the President has been in a fight.

The Crawford branch of the White House says that he took a spill on his bike. Apparently the bike path was slippery due to all that rain they've had in Crawford recently.

Oh and by the way....the recent rain totals for Crawford:

May 22: 0"
May 21: 0"
May 20: 0"
May 19: 0"
May 18: 0"
May 17: 0"
May 16: 0"
May 15: 0"
May 14: 0.03"
May 13: 2.79"
May 12: 0"
May 11: 0.15"
May 10: 0"
May 9: 0"

Since May 15 it's been over 80 degrees every day too.

Why is it so much better to make stuff up than just tell the truth? Oy.

Bill Cosby has apparently stepped into some controversy.

An article in last week's Washington Post says that Cosby gave a speech at a gathering commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Brown vs Board of Education decision. Cosby apparently gave a rather memorable speech.

According to the Post's Richard Leiby, Cosby slaughtered some pretty sacred cows:

"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English," he exclaimed. "I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' . . . And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

Mr Leiby also reports:

The Post's Hamil Harris reports that Cosby also turned his wrath to "the incarcerated," saying: "These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

Yikes.

I can't decide if Cosby is incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any stranger, out comes a report that the Bush-led GOP has been outsourcing it's fund-raising and vote-seeking operations to two call centers in India. MisLeader.org is where I first learned about it. They cite a Hindustan Times piece which apparently first outted the GOP operation.

The Bush Administration knows that they've made some mistakes in regard to Iraq. Even though the President said during his last press conference that he couldn't think of any mistakes he'd made...I'll bet trusting Ahmed Chalabi would rank up there in the top ten.

Chalabi is a very keen player, however. And just because the Bush people have smacked him down..doesn't mean he's out quite yet.

This analysis by SFGate.com outlines the powerful connections that Chalabi has put together.

Due to Chalabi's role in the Iraqi Governing Council, he's been able to install his surrogates in key places in Iraq's governmental structure. Chalabi's people apparently control large sections of the natural resource and banking contracts and stand to make huge sums of money.

Chalabi has also had key allies in Washington, chiefly among the neoconservative powerbase. Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and the State Department's John Bolton to name a few. These men gave Chalabi access to key documents regarding the "de-Baathification" of Iraq. The tribunal system in Iraq is under the control of Chalabi's nephew, Salem. It's well funded (by the US) and has huge power in Iraq.

The Bush people may be hard pressed to knock Chalabi out of power.

What's worse...the Bush people may have been duped by Chalabi into knocking Hussein out of power at the behest of Iran.

Chalabi has connections to an individual who alledgedly works for the Iranian intelligence services (thanks for the article, Manny). Chalabi may have been getting and feeding information to this guy in an effort to oust Hussein from the Iranian end.

Given that the information Chalabi gave the neoconservative set that was used as impetus for invading Iraq has turned out to be complete and total horse droppings...it would appear that the US may have been used as tools by the Iranian government.

Nearly 200 students and alumni from the UC-Berkley Boalt School of Law denounced Prof. John Yoo who co-wrote a legal memo in 2002 that laid out reasons the United States did not have to comply with the Geneva Convention and other international treaties governing the treatment of prisoners. Yoo was a top government lawyer at the time.

The students and alumni signed a petition asking Yoo to repudiate the memo, declare his opposition to torture and to call on the Bush administration to comply with the Geneva Convention. Failing that, he should resign.

Newsweek has extensive coverage of the memo and related items from 2002.

The thing that has never made sense to me about the Yoo memo and others is that the Taliban were the defacto government of Afghanistan. Just because they didn't wear western style military uniforms or adhere to western style military doctrine made them no less the sovereign government's military. Yet Yoo and others argued that the Taliban, along with Al Queda, simply didn't meet the definitions of the Geneva Convention. That's an absurd assertion in my view.

This week Senator John McCain talked about his thoughts regarding war and what it means to sacrifice, "Throughout our history, wartime has been a time of sacrifice. ... What have we sacrificed?" "I don't remember ever in the history of warfare when we cut taxes."

His colleague in the House, Dennis Hastert disagreed with McCain's assessment:

"If you want to see sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women" recovering from their wounds at local military hospitals. "There's the sacrifice in this country," "We're trying to make sure that they have the ability to fight this war. ... At the same time, we have to react to keep this country strong not only militarily but economically."

In my opinion few people understand "sacrifice" in a time of war better than John McCain who has most know was captured in Vietnam and spent five years at the Hanoi Hilton. When the Vietnamese found out McCain's father was an Admiral...they offered to send him home. McCain chose to stay with the other prisoners refusing special treatment.

That said I wonder what the average American should be doing or could be doing to demonstrate sacrifice during this time?

Hey...there's some freaks out there that don't live in Texas!

Illinois: A DUI for a lawn mower driver

Florida: Boy vs Alligator

Germany: Traffic makes em horny

Germany pt 2: Talking toilets

In the January/February edition of The Atlantic MonthlyJames Fallows has an article entitled Blind Into Baghdad. In my opinion this is probably the one important must read piece about the Iraq occupation.

Fallows writes in the piece about an interview he conducted with Douglas Feith. Feith is the undersecretary for defense policy. His position is just under that of Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz is directly answerable to Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.

Fallows quotes Feith as saying, "You will not find a single piece of paper ... If anybody ever went through all of our records—and someday some people will, presumably—nobody will find a single piece of paper that says, 'Mr. Secretary or Mr. President, let us tell you what postwar Iraq is going to look like, and here is what we need plans for.' If you tried that, you would get thrown out of Rumsfeld's office so fast—if you ever went in there and said, 'Let me tell you what something's going to look like in the future,' you wouldn't get to your next sentence!"

"This is an important point," he (Feith) said, "because of this issue of What did we believe? ... The common line is, nobody planned for security because Ahmed Chalabi told us that everything was going to be swell."

Fallows goes on to quote Feith further:

"So we predicted that everything was going to be swell, and we didn't plan for things not being swell."

"Can you believe it?" expression. "I mean—one would really have to be a simpleton. And whatever people think of me, how can anybody think that Don Rumsfeld is that dumb? He's so evidently not that dumb, that how can people write things like that?"

Apparently Feith doesn't get out much. Or at least he isn't doing his bedside table reading. According to Fallows, "Almost everything, good and bad, that has happened in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime was the subject of extensive pre-war discussion and analysis. This is particularly true of what have proved to be the harshest realities for the United States since the fall of Baghdad: that occupying the country is much more difficult than conquering it; that a breakdown in public order can jeopardize every other goal; that the ambition of patiently nurturing a new democracy is at odds with the desire to turn control over to the Iraqis quickly and get U.S. troops out; that the Sunni center of the country is the main security problem; that with each passing day Americans risk being seen less as liberators and more as occupiers, and targets.

Which organizations or persons made such extensive analysis? Fallows says, "the CIA, the State Department, the Army and the Marine Corps, the United States Agency for International Development, and a wide variety of other groups inside and outside the government are underappreciated by the public. The one pre-war effort that has received substantial recent attention, the State Department's Future of Iraq project, produced thousands of pages of findings, barely one paragraph of which has until now been quoted in the press.",


One could probably understand if there were a few memos floating around Washington outlining such problems for post-invasion Iraq. After all, thousands of reports are generated and floating around up there. But wouldn't one want to make sure one had read everything one could about the potential problems of occupation before one invades and occupies? Especially when it's from a major intelligence branch, the State Department and two branches of the military?

In this week's Boston Globe , David F. D'Alessandro (CEO of John Hancock Financial Services)writes about the realites of his child and George W Bush's children not having to fight the war in Iraq "...because they don't want to, they don't have to and George W and I won't let them."

The final paragraph of D'Alessandro's eloquent piece sums up his point so beautifully:

That's why the president is able to press on: All he has at risk personally is his presidency, not his children. That's why I am not organizing protests and why the rest of us are not outraged at every turn. This war has no personal consequences for most of us who as '60s peaceniks changed the world. Shame on us, both of us -- all of us.

This is a very interesting point. This hasn't reached the threshold of Vietnam yet because we haven't really felt the pain of the loss the same way. There hasn't been a draft. These are the volunteer military or those who chose the military for their way of life. Are the lives of these who've died so much less because they're not conscripted? Would it change things if the children of prominent or wealthy citizens had to give their lives?

Being new at this blogging thing...Kev and I are still working out the kinks on what's best for posting and comments and content.

If you stopped by last evening you'd have noticed that there were three posts up on the health care series. After some thought...we decided that was a bit much to chew on all at once. So in the interest of getting some good debate going...I removed two of the posts. I'll repost part two on Monday, May 24 and part three on Monday, May 31. This topic is way too big to try and deal with that all at once.

Also..we're considering moving from our current blog interface to a different one. We really want this blog to be a quality place where people will exchange ideas and get informed. We're hopeful that a better format is out there for us to make it easier for you to do that through us.

And finally...the suggestion box is open. Please send ideas or comments to kevin@preemptivekarma.com or carla@preemptivekarma.com. Also..please spread the word about us. We want to hear from conservatives, liberals,moderates,Republicans,Democrats,Reformists,Libertarians,Greens,Purples,Oranges....whomever.

Thanks.

Okay...if you live in Texas and you don't like that title or this blog entry please forward all complaints and threats to Kevin@preemptivekarma.com. This has been a public service announcement.

Seriously though....what the in the HELL is wrong with this woman?

Denying Unitarians tax exempt status because "does not have one system of belief"?????

Lessee....we can execute the mentally ill but we can't treat Unitarians as a church because we don't understand how they believe.

What a bunch of freaks.

The General Accounting Office issued a report today that "bluntly" criticized the agency that runs Medicare.

The GAO concluded that the advertisements run on about 40 television stations throughout the US to "analyze" the new Medicare laws were tantamount to "improper use of funds for 'publicity and propaganda'".

There are also accusations that the Bush Administration threatened to fire the Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster if he gave data to Congress outlining the costs of the proposed bill which was a controversial piece of legislation.

This is the "honor and integrity" crowd, folks.

This week, the Cato Institute released a statement agreeing with Senate Democrats that President Bush should release oil from the Strategic Oil Reserves.

Jerry Taylor, Cato Institute Director of national resource studies gave the following statement:

"The Democrats are right -- with gasoline and world crude prices surging, it only makes sense to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to the greatest extent possible. The SPR is an expensive insurance policy against a very low probability event -- a catastrophic interruption in U.S. crude imports. While the case for an SPR is dubious because private insurance is easily available (if anyone wants to insure against such an event, the petroleum futures market is always there), if we're going to have an SPR, we should manage it to maximize its returns to the taxpayer. And that means making the SPR available during more likely events such as the temporary but very real price surge we're experiencing at the moment."

I know... this isn't about politics. But, having just turned 40 a few weeks ago I just had to post this.

Randy "The Big Unit" Johnson pitched his first perfect game last night in Atlanta at the ripe old age of 40 - the oldest person to have ever achieved this rare feat.

Over at another blog...the topic of Kerry advocating for a universal health care system came up. The argument against it was that it would be hugely expensive and unwieldy. The Republican/Conservative argument against it includes those things as well as "socialism" and a massive government program that won't work.

I'm going to post a series of pieces here with some of my comments on this topic. I'm an advocate of a single payer universal health care program. I'd like to see some good debate on this topic.

It seems to me that we already have a hugely expensive and unwieldy system right now. It's ineffective in many ways and very inequitable.

The American Medical Students Association has put out a fact sheet on this topic. Here are some of the highlights:

MYTH: It would cost too much money.

FACT: A single-payer universal system would cost no more than we're already spending on health care, according to studies by the Congressional Budget Office, the General Accounting Office (GAO), the Lewin Group, and the Boston University School of Public Health. The GAO estimates if the United States changed to a universal single-payer system, it would save in the short run: $34 billion in insurance overhead and $33 billion in hospital and physician administrative costs. This savings would come from providing timely care to those who would otherwise delay care, thereby becoming sicker and more expensive to treat.

The cost of serving the newly insured would be about $18 billion. The cost of providing additional services to the currently insured-due to elimination of co-pays and deductibles-would be about $46 billion.

MYTH: Americans would pay more.

FACT: Several studies show costs for middle-class Americans would not increase. All but the poorest Americans would pay more income tax, but in most cases the tax would be equal to or less than what they currently pay for health insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles, which would largely be eliminated. Money to take care of the currently uninsured would come from money saved by eliminating private insurance overhead costs and by spending less on high-tech equipment that duplicates or exceeds what's needed in any geographic region.

MYTH: It would create a huge bureaucracy.

FACT: Experts say the employer-based managed-care system is already a huge bureaucracy. It consumes 9 to 15 cents of every health-care dollar. Medicare, a single-payer plan for seniors, spends only 2 to 3 cents of every dollar on bureaucracy.

MYTH: Americans would have trouble getting in to see a doctor.

FACT: Canadians, who live in a single-payer system, see their primary care physicians more often than Americans do now. There are more doctors per capita in Canada than there are in the United States. Yet the cost of physician services in Canada is one-third less than it is in the United States. About half the cost savings in Canada comes not from offering less care but by reducing insurance overhead and paperwork. The rest of the savings comes from allocating money to pay for expensive equipment so there is less excess capacity and duplication. Ninety-six percent of Canadians prefer their health-care system to the U.S. model.

MYTH: The United States has the best health care in the world.

FACT: The United States has higher infant mortality, higher surgical mortality and lower life expectancy than Canada. The United States has a much lower rate of access to primary care doctors than Canada. Canada has the same acute care bed-to-population ratio as the United States. Patient satisfaction, quality of care and outcome of care in Canada equal or exceed that in the United States, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. For this lower quality, Americans pay 40 percent per capita more than Canadians do on health care.


There's more "fact/myth" at the ACSA website.

Richard Morrison is challenging Tom DeLay in Texas' 22nd Congressional District. Morrison is one of the Dean Dozen progressive candidates that Howard Dean is supporting and campaigning for. On a side note, I have donated money to a grand total of two political campaigns in my life - Howard Dean's last year and Richard Morrison's this year.

I first heard about Morrison several weeks ago when he was a guest on the Ed Schultz Show, which is broadcast on our local Air America radio station, but is not actually part of Air America - Schultz is syndicated by the Jones Radio Network.

Morrison also runs a blog called Taking on Tom DeLay and is pretty interesting. It was just a website. The blog is actually pretty new and is still building up a base of commentary. But, it's interesting reading for those of us who love to loath Tom DeLay.

Here's just one small example of why I loath Tom DeLay: GOP Teaches Telemarketers a Few Tricks.

John Kerry and Howard Dean had a
well-attended rallyin Portland, OR last evening.

Kevin and I made plans to attend the rally. We met up downtown after work and walked to Pioneer Courthouse Square where the rally was being held. We arrived only to find that the line to get into the Square was wrapping around the block and the Square was already pretty full. Apparently the fire marshall cut off allowing more of the crowd to come in when the number in the Square reached 4,000. There was at least as many outside the Square as there was inside. Needless to say, we didn't make it inside.

When it became clear to us that we weren't going to get in we decided to walk around and find a place to stand outside where we could at least hear what they were saying if not see them. The best place we found to stand just happened to be in front of the 20-25 Bush protesters that were in attendance.

Now I will admit my bias against Bush...but these protesters were truely lame. Besides the regular Bush/Cheney signs, they had some homemade signs as well. Several examples:

"Have you ever been to Taxachusetts"?
(Like Kerry has control of the state taxes in Massachusetts...not to mention the governor of Mass has been Republican for at least a decade. And the guy holding the sign didn't even know that the Governor of Mass is a GOPer. Lordy.)

"Who would Osama vote for"?
(LOL he'd vote for Bush cuz he's the greatest recruiting posterboy for Al Qaida imaginable)


"Kerry is a flip-flopper held by a guy in a dolphin suit (which was funny, I'll admit)
(But when you give examples of Bush flip flopping on stuff...they just shrug their shoulders).

Kevin noted to me how interesting it was that these guys have nothing to say about Bush's record when you talk to them. It's all about how Kerry is just so very bad. Further the stuff they say about Kerry is either distortions or outright lies. They haven't got any material. We talked with them and disputed what they were saying right to their faces. Kevin got a special kick out of shouting them down when they said, "Four more years!". Kevin and the crowd were yelling "Six more months!". It was a riot.

After I debate with them tho..I always offer my hand to shake hands with them. One guy in particular that I did this with pulled his hand back when I offered mine. But I took it anyway and made him shake hands with me. I think it's important to remember that even though we don't agree...we're all Americans.

The Army Times weighs in on the Abu Grahib/Iraqi Prisoner Torture Scandal

This final paragraph sums up the piece....

This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.

First it was the scream speech....where media outlets have admitted they overplayed it and some indicate that the way the speech audio and video was done (and shown) greatly mischaracterized the speech.

Now it's the sealing of Dean's gubernatiorial papers. The sealing of some of Dean's papers for 10 years was a major issue for his campaign. The New York Times reports that a record keeping error vastly inflated the number of boxes of material that Dean had sealed. In fact it turns out that he sealed less of his papers than his predecessors.

This is one of the reasons it really irritates me the way that the primaries are handled. Dean had other problems (like the handling of finances) to be sure. But if the primaries were handled better and the media was more careful with these sorts of stories, the Democrats might have a better candidate: Howard Dean.

Swift Boat Veterans For Truth recently launched their PR campaign against presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry. The organization says,"numerous questions have been raised concerning Mr. Kerry’s service in Vietnam and concerning his subsequent antiwar activities. Our mission is to provide solid factual information relating to Mr. Kerry’s abbreviated tour of duty as a member of Coastal Division 14 and Coastal Division 11."

Joe Conason of Salon.com has recently written a series of pieces on this organization. Most recently, Conason has written about the organizations relationshipswith longstanding Republican operatives.

Conason details a connection with the group with Gannon International which has lucrative business ties in Vietnam. Conason asserts that the Swift Boat Veterans' website is registered at Gannon's information technology manager, Lewis Waterman. Conason also names the individuals connected with Gannon that have been sponsoring the Swift Boat Veterans organization.

While some may have legitimate questions about Kerry's service in Vietnam and his subsequent antiwar activism...The Swift Boat veterans seem to be rather flagrantly tied to Republicans interested in submarining John Kerry's campaign.

Just when you thought it wasn't going to get worse....the Abu Ghraib story doesn't let you down....

ABC News is reporting that JAG lawyers,"had been urging Pentagon officials to ensure protection for prisoners for two years before the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison came to light"

"Political appointees" at the Pentagon reportedly ignored the warnings.

And in related news, Seymour Hersch has just published the third of his installments on the prison torture scandal in this week's New Yorker Magazine. Hersch reveals that Rumsfeld and the Pentagon put together a highly secret group of individuals who were to hunt down Al Qaida members and pump them for information. This same group was expanded to do the same to Iraqi prisoners. Elements of interrogation for this group included physical coercion and sexual humiliation.

Are we still planning on only blaming the "six or seven" prison guards who conducted the torture?

Bill Sizemore wrote a piece for Newswithviews.com back in February entitled Unhelpful Conservative Bush Bashing in which he criticized the grumbling about Bush among the Conservative ranks. Apparently it wasn't very well received by his readers. Last Tuesday (May 11th) he wrote a follow-up piece - A Lesser of Two Evils? - which is basically a response to the "venomous emails" he received following the first piece.

Sizemore makes some interesting concessions in the follow up piece.

...some argued in the emails I received that those conservatives who favor limited government would be better off under Kerry. Unfortunately, they made some valid points.

“A Republican Congress would never have allowed the kind of domestic spending increases George W. Bush pushed through using presidential arm twisting and appeals to party loyalty,” some wrote. Ouch!

“We’d be better off with a liberal like John Kerry as President, at least then the Republicans would put up a fight on budget issues,” others said. They are probably right about that.

“Kerry would not have gotten us bogged down in an illegal, empire building war in Iraq,” or “Some of Bush’s appointees to the federal bench and other insider positions are not conservatives,” others argued, pointing out that Bush is even considering his own Whitehouse counsel, a man of questionable conservative credentials, as his first Supreme Court nominee.

None of this surprises me, frankly. I think what we're seeing here is the inevitable clash between the tradional conservative base of the GOP and the NeoCons currently in power.

The voting machines issue seems to be one of the more serious issues not recieving heavy play in the media. The close vote of the 2000 Presidential election would seem to make this topic more serious and relevant than ever. It goes to the heart of our democratic system.

Diebold is one of the major voting machine companies. It's CEO has been quoted as saying that he was committed to delivering the State of Ohio to Bush in the 2004 elections.

Blackboxvoting.com has an entire website dedicated to the issue of voting machines. Problems outlined by Blackboxvoting.com include machine tampering, lack of a paper trail, device flaws, etc.

Some places where voting machines have been used report votes that failed to be recorded. Johns Hopkins University computer scientists warn that voting software on some machines can easily be hacked into.

Many Democrats and liberals (rightly or wrongly) don't believe George W Bush is the truely elected President of the United States. There is already a lack of faith in the system to some degree.

With the country so divided and the 2004 Presidential election reportedly very close this issue really needs to be sorted out. We can't trust that these machines work properly and that the vote we cast is the vote that's counted properly. This is potentially a complete undermining of our system.

What's on your mind? Nothing is off topic on this thread.

Today the International Brotherhood of Police Officers endorsed John Kerry for President . This group previously endorsed George W. Bush in the 2000 election (They endorsed Clinton in 1992 and 1996).

The National Rifle Association has passed on endorsing Bush for now. They will probably endorse him later but the group is shaky on helping the President.

Bush's poll numbers aren't looking especially spiffy either:

Latest CNN/Time poll:
Kerry 51%
Bush 46%

If Nader is factored in:

Kerry 49%
Bush 44%
Nader 6%

Bush's overall job approval rating: 46%
Iraq was the right thing to do: 48% (down from 53 in April)
Iraq not worth the US lives and other costs: 56%

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said yesterday while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Iraq/Afghanistan bill for 2005 will be roughly $50 billion.

Some folks in Washington say that number is closer to $75 billion.

The Bush Administration in an attempt to cover it's ass politically had planned to ask for a mere $25 billion this year before the election. They also wanted the money to come in the form of another "blank check", giving the White House full control over the dollars spent. Wolfowitz apparently opened the door yesterday for making that point negotiable.

First of all, what happened to the $87 billion we gave them already? Our troops are lacking appropriate body armor and armored vehicles. There's also reports that the private contractors aren't holding up their end of the bargain either. Clearly that chunk of money didn't go to giving the troops the equipment they needed.

There's also the revelation from Bob Woodward's book Plan Of Attack which contends that the White House took $700 million from funds Congressionally earmarked to fight the war in Afghanistan and secretly shuffled it to secretly prep for the Iraqi invasion.

The Adminstration needs to account for the funds they've already been given before receiving more money. It's obvious that the troops need it. But we need to make sure that money is actually getting to the troops for what they need. It's obvious that during the last round of appropriations for this that it didn't happen.

Along the lines of what Kevin posted the other day....

The Roman Catholic Bishop in Colorado Springs has issued a pastoral letter to American Catholics that they should not vote for politicians who defy Church teaching by voting for abortion, stem cell research or euthanasia.

Apparently he's not especially bent about the death penalty, social justice and poverty.

What I found heartening was that some other bishops took issue:

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who is heading a committee studying how bishops should relate to Catholic politicians, said Thursday in his archdiocesan newspaper that he did not favor using the eucharist as a "sanction."

Cardinal McCarrick wrote, "I do not favor a confrontation at the altar rail with the sacred body of the Lord Jesus in my hand."

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles told the National Catholic Reporter in Rome on Thursday that Mr. Kerry would be welcome to receive communion in the Los Angeles archdiocese. Cardinal Mahony had a private meeting with Mr. Kerry on May 5.

If you've read my bio you know I'm a deist. I try to go out of my way to respect the rights of others to choose their beliefs and practices as long as they don't infringe on the rights of others. I was really pleased to see some courageous Catholic leaders stand up and speak out.

Perhaps I'm just too dimwitted to understand the reasoning for people to think that the Abu Graib prison torture of Iraqis is a college fraternity/skull and bones prank (Limbaugh) or that somehow it's okay because this is the kind of thing that goes on at college campuses (Oliver North) or that instead of putting "joysticks" into the orafices of Iraqi prisons we put dynamite instead (Michael Savage).

What's going on with this? What happened to America being the good guys? When did our standard for behavior become criminal activity that might take place on college campuses?

Al Qaida and Zarqawi are infinitely worse than we are as they demonstrated this week with the wretched criminal act against Mr. Berg. John Stewart said in his monologue on the Daily Show last night that just when we thought we were bad..Al Qaida shows us up again.

That said I can't fathom why these rightwing radio show hosts are beating this mantra. It diminishes our country even more than the prison abuses, in my opinion.

I ran across this piece not long ago while cruising around the internet. I found it an extremely worthwhile read an a reminder that even one person can make a big difference:

Do the actions and thoughts and example of an ordinary individual matter?

Gandhi broke the back and spirit of British imperialism and created modern India.

Martin Luther King broke the back (but, sad to say, not the spirit) of institutionalized racism in America.

David Brower kept the Grand Canyon from being dammed.

Renee Askins got wolves re-introduced into Yellowstone and the American West.

An unknown Chinese man once stopped a tank in Tienanmen Square by simply standing his ground.

Daniel Ellesberg shortened the war in Vietnam by many months, if not years.

Someone leaked the photos of American military personnel torturing Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison.

Jon Marvel started what has become the Western Watersheds Project, which gives the landscape of Western America and all the flora and fauna living on it a chance to survive they did not have before.

Maria Montessori started a school based on the wisdom of children helping themselves and their peers and, in the process, learning to feel (and be) competent and self-assured.

Muffy Davis never quit.

Muffy Ritz rode across America.

Charlie French is an Ironman.

Robert Frost wrote, "Something there is that doesn’t love a wall."

Yes, each individual matters. What we do counts.

For the last year the columnist Thomas Friedman has really driven me nuts. I actually had quit reading his columns in the New York Times. I believed he'd completely lost perspective when it came to Iraq. No matter what went wrong, no matter how bad it was going, Friedman supported the Administration and the notion that we were bringing some sort of democratic change to Iraq.

Friedman has finally, FINALLY seen the light:

' "Hey, Friedman, why are you bringing politics into this all of a sudden? You're the guy who always said that producing a decent outcome in Iraq was of such overriding importance to the country that it had to be kept above politics."

Yes, that's true. I still believe that. My mistake was thinking that the Bush team believed it, too. I thought the administration would have to do the right things in Iraq — from prewar planning and putting in enough troops to dismissing the secretary of defense for incompetence — because surely this was the most important thing for the president and the country. But I was wrong. There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West."

Friedman has finally figured it out. Way to go, Thomas.

Last week, FDA Acting Drug Chief Dr. Steve Galson overruled his own staff to reject over-the-counter prescriptions for the "Morning After Pill".

The FDA cited concerns over the use of young teens using the pill without a doctor's guidance. This ruling came down despite the panel's own scientists overwhelming backing the pill as a way to prevent thousands of abortions. Conservatives hailed the ruling.

Galson says they haven't closed the door on the pill, tho.

What I don't understand is...why wouldn't the prolife crowd be absolutely thrilled with this pill? Scientific research shows it vastly reduces the number of abortions. Isn't that the goal?

I remember hearing about the Star Wars missile defense shield when I was in high school during the Reagan years. It was supposed to shoot down incoming missiles trying to get to the continental United States.

It's been reported that a missile defense system was one of the highest priorities of the Bush Administration before 9/11. Bush talked it up through Ari Fleischer as the "best way to preserve peace" in an post Cold War era.

Back in the 80s it was a hugely expensive undertaking that many scientists said was a waste of time and money. It wouldn't work. We didn't have the appropriate technology. The data didn't support a working shield. The Pentagon rejected such assertions saying that it would keep America safe from incoming missiles. Some things never change.

Crossfire's own Tucker Carlson is working on a new project. He's going to have his own show on PBS called: Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered.

Carlson has apparently had a change of heart over the Iraq invasion and occupation. "I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it," he said. "It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually."

Carlson seems to have had this epiphany just in time. With support for the Iraqi occupation at an all time low Tucker is finally on the bandwagon.

Maybe he won't come back in the next life as a cockroach or a potato bug after all.

The Mexican Air Force has been channeling Greg Brady

Our Attorney General is being honored in Barlsley, England

Freezer space is a bit tightin Lisbon

Free gardening tips from a nice, little old lady in Berlin.

And....my favorite....Playboy is looking for a few good Home Depot knockers

This morning's edition of the Oregonian has a piece on the front page about the local Archbishop's recent ruling on which Catholics can receive the Eucharist. He said that any Catholic who publically opposes Church teaching on abortion or same-sex marriage shouldn't receive the Eucharist. Archbishop sets Eucharist Rule

What troubles me deeply about this and other American Bishops public stances on the issue is that they are singling out just one politically partisan side of the issue. I've yet to hear or read anything stating that Catholic politicians who publically support the Death Penalty should be denied the Eucharist, for example. Is it mere coincidence that Death Penalty supporting Catholics tend to be Republicans and Abortion or Same-Sex Marriage supporting Catholics tend to be Democrats?

This strikes me as very deliberate meddling in partisan politics by the American Catholic Church. Why is this important? I've heard political science experts state that there are only two groups of "swing voters" who really matter - Catholics and political Independents. Presumably because those are the two groups who bring enough voters to the table to swing elections one way or the other. It's sure looking like there is an active move by American Catholic officials to swing the upcoming Presidential election.

Wesley Clark has a a fantastic piece in Washington Monthly.

I've heard that Kerry has vetted Gephardt and Edwards for VP...and Tom Vilsack (Governor of Iowa). But what about Wes Clark?

Or would he be a better choice for Secretary of Defense?

Today I had the priviledge of paying $2.14 per gallon (regular unleaded) for my gas. Gas prices have jumped thirty cents per gallon in my state (Oregon) in the last two weeks.

What's everyone else paying?

Pfc. Lynndie England told KCNC-TV in Denver on Tuesday that her superiors gave her specific instructions on how to pose for the photos. Asked who gave the orders, she would say only, "Persons in my chain of command." England: Superiors Gave Iraq Abuse Orders

Am I the only one who thinks this thing is increasingly smelling like a cover-up orchestrated at higher levels? General Taguba said in Senate testimony yesterday that he didn't investigate anyone above the commanding General of the 800th MP Brigade because that was the limit of the scope of what he h