Noises and drafts

A relatively big noise. WaPo:

The head of the Army Reserve has sent a sharply worded memo to other military leaders expressing "deepening concern" about the continued readiness of his troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warning that his branch of 200,000 soldiers "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."

In the memo, dated Dec. 20, Lt. Gen. James R. "Ron" Helmly lashed out at what he said were outdated and "dysfunctional" policies on mobilizing and managing the force. He complained that his repeated requests to adjust the policies to current realities have been rebuffed by Pentagon authorities.

[. . .]

"The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the Army Reserve's inability . . . to meet mission requirements" associated with Iraq and Afghanistan "and to reset and regenerate its forces for follow-on and future missions," he wrote.

"I do not wish to sound alarmist," he added. "I do wish to send a clear, distinctive signal of deepening concern."

[. . .]

Highlighting the dwindling number of Reserve troops available for future deployments, Helmly included computations showing that only 37,515 remain out of 200,366 soldiers in the Army Reserve.

Well, I wonder when they're gonna force him to retire, just like they have every other general who's spoken up. I've been saying this since they startred calling up Guard and Reserve units in large numbers. For those who would join these units (as opposed to regular military) it is the fact that it is part-time duty. Ain't nobody gonna sign up if they're gonna get sent into a war zone for 2 years.

Thanks to DemVet for the link. As Jo puts it:

Gimmee a "D"
Gimmee an "R"
Gimmee an "A"
Gimmee an "F"
Gimmee a "T"

Update: 05:35:

And, unlike many of us veterans who remember 1968 and see the similarities in 2004, Kevin at Lean Left has a different take:

[. . .]

But even if those fail, I do not think that we will have a draft. I do not expect Bush to remain in Iraq for very much longer. The Shiites party that everyone expects to win is running, essentially, on the US out of Iraq platform. When faced with a growing insurgency, the specter of civil war, and a troop shortage, some of the Bushies will be looking for a way out before the midterm elections. If the new Iraqi government asks them to leave there will be a faction in the White House who will want to take them up on their offer.

[. . .]

We're smart

Left-leaning political bloggers to be precise. An excellent post about how well-informed bloggers are, and the gap between the roots (us) and the leadership (our weasel representatives in Washington).

[. . .]

Another example — How many Democratic Senators say they won’t oppose Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General? But us bloggers and blog-readers ALL understand that a vote for Gonzales is a vote for torture.

[. . .]

From Dave Johnson over at the american street.

Note: Just watching Chimpy speaking live about medical tort reform. In his world, no one will be held accountable for any harm they do. How can you limit medical liability judgments to $250,000? Just the way it is in his administration. He's also patting himself on the back about how generous we are to the Tsunami victims. It was his idea, of course. What a fucking lowlife turd.

Update: 18:45:

Kevin Drum:

[. . .]

But none of Bush's proposals would have any effect at all on frivolous malpractice lawsuits. As usual, instead of trying to solve a problem, he's merely using a problem as an excuse to do something else that he wants to do anyway — regardless of whether or not it has any effect. I wonder how long it will take the medical profession to realize that nothing Bush is proposing will actually help them in any way?

Will Congress Back Torture? Will You?

Robert Scheer via Working For Change asks the question: "Is there bipartisan congressional support for torture?"

Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings on the confirmation of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next attorney general of the United States. At stake is whether Congress wants to conveniently absolve Gonzales of his clear attempt to have the president subvert U.S. law in order to whitewash barbaric practices performed by U.S. interrogators in the name of national security.

Acting like a sleazy attorney advising a client on how not to be convicted of an ongoing crime, Gonzales was apparently not worried about irrational foreign courts or high-minded jurists in The Hague, but rather U.S. prosecutors who might enforce federal laws that ban torture of foreign prisoners of war. Indeed, Gonzales made the case for a legal end run around the 1996 War Crimes Act, which mandates criminal penalties, including the death sentence, for any U.S. military or other personnel who engage in crimes of torture.

Another positive step would be the withdrawal or rejection of the Gonzales nomination. To make a man with so little respect for both the spirit and the letter of the law the nation's top law enforcement official would be a terrible advertisement for American democracy.

Write your Representative and your Senator. They're only a click away. Tell 'em you don't want a shady lawyer doing bad things in your name. Be nice. SouthKnoxBubba puts it this way, and I agree:

Tell them that in your opinion Gonzales' views on torture and abuse of prisoners are evidence that he is not fit to serve in a position sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and enforce the law of the land.

If Bush gets his way with this one, the Brown Shirts are not far behind. Not far from your front door in the wee hours, either. If you think "it can't happen to me. I haven't done anything wrong", you're seriously missing the point. Murphy's Law, which has never been wrong yet, says "If it can happen, it will happen".

This clown interpreted existing law to allow torture, at the request of this President, after finding evidence that torture had already taken place, in an attempt for all those at the top to avoid prosecution. One of Bush's people (don't make me look it up, please) said, "It's not about what's legal. It's about what we can make legal".

Legislators are supposed to make laws, not lawyers. If Congress gangs up on us with bad laws, OK, we're fucked. We'll live with it. Interpreting the law to allow criminal ends, under direction from the pretender to the highest position in the World, is not what we want.

Sign The Petition

If you agree with Fixer's post (just below this one), and mine (just above this one), and even if you don't, go sign the Declaration Against Torture at Act For Change. I don't know if it will help in keeping Sleazy Gonzales out of the top law enforcement position in our country, but it can't hurt.

Sleazy Gonzales

Via Pudentilla from WaPo:

A dozen high-ranking retired military officers took the unusual step yesterday of signing a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing "deep concern" over the nomination of White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general, marking a rare military foray into the debate over a civilian post.

The group includes retired Army Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The officers are one of several groups to separately urge the Senate to sharply question Gonzales during a confirmation hearing Thursday about his role in shaping legal policies on torture and interrogation methods.

[. . .]

The letter signed by the retired officers, compiled by the group Human Rights First and sent to the committee's leadership last night, criticizes Gonzales for his role in reviewing and approving a series of memorandums arguing, among other things, that the United States could lawfully ignore portions of the Geneva Conventions and that some forms of torture "may be justified" in the war on terror.

"Today, it is clear that these operations have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence gathering efforts and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world," the officers wrote, referring to the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies.

[. . .]

"Repeatedly in our past, the United States has confronted foes that, at the time they emerged, posed threats of a scope or nature unlike any we had previously faced," the letter reads. "But we have been far more steadfast in the past in keeping faith with our national commitment to the rule of law."

[. . .]

The hearings start tomorrow. Make sure your senators get an email making them aware of your feelings on this matter. General Hoar:

[. . .]

I think that the key thing, the thing we are asking the Senate Judiciary Committee, is to ask a series of questions of Mr. Gonzales during his confirmation hearings, that will fully illuminate Mr. Gonzales's role in the development of these policy papers, that had to do with the abrogation of Geneva Accords in the Afghan campaign, and the use of torture for detainees. And I think it's imperative that these issues be fully illuminated at the hearing. And this is what we hope will happen: Is that the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will recommend to the Senate as a whole, whether or not Mr. Gonzales should be confirmed as the Attorney General, really needs to bear down on these issues, and taking the documentary evidence that we have, and connect the dots, to find out what Mr. Gonzales's role has been in these very troubling issues.

[. . .]

This is a great interview and you should read it. (Link via american street.) The good General makes his opinions known on the clusterfuck in Iraq and the leadership at the Pentagon.

Update: 05:05:

Kos has more:

[. . .]

. . . Officials dispute how much senior Justice Department officials knew of the memorandum as it was being prepared. A former official and a current one said that neither Attorney General John Ashcroft nor his deputy, Larry D. Thompson, were aware of the memorandum until it was about to be submitted to the White House.

Can you fucking imagine that? They had to hide it from Ashcroft?!?!?!?

Ads

If you've noticed, I caved in to Google and put ads in the sidebar . . . on the bottom . . . all the way on the bottom. Click on 'em if you want, don't if you don't want to. I give no endorsements and I know nothing about the individual advertisers.

I've been running this blog on Blogger/Google's dime, same with the Haloscan comments. I'm supposed to make money when people click on the ads so I thought I'd use whatever income was generated from them to upgrade the blog. Maybe spring for a Haloscan membership, or actually get some server space on Blogger so it would be easier to post our own pics, shit like that. If it ain't worth it, I'll take the ads down.

The last thing I'm gonna do is compromise whatever respect we have in the Blogosphere (Blogtopia, for skippy). I sure as hell ain't asking for donations . . . ever. If we ever reach the big time in the blog world, and the need for increased bandwidth becomes a factor, we'll make the decisions about how the Brain will be financed. For now, let's see what the ads generate and how we'll use it.

Thank you for your attention. You may now resume your activities.

Ve know who you are

From WTF??:

[. . .]

"The fine print in [the smirking liar's] No Child Left Behind Act is slowly dawning on the parents of high school students across the country as the war in Iraq drags on: military recruiters can blitz youngsters with uninvited phone calls to their homes and on-campus pitches replete with video war games. This is all possible under a little noted part of the law that requires schools to provide the names, addresses (campus addresses, too) and phone numbers of students or risk losing federal aid."

[. . .]

Didja watch Fahrenheit 9/11? Didja see 'em saying that the weasels in Congress don't read bills before they vote on them? Well, now your kid is on some recruiter's list. Guess what? I'll bet you anything that those same lists will be given to Selective Service too. Do ya feel it getting drafty?

Jesus

It's come to this:

[. . .]

"The old man should have read the bilingual notices that American soldiers tack to their rear bumpers in Iraq: 'Keep 50m or deadly force will be applied.' In Ramadi, the capital of central Anbar province, where 17 suicide-bombs struck American forces during the month-long Muslim fast of Ramadan in the autumn, the marines are jumpy. Sometimes, they say, they fire on vehicles encroaching with 30 metres, sometimes they fire at 20 metres: 'If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them,' says a bullish lieutenant. 'It's kind of a shame, because it means we've killed a lot of innocent people.'" [my emphasis]

[. . .]

This is no fault of our Marines. Wasn't their choice to be there and they're doing what they have to in order to stay alive while trying to keep some semblance of peace. It's just sad that they have to have the 'kill 'em all and let God sort out the mess' mentality. No, it's criminal, not on the Marines' part, but on the part of the Bush administration.

Let's Go Play In The Quicksand!

Gilbert Achcar at ZNet has quite a bit to say about the upcoming Iraqi election and the Bush administration's true intent.

The hypocrisy of the Bush administration is limitless: when George W. Bush and his buddies boast about the forthcoming election in Iraq as an achievement of the civilizing mission that they supposedly took upon themselves in bringing democracy to backward Muslims, they sound like a boss boasting about having raised the wages of the workers in his factory as an illustration of his eagerness to improve their living standard, when, in reality, the raise was imposed on him by the workers going on strike.

The fact of the matter is that democracy has never been more than a subsidiary pretext for the Bush administration in its drive to seize control of the crucially strategic area stretching from the Arab-Persian Gulf to Central Asia, a pretext ranking after others such as Al-Qaida or the WMD. Most of the vectors of US influence in this area are despotic regimes, from the oldest ally of Washington and most antidemocratic of all states, the Saudi Kingdom, to the newest allies, the police states of such post-Soviet Mafia-like republics as Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan, operating through such great champions of democracy as generals Mubarak of Egypt and Musharraf of Pakistan.

Washington favors elections only if and when they are most likely to be won by its henchmen.[...]

What will Washington do after the January 30 elections? It is difficult to predict. The Bush administration has a clear strategic objective: securing control of Iraq for the long haul. But Washington does not know how to achieve this goal or how to reconcile it with the forecast result of the elections, which an anonymous senior official residing in Baghdad's Green Zone aptly described to the New York Times as a "jungle of ambiguity" (December 18, 2004). One scenario, which has been greatly facilitated by the behavior of the occupying forces, is the one that many neocons came to favor after the collapse of their illusions about securing control of Iraq "democratically": a de facto, if not de jure, carving up of the country along sectarian lines (Israel's favored scenario from the beginning).

In order to retain control of the land, Washington could very well resort to the well-tried imperial recipe of divide and rule, taking the risk of setting Iraq on the devastating fire of a civil war -- both sectarian (Shia v. Sunni) and ethnic (Arab v. Kurd). The way in which the US occupation is letting the situation deteriorate between Kurds and Arabs in the North, without trying earnestly to broker a compromise that would be satisfactory to all, as well as the way it has dealt with the issue of the elections fostering tensions between Shia and Sunnis, is very revealing in that regard.

It seems that the Mayberry Machiavellian neo-cons want to rule the world, but, beyond military power, which they mis-use horribly for all concerned, they haven't got a clue about how to go about it. They seem to think their ideology is divinely inspired and will override their incompetence and carry the day. Wrongamundo, Napoleon wannabes.

I sincerely hope the Iraqi elections come off without a hitch, but at this point it's most certainly up in the air.

Then I want the duly elected Grand Poobah , politely or not, to tell us to get the Hell out of Iraq. Screw the neo-cons who want control of Middle-East oil. We have no business being in Iraq in the first place.

Granted, Bush created the problems Iraq is suffering, and we should do what we can to help undo them. That's only right. We're not doing a very good job of it.

Perhaps, freed from Saddam, the Iraqis can solve their own leadership problems without us. I say let them try. If civil war is in the cards, so be it, but not because Bush wants it. It's enough that he will go to his grave (soon, God willing) as the person responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths that didn't have to happen.

We should realize this whole deal was a mis-guided ideological scheme by evil men who don't care about the personal tragedies, horrendous expense, or long-lasting ramifications of their actions because they will never be touched by any of it. Their criminal lust for World Domination and Imperial Power is sick and obscene, let alone being un-American. Let's cut our losses and get out of there unless we can figure out something better than killing brown people.

Go read. Take a lunch, it's a long one. What discussion of Middle-East politics is short?

Ethics? Yes!

Update to yesterday's post. I'm a HAPPY FUCKING CAMPER, and have just a little of my faith in the system restored.

WASHINGTON Jan 3, 2005 — House Republicans suddenly reversed course Monday, deciding to retain a tough standard for lawmaker discipline and reinstate a rule that would force Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside if indicted by a Texas grand jury.

[. . .]

And the best quote came from a Republican:

[. . .]

Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said, "It's a mark of a leader to take a bullet for the team and not for the team to take a bullet for the leader. I'm very glad we decided to stick with the rules.

[. . .]

I didn't think they had it in 'em.

Scuttlebutt

Via 12thharmonic and Common Dreams. This was taken from an Iraqi website:

12.00 GMT. IDAO exclusive. According to IDAO's own sources in Baghdad and Sulaimanya, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been arrested in Bagouba by US forces.

The US occupation forces will cite this arrest as a victory for their war on terrorism. The people of Falluja in their demonstrations demanding US withdrawal of the last few days,which has topped 30,000 people according to news agency reports, have raised slogans distancing themselves from the Zarqwai group. The people of Falluja have repeatedly accused US forces of using Zarqawi as a pretext to demolish a city of 300,000 in an attempt to quell its resistance to the occupation. Many in the Iraqi resistance have expressed opposition to Zarqwi's methods in the past, who is regarded as a small force in the anti-occupation movement.

I haven't been able to confirm yet, but if it's true, a blow to the insurgency in Iraq. Might save a few of our soldiers' lives. However, I been in the miliary far too long to believe scuttlebutt. I'll update as I get more.

Update: 14:51:

Consider this bullshit until further notice.

Ethics? Puh!

Atrios:

[. . .]

So, what has the key ethics rule been used for? The WaPo explains:

It has been used to discipline members for taking bribes, fixing parking tickets and having sex with House pages.

So, the House Republicans support a rule change which will let them:

*Take bribes!

*Fix parking tickets!

*Have sex with House pages!

We don't need no steenking ethics. Gordon's buddy, "Bug-boy" DeLay is behind this. Disgusting bastards.

Software Update

As you know, I've been using the Firefox browser by Mozilla for the last couple weeks and I love it. It's become the default browser in the Fixer household. Well, today I just installed the Thunderbird email software. I'll let you know how that goes in the coming weeks, once I figure it all out. The good thing already is that it imported everything from Outlook except my message rules, but they make it easy to re-set up. if it's as good as Firefox, I'll be raving. One of the best features, it's all free.

The Long War

Robert Parry at Consortium News sees no end in sight, except for Democracy:

George W. Bush’s vision for America’s future is coming into clearer focus following Election 2004: For the next generation or more, it appears the American people will be asked to sacrifice their children, their tax dollars and possibly the remnants of their democracy to what a top U.S. commander now candidly calls the “Long War.”

While Central Command’s Gen. John Abizaid defines the “Long War” as the indefinite conflict against Islamic extremism around the world, Bush and his supporters have already opened a second front at home, determined to silence or neutralize domestic dissent that they see as sapping American “will.”

Not only has Bush continued to purge his second-term administration of even the most soft-spoken skeptics, but his disdain for criticism has emboldened his supporters to routinely refer to public dissenters as “traitors.”

Take, for instance, this letter from a Bush supporter who was infuriated when USA Today’s founder Al Neuharth suggested in an opinion column that U.S. troops should be brought home from Iraq “sooner rather than later.”

“This is war and you should be put in prison NOW for talking like this,” wrote someone by the name of Mel Gibbs. “You give aid and comfort to our enemies and aid them in murdering our proud soldiers. You people are a disgrace to America. Your families should be put in prison with you.”

Oh yeah? Call me a traitor, motherfucker, and watch what happens.

Similar sentiments, of course, can be heard on right-wing talk radio or from commentators, such as best-selling author Ann Coulter. To many Bush backers, extremism in defense of W. is no vice.

Good point. Not defense of the country, the Constitution, or home and hearth, but rather defense of Bush like he's some kind of tin god. It makes be sick.

But the challenges posed by the Sept. 11 attacks could be viewed quite differently. Indeed, investigations of the terror attacks have revealed that al-Qaeda’s daring blow was somewhat a lucky punch that landed in part because the newly arrived Bush administration rebuffed warnings from Clinton administration holdovers.

The Bush newcomers believed the Clinton team overemphasized dangers from Islamic terrorism while underestimating the threat of missile attacks from North Korea and other “rogue states.” Bush didn’t even convene his counter-terrorism experts in August 2001 when the CIA sent him a warning, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.”

Though the answer will never be known, a strong response to the CIA warning might have disrupted the attacks that killed 3,000 people.

Ya never know, but it mighta been worth a shot, especially since the President is supposed to defend the country.

Just as the long Cold War gave rise to the military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned against, the Long War against Islamic extremism will put the United States on a course toward a more militarized society, a form of government more like an Empire than a Republic.

I think we're well on our way unless the American people wise up pretty quick. Go read.

The F-Word

Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com ain't mincin' no words:

Today's Conservatives Are Fascists.Torture, dictatorship, phony "elections," and endless war – it's fascism with a "democratic" face.

The idea that today's conservatives are in any way defenders of individual liberty, the free market, and what Russell Kirk called "the permanent things," i.e., the sacred traditions that have accumulated over time to constitute the core of our Judeo-Christian culture, is no longer a defensible proposition. Instead, what used to be called the conservative movement has morphed, almost overnight, into a coterie of moral monsters, whose political program is one of unmitigated evil.

In any case, by this time the evidence for the malevolent transformation of the American Right is all around us – in the ravings of Fox News "commentators," in the sheer existence of Ann Coulter, in the usurpation of a formerly respectable political tendency by the greasy evasions of the "neo"-conservatives. This change is most starkly dramatized in three disturbing trends: (1) Widespread support on the Right for internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, touting Michelle Malkin's shoddy-to-nonexistent scholarship, with the implication that we should be contemplating the same treatment for Americans of Arab descent, (2) the justification of torture when utilized by the American military in the name of the "war on terrorism" by "conservative" legal theorists, and (3) advocacy of a ruthlessly aggressive foreign policy of military expansionism, supposedly in order to spread "democracy" around the world.

Surely "fascism with a 'democratic' face" sums up the Bushian "global democratic revolution" just as accurately and succinctly, although admittedly this fails to capture the full horror of what the "liberation" of Iraq actually entails. Perhaps "fascism with a democratic face – and bloodstained hands" is more precise.

In between all the quotes is a rant of the first order, with lotsa links. It's a little long but worth a read.

Hopefully, we'll be hearing a lot more of this kind of thing. It should be on billboards, TV ads, the MSM gasbagapaloozas, newspapers, and fast-food joint menus. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops and jammed up Bush's ass on a daily basis.

Crossing lines

A big one is approaching. The Senate confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee, Alberto "Light Stick" Gonzales.

Digby:

[. . .]

We should fight back with righteous anger and authority. We needn't be reasonable and argue like lawyers. Make them go on the record defending torture, over and over again if possible. This is the real values fight for the heart and soul of this country, not Janet Jackson's nipple or "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance. If we let them blatently despoil the Bill of Rights without a furious battle then everything else we care about will go right down the drain with it. It is the source of it all.

[. . .]

The Christo-fascist, Right Wing nutjobs are gonna try and ram this one through with their 'mandate' and 'political capital'. I say filibuster!

RIP

Shirley Chisholm:

January 3, 2005 -- Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, has died at 80.

She had suffered a series of strokes, her longtime congressional staffer William Howard told The Post.

Chisholm, who retired from Congress in 1982, had spent the last 15 years in Osmond Beach, Fla.

"She was our Moses [who] opened the Red Sea for us," said Robert Williams, president of the NAACP in Flagler Co., Fla.

Chisholm, a Democrat, was elected to Congress in 1968, representing central Brooklyn. Just three years later, she became the first black woman to seek a major party presidential nomination.

[. . .]

Robert Matsui:

WASHINGTON - Rep. Robert T. Matsui, D-Calif., a World War II internee as an infant who rose to become one of the top Asian-Americans in Congress during 26 years of service, died late Saturday, his office announced Sunday. He was 63.

One of his party's leading spokesmen on tax and Social Security issues, Matsui was hospitalized at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Dec. 24, suffering from pneumonia. His office said he had been diagnosed several months ago with myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare bone marrow disease that compromises the body's ability to fight infection.

Matsui, a senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, was expected to be one of his party's leaders in the expected battle in Congress this year over President Bush's proposal to overhaul Social Security.

[. . .]

Sense

AARP comes to its senses:

[. . .]

Our country needs a full national discussion [about Social Security] of all the ideas on the table. One idea being put forward is in the wrong direction for fixing Social Security and will actually make the problem worse, not better. Taking some of the money that workers pay into the system and diverting it into newly created private accounts would weaken Social Security and put benefits for future generations at risk.

AARP is opposed to private accounts that take money out of Social Security.

In addition, private accounts are expensive. Just to switch to this new system could require as much as $2 trillion or more in benefit cuts, new taxes or more debt. Most of us would then have to pay twice to gamble on this new plan-first to keep our commitments to current retirees and again to pay into these private accounts. Some critics of these personal accounts think that Wall Street, not retirees, would be the real beneficiaries. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

At least the old folks see how badly Bush screwed them over the prescription drug plan. This time, they're not on their knees, ready to fellate him for vague promises. They know now, that the only ones helped by any of Bush's 'reforms' so far have been the HMOs and Big Pharma.

Hypocrite of the Year

From BuzzFlash:

[. . .]

The Bush Administration crimes against democracy and their war crimes; the death and destruction that they have caused; their pillaging of the middle class and working poor; and their violations of civilized standards of behavior -- all of these would be cause enough to charge, prosecute and convict them for crimes against the nation and against the laws of the land -- as well as the community of nations.

[. . .]

But George W. Bush, first and foremost, is our GOP Hypocrite of 2004, because he has allowed Al-Qaeda to win. If they hate democracy, as Bush claims, Bush has done everything possible to curtail our freedoms and our right to elect officials as a national community. He has accomplished their terrorist goal for them; something that surely warms the cockles of Osama bin Laden's heart.

Osama checkmated Bush -- and we are the pawns.

[. . .]

Vote by mail

Sounds like an idea. From Jenny Greenleaf at the american street:

[. . .]

Vote by mail works. It’s cheaper, turnout is higher, and it provides an automatic paper trail. The biggest criticism I hear about it now is that people miss going to their polling places because of the social aspect. On the other hand, they like having two weeks to sit down with the state-provided Voters’ Guide and think about what and who they’re voting for.

[. . .]

Not that I know anything about running a vote, but this seems logical to me. It's the way it's done in Germany and I've yet to hear a complaint.