Note Warns Calif. Hispanics on Voting

S.F. Examiner

SANTA ANA, Calif. - The state attorney general's office is investigating a letter received by some Southern California Hispanics that says it is a crime for immigrants to vote and tells them they could be jailed or deported if they go to the polls next month.

"It's a very malicious and degrading letter. It's to pull Latinos down and make them afraid," said Benny Diaz, who is running for City Council in Garden Grove. He said his wife and five other people he knows had received the letter.

The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

The truth is that immigrants who become naturalized citizens can legally register to vote.

Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said the letter was "something we are investigating aggressively right now." He said the sender could be charged with a felony and receive up to three years in state prison.

Several of the people who received the letters appeared to be naturalized citizens, said John Trasvina, interim president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Attempted voter suppression, anyone? Gee, who could possibly benefit by Latinos being scared to vote? Could it be...Satan? Worse. Repuglicans.

"Bush Doctrine" is deader'n a carp...

It used to disturb me when I found myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan, but I got used to it over the last year or so. It floored me, however, to see his work posted at AntiWar.com.

Between Sept. 11, 2001, and his State of the Union Address in 2002, George W. Bush had America in the palm of his hand.

But in that speech, Bush blew it. Singling out Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as state sponsors of terror seeking weapons of mass destruction, Bush yoked them together in an "axis of evil" and issued this ultimatum: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

Neoconservatives celebrated this bellicosity as neo-Churchillian. Yet all it accomplished was to fracture the U.S. and foreign coalitions that had united behind Bush. As some of us wrote at the time, to call Iran and Iraq, mortal enemies in the eight-year war of the '80s that took a million lives, an "axis" was absurd.

Bush's speech was a blunder of the first magnitude. First, he had no authority to attack any of those nations, as Congress had not authorized war. Second, he had neither the plans nor forces in place to do so. Yet he had put all three on notice this was what he had in mind.

When the United States invaded Iraq, North Korea and Iran got the message. Both accelerated their nuclear programs.

Because of the bluster-and-bluff of President Bush, the United States is today eyeball-to-eyeball with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs, and neither of these regimes appears ready to blink.

Why should they blink? They've got Bush figured for the punk he is, and he's only going to be around for two more years. Or less, God willing. They also know Bush and Rums bin Feld have wrecked our military to where a ground campaign is out of the question.

Great though its crimes, Kim's regime will never equal in evil those of Josef Stalin or Mao, both of whom had nuclear arsenals greater than Kim can ever achieve - and America never went to war with either.

Meanwhile, put the bellicose bluster on the shelf. It has done less than nothing to advance America's security.

In other words, Georgie boy, you've let your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird ass, at the expense of everything the United States has always held dear. Time to put a sock in it.

Please read the rest.

Ugh ... update

And just a 'by the way', I get into work yesterday morning and Harry informs me he sold me to Nunzio while I was gone. For a mere $1000 ... and the damn Eye-talian had the nerve to haggle ... heh ... off to work.

There's no tellin' ...

Where the money went. Digby cites an article to make a point about the underhandedness of the so-called Christians running the administration's faith-based grant program and how they chose which organizations received money:

... She talked about how the government employees gave them grant review instructions - look at everything objectively against a discreet list of requirements and score accordingly. "But," she said with a giggle, "when I saw one of those non-Christian groups in the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them and gave them a zero." ...

Now, as much as that tightened by sphincter, something else caught my attention that really chapped my ass:

...

Many of the grant-winning organizations that rose to the top of this process were politically friendly to the administration. Bishop Harold Ray of Redemptive Life Fellowship Church in West Palm Beach had been one of the most vocal black voices supporting the president during the 2000 election. His newly-created National Center for Faith-Based Initiatives somehow scored a 98 out of a possible 100. Pat Robertson's overseas aid organization, Operation Blessing, scored a 95.67. Nueva Esperanza, an umbrella of other Hispanic ministries, headed by President Bush's leading Hispanic ally, Luis Cortez, received a 95.33. The Institute for Youth Development, that works to send positive messages to youth, earned a 94.67. The Institute's head was a former Robertson staffer. Even more bizarre, a new organization called "We Care America" received a 99.67 on its grant review. It was the second highest score. They called themselves a "network of networks" an "organizer of organizations". They had a staff of three, all from the world of Washington politics, and all very Republican. They were on tap to receive more than $2.5 million. [all emphases mine]

...

This had nothing to do with what good works these groups were doing. This was, probably still is, all about giving welfare to Rethugs and their contributors at the expense of the American taxpayer. I believe it's called embezzlement.

"Banking for the Poor" awarded well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize

Several years ago, I saw a TV show about micro-credit for poor women in Bangladesh. I thought it was a damn good idea at the time, and apparently a buncha Norwegians have caught up with my thinking.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.

Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.

Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.

Yunus's long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part.

A little background from ABC News, you know, the Democratic operatives the Repugs are blaming for Foleygate:

Through Yunus's efforts and those of the bank he founded, poor people around the world, especially women, have been able to buy cows, a few chickens or the cell phone they desperately needed to get ahead.

Yunus's told The Associated Press in a 2004 interview that his "eureka moment" came while chatting to a shy woman weaving bamboo stools with calloused fingers.

Sufia Begum was a 21-year-old villager and a mother of three when the economics professor met her in 1974 and asked her how much she earned. She replied that she borrowed about 5 taka (nine cents) from a middleman for the bamboo for each stool.

All but two cents of that went back to the lender.

"I thought to myself, my God, for five takas she has become a slave," Yunus said in the interview.

"I couldn't understand how she could be so poor when she was making such beautiful things," he said.

The following day, he and his students did a survey in the woman's village, Jobra, and discovered that 43 of the villagers owed a total of 856 taka (about $27).

"I couldn't take it anymore. I put the $27 out there and told them they could liberate themselves," he said, and pay him back whenever they could. The idea was to buy their own materials and cut out the middleman.

They all paid him back, day by day, over a year, and his spur-of-the-moment generosity grew into a full-fledged business concept that came to fruition with the founding of Grameen Bank in 1983.

In the years since, the bank says it has lent $5.72 billion to more than six million Bangladeshis.

Worldwide, microcredit financing is estimated to have helped some 17 million people.

Today the bank claims to have 6.6 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women, and provides services in more than 70,000 villages in Bangladesh. Its model of micro-financing has inspired similar efforts around the world.

Note to Mr. Yunus: Ya done good, pal. Loaning money to the poorest of the poor and the most downtrodden segment of the population is not an American/Western banking concept. Our banks could learn a lot from you if they cared to. Fat chance.

Note to Nobel Prize Committee: You squareheads made a Hell of a lot better choice this time than you did with Kissinger. Keep it up.

On your knees, suckers, and not to pray, either...

A well-put editorial from the Noo Joisey Star-Ledger:

"Never give a sucker an even break," W.C. Fields, the comical con man of so many old films, was famous for saying. He'd be right at home in the Bush White House.

It must be hard for experienced con artists to feel anything but contempt for the suckers, or the marks as they're known on the street. Indeed, even onlookers feel little sympathy for marks, many of whom, maybe most, get scammed because they're promised something they shouldn't have in the first place.

What the evangelicals wanted from the Bushies was the power to impose a theology-driven order on government policy and the people it hires and appoints. What Rove wanted was to turn evangelical churches across the country into Republican ward clubs. It was the ultimate church-state roll in the hay.

Looks like the christofascists got rolled by experts while trying to steamroll the rest of us. Good. No sympathy here.

Kuo's book couldn't have arrived at the worse time for Bush and the GOP -- on the heels of the Foley-congressional page scandal. One of the aftershocks of the Foley affair is the revelation that homosexuals come in several varieties -- Republican as well as Democrat, probably independents and libertarians, too. Homosexuals have served on the GOP congressional staff, the Bush Cabinet departments downtown, even the White House.

All this comes after a year in which Republicans on Capitol Hill have been caught in the Abramoff lobbying scandal, former GOP House leader Tom DeLay being indicted and forced to resign, and Republican Congressmen Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham have been convicted on corruption charges. Evangelicals must be wondering how they ever fell in with such bad companions.

That's easy: The Devil, in the guise of a phony savior, offered 'em dominion over the beasts of the earth - those of us who don't buy their immoral, intolerant, phony small-c christian bullshit. They fell for it and sold their souls to Beelzebush.

Now they're pissed off and want 'em back. Not because they think they were wrong about the twisted way they think, not because they were used, Hell, they begged for it, but because their Repuglican false idols didn't pay off on the deal and laughed at 'em to boot!

Who's laughin' now, dipshits? We've known that you were being used for years. There is great joy in seeing you finally figure out that the ones who were gonna help you fuck us made you catch instead of pitch. Har-dee-fuckin'-har, assholes!

They shouldn't feel too bad, however. They're not alone. "There's a sucker born every minute," as the master entrepreneur P.T. Barnum discovered long ago. He'd have been a star in the Bush White House.

The other half of that quote is "...and one more born to pick him".

You phony christians got conned by experts and now you know it. Shit, you oughta be used to it: Falwell, Robertson, Dobson et al been doin' it for years.

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap" is just another way of saying "What goes around, comes around". Your karma done slapped ya upside the head on its return trip, didn't it?

To quote a friend of mine: "Idiots, morons, and fools. Go back to church and stay out of politics."

Ugh ...

In less than an hour, I have to face the reality of going to work after 3 weeks off. I know, you feel sorry for me ... not. Hell, even I don't feel sorry for me. I had a great vacation and it's about time I became a productive member of society again, though I'm not looking forward to hear people whining about their cars.

That said, I'd like to thank Gord for keeping a lid on this place, AOB for her compelling posts, and Nina for her excellent commentary while I was goofing off. Good job, guys. Thanks again.

Now, it's time for a good laugh. I laugh at all you stupid Jesus freaks. Out loud, rolling on the floor, laughing my hairy white ass off. Know why? Because we (the entire left side of the blogosphere) told you years ago that you were being used. That you were gullible fools who were too blinded by God to question the Rethugs' motives. They kissed your ass and you loved the feeling. Idiots. How's it feel?

How's it feel to know the Rethugs think the same way about you as I do?

In his book, Kuo wrote that White House staffers would roll their eyes at evangelicals, calling them "nuts" and "goofy."

Thing is, I'll say it to your face. Thing is, I won't use you to achieve my ends while giving you cheap lip service. I'll continue to tell you I don't want you in government and to shove your stupid anti-gay, anti-choice, faith-based rhetoric up your collective ass. In short, you will always know where you stand with me.

Specifically, Kuo says people in the White House political affairs office referred to Pat Robertson as "insane," Jerry Falwell as "ridiculous," and that James Dobson "had to be controlled." And President Bush, he writes, talked about his compassion agenda, but never really fought for it.

How's it feel to be fucked without a kiss? Let me ask something. Do you folks fall for those Nigerian lottery scams too?

But Kuo says the so-called compassion agenda has fallen short of its promise and he blames President Bush for that in his new book. As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, he also says the White House was a place that cynically used religion for political ends and that White House aides ridiculed the very Christian leaders who helped bring Mr. Bush to office.

How does it feel to know your foolishness, your blind support for criminals, helped get us 9/11, the Iraq War, record deficits, pedophiles and perverts in Congress, and the loss of our credibility in the international arena? You compromised Jesus' teachings and what you know is right for a little political capital that you'll never see, never be able to use, because Bush never had any intention of giving it up. Jesus weeps, Satan laughs, and I'll see you all in Hell.

Idiots, morons, and fools. Go back to church and stay out of politics.

(All quotes courtesy of Crooks and Liars)

Democratic Activists Invade CA-04

LATimes

Activists are flooding into the districts of Reps. Pombo and Doolittle on behalf of Democratic challengers, making the races more competitive.

The focus of attention: two candidates vying for seats in bedrock conservative districts to the east, currently occupied by Republicans John T. Doolittle of Granite Bay and Richard W. Pombo of Tracy.

Their Northern California races are considered the most competitive in the state. President Bush demonstrated his concern by showing up at fundraisers for the duo last week, garnering more than $1 million for their campaigns.

But the prospect of upset victories contributing to a Democratic takeover of Congress - potentially installing San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi as speaker - has added another dimension to the Doolittle and Pombo races. Hundreds of volunteers and activists in Berkeley and other Bay Area communities have mobilized on the Democratic side, raising money, manning phone banks and carpooling into the districts to canvass neighborhoods for votes.

Imagine that! Carloads of Berserkeley commie pinkos doing GOTV drive-bys! I love it!

Doolittle, whose 4th District stretches from the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento to the Oregon border, is opposed by retired Air Force Lt. Col. Charlie Brown, 56, of Roseville. Brown, a soft-spoken Air Force Academy graduate, is counting on his military background to help him in what is arguably California's most conservative district, based on Republican registration.

Pombo, whose 11th District includes Bay Area suburbs and San Joaquin Valley ranch lands, is challenged by wind energy scientist Jerry McNerney, 55, of Pleasanton. McNerney's intellectual and environmental credentials are an asset in some of the high-tech corners of the district, which includes the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

On the heels of the Abramoff matter came the congressional page scandal that led to the resignation of Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican. With the environment for Republicans deteriorating, the independent Cook Political Report last week downgraded both the Pombo and Doolittle races from likely GOP victories to merely leaning Republican.

Both the Brown and McNerney candidacies, however, have been bolstered by activists from the Bay Area, the most Democratic chunk of the state.

The volunteer efforts for Brown and McNerney have impressed veteran political observers.

"They see this national Democratic tsunami in which they are on the verge of taking over the House for the first time since 1994," Hoffenblum said. "The best they can do to participate is work in these two congressional districts within driving distance of the Bay Area."

Doolittle and Pombo have characterized the Bay Area activists as carpetbaggers who want to implant liberal ideas in the largely conservative districts.

"Brown has become the ultimate chameleon candidate," Doolittle said on his campaign website. "By day, he pretends to be a conservative. By night, his true colors come out as he raises money and recruits volunteers from the most liberal activists in the Bay Area."

Pombo has played up the Bay Area liberal invasion theme in his political mailers. Doolittle is expected to make it the theme of his television ads. But the volunteers say they have met with little hostility from potential voters. Political analyst Hoffenblum says the effect of the political activists is still uncertain.

I guess raising money and recruiting volunteers from all of 50 - 100 miles away is somehow un-American, but getting corporate money and turning a blind eye to corporate-forced abortion and sex slavery is just fine? Typical Repug hypocrite.

I'm damn glad that the Bay Area folks have noticed what's going on out here in the hinterlands (That's a joke. Both districts have their largest number of voters in the Sacramento-Stockton area) and have come to help.

What Doolittle fails to mention are his campaign's machine phone calls that negatively depict Col. Brown. We've gotten two of them.

As a point of local color, "Brown for Congress" signs and bumper stickers are everywhere in my town. I have yet to see either in favor of Doolittle, although his name appears on the "Dump Doolittle" stickers. Truckee and North Lake Tahoe are Blue spots in a Red district because we have lots of old hippie granola bars and Bay Area transplants, who are sometimes one and the same.

Charlie Brown appeared in my town yesterday, but I didn't go see him. I got to thinking about it, and realized that I've done all I can for him by way of support by displaying his bumper stickers and a yard sign, passing out same to friends, and by donating to his campaign. He has a real go-getter in this area named Jen, "Espresso", who is really doing a great job for him. I figured I really had nothing to gain by going to meet him other than getting a picture of myself with him for the Brain. It would have just been an ego thing for me, and I don't much care about stuff like that. Besides, we had been traipsing all through the mountains all day on our bi-weekly shopping trip and my feet hurt.

Fixer did that with Dave Mejias in his district, and that was a good thing, but our situations are different. I don't give a shit what Brown does once he gets in. He's a Veteran and a good man, and it's enough for me that he beats the Repug Doolittle.

It's looking more and more like he's got a good shot at it.

Charlie Brown for Congress

Quote of the Day

Avedon Carol:

How can we make it clearer that our objection to Bush's domestic spying program isn't that it spies on terrorists, but that it wastes significant resources and violates the Constitution by spying on the rest of us?

It might be soon

Looks like the Army has decided their 'Army of One' campaign wasn't working so well.

Purging

Seems the Jesus freaks are getting worried about the number of closeted gays in the Rethug Party. Seems the reason abortion and homosexuality are still legal means they have infiltrated the party in order to push the 'gay agenda'.

...

"Has the social agenda of the GOP been stalled by homosexual members and/or staffers?" asks [Family Research Council head Tony] Perkins.

He has a point, the Republicans have controlled the government for six years, and yet abortion is still legal and gays aren't routinely rounded up and sent to forced reorientation camps.

But if "nuts" like Perkins and Wildmon want to cleanse all but God-fearing breeders from the party's top ranks, will they stop with the Congress?

...

That's what Jesus would do, right?

Would anything change?

Tristero over at Digby's mulls the question. Just say, and I know we're all hoping, that there's a Dem rout in a couple weeks. A serious Dem majority in Congress. Would the Chimp's power really be reined in or would we have business as usual, as we've had with a Rethug majority?

...

No. Here's what concerns me. What if Congress passes laws Bush don't like?

Well, he may just go along with some of them. And for some he will surely release a signing statement or just quietly ignore them. But for certain laws that he thinks his actively opposing them will play well to other rightwing extremists - say bills that roll back the "Patriot" Act to something more befitting a free society - I think the odds are good that Bush may actually publicly refuse to follow them, citing the "overriding principle of the unitary executive."

In short, Bush will say, "Try 'n make me." And the amen choir at Fox and elsewhere will stand up for him, deploring a fascist Democrat [sic] Congress trying to Subvert the will of the People.

...

And do you think the Dems would force a constitutional question? Personally I, like Tristero, think not. If the past is any indication, they'll abdicate their spines in favor of 'not rocking the boat', gun-shy their majority would be lost in '08 as well as their chance at the Presidency. A good read.

About damn time ...

We got something. Yes, the Air Force is the youngest service, but that doesn't dimish our contribution. 57,000 Air Force personnel, several of them my friends, have been killed in combat since its founding in 1947* the start of World War II. It's a fitting memorial on several levels.

*My bad. Explanation in comments.

Back home

I just got back after picking Shayna up from her vet. I'll start posting tomorrow once I get caught up on the news and unpack. Yes, Gord's still in charge. In the meantime though, something I posted 2 years ago. As we turned into New York Harbor this morning, and I gazed up at the 2nd most beautiful woman in the world (next to Mrs. F) I felt exactly the same way. What I will say is the officers and crew of Noordam surpassed that of QM2 by a length. Not an easy feat. See you tomorrow.

Update:

I heard about this while speaking with Bill Miller aboard Noordam last week. A trivia note, also gleaned from Mr. Miller, the original Queen Mary was supposed to have been named Victoria but plans changed before she was launched.

From the Funny to the Disgusting..

Yeah,ok,sure,"The Left"doesn't have a sense of humor. HA. Just go see this,it's too freaking hilarious.

Next,Steve Gillard brings us a tale from a so called "Christian Values Family".

There's a whole lotta ugly in those repressed "conservative"closets isn't there?

Any guy who needs his porn so fucking bad he's gotta do it while his 3 little kids are up and running around needs bitch slapping back into reality. Thankfully,his wifey got the clue(she's got a music career,she doesn't need his support financially. I imagine he's not alot of help with anything that matters anyway)and booted his ass out the door. None of this would be anyone else's bidness,but if you put yourself out there as some paragon of virtue,you'd better BE virtuous,or all bets are off when your kinks become known.

You know,I think it might be a good idea to gather these people together in one large venue for awhile and just let 'em go apeshit on each other. Fuck and suck and fuck some more and get over it already. No one under 21,no weapons,with proper security to keep that shit inside where the rest of us don't have to see it. Fuck til you can fuck no more and leave the rest of us alone.One big giant Kink Fest '06,and it might take some of the mean out of a few of these wretches. Hire some professional dominatrix types to run the show and keep people fairly safe. And free condoms and Plan B for everyone! Yay!

I wonder if anyone has ever compared the sexual exploits of the Victorian Era to this current crop of "conservatives"? They seem strangely related in alot of ways.

Last Man Standing

This is for all us Olde Fartes (Lctp!). Rolling Stone profiles Jerry L ee Lewis.

From a review of his new album:

Jerry Lee Lewis is older and tougher than you. At seventy, he could eat your liver for breakfast, sleep with your kid sister and then burn down your house after a light lunch. So rounding up twenty-one heavy hitters (Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, etc.) for a Jerry Lee Lewis duets album either means that they're paying their respects to one of the inventors of rock & roll, the wild man of the piano who came up with the sonic explosion that is "Great Balls of Fire"- or that they're just afraid of what Jerry Lee would do to them if they said no.

[...] The best-sounding tracks are probably his duets with the country stars George Jones and Willie Nelson. Both of them are older than Lewis, so everybody just relaxes and enjoys being alive.

And some video to get them ol' toes a-tappin'. Then it'll be nap time.

JEB corrects 'closet' rumor, may only blow oboe...

In a follow-up to my post about Jeb Bush hiding in a closet in Pennsylvania to avoid disgruntled citizens, I give Guv Bush this opportunity to correct me:

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has disputed media accounts that said he hid in a closet to avoid anti-Republican protesters during a visit to Pittsburgh last week.

Bush said it was actually a boiler room.

The "closet" part was kinda fun, but the point is that he "cut and ran" in the face of dissent.

In a related vein, David Rossie has a few comments:

We are told by people who pay attention to such things that the Bush family had high hopes for son Jeb, because he was considered the brightest of all the boys. Never mind that being the brightest Bush boy is a little like being the most talented oboe player in Logan, Ohio.

Imagine what Limbaugh and the fabulists at the Fox News Network could have made of that if it had been Ed Rendell, Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, blowing kisses to the steelworkers before ducking for cover, instead of Jeb the Lesser:

"Pennsylvania Governor comes out of closet in Pittsburgh. State's Democrats in disarray. Santorum deplores moral depravity in high places, calls for governor's impeachment."

Hey, with Fox's penchant for identifying rogue Republicans as Democrats, it could still happen.

Hey, why not? They confuse themselves with newsmen all the time.

In Jeb's defense, being only the governor of a failed Southern state, he doesn't have anywhere near the insulation from reality or the number of security personnel that his brother does.

Baker's Panel Rules Out Iraq Victory

Well, at last a panel of 'experts' agrees with me! I could have saved them a lot of time and money had they but asked. From The New York Sun.

A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Instead, the commission is headed toward presenting President Bush with two clear policy choices that contradict his rhetoric of establishing democracy in Iraq. The more palatable of the two choices for the White House, "Stability First," argues that the military should focus on stabilizing Baghdad while the American Embassy should work toward political accommodation with insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped.

They also shed light on what is at stake in the coming 2 1/2 months for the Iraqi government. The "Redeploy and Contain" option calls for the phased withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq, though the working groups have yet to say when and where those troops will go. The document, read over the telephone to the Sun, says America should "make clear to allies and others that U.S. redeployment does not reduce determination to attack terrorists wherever they are." It also says America's top priority should be minimizing American casualties in Iraq.

I heartily agree with minimizing American casualties being the top priority. It sounds like they are recommending "redeployment" to "contain" a Baghdad enclave. I think 140,000 troops could probably "stabilize" Baghdad. An enclave mentality would surrender the rest of Iraq to whatever. Fine.

I think they should particularly stabilize the area around the airport, so the "redeployment" of the troops to the United States could proceed swiftly and unimpeded.

Because of the politically explosive topic of the Baker commission, the panel has agreed not to release its findings until after the November 7 elections. The commission, formally known as the Iraq Study Group, was created by Congress in legislation sponsored by Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican of Virginia and close confidant of Mr. Bush's. Mr. Baker has said he will likely present the panel's findings in December.

Heh. I think the "politically explosive" remark refers to the fact that Bush's head is likely to explode when the group tells him he's had his head up his ass the whole time. Luckily, the explosion will be contained, because he still does.

I think it was Lawrence O'Donnell who said this study would be leaked prior to the elections. Him plenty smart pundit.

Please read the rest.

Canada troops battle 10-ft Afghan marijuana plants

Reuters UK

Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet (three metre) high marijuana plants.

General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defence staff, said on Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa.

"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.

Hard to light. Must be good shit!

Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hiller said dryly.

One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

You can't make this stuff up. Well, most of it anyway. In a related report:

Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan requested an emergency resupply of Twinkies and Yoo-Hoos as stocks ran dangerously low. The transmission was garbled due to background noise remarkably similar to riotous laughter.

Top officers say they need to enlist the services of Canadian civilians and even U.S. citizens in destroying the marijuana. The first shipment is on its way.

Top Brit Soldier Kicks Poodle

Daily Mail

A blistering assessment of British policy in Iraq from the country's top soldier left Tony Blair reeling today.

General Sir Richard Dannatt said troops should come home within two years - flatly contradicting the Prime Minister's policy that the military will stay "as long as it takes".

Downing Street was aghast at the general's remarks, though in public it offered "full support".

His views have sent shockwaves through Government.

They are a total repudiation of the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly insisted that British presence in Iraq is morally right and has had no effect on our domestic security.

Sir Richard, who took up his post earlier this year, warned that "our presence in Iraq exacerbates" the "difficulties we are facing around the world."

He lambasts Tony Blair's desire to forge a "liberal democracy" in Iraq as a "naive" failure and he warns that "whatever consent we may have had in the first place" from the Iraqi people "has largely turned to intolerance."

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said: "When I was in Iraq, soldiers told me the same thing."

"They said the reaction had gone from welcome, to consent to mere tolerance and they said that this meant we didn't have an indefinite licence to be there."

"To have one of our senior military figures speaking out on behalf of those under his commenad is a refreshing change."

The final, and best, line is pure Britspeak:

The party's defence spokesman Nick Harvey added: "This drives a coach and horses through the government's foreign policy."

We would probably flatten it with an SUV if our top general had the balls of that British one. He could still yell 'giddyap!'.

C'mon, General Pace, act like a goddam Marine for once. The Chesty Puller kind, not the Ollie North kind. Earn back some respect by telling Bush and Rumsfeld the truth. In public. Same goes to the top Doggie brass.

Update:

BBC News

Tony Blair has said he agrees with "every word" the new head of the British Army said on the Iraq war.

Speaking in St Andrews at the end of talks on Northern Ireland, the prime minister said the reason the government had been able to so far give up two provinces to Iraqi control was "precisely because the job has been done there."

He refused to be drawn on whether he agreed with quotes from Sir Richard published in the Daily Mail, saying only that later TV and radio interviews given by the general were more in context.

On the transcripts of those interviews Mr Blair said: "I agree with every word of it."

A spokesman for the Iraqi president said the departure of multi-national troops now "would be a disaster".

Yeah, for the puppet president.

Mr Blair said he "suspected" Sir Richard had given a long interview with the Daily Mail, and that some of his comments had been taken out of context.

Cover yer bum, Fifi.