Osama: Wanted Dead Or Alive

I want Osama dead or alive... I don't care if we have to storm Pakistan and blow up their nuclear missile silos to do it... I want Osama dead or alive and I want a president that is concerned.

No ex-agg-er-ations included. I f'kink mean it.

Yeah, I seeeeeem maaaaaad.

Funny

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq

EXCLUSIVE:
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq

Embedded journalism (inbed journalism?) inspecting where no conservative wants to go just now. The explosives were there after the invasion... buck running out of stops.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Bush website blocked outside US

BBC NEWS | Technology | Bush website blocked outside US

Why? What is the point of this? I don't get these guys.

Arab News Worried about Civil War

In America!!! Mom and I have a conversation about civil war, it's meaning for America. Personally, I wonder if the first US Civil War ever really ended.



The article refers to:

“What we are witnessing in the United States is their second civil war,” says an Arab diplomat posted to Washington. “The difference is that this war is waged in the media, in churches, on the hustings, and inside many American homes.”

This is in reference to a string of coming events which are very important to the Arab world and which involve a strong role, of course, by the US.

• Three weeks after the American election Egypt will host an international conference, in Sharm al-Sheikh on the future of Iraq. A lame-duck US administration bogged down in domestic electoral disputes would lack the clout and he credibility to provide leadership.

• A few days after that the International Atomic Energy Agency will have to decide whether to refer Iran to the United Nations’ Security Council for an allegedly illegal nuclear program.

• Also in November Hamed Karzai is scheduled to be sworn in as the first directly elected president of Afghanistan, and to form a new Cabinet. Again, the US is required to play a central role in bringing the rival factions together to ensure a smooth transition to a pluralist system in Kabul.

• Early in December UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is scheduled to report on Syria’s compliance with resolution 1559 that requires the withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon. Political paralysis in Washington could render action impossible, thus deepening the crisis in Lebanon.

• In January, Iraq is scheduled to hold elections for a Constituent Assembly to approve the draft of a new constitution for submission to popular vote in a referendum. The perception that the US is too pre-occupied with domestic electoral disputes to focus on Iraqi elections could encourage the forces that are fighting to disrupt the process of democratization in Baghdad.

• In February, Israel is expected to start withdrawing troops from Gaza. This would require American leadership in forming an international peacekeeping force.

Why I Don't Feel More Safe

Mom can't understand why I don't feel more safe with Mr War President Bush. I suspect she thinks it's really that I feel uneasy with overt agro.

But that's not it. I think the Middle East has been made (even less) stable. I think our allies really shouldn't be treated poorly. And it's because of things like this 308 tons of high yield explosive that was at least under lock and key before the invasion at which point it was unguarded, and looted.

Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

Seriously... what plan was there for after the invasion? No insurgency plan, no democracy plan, not even a plan to go to go and secure the conventional weapons that we actually really did know that Saddam had!?

I don't feel safe with someone's gut instinct. I really don't feel safer when that instinct is proven not good enough. I like plans. It's not because I'm afearred of manliness.

Touch Screen Woes

Like the PATRIOT act, no paper trails for electronic voting and poor quality control sound good when you control all three branches of government, but won't sound so good later when you don't. Do we care about democracy at all? Or just bravado?

ABQjournal: Some
Voters Say Machines Failed, Incorrect Choices Appear on Screens

K is for Kill

Mom, look at these graphs and tell me why this doesn't matter

Or explain why you still think Republicans are better on the economy in spite of decades of evidence to the contrary?

To make you cry

notice how it takes no words to know what's happening?

Two Toons

and

Minnesota Daily : Get ready for a second U.S. civil war

Minnesota Daily : Get ready for a second U.S. civil war

by ignoring the agreements.

Baby Zen

oooooooommmmmmmmm, all calm now.

Yahoo! News - UN: Iraqi Nuclear-Related Materials Have Vanished

Yahoo! News - UN: Iraqi Nuclear-Related Materials Have Vanished

Is this winning the war on terror? I'm not impressed by people that want the right thing or even know it. I'm impressed by skills, by people that can DO things.

I admit, I'm out of touch about why we are in Iraq... I'm still stuck back when it was about WMD, about... not letting things like this happen. What's it about now... making Iraqis free? I can't even remember anymore. It was about something right?

It's about bases. And we still got those.

Hand Outs

Is this about hand outs? Is this about liberals like giving out handouts? Is this about people taht want hand outs, that expect them?

I don't think so. It's not that I'm for hand outs, per se, though I am, I guess, on a case by case basis, it's that I don't think that is the fundamental issue. The way I see it both parties like handouts to their favorite recipients.

When Medicaid is prohibited from using their buying power to negotiate lower drug prices, that's not free market, that's a handout to drug companies. Yes, some people will just take handouts... they will even claim to be hard working people, better than you, they might even look down on you, and say they always give back to things they take from, but really, just take. Lots of people are assholes, basically. Does this lead one to think that there is a party of assholes, the asshole party which espouses a philosophy of assness? No. I don't think so.

My support of public infrastructure is much more self interested than wanting to see mooches mooch. It's more like... why wash the dog. The damn dog should just wash itself if it wants to be clean. No... I have to wash the dog. By washing the dog I keep the house closer to my standards than the dog's. By curing tuberculosis in the homeless... I don't run my hand along the same counter... I get a cleaner city. Does this mean the system can be gamed by clever homeless people. Yes, a bit, but really... not by anyone very creative, because if they are very creative there are better ways to go.

I worked my way through a college degree. I pay my own bills. I couldn't get a college loan in the Reagan America, and I don't ask or expect anything from other people to pull me through. I want a strong America... there are risks, one risk is getting taken advantage of by people that don't want to help America be strong but want their gimme anyway. I can shoulder that because I'm patriotic. Paying taxes is patriotic.

Most Liberal Senator

In the second debate Bush said:

BUSH: Let me see where to start here.

First, the National Journal named Senator Kennedy the most liberal senator of all. And that's saying something in that bunch. You might say that took a lot of hard work.

The reason I bring that up is because he's proposed $2.2 trillion in new spending, and he says he going to tax the rich to close the tax gap.

He can't. He's going to tax everybody here to fund his programs. That's just reality.

A telling slip. You are not debating Kennedy, Mr. President. You are not debating Clinton, or any of a myriad of straw men by which your political allies seek to pose Democrats as contemptable unpatriots. You meant Kerry... or did you?

Mom

Oh. What do to do. What to do? The purpose of this blog was theoretically to have a two sided conversation. Me, progressive, Mom, conservative. Mom says she'll come. So she will. It may take some time. But she's on her way. Politics is really hard right now because of the election, but tough noogies... I couldn't care less about that... if you care about politics than you care MOST now... MOST, not least, not "better not talk about it"... on the other hand I'd rather talk family than just politics... which is why there is this blog here.

I believe in public political talk because like a political conversation in a town square... no one has to listen, often no one is, even the people having the conversation, but they can. That's what political thought is made of.

The Real World

this is the real world. This is why, as much as I care about politics, philosophy, and stuff... I try not to sweat it.

More Oil Pipeline Sabotage

in Iraq. Oil Fires Impress Me. Holy Nell!

Charleston Daily Mail 2000 Endorsement

Is this endorsement something they can stand behind no in 2004?

Charleston Daily Mail

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Gore is the big-government guy. Taxes now take 38 percent of the income of the average family, yet Gore has no credible proposals for fixing Social Security and Medicare.

A strong national defense that keeps people's children from having to go to war?

(the answer is supposed to be Bush)

It's the difference between growth in government and growth in household income.

... and chooses the former.

Don't outsource the war on terror.