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All we have done is sow the seeds for one of the longest civil wars in the middle east, whose violence will be exported around the world thanks to the megalomania of Beloved Leader and the Neo-Cons. I wonder if Mommy and Poppy Bush are impressed with Junior yet? . . .
. . . So yeah my first experience with socialized medicine was hugely positive. I'm not sure how the German system compares to the rest of western Europe (and I've heard very good things about the French system and not so great ones about the UK's NHS) but next time some ignant asshole bitches to me about how bad a national health care system is he's gonna get a fat lip.
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MSNBC Breaking News
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NASA says current weather may delay shuttle launch. More to come... -
TULSA, Okla., July 8 - The Laura Dester Shelter here is licensed for 38 children, but at times in the past months it has housed 90, forcing siblings to double up in cots. It is supposed to be a 24-hour stopping point between troubled homes and foster care, but with foster homes backed up, children are staying weeks and sometimes months, making it more orphanage than shelter, a cacophony of need.
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This is a problem methamphetamine has made, a scene increasingly familiar across the country as the number of foster children rises rapidly in states hit hard by the drug, the overwhelming number of them, officials say, taken from parents who were using or making methamphetamine.
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The day before his 22nd birthday, a bomb hanging from a tree along a road near Fallujah exploded above Rory Dunn's Humvee.
Dunn's forehead was crushed from ear to ear, leaving his brain exposed. His right eye was destroyed by shrapnel; the left eye nearly so. His hearing was severely damaged.
Yet, even as Dunn fought to overcome his traumatic brain injury and other wounds, his mother, Cynthia Lefever, fought the Army to ensure her son continued to receive critical care from Army specialists. Lefever said the Army tried to pressure her son into accepting a discharge before he was ready - pressure other severely wounded soldiers say they've experienced, too.
Lefever and other critics say the Army's medical system, particularly Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., has been overwhelmed by the number of wounded returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They accuse the Army of attempting to discharge wounded soldiers before their essential medical needs are met and transfer them to Veterans Affairs medical facilities.
"The Army tried to get rid of him," Lefever said. "It was immoral and unethical. The Army owes these kids."
Soldiers are discharged if they no longer can "adequately perform" their assigned duties and have received "optimum medical care," Garvey said. The process is subjective and can last months or more than year, he said, but soldiers are informed of their rights and can appeal.
Veterans organizations say they are aware that the military medical system is stretched.
"It's obvious when you go to Walter Reed," said Cathy Wiblemo, the American Legion's deputy director for health care. "They are running out of room."
"The Army's medical bills are going up, and it's encroaching on other things they have to pay for," she said.
Both Sen. Reid and the press are steamrolling right over the Bushites' finely crafted distinction of what Rove et al. were "involved" in -- what the meaning of "this" is, you might say -- defining the term by the misimpression McClellan intended to give instead of the legalistic definition he had hoped to fall back on.
Sweet, isn't it? That game of implying more than they were technically stating worked just fine when Dubya and his hacks were trying to link Iraq and the September 11th terrorist attacks. But it's backfiring now.
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When this nationally famous figure left the governor's office in 1999, he pocketed more than $60,000 in taxpayer funds earmarked for entertainment and other expenses at the Governor's Mansion, WSB-TV investigative reporter Dale Cardwell revealed last week.
Miller also picked up a check for more than $20,000 for "unused leave"-a sum to which he was not entitled as a constitutional officer, Cardwell also reported.
At first blush, such stuff may sound shockingly sleazy. Bear with us. Miller has an explanation, contained in prepared statements issued through his attorney.
In essence, Miller says that he was technically eligible to take the mansion money as his own because no one said he could not. "When I retired from state government, I received only what I was advised was legal, ethical and traditional," his statement read, citing an attorney general's official opinion from 1969. [Link]
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It is time to destroy Karl Rove - that fat fuck must bear the burden of his sins against this nation as surely as a tail-chasing, abusive cocksman must die alone, diseased, and despised. Rove must be dragged out in public and his pants must be yanked down so we can all laugh at the tiny dick and bean-like balls of this so-called fearsome presence. In the old days, they used to draw and quarter fuckers like Rove, who would, for personal vendetta and political expediency, sell out the good of the nation. But, fuck, horses are a burden these days, so let's tie Rove's limbs to four news vans, each driven by a member of the so-long cowed Washington press corps, and let 'er rip. Metaphorically, of course. Of course.
Perhaps when one is born, we have little settings in our heads. These little settings are capable of holding either diamonds or rhinestones. Which is placed in the settings is one's own determination.
Some are curious and they seek answers. They want to educate themselves and determine what they believe to be right and wrong, fair and unfair. They learn, they read, and they listen. They may follow others' paths, but they come to their own conclusions based on experience and knowledge. These people place as many diamonds in their settings as they possibly can. They are seekers of nothing but the real thing, the diamonds.
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A consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise for an unnamed company that revolved around the London Underground being bombed at the exact same times and locations as happened in real life on the morning of July 7th.
Let's face it. George Bush likes dress-up. What a video game is to a teenager, the Presidency seems to be to this man. It's a free pass to the movies with him playing that brave warrior part. All in all, I'm afraid to say, it must be fun. When he so cavalierly said, "Bring 'em on," he was surely simply carried away by the spirit of the game. What it wasn't, of course, was the statement of a mature human being, an adult.
If you'll excuse another image, it was as if our child leaders had taken off, ridden directly into someone else's neighborhood, seen a wasp's nest, promptly stomped on it, and then stood around praising themselves and waiting to be stung.
The sad thing is that the truth is relatively simple. What people using terror in the fashion of London are quite capable of doing is killing and maiming randomly and in large numbers - and perhaps in the process revealing to us both how fragile and how strong our world actually is. What they are completely incapable of doing, no matter what George Bush says, is taking our liberties and freedoms away. They can't take anything away. Only we can do that (my emphasis).
"I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said referring to the freckle-faced Mad magazine character. She drew a laugh from crowd when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Neuman's catchphrase: "What, me worry?"
Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression!
We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.
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The fact that it came from the White House proves once again just how vindictive President Bush and company are - given that blowing the CIA cover for Plame was meant as payback for her husband contesting the administration's story that Saddam was trying to buy uranium from Niger. It also fits the overall picture that Bush's administration was hell-bent on going to war at all costs.
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It's official. I'm announcing my endorsement of Congressman Conyers for the 2008 presidential race.
Because he's the only one who's earning our votes:
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