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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
Iraq Vet in Famous Press Photo Dies from Overdose
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/ar...
You don't think that's a little inappropriate?
Yes, the system failed PFC Dwyer. It fails thousands of service members. That's not in dispute.
But to hold a fellow servicemember's death up to make a political statement?
I shouldn't be surprised; that's typical liberal sentiment ("the soldiers are all unwilling victims!!"). But from another vet?
Thank goodness.
Beginning of an Era
Here are the 10 first place winners in an International Pun Contest:
1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The flight attendant looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."
2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says "Dam!"
3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it immediately sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my electron." The other says "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm
positive."
5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.
6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."
7. A woman has identical twins and is forced to give them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain ; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother.
Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husban d that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're identical twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored h im. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent Florist friars.
9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet.
He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good)... a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis. And finally...
10. There was the person who sent ten different puns to friends with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them
laugh. No pun in ten did.
Now back to the news
A sense of humor will be helpful in getting to November.
Thank you for the morning giggle!
More hocus pocus from republicans who refuse to raise taxes on the very rich and who can only come close to balancing the budget by cutting social security and medicare.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11553...
Today we know that Iraq did possess 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" -- the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment. The effort to topple Hussein and cause regime change was indeed necessary to prevent the development of nuclear weapons. We know this because it has been revealed, albeit without the fanfare of the earlier "scandal", that this huge stockpile of concentrated uranium, a remnant of Hussein' nuclear program, was removed from Iraq and shipped to a buyer in Canada. It should be a great relief to the world to know that Hussein was not given enough time to further develop his nuclear program because President Bush defied his critics and took action to abort this threat.
A Case Study in Conservative Mendacity
by: Daniel De Groot
Sun Jul 06, 2008 at 16:15
I noted last night that a supply of uranium from Iraq had been successfully moved to Montreal in secrecy.
If you check into this, you'll quickly find that the uranium a) was not weapons grade and b) was well known to the UN and IAEA and was being stored legally by Saddam's government. It was legally in Iraq according to international law.
I wondered if the right wing echo chamber would use this as "proof" that the WMD claims were true after all. I got even better than I hoped, as not only do they use it that way, but they reveal how dishonest they are by the way they have done this.
Daniel De Groot :: A Case Study in Conservative Mendacity
Top recommended post at Redstate:
Yellowcake uranium found in Iraq, Saddam's legacy, Bush was right!
I don't even need to quote the post itself. The title says enough. Now so far the post is merely delusional, rather than dishonest, but wait, the second comment and reply resolves that conundrum:
Hold your horses by SteveLA
Orion Blaster
You might want to hold your horses a bit on this. This yellow cake referenced in this story was known to International Arms Inspectors, and had been under control sense 1992, after the Gulf war. I beleive Hans Brix and his merry band of men and women had inspected and knew about this stuff.
Oops. Well that's not going to slow RedState down, the title of the first reply to this far-too-factual deflation of a good myth:
It goes towards dispelling the idea there was none there
Ah yes, see, since some people know Iraq had no WMDs in 2003, we should lie to them by confusing legally stored regulated reactor grade uranium with bomb grade secret reserves of the stuff that Saddam didn't have.
So that's RedState. Note again this is a top recommended post not merely any old diary falling off the list in obscurity. But I will look at a couple prominent right wing bloggers. We find the technique a little less hamfisted. The master of misleading himself, Instapundit:
SADDAM'S NON EXISTENT NUCLEAR PROGRAM HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN:
The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program _ a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium _ reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.
The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" _ the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment _ was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.
Read the whole thing.
See, Reynolds never comes out and says this vindicates Bush's WMD lies, just implies it with his sarcasm about Saddam's "non-existent" nuclear program. Saddam of course had a nuclear program, the one the Israelis bombed into oblivion in 1981. In 2002, he had no such program. For the minority that do take Reynold's tacked on advice to "read the whole thing" they will learn that:
Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.
Causus beli, this ain't.
Over at Protein Wisdom, we find similar tact of hiding behind snark to avoid blatantly lying to your readers, but still knowing many of them will get the wrong idea:
Now, before you dull, neocon chickenhawk dupes (whose gullibility encouraged smarter and more discriminating Dem congresspeople to set aside their concerns and their principles and vote us overwhelmingly into a fake war based on the lying lies of lying liars who lied) get to feeling all vindicatey, please note that yellowcake itself - even 550 metric tons of the stuff - is not, without further enrichment, capable of causing anything more than a panic. And Saddam was far too busy writing romance novels and terrorizing Kurds and Marsh Arabs to even dream about further enriching the stuff.
I've read that a couple times and I'm not 100% sure I understand his point, because there are several layers of sarcasm and bitterness here directed all over the place. Buried in all the scorn for people who acknowledge the obvious that Bush was lying, is an acknowledgement that the uranium was not weapons grade or even dirty bomb grade. He immediately discounts this point with some paranoia that Saddam would eventually have purified it further.
The sarcasm works to diffuse his denial of the vindication aspect. He's effectively saying "even though it's not the WMDs Bush lied about, it could have been under some hypothetical scenario and then the war would have been justified, ergo, the war was justified"
THIS ought to go over well.
Besides, would you want to be-say, a Muslim-in certain communities and actually advertise the fact? Or, to cover both sides, a Christian in a community full of atheists?
It almost has a yellow badge ring to it.
The problem isn't being a Muslim and advertising that fact (as if they should be ashamed), the problem is that people hiding under the banner of Christianity cannot control themselves and the urge to harm others because they don't look, act or believe like them.
If that's the case, if Arabs from Michigan had a Muslim plate, they wouldn't be able to go anywhere outside of their communities in Michigan. Or maybe somebody with NEW YORK plates shouldn't ride around South Carolina.
Again, the problem isn't somebody self identifying themselves on a license plate, the problem is people who can't control their animal urges. That's what needs to be cracked down on, not the license plate itself.
But is feeding the urges smart?
But if you have the urge to kill, steal, harm, etc. stop and think about it and control yourself.
When where you planning on expanding on Vets For Freedom being nothing more then a conservative tool disguised as a PAC ??
C'mon man, Im a vet, and not one of othose canidates that they have running for office is a Democrat, nor do any of them have one liberal stance on anything. At least 2 of them Cornyn and Manion have made and have Comments about Barack on there webpages.
You posting that is no different then me posting a commercial from IVAW
Were at the point now were i want to see the military retired and active stay out of politics. (I think you can even agree with that)
To often those of us who have served get painted with either 1 of 2 brushes.
If youre for the war, and served, youre looked at as a patriot who the country couldnt be more proud of. No matter what job you did in the military.
If youre against the war and served, some question if you even served at all, then if that isnt enough, they want to know what you did b/c if you werent in the Sandbox, then technically your opinion doesnt count for anything, and finally, when all that fails, youre called a traitor.
As a vet who was not only there , but was ALSO in the vicinity of the USS Cole, I can say im against this war, and those guys in that commercial do not, nor will they ever speak for me.
Vets for Freedom has a PAC, but the original organization was not a PAC. The PAC is relatively new. (read: few months old)
Your categories of service members isn't wrong, but can be easily flipped. People tell me all the time that because I wasn't on the ground, I don't know anything about what went on there.
As far as the commercial, that's fine; they don't have to speak for you. I won't jump on the war stump with you; I already know we don't agree (and that's fine as well; you've more than earned your right to disagree)....but realize that our campaign is bigger than Obama and McCain; liberals and conservatives.
Double for Madonna. She is the skank queen. I hope her fake a$$ gets backed over by one of those double decker British busses. She probably talked the guy into leaving his wife & babies. If he let her, he deserves what he gets, diseases and all. She will use him and drop him like Dennis Rodman. She sucks.
I get the feeling the ballplayer's wife was looking for a way out.
- Val
End of story.
I'm so pissed that Tyson Gay won't be running the 200m in Beijing.
Very sad.
John McCain's Gambling Problem
Why has McCain never filed IRS Form W-2G ?
The Amazing Money Machine
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-fin...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/07/gop-lo...
"Voters are evenly divided on whether women or African-Americans are more discriminated against today. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 32% believe African-Americans face more discrimination and 31% believe women do. Thirty-eight percent (38%) are not sure.
(a) Which voters; and
(b) Which women?
If one were to poll 500 Black women, most likely the results would conclude that Blacks of both genders face much more discrimination than White women.
I believe Melissa Harris-Lacewell recently hit a homerun on this issue in her debate with Gloria Steinham, as well as a devastatingly astute op-ed piece.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/nyregion/07pa...
(not sure how to do links(
McCain: I'll Cut The Deficit By Winning Iraq War
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/07/fact-c...
There goes that "assuming" thing again.....
Probably the only way I'd accept this is if the campaigns themselves released the numbers of a withdrawal plan. And even then, McCain's numbers would be exaggerated to show that it costs more, and Obama's would be exaggerated to cost less.
I said it's plausible only because there would be an effect on the economy if the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan were to just magically disappear.
Did you see this from that black socialite blog?
Blogger X and Other Misadventures in the Blogosphere
The most bizarre thing happened to me recently.
I was misquoted by a Sister Blogger who did not identify herself when contacting me.
Blogger X (as she will be affectionately referred to in this posting) sent me an email last month querying me as to why I have not done a post on a particular political candidate’s wife. I replied to her and kept it moving.
About a week later I learned that Blogger X is well…Blogger X. I find this out because my email became loaded with notes about Black Elitism in America. Apparently Blogger X’s posting entitled “The John Does Are Not Elite and That’s Fine With Me” (along with my alleged reply) was crossed linked to several other Black political and socio-cultural blogs.
All I could say is wow…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch – Blogger X has yet to tell me that she reinterpreted my email for her blogging pleasure.
So good people, here’s the verbatim email exchange between me and Blogger X so you can get in on the fun:
Blogger X writes:
Mrs. John Doe doesn't warrant a post?
Just wondering
My reply on June 19th reply via email:
"Hello,
This blog features people who are considered Black Socialites.
I tend to not cover politicians or their family members as they are represented in other media outlets.
Have a good day!
The Black Socialite”
Blogger X’s translation of my reply on her blog:
“One of my guilty pleasures is the blog The Black Socialite. Searching through (The Black Socialite blog’s) archives, I discovered that no post had ever been done on Mrs. John Doe. I thought it was quite odd…so, I emailed the site owner. In a very polite email, she informed me that hers was a blog about people who had been involved in Society, and Mrs. John Doe didn't qualify.”
Blogger X also decided to not be ‘snarky' with me (in her words) since I elected to cover Harold Ford’s marriage to a young White Socialite on this blog (although Blogger X used what I would coin as epithets to describe Ford and his wife).
Now, for the record good people – my reply would not have changed if she had told me she wanted to use it for a blog.
What I don’t like is being misquoted.
Here’s something I find interesting folks. Someone who appears to be anti-elitism (or at least enough to blog about it) is a self admitted fan of The Black Socialite.
Hence ladies and gentleman, you have before you an example of the class quagmire in Black America. So many of us love, hate, and love to hate the elite of our people. There also seems to be some common thinking that inclusion into the elite should be afforded to all individuals who can check off the boxes of “Black and successful” underneath their names.
It has never worked that way and I doubt that it ever will.
We are extremely fortunate in Black America to have scores of Black folks in politics now – many of whom could be written about on this blog.
But, here’s the catch…I write about topics, people, and places that interests me. I can count on one hand the number of times I have featured politicos and their families on this blog.
It’s for a reason ladies and gentleman.
Because - and I quote “this blog features people who are considered Black Socialites. I tend to not cover politicians or their family members as they are represented in other media outlets.”
Hopefully, I won’t have to repeat myself again dang-nab-it!
Happy blogging to Blogger X. And a special 'shout out' to all other closet fans (and meanies too) who enjoy this blog on the DL (grins!)
I had not seen it, but it's ok. I just believe a possible Black First Lady deserves her respect, and it seems the blog owner disagrees. It's cool.
"This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food."
"Mission Accomplished?"
"You don't think that's a little inappropriate?"
"Yes, the system failed PFC Dwyer. It fails thousands of service members. That's not in dispute."
"But to hold a fellow servicemember's death up to make a political statement?"
"I shouldn't be surprised; that's typical liberal sentiment ("the soldiers are all unwilling victims!!"). But from another vet?"
-I guess it's OK when the Army does it, though.
"Myths shaped Pat Tillman's reputation, and mystery shrouded his death. A long-haired, fierce-hitting defensive back with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League, he turned away a $3.6 million contract after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to volunteer for the war on terrorism, ultimately giving his life in combat in Taliban-infested southeastern Afghanistan."
"Millions of stunned Americans mourned his death last April 22 and embraced his sacrifice as a rare example of courage and national service. But the full story of how Tillman ended up on that Afghan ridge and why he died at the hands of his own comrades has never been told."
"Dozens of witness statements, e-mails, investigation findings, logbooks, maps and photographs obtained by The Washington Post show that Tillman died unnecessarily after botched communications, a mistaken decision to split his platoon over the objections of its leader, and negligent shooting by pumped-up young Rangers -- some in their first firefight -- who failed to identify their targets as they blasted their way out of a frightening ambush."
"The records show Tillman fought bravely and honorably until his last breath. They also show that his superiors exaggerated his actions and invented details as they burnished his legend in public, at the same time suppressing details that might tarnish Tillman's commanders."
"Army commanders hurriedly awarded Tillman a posthumous Silver Star for valor and released a nine-paragraph account of his heroism that made no mention of fratricide. A month later the head of the Army's Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., called a news conference to disclose in a brief statement that Tillman "probably" died by "friendly fire." Kensinger refused to answer questions."
"Friends and family describe Pat Tillman as an American original, a maverick who burned with intensity. He was wild, exuberant, loyal, compassionate and driven, they say. He bucked convention, devoured books and debated conspiracy theories. He demanded straight talk about uncomfortable truths."
"After his death, the Army that Tillman served did not do the same."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A...