Yo, continued...

My computer troubles continue, so check back... perhaps on Tuesday. In the meantime, my troubles are miniscule compared to the victims in South Asia.

Send them money - please!

There are links below at the other "Yo" posts below.

Try to have a happy new year - we have so much, they have nothing. Send money!

Check out today's Doonesbury -

here: http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html

Yo, continue to listen up!

Things are getting worse in South Asia, they need our help more than ever. Our Dear Leader took a break from his vacation today to give us some "moral leadership," but we need to help them too.

A reader recommended Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontieres) as an alternate to Americares as a worthy recepient for your tsunami relief dollars. When I was a full time Fed, they were on my list of recepients for my Combined Federal Campaign dollars, but retired folks can’t participate in that for some reason. Oh well.

But I digress. I checked them out with www.charitynavigator.org, and the US affiliate’s “efficiency” is 85.7%, compared to the Red Cross at 91.1% and Americares at 99%.

They are nonetheless, an incredibly “ballsy” gang, going into some really dangerous places. Their web site is at www.doctorswithoutborders.org/.

Americares is at www.americares.org. The Red Cross is at www.redcross.org. It really doesn’t matter to whom you give. Just give.

These poor blokes have lost their family members, their homes, and their means of earning a living. They can't even get a clean drink of water. You and I need to help them.

OK, this is it...

Painfully slow or not, this is too astonishing not to post. Al Neuharth is the founder of USA Today and apparently does a weekly column in that paper. You can figure out the rest from this article in Editor and Publisher.

Some Readers Want to Lock Up Al Neuharth
Apparently, it is now an act of treason to offer an editorial opinion on the Iraq war that goes against the conventional wisdom.

By Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher

(December 29, 2004) -- Unless you've been living in a bubble the past few months, surely you know that the partisan divide in this country has grown wider with each passing minute and that increasing numbers of Americans hate or at least distrust the press. They have their reasons, of course, and some of the reasons are even right.

Some among us, however, may not recognize how virulent the anti-media strain has become, and the possible consequences. So let the following case history serve as an eye-opener or reminder, as the case may be.

On the Thursday before Christmas, Al Neuharth, former Gannett bigwig and founder of USA Today, suggested in his weekly column for that newspaper that the U.S. should start bringing home our troops from Iraq “sooner rather than later.”

This hardly seemed like a radical, traitorous notion. For one thing, it appeared in an opinion column, and surely, in our country, every American has a right to his or her opinion? Secondly, it came at a time when, according to the latest Gallup poll, a majority of American believe it was a mistake to invade Iraq in the first place, and feel the war is not going well for us.

Finally, since so few in the media have called for a withdrawal, you would think those who strongly support the war would not feel unduly threatened by one man's opinion. The New York Times, for example, wants the U.S. to send more troops there.

Yet, our brief article about the Neuharth column (which did not endorse his position) got linked at numerous other Web sites, and drew more letters than virtually any story we have ever posted. We presented a few excerpts from those letters, pro and con, in a second article on Dec. 24, but we did not quote from some of the nastiest--and, believe me, there were plenty in that category to choose from.

Just to give you an idea of what's out there, in the zeitgeist, here are a few additional extracts. Sadly, they represent dozens of others in the same vein. (More letters on Neuharth appear in Wednesday's USA Today.) One should keep in mind that Neuharth, besides his professional accomplishments, served his country in World War II as an infantryman in France, Germany and the Phillippines, and won a Bronze Star.

***
George Wyman: “Mr. Neuharth is simply UnAmerican.”

Jeffrey A. Norris: “Cowards and traitors like Al Neuharth want all the comforts they know and enjoy, without a sacrifice to buy it.”

Frank Butash, West Hartford, CT.: “Apparently it's easier to run with jackals than to stand up for your country when it needs support.”

Kenneth Genest: “They had two of these in World War 2. One was called Tokyo Rose and the other Axis Sally. Their job was to discourage the American soldiers. I see they have one now at USA Today.”

Dan Clawson, Fresno,m CA.: "A disgrace to the men and women who serve. USA Today supporting the terrorist cause."

Jerry Martin, San Francisco, CA.: “Yet another self-defeating fool with a large bank account shoots himself in the foot. Their dissent equals treason. The terrorists got him just like all the other rich liberals who side against our victory. They forget that wars end, and then the country takes stock of who was where. I encourage the fool to keep mouthing against our victory over the Muslim jihad, he'll pay the social price in the end.”

T. Conway: “Mr. Neuharth has made a serious business mistake. Watch the circulation drop over the next year. The Los Angeles Times experienced the same drop after they attacked Gov. Schwarzenegger...some never learn. P.S. What side did Mr. Neuharth fight for in WW II?”

Peter Kessler: “And as for the good war, WW II, the lefties were four-square for that one. Yes sir, they were saving the USSR, Stalin and Communism. It's sad we didn't join Hitler until he wiped out the USSR. Alger Hiss and the Uptown Daily Worker (The New York Times) be damned. I see you've joined the club. Well, you're probably a founding member.”

Joe McBride, Fort Dodge, Iowa: “Mr. Neuharth, thanks to you and your ignorance the terrorists are probably booking their flights to the U.S. now! If we pull out of Iraq with the job unfinished the terrorists will be bombing McDonalds, and blowing up malls and schools here, killing our innocent men, women and children.”

Craig Wood, Waianae, Hawaii: “Today's press undermines our troops and supports our enemies. They convince parents that supporting your President is dangerous. They concentrate their ire on any fight that involves the United States and ignore all others. Like the sex scandal in the Congo with United Nations forces…. But, let some Army private put panties on an Iraqi's head and all hell brakes loose.”

Duggan Flanakin, Austin, Texas: “Neuharth should be tried for treason along with a lot of other blowhards who should be spending their energies condemning the barbarism of our enemies, the same people who destroyed the Twin Towers.“

Boots Harvey, Brentwood, CA: “One must recall that Churchill had to put up with the likes of Lord Haw-Haw, William Joyce, and his propaganda during WWII. In the end William Joyce was executed for giving aid and comfort to the enemy during war time. Would that the same fate befall Al Neuharth!”

Mel Gibbs: [who is an utter asshole] “The Patriot Act will put both of you (Neuharth and Mitchell) on trial for treason and convict and execute both of you as traitors for running these stories in a time of war and it should be done on TV for other communist traitors like you two to know we mean business. This is war and you should be put in prison NOW for talking like this. Who the hell do you people think you are? 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, then be made to leave and move to the Middle East ...This is a great Christian nation and god wants us to lead the world out of darkness with great leaders like President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Communists like Al and Greg will soon be in prison and on death row for your ugly papers. We won the election and now you are mad. We own America and all the rights, you people are trash, go back to Russia and Africa and take your friends with before we put you on death row after a fair trial.”

And then, on the other hand, we have this:

Justin Iovenitti: “We seem to have forgotten the value of discourse. His opinion piece urging the quick return of troops from Iraq is nothing more and nothing less than that: an opinion. There are Americans on both side of this issue, but neither can be disregarded as unpatriotic. The only way we betray our soldiers is through apathy. Unfortunately, we are more apt to hear he who yells loudest over the less audible voice of reason.”

Yo, listen up!

Hey, these poor folks in south Asia can use all the help we can give them. I've been doing a little research, using a gang at www.charitynavigator.org. It appears the the Ameicares organization is one of the best places to spend your money. 99% of your contribution is spent on doing the charity’s work. Compare this to the Red Cross, which spends 91.1% of your funds on charity work - still damned impressive, but not as good as Americares.

So, Americares got my bucks, although, the Red Cross got them back in early September, when the poor Republican bastards down in Florida needed a hand.

Visit www.americares.org and donate some bucks, every little bit helps.

Blogging is really painful...

The only way I can get here is via my really slow copper phone line, so please be patient. I'm going to reinstall my wireless network stuff and see if that helps. Today I was at the dermatologist getting skin cancers burned off. What fun!

Well poop!

I have some computer/wireless network troubles. Until I get them straightened out, no blogging. I apologize to both of you.

OK, to you.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/25/2004

Something for which to be thankful on Christmas: no American fatalities reported for the second day - “only” Iraqis. So, 63 American men and women have died this month; 1184 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1324 since Bush’s war began.

There have been 1474 total allied deaths. 9,981 American men and women have been wounded, 137 in the week ending 12/22. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

“Why is Christmas just like a day at the office? You do all the work and the fat guy with the suit gets all the credit." Credit to some anonymous person.

Almost Unbelievable Quote for the Day:

To The People Of Islam:

Just think: If we'd invaded your countries, killed your leaders and converted you to Christianity

YOU'D ALL BE OPENING CHRISTMAS PRESENTS RIGHT ABOUT NOW!

Merry Christmas

Found at AnnCoulter.com. What a contemptible bitch - ah, no offence - OK, offence. If you really want to get your blood pressure up, visit every now and then. After the charming Christmas greeting above, her first bloviation begins thusly: “Since the attack of 9-11, we've won two wars, liberated millions of people from monstrous regimes, presided over one election in Afghanistan and are about to see elections in Iraq and among the Palestinian people. Focusing like a laser beam on the big picture, liberals are upset that, during this period, the secretary of defense used an autopen.”

If charming Annie thinks we’ve won two wars, she needs to cut back on the diet drugs. Oh well,

Whoa, I’ll be 85, I wonder if I should get a surfboard?

I guess in view of what happened overnight, this is not so amusing?

Asteroid May Hit Earth in 2029
23 December 2004, Red Nova News

Los Angeles -- There's a 1-in-300 chance that a recently discovered asteroid, believed to be about 1,300 feet long, could hit Earth in 2029, a NASA scientist said Thursday, but he added that the perceived risk probably will be eliminated once astronomers get more detail about its orbit.

There have been only a limited number of sightings of Asteroid 2004 MN4, which has been given an initial rating of 2 on the 10-point Torino Impact Hazard Scale used by astronomers to predict asteroid or comet impacts, said Donald Yeomans, manager of the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

No previously observed asteroid has been graded higher than 1.

On Friday, April 13, 2029, "we can't yet rule out an Earth impact," Yeomans said. "But the impact probability, as we call it, is 300-to-1 against an impact."

… "In the unlikely event that it did hit, it would be quite serious. We're talking either a tsunami if it hit in the ocean, which would be likely, or significant ground damage," Yeomans said.

Its estimated size has been inferred from its brightness, which assumes that its reflectivity is similar to other asteroids that have been observed. At about 1,320 feet in length, it would have about 1,600 megatons of energy, Yeomans said.

Hey!

Merry Christmas!

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/24/2004

Something for which to be thankful on Christmas eve: no reported American fatalities. So, 63 American men and women have died this month; 1184 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1324 since Bush’s “war” began.

There have been 1474 total allied deaths. 9,981 American men and women have been wounded, 137 in the week ending 12/22. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

“On Christmas day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to cheat him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four"

Tom Lehrer, American comedian and songwriter

Nothing merry here, no answers either...

No peace on Earth during unjust war
By Father Andrew Greeley, December 24, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times

One reads in the papers that the Pentagon expects the war in Iraq to continue till 2010. Donald Rumsfeld will not guarantee that it will be over by 2009. How many dead and maimed Americans by then? How many sad obituaries? How many full pages in the papers with pictures of all the casualties?

Why?

The reasons change: weapons of mass destruction, war on terror, freedom and democracy for the people of Iraq, American credibility. All are deceptions. This cockamamie and criminally immoral war was planned before the Sept. 11 attack in which Iraq was not involved. It has nothing to do with the war on terror. American-style freedom and democracy in Arab countries are hallucinations by men and women like Paul Wolfowitz and Condi Rice whose contribution to the war is writing long memos -- Republican intellectuals with pointy-heads.

One must support the troops, I am told. I certainly support the troops the best way possible: Bring them home, get them out of a war for which the planning was inadequate, the training nonexistent, the goal obscure, and the equipment and especially the armor for their vehicles inferior. They are brave men and women who believe they are fighting to defend their country and have become sitting ducks for fanatics. Those who die are the victims of the big lie. They believe that they are fighting to prevent another terror attack on the United States. They are not the war criminals. The ''Vulcans,'' as the Bush foreign policy team calls itself, are the criminals, and they ought to face indictment as war criminals.

There is an irony in the promise of a prolonged war. The Vulcans believed that, as the world's only superpower, the military might of the United States was overwhelming, irresistible, beyond challenge. In fact, the war into which they tricked us has become a quagmire, 130,000 American troops are at the mercy of perhaps 5,000 true-believer guerrillas and an Iraqi population that doesn't like Americans any more than it liked Saddam Hussein. It is a war in which there is no possibility of victory -- whether it ends in June 2005 or June 2010, whether there are 2,000 American battle deaths or 50,000, whether there are 10,000 wounded Americans or 500,000, whether those with post-traumatic stress are 10 percent of the returning troops or 30 percent.

One of the criteria for a just war is that there be a reasonable chance of victory. Where is that reasonable chance? Each extra day of the war makes it more unjust, more criminal. The guilty people are not only the Vulcans but those Americans who in the November election endorsed the war.

They are also responsible for the Iraqi deaths, especially the men who join the police or the army because they need the money to support their families -- their jobs eaten up in the maw of the American ‘‘liberation.’’ Iraqi deaths don't trouble many Americans. Their attitude is not unlike the e-mail writer who said he rejoices every time a Muslim kills another Muslim. ''Let Allah sort them out.''

This time of the year we celebrate ''peace on Earth to men of good will.’’ Americans must face the fact that they can no longer claim to be men and women of good will, not as long as they support an unnecessary, foolish, ill-conceived, badly executed and, finally, unwinnable war. If most people in other countries blame the war on Americans, we earned that blame in the November election -- not that there is any serious reason to believe that Sen. John Kerry would have had the courage to end the war. Perhaps if he had changed his mind, as he did about the war in Vietnam, and opposed the Iraqi war, he might have won. Too late now. Too late till 2010 -- or 2020.

Note: Some conservative Catholics -- Republicans, I assume -- are spreading the word on the Internet that I am an ''unfrocked'' (sic) priest. That is false witness. I am and have been for 50 years a priest in good standing of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Call (312) 751-8220 if you don't believe me. False witness is a grave sin and must be confessed before Christmas communion. Moreover, those who commit it are bound to restore the reputation of the one about whom they've lied.

No answers here...

Families Pay the Price
By Bob Herbert, December 24, 2004, , The New York Times

“It's like watching your son playing in traffic, and there's nothing you can do." - Janet Bellows, mother of a soldier who has been assigned to a second tour in Iraq.

Bob Herbert continues in Friday’s Times that: “Once again American troops sent on a fool's errand are coming home in coffins, or without their right arms or left legs, or paralyzed, or so messed up mentally they'll never be the same. Troops are being shoved two or three times into the furnace of Iraq by astonishingly incompetent leaders who have been unable or unwilling to provide them with the proper training, adequate equipment or even a clearly defined mission.

It is a mind-boggling tragedy. And the suffering goes far beyond the men and women targeted by the insurgents. Each death in Iraq blows a hole in a family and sets off concentric circles of grief that touch everyone else who knew and cared for the fallen soldier. If the human stakes were understood well enough by the political leaders of this country, it might make them a little more reluctant to launch foolish, unnecessary, and ultimately unwinnable wars.

Lisa Hoffman and Annette Rainville of the Scripps Howard News Service have reported, in an extremely moving article, that nearly 900 American children have lost a parent to the war in Iraq. More than 40 fathers died without seeing their babies.”

Herbert continues: We have completely lost our way with this fiasco in Iraq. The president seems almost perversely out of touch. "The idea of democracy taking hold in what was a place of tyranny and hatred and destruction is such a hopeful moment in the history of the world," he said this week.

The truth, of course, is that we can't even secure the road to the Baghdad airport, or protect our own troops lining up for lunch inside a military compound. The coming elections are a slapstick version of democracy. International observers won't even go to Iraq to monitor the elections because it's too dangerous. They'll be watching, as if through binoculars, from Jordan.

Nobody has a plan. We don't have enough troops to secure the country, and the Iraqi forces have shown neither the strength nor the will to do it themselves. Election officials are being murdered in the streets. The insurgency is growing in both strength and sophistication. At least three more marines and one soldier were killed yesterday, ensuring the grimmest of holidays for their families and loved ones.

One of the things that President Bush might consider while on his current vacation is whether there are any limits to the price our troops should be prepared to pay for his misadventure in Iraq, or whether the suffering and dying will simply go on indefinitely.

As we say in the “gummint” the answer to Mr. Herbert’s last question is above my pay grade. We probably either need to double the number of troops - and we don’t have them; or we need to pull out - resulting in confirmation that Amerika really has become one of the most contemptible nations on earth.

Good News, Bad News

How to live longer: a Polymeal a day
Sarah Boseley, health editor, December 17, 2004, UK Guardian

Never mind the tablets - heart disease could be cut by 76% and men could expect to live more than six years longer if they simply ate the right meal once a day, doctors said yesterday.

Last year the British Medical Journal ran a paper advocating the "Polypill" - combining aspirin, folic acid and cholesterol-lowering and blood-pressure drugs - for everybody over 55. But an article in the Christmas issue says a "Polymeal", containing fish, wine, dark chocolate, fruits and vegetables, garlic and almonds, would achieve roughly the same effect.

Men on the Polymeal would increase their life expectancy by 6.6 years and women by 4.8 years; say the authors, Oscar Franco, and colleagues from the department of public health at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

"The Polymeal promises to be an effective, non-pharmacological, safe and tasty alternative [to the Polypill] for reducing cardiovascular morbidity and increasing life expectancy in the general population," they write.

The doctors searched medical literature to find foods that have been proven to lower the risk of heart disease. Drinking 150ml of wine a day cuts the risk by 32%, they say, and fish consumed four times a week reduces it by 14%. A daily intake of 100g of dark chocolate and 400g of fruit and vegetables lower blood pressure, further cutting the risk of heart disease. Garlic and almonds both lower cholesterol levels. The daily Polymeal contains 2.7g of garlic and 68g of almonds.

And here’s the bad news:

There are issues around garlic, but not in the long term. "Adverse effects reported for garlic include malodorous breath and body odour. As garlic is destined for mass treatment, few people will still notice this after a while," they say.

However, they add: "We do not recommend taking the Polymeal before a romantic rendezvous, unless the partner also complies with the Polymeal."

There’s more at the link above.

And before I forget...

Hey, it's Christmas Eve!

My late beloved brother Bob and I used to share the following tastless greeting which I will share with you.

So, Faithful Reader:

Merry Xmas, and may the
spirit of "X" be with you
througout the coming year!

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/23/2004

63 American men and women have died this month; 1184 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1324 since Bush’s “war” began.

There have been 1474 total allied deaths. 9,981 American men and women have been wounded, 137 in the week ending 12/22. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"We are no longer in prehistoric times when whoever had the biggest club would try to knock the other guy out so he could steal his mammoth skin.” Michele Alliot-Marie, French defence minister, referring to Donald Rumsfeld.

Finally, mainstream media says the words:

War Crimes

Thursday, December 23, 2004, Washington Post Editorial

THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.

Though they represent only part of the record that lies in government files, the documents show that the abuse of prisoners was already occurring at Guantanamo in 2002 and continued in Iraq even after the outcry over the Abu Ghraib photographs. FBI agents reported in internal e-mails and memos about systematic abuses by military interrogators at the base in Cuba, including beatings, chokings, prolonged sleep deprivation, and humiliations such as being wrapped in an Israeli flag. "On a couple of occasions I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water," an unidentified FBI agent wrote on Aug. 2, 2004. "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more.” Two defense intelligence officials reported seeing prisoners severely beaten in Baghdad by members of a special operations unit, Task Force 6-26, in June. When they protested they were threatened and pictures they took were confiscated.

Other documents detail abuses by Marines in Iraq, including mock executions and the torture of detainees by burning and electric shock. Several dozen detainees have died in U.S. custody. In many cases, Army investigations of these crimes were shockingly shoddy: Officials lost records, failed to conduct autopsies after suspicious deaths and allowed evidence to be contaminated. Soldiers found to have committed war crimes were excused with noncriminal punishments. The summary of one suspicious death of a detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison reads: "No crime scene exam was conducted, no autopsy conducted, no copy of medical file obtained for investigation because copy machine broken in medical office."

Some of the abuses can be attributed to lack of discipline in some military units -- though the broad extent of the problem suggests, at best, that senior commanders made little effort to prevent or control wrongdoing. But the documents also confirm that interrogators at Guantanamo believed they were following orders from Mr. Rumsfeld. One FBI agent reported on May 10 about a conversation he had with Guantanamo's commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who defended the use of interrogation techniques the FBI regarded as illegal on the grounds that the military "has their marching orders from the Sec Def.” Gen. Miller has testified under oath that dogs were never used to intimidate prisoners at Guantanamo, as authorized by Mr. Rumsfeld in December 2002; the FBI papers show otherwise.

The Bush administration refused to release these records to the human rights groups under the Freedom of Information Act until it was ordered to do so by a judge. Now it has responded to their publication with bland promises by spokesmen that any wrongdoing will be investigated. The record of the past few months suggests that the administration will neither hold any senior official accountable nor change the policies that have produced this shameful record. Congress, too, has abdicated its responsibility under its Republican leadership: It has been nearly four months since the last hearing on prisoner abuse. Perhaps intervention by the courts will eventually stem the violations of human rights that appear to be ongoing in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan. For now the appalling truth is that there has been no remedy for the documented torture and killing of foreign prisoners by this American government.

I added the emphasis above. I believe we'll see lip service toward any remedy to this behavior that puts our men and women under arms at risk in any future conflict. George Bush and his administration have shamed America in the eyes of the world perhaps forever.

More Latter Day Saint strangeness…

Smith bicentennial renewing debate over Mormon founder
By Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press, December 19, 2004

NEW YORK -- To loyal Mormons, Joseph Smith Jr. was an American prophet whose creed is preparing for Christ's Second Coming. To skeptics, he was a reprobate impostor, if a remarkably successful one.

Now as Smith's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prepares to celebrate the bicentennial year of his birth (Dec. 23, 1805), the occasion will certainly renew debates over one of America's most important, and woolliest, religious careers.

Smith was hounded out of New York, Ohio, and Missouri; tarred and feathered, jailed, and accused of serious crimes. He repeatedly alienated close associates.

In Illinois, he ruled a theocratic city-state as prophet, mayor, chief judge, and commander of a 5,000-man militia. In 1844, he was secretly anointed an earthly king while campaigning for the US presidency. When Smith had officers pillage an opposition newspaper, he was arrested and then murdered by a mob.
Smith's prophethood was founded upon his report that, in 1827, an angel gave him golden plates inscribed in an unknown language and buried near Palmyra, N.Y. The plates told the history of Indians' ancient ancestors, who had migrated from Israel and were visited by Jesus. Smith said God miraculously empowered him to understand the language and dictate the Book of Mormon, after which the angel retrieved the plates. [right!]

Employing similar means, Smith revised -- and in his view, corrected -- large sections of the Bible. He also produced writings attributed to biblical Abraham and 134 revelations of his own as latter-day Scriptures. [sure!] Mormons and non-Mormons still argue over Smith's authenticity.

Last Sunday, a church tribunal in Utah temporarily suspended Grant Palmer -- a retired teacher and executive for classes the church provides to high school and college students -- because his book, "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins," says evidence for Smith's assertions is "either nonexistent or problematic."
…

Mormons "are just driven to continually exalt" Smith, Bushman said. "What I say will run against this idealized version."

Another controversy is Smith's practice of polygamy, which the church abandoned under federal government pressure in 1890. Bushman thinks Smith felt that God commanded polygamy but Smith needed to hide his involvement in the practice because he knew it was illegal. But Bushman finds it unsettling that 10 of Smith's 28 or so wives were married to other men.

The biography also treats the established fact that, before he reported unearthing the golden tablets, Smith was active in searches for buried treasure by gazing into so-called magic peep stones.

Jan Shipps, a non-Mormon historian, said Smith's critics say, "He couldn't be a prophet because he was a money-digger," but maybe there's no contradiction and "he began somehow to search for treasure of much greater value."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 12 million adherents worldwide.

At the risk of insulting 12 million people, “God miraculously empowered him to understand the language and dictate the Book of Mormon, after which the angel retrieved the plates.” Er, ah - this ranks up with the Nigerian “send me your bank account number so I can send you money” scams in believability. Then we have polygamy: the guy liked getting laid, most guys do, so why not have God say it’s a good thing, since you’re his inerrant spokesman?

If you speak out against the Church, you are cast out; these folks do not tolerate dissent. They also don’t tolerate people who discuss their “secrets.”

When was the last time you went into a Mormon “church?” Right, never. We non-LDS types can’t go in there because they’ve got, ooooh, secret stuff in there. I’m unaware of any other mainline religion has such a practice of secrecy. Scientology is secretive, but they are a cult, leading me where I was going all along, that rather that being really mainline, Mormonism really has too many cult-like attributes to be taken seriously. 12 million members or not, I think it’s really a cult. Ah, no offence.

And now for something completely different:

Man fined for hiding his salami
23 December 2004, The Australian

A SWISS student is counting the cost of hiding a sausage, after being charged under Australia's strict quarantine laws and fined $4,000 in a Perth court.

Dylan Pascal Graves, a Swiss national studying English in Western Australia, was nabbed carrying a salami at Perth International Airport in November after a routine search by Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) officers.

After declaring twice he was not carrying any food, officers found the 400 grams of salami in his luggage via an x-ray scan.

When asked why he had not declared the salami, he replied he had intended to eat it.

There’s more at the link above, but I guess that Swiss guy learned not to play "hide the salami" with those Aussies. Even though $4,000A is “only” about $3,000US... Wow, what an expensive lesson!

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/22/2004

The count of 19 dead from yesterday was, thankfully, an error. So “only” 60 American men and women have died this month; 1181 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1321 since Bush’s war began.

There have been 1471 total allied deaths. 9,844 American men and women have been wounded, 78 this past week. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep." Woody Allen, American actor and director

And so the farce begins:

Dear Leader promised that he was going to cut the deficit in half in five years. He’ll drop his budget in the punchbowl in February, but you can count on the fact that no tax increases will be scheduled. Dick “Antichrist” Cheney is already calling for more tax cuts, so what we’ll see is more cuts for interest and dividends for starters. We will surely see funding increases for the military. Where he will nail you and I and the rest of the world will be in the spending cuts for federal programs: clean air and water, Medi-everything, school lunches, aid for the poor, and things his “base” doesn’t seem to care about or notice.

In today’s Times, we can see a hint of what’s to come:

U.S. Cutting Food Aid Aimed at Self-Sufficiency
By Elizabeth Becker, December 22, 2004, The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 - In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.

With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.

As a result, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services and other charities have suspended or eliminated programs that were intended to help the poor feed themselves through improvements in farming, education and health.

The article continues here.

This doesn’t bode well for the poor folks who will not be getting the help that was promised.

It’s amazing how often our fundamentalist bible-banging brothers and sisters harangue we liberals about dirty pictures, gay marriage, and abortion. Their “moral values” seem focused on S-E-X. They probably ought to break out the old Bible and check out Matthew, who said ”For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me.” Moral values actually do extend past sex and its aftermath.

Dear Leader and his fundamentalist friends would rather have another tax cut than pay for the things that Jesus really cared about.

Say Goodnight Bruce.

Goodnight Bruce.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/21/2004

As I was updating these totals, I was thinking about the Iraqis/Islamic terrorists who did this. Yes, they are monsters, but understandable. They hate us, either because we invaded and destroyed their country, or because of our policy toward Israel and the Palestinians, or what have you… understandable.

I think I’m more angry at Bush and his gang than at the perpetrators. The men and women who died are George’s victims as much as the bomber’s.

Nonetheless, a terrible day: at least 19 more men and women dead. 64 American men and women have died this month; 1185 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1325 since Bush’s “war” began.

There have been 1475 total allied deaths. 9,844 American men and women have been wounded, 78 this past week. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

I love being married. I was single for a long time and I just got so sick of finishing my own sentences. Brian Kiley, American comedian

Time for another visit to the AmeriKan Gulag

FBI Agents Allege Abuse of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay
By Dan Eggen and R. Jeffrey Smith, December 21, The Washington Post

Detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were shackled to the floor in fetal positions for more than 24 hours at a time, left without food and water, and allowed to defecate on themselves, an FBI agent who said he witnessed such abuse reported in a memo to supervisors, according to documents released yesterday.

In memos over a two-year period that ended in August, FBI agents and officials also said that they witnessed the use of growling dogs at Guantanamo Bay to intimidate detainees -- contrary to previous statements by senior Defense Department officials…
…

The documents also make it clear that some personnel at Guantanamo Bay believed they were relying on authority from senior officials in Washington to conduct aggressive interrogations. One FBI agent wrote a memo referring to a presidential order that approved interrogation methods "beyond the bounds of standard FBI practice," although White House and FBI officials said yesterday that such an order does not exist.

Instead, FBI and Pentagon officials said, the order in question was signed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in December 2002 and then revised four months later after complaints from military lawyers that he had authorized methods that violated international and domestic law.

In a Jan. 21, 2004, e-mail, an FBI agent wrote that "this technique [of impersonating an FBI agent], and all of those used in these scenarios, was approved by the DepSecDef," referring to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz.
…

In another e-mail, dated Dec. 5, 2003, an agent complained about military tactics, including the alleged use of FBI impersonators. "These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and . . . have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee," the agent wrote. "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will be not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [by] the 'FBI' interrogators."

… "On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water," the FBI agent wrote on Aug. 2, 2004. "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more."

The documents also contain what may be the first witness account of the use of military dogs to intimidate detainees during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. In an undated and heavily redacted memo, initially classified "Secret," an FBI employee reported that members of the agency's Behavioral Analysis Unit had witnessed the use of "loud music/bright lights/growling dogs" during interviews by U.S. military personnel at the island prison.

The Army was embarrassed by photos of snarling military dogs and cowering detainees in Iraq, which officials acknowledged later had violated the Geneva Conventions protections for military prisoners. But officials have maintained steadfastly that the technique was never used in Guantanamo Bay.

The issue is particularly pertinent to statements by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who commanded the Guantanamo Bay prison from October 2002 to March 2004. Miller has acknowledged urging in September 2003 that military dogs be sent to Iraq to help deter prison violence, but he told a team of Defense Department investigators in June -- and many reporters -- that "we never used the dogs for interrogations while I was in command" of Guantanamo Bay.

Miller's statement contradicted other sworn testimony -- by the senior military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad -- that Miller acknowledged using dogs to intimidate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and recommended a similar approach in Iraq.

The military is impersonating FBI agents so they can dodge later prosecution? The bastards!

A real FBI agent says that, “These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and . . . have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee." The sadistic bastards responsible for this nightmare and the lackeys carrying out their orders should be hung up by their scrotums for a bit. What sort of America is it where we chain people up and force them to lie in their own excreta?

General Miller would seem to be a liar. Will the administration shills in the Republican congress do anything about it? Perhaps a little chewing in committee, but he’ll walk - count on it.

Not long ago America was a beacon of freedom in the world and for the world. Now what are we? American men and women captured by foreign enemies in any future conflicts are in very serious trouble.

Hie Thyself Here:

The Daily Scribble is doubly topical. Go there.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/20/2004

45 American men and women have died this month; 1166 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1306 since Bush’s “war” began.

There have been 1456 total allied deaths. 9,844 American men and women have been wounded, 78 this past week. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope or ... any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials." John Fitzgerald Kennedy, American president

I feel strongly about this both ways… er, huh?

I’ve been thinking about this a bit. Having done that, I’ve concluded (as if anyone cares) that religion and the state shouldn’t mingle… almost always. That applies to the Pledge of Allegiance (which didn’t include God when I was a kid), the public schools, the courts, and other tax funded institutions.

Christmas though, is a different sort of bird entirely. Christmas is a secular national holiday with religious overtones. Carols like “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” even Handel’s “Messiah” are religious in origin but have entered the basic national repertoire of Christmas music and really have become non-religious “beautiful music.” Nativity scenes however, can’t be divorced, in my opinion, from their religious roots.

So there you have it, Bruce/Solomon hath ruled: music yes, Baby Jesus no.

That being said, read Frank Rich’s essay from Sunday’s New York Times (most easily read here at the Smirking Chimp). Mr. Rich cites, among other things the right’s assertion that Christmas is under attack by we godless liberals:

Rich: … “Among those courageously leading the fight to save the holiday from its enemies is Bill O'Reilly, who has taken to calling the Anti-Defamation League "an extremist group" and put the threat this way: "Remember, more than 90 percent of American homes celebrate Christmas. But the small minority that is trying to impose its will on the majority is so vicious, so dishonest — and has to be dealt with.” [Remember, Bill’s looking out for you!]

Rich continues: “If more than 90 percent of American households celebrate Christmas, you have to wonder why the guy is whining. The only evidence of what Pat Buchanan has called Christmas-season "hate crimes against Christianity" consists of a few ridiculous and isolated incidents, like the banishment of a religious float from a parade in Denver and of religious songs from a high school band concert in New Jersey. (In scale, this is nothing compared with the refusal of the world's largest retailer, Wal- Mart, to stock George Carlin's new best seller, "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?," whose cover depicts its author at the Last Supper.) Yet the hysteria is being pumped up daily by Fox News, newspapers like The New York Post and The Washington Times, and Web sites like savemerrychristmas.org. Mr. O'Reilly and Jerry Falwell have gone so far as to name Michael Bloomberg an anti-Christmas conspirator because the mayor referred to the Christmas tree as a "holiday tree" in the lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center.”

Rich goes on at some length but his point is that in our news-centered culture, moderation doesn’t make news. Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton are the “reverends” who make the tube and Rich quoted a moderate who said: “Jesus Christ would have a tough time getting covered by TV if he didn't get arrested."

Rich concludes: “Toss the issue of religion into that 24/7 wrestling match,[that is TV news] as into any conflict in human history, and the incendiary possibilities are limitless. When even phenomena as innocuous as Oscar nominations or the lighting of a Christmas tree can be inflated into divisive religious warfare, it's only a matter of time before someone uncovers an anti-Christian plot in "White Christmas.” It avoids any mention of religion and it was, as William Donohue might be the first to point out, written by a secular Jew.”

This is unbelievable:

From Monday’s “Presidential” Press Conference:

From a reporter named David Cochran: Q: “Right. Any lessons you have learned, sir, from the failed nomination of Bernard Kerik? As you look forward now to pick a new director of the Homeland Security Department, and also as you pick a director of national intelligence [DNI], any lessons learned in terms of vetting? And particularly with the DNI, what sort of qualities are you going to be looking for in that man or that woman that you choose?”

PRESIDENT BUSH: “Yeah. Well, first, let me say that I was disappointed that the nomination of Bernard Kerik didn't go forward. In retrospect, he made the right decision to pull his name down. And he made the decision. There was a -- you know, when the process gets going, our counsel asks a lot of questions, and -- and the prospective nominee listens to the questions and answers them and takes a look at what -- what we feel is necessary to be cleared before the FBI check and before the hearings take place on the Hill. And Bernard Kerik, after answering questions and thinking about the questions, decided to pull his name down. He -- I think he would have a done a fine job as the secretary of Homeland Security, and I appreciate his service to our country.”“We -- we've vetted a lot of people in this administration, and we -- we vetted people in the first term. We're vetting people in the second term. And I've got great confidence in our vetting process.”“And so the lessons learned is continue to vet -- (chuckles) -- and ask good questions and get these candidates, the prospective nominees, to understand what we expect a candidate will face during a background check, FBI background check, as well as congressional hearings.”

OK, faithful reader [perhaps there are two of you], think about these two points. Dear Leader thinks Bernie would have done a “fine job as secretary of Homeland Security” and he’s “got great confidence in [the] vetting process.”

I don’t use profanity lightly in this blog, but… intending to give offence, the squirrels in my backyard are brighter than this asshole.

It’s possible that Bernie’s nanny doesn’t even exist, but was invented as an excuse, he was having an affair with two women while married to a third, he accepted illegal gratuities, he was apparently at least semi-mobbed up, and he bailed early on the two big jobs he ever had. But hey, George looked him in the eye and he presciently just knew he had the “stuff” to do the job and would have “done a fine job.” Right!

As for the vetting process, apparently it consists of Dear Leader reading your soul. Remember that Vladimir Putin is also one of George’s soulmates. Both Bernie and Vlad have turned out to be less than wonderful… perhaps George’s confidence is misplaced.

This would be hilarious if it weren’t a tragedy.

This battered wife has some anger issues. Hubby must have been a real prince.

Not unsurprisingly, the jury didn’t believe her self-defense claim when she stabbed her husband 21 times and whacked him 15 times with a hatchet. Apparently there was a sledgehammer involved also. Aside from that, the corpse was untouched.

This from KIRO-TV in Seattle.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/19/2004

A remarkable day, no reported deaths. Nonetheless, 43 American men and women have died this month; 1164 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1304 since Bush’s “war” began.

There have been 1454 total allied deaths. 9,844 American men and women have been wounded, 78 this past week. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"My cousin is an agoraphobic homosexual, which makes it kind of hard for him to come out of the closet." Bill Kelly, some funny guy.

War Crimes? Looks like it to me.

West has bloodied hands
By Eric Margolis, December 19, 2004, The Toronto Sun

Who was the first high government official to authorize use of mustard gas against rebellious Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq?

If your answer was Saddam Hussein's cousin, the notorious "Chemical Ali" -- aka Ali Hassan al-Majid -- you're wrong.

The correct answer: Sainted Winston Churchill. As colonial secretary and secretary for war and air, he authorized the RAF in the 1920s to routinely use mustard gas against rebellious Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq and against Pashtun tribes on British India's northwest frontier.

Iraq's U.S.-installed regime has just announced al-Majid, one of Saddam's most brutal henchmen, will stand trial next week for war crimes.

Al-Majid is accused of ordering the 1988 gassing of Kurds at Halabja that killed over 5,000 civilians. He led the bloody suppression of Iraq's Shias, killing tens of thousands. These were the same Shias whom former U.S. president George Bush [the First] called to rebel against Saddam's regime, then sat back and did nothing while they were crushed. …

Saddam Hussein and his entourage should face justice. But not in political show trials just before U.S.-"guided" Iraqi elections nor in Iraqi kangaroo courts. They should be sent to the UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where Saddam should be charged with the greatest crime he committed -- the invasion of Iran, which caused one million casualties.

Britain, the U.S., Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia convinced Iraq to invade Iran, then covertly supplied Saddam with money, arms, intelligence, and advisers. Meanwhile, Israel secretly supplied Iran with $5 billion US in American arms and spare parts while publicly denouncing Iran for terrorism

Who supplied "Chemical Ali" with his mustard and nerve gas? Why, the West, of course. …

I'd argue senior officials of those nations that abetted Saddam's aggression against Iran and supplied him with chemicals and gas should also stand trial with Ali and Saddam.

What an irony it is to see U.S. forces in Iraq now behaving with much the same punitive ferocity as Saddam's army and police -- bombing rebellious cities, arresting thousands, terrorizing innocent civilians, torturing captives and sending in tanks to crush resistance.

In other words, Saddamism without Saddam. A decade ago, this column predicted that when the U.S. finally overthrew Saddam, it would need to find a new Saddam.

Finally, let's not forget that when Saddam's regime committed many of its worst atrocities against rebellious Kurds and Shiites, it was still a close ally of Washington and London. The West paid for and supplied Saddam's bullets, tanks, gas, and germs. He was our regional SOB.

Our hands are very far from clean.

OK, if I have this straight, the US, Brits, and the Arabs aided and abetted Iraq’s attack on Iran. At the same time, our 51st state Israel supplied $5 billion in US arms to Iran. Holy crap, isn’t that special!

We also know for sure that the US aided Saddam’s chemical arms program and we have photos of Don “you don’t need no freakin’ armor” Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam back in the late 1980’s.

It sounds like this really does belong at The Hague. We’ll see that in my dreams.

Is that all?

Yep, It's Sunday and I'm tired. I'm going to listen to "Tom the Jazzman" on Public Radio and read.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/18/2004

A good day, no reported American deaths today, but one Brit died. 43 American men and women have died this month; 1164 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1304 since Bush’s “war” began.

There have been 1454 total allied deaths. 9,844 American men and women have been wounded, 78 this past week. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"The comment may sound a bit whimsical, but it's literally true that the leading cause of death on death row is old age." Chief Justice Ronald M. George of the California Supreme Court

Let’s curtail Muslims’ freedom - next: liberals?

Fear factor: 44 percent of Americans queried in Cornell national poll favor curtailing some liberties for Muslim Americans

ITHACA, N.Y. -- In a study to determine how much the public fears terrorism, almost half of respondents polled nationally said they believe the U.S. government should -- in some way -- curtail civil liberties for Muslim Americans, according to a new survey released today (Dec. 17) by Cornell University.

About 27 percent of respondents said that all Muslim Americans should be required to register their location with the federal government, and 26 percent said they think that mosques should be closely monitored by U.S. law enforcement agencies. Twenty-nine percent agreed that undercover law enforcement agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations, in order to keep tabs on their activities and fund raising. About 22 percent said the federal government should profile citizens as potential threats based on the fact that they are Muslim or have Middle Eastern heritage. In all, about 44 percent said they believe that some curtailment of civil liberties is necessary for Muslim Americans.

Whoa, this is fairly frightening. There’s a lot more here. Remember the Newsweek poll? The one where 40% of AmeriKans thought that creationism should be taught in schools instead of evolution? One can only hope that the 44% who think that that Muslims need “special handling” are the same bible banging, intellectual Neanderthals who want to America to become, from a science education standpoint, a third world nation - offense intended. Oh well, they’ve got that 51% mandate.

Warning, Danger! Your brassiere may have been recalled.

Your Wonderbra may explode, yikes!

Britain’s Daily Mail reports the scary news that Wonderbra’s model called the “Deep Plunge Clearly Daring” may experience massive failure betwixt the cups, wreaking havoc at holiday parties worldwide. The article with photo is here. It’s frightening!

His Crankiness is passing this information on as a public service.

Parliament of Whores?

Humorist and libertarian P. J. O’Rourke wrote his satirical book “Parliament of Whores” back in 1991 in an effort to try to explain the workings of the government. Now it's deja-vu all over again:

A Committee Post and a Pledge Drive
By Charles Babington and Brian Faler, December 18, 2004, The Washington Post

Do I hear $16 million?

Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), seeking the powerful post of House Appropriations Committee chairman, wrote to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert this month pledging to shrink the deficit, impose discipline on congressional appropriators and, oh, by the way, raise $15 million every two years from committee Republicans for GOP campaigns.

"I believe appropriators must help maintain our Republican majority through aggressive fundraising," Rogers said in his two-page letter to Hastert (R-Ill.). "On my watch, members of the committee will raise, at a minimum, $15 million per [election] cycle towards that goal. As I've proven -- raising and giving over $5 million to our candidates -- I am ready to lead by example." …

… The letter "makes it look like the job is for sale," said Scott Lilly, top Democratic aide on the Appropriations Committee the past decade and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. …

Gosh, you don’t think?

Here’s a letter I wish I’d written…

His Just Reward?
December 18, 2004, The Washington Post

I was puzzled at the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks [Style, Dec. 15]. It is, after all, the nation's highest civilian award, and almost everything Gen. Franks has done in life was as a military officer. So far as I know, he has only two major accomplishments as a civilian: promoting his autobiography and endorsing President Bush for reelection.

As the "autobiography" was actually written by someone else, was the Medal of Freedom for endorsing Mr. Bush?

PATRICK G. HALPERIN Alexandria

Here's a breath of fresh air:

I've always liked Christie Whitman...

Whitman Warns Against Catering to Right
Donna de la Cruz, December 17, 2004, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Christie Whitman, the former New Jersey governor and Bush environmental official, says in an upcoming book that Republican moderates must speak up or the party could move so far to the right that it will lose its influence and strength.

Whitman, who led the Environmental Protection Agency for President Bush from 2001 until May 2003, also says in the book that she was often at odds with the White House on issues such as setting limits on air pollutants and power plant emissions and in the debate over global warming. Her tenure was marked by complaints from conservatives that she was too moderate.

The main focus of Whitman's book "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America," is on her desire for moderate Republicans to regain control of the party.

"A clear and present danger Republicans face today is that the party will now move so far to the right that it ends up alienating centrist voters and marginalizing itself," Whitman writes in the book, obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

While I agree with her in principle, the fellow moderates specifically mentioned are Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Giuliani is a slimy opportunist and Schwarzenegger is… ah, I’m really not sure. Click the link above and read it all.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/17/2004

43 American men and women have died this month; 1164 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1304 since the “war” began.

There have been 1453 total allied deaths. 9,844 American men and women have been wounded, 78 this past week. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these." LORD HOFFMAN, of Britain's highest court, which ruled on December 16th against indefinite detention of terror suspects.

From the White House newsroom:

This White House has put Bernie “the Blowhard” Kerik’s letter withdrawing his name from consideration as Secretary of Homeland Security online. Click the link to read it. I must caution you, Bernie’s language is, er, ah, somewhat strong. Go here: http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2004/121304.asp

Canada Goes To Hell!

Legal pot? Legal gay marriage? Universal health care? What's next, free porn and candy?
By Mark Morford, December 15, 2004, SF Gate

Did you hear the screams? Did you feel the menacing chill? Did you see the black and ominous clouds, moving north?

Did you sense, in other words, the very presence of Satan himself as he laughed maniacally and tossed around bucketfuls of ultrathin condoms and little travel-size packets of Astroglide like confetti while riding his Harley Softail up to Toronto or maybe Edmonton to join the ghastly and sodomitic celebrations?

Because it's happened. Canada's high court just ruled that the government can, if it so desires, redefine marriage to include gay couples, which it has declared it will do almost immediately, thus solidifying Canada's place as the chilly yet mellow and gay friendly and hockey-riffic epicenter of all known hell.

It's true. It's rather amazing. Gay marriage will be completely legal in Canada very soon. …

… It's getting more confusing by the minute, isn't it? I mean, Canada now has legal medical pot and legal gay marriage and universal health care and no known terrorist enemies and a relatively successful multiparty political system. They also have, according to U.N.'s Human Development Index, one of the highest qualities of life in the world. All coupled with a dramatically reduced rate of gun violence and far better gun-control legislation than the U.S., despite having the exact same per capita rate of gun ownership and gun-sport enthusiasm. …

Canadians. So mellow. So laid back. So gay. So not producing any truly superlative modern-rock music or ultraviolent buddy-cop movies and not actively siccing Wal-Mart or Starbucks or Paris Hilton on the rest of the world like a goddamn cancer. They're just so ... nice. And boring. And calm. And solid. And friendly.

And they simply beat us senseless on the whole open-minded, progressive thing. Kicked our flag-wavin' butts. Trounced our egomaniacal self-righteous selves and made the red states look even more foolish and backward than the whole world already knows them to be.

They did it. Canada made the whole gay marriage issue look effortless and obvious and healthy, and a massive black rain of hellfire did not pour down upon them and the very idea of hetero marriage did not immediately explode and their economy did not unravel like all the sneering cardinals and right-wing nutballs screamed it would. We must ask, one last time: what the hell is wrong with them?

Oh wait. Maybe we should rephrase. What the hell, we should be asking, is wrong with us?

No comment necessary, eh? Here is the entire article.

What a Guy… what a bunch of guys!

On Tuesday, Dear Leader gave out Medals of Failure, OK Freedom, to three of his superstars: First, we had General Tommy Franks, the former CentCom commander, who allowed Osama bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora by not deploying U.S. troops to entrap him and who then mismanaged the Iraq “war,”and its subsequent aftermath. Next, George Tenet got one. George is the former Director of the CIA, the clown who told Dubya that the claims about weapons of mass destruction were "a slam-dunk." Last but by no means least, we have L. (as in Left in a hurry) Paul Bremer, de facto dictator of Iraq as chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority. His major accomplishment was disbanding the Iraqi army, ensuring that those capable men would be embittered, angry, and unemployed. Who could have anticipated that they would have then viewed the Americans as an invading army?

I saw a cartoon on Thursday wherein Ms. Rice complained that she hadn’t gotten a medal. Dear Leader responded: “That would have looked political.”

Faith based national defense or corporate welfare… both?

The Naked Shield

If it were not for the mammoth waste of taxpayers' money, the latest failure in the Bush administration's obstinate deployment of a totally unproven missile defense system could be titled Star Wars: The Farce. Two years after ponderously scripted flight tests had to be suspended because of widespread technical gaffes, the Pentagon tried again this week - and failed again. An interceptor rocket sat inert and shut itself down when the signal was given to take off after an invader missile bearing a mock warhead out in the Pacific.

The failure, at the cost of a mere $85 million, was the latest evidence that the missile shield, a complex grafting of various unproven technologies, remains firmly in the dream stage. Yet the administration is going ahead with hollow defense plans to soon "activate" the first missile silos along the Pacific coast in a ludicrous pretense called "evolutionary acquisition.” This means spend and strut now, and worry about whether it will actually work later.

Where are the soaring Republican budget "hawks" of Congress as this faith-based shield rockets past a $130 billion development outlay, with $53 billion more to come across the next five years? In his first campaign, President Bush vowed to have the shield in place this year. But informed critics, including a group of 49 retired generals and admirals, wisely urged him to shelve the fake startup and divert more money into low-tech antiterror defenses at the nation's vulnerable ports, borders and nuclear weapons depots.

With rogue nations like North Korea working on nuclear missiles, a credible shield may someday be needed, but only after its efficacy has been proved. As it stands now, even a Pentagon analysis rates Star Wars a "case study" on how to rush toward failure.

Yet the administration seems firmly locked onto Samuel Beckett's bleak prescription for humanity: "Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

An editorial from Thursday’s New York Times.

If you loved Alabama’s Judge Roy Moore…

Judge wears his beliefs in court
Associated Press, Dec. 14, 2004, 11:37PM

MONTGOMERY, ALA. - A judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to his wearing a judicial robe with an embroidered Ten Commandments on the front.

Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan showed up Monday at his Covington County courtroom wearing the robe. Attorneys who try cases at the courthouse said they had not seen him wear it before. The Commandments were described as big enough to read by anyone near the judge.

Attorney Riley Powell filed a motion objecting to the robe and asked that a case he was defending be continued. He said McKathan denied both motions.

The judge said the Ten Commandments represent the truth "and you can't divorce the law from the truth."

Ah… right! I wonder which version of the Commandments and the truth the judge favors?

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/16/2004

Good news, no one’s mom, dad, wife or husband died yesterday. However, 42 American men and women have died this month; 1160 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1299 since the “war” began.

There have been 1448 total allied deaths. 9,844 American men and women have been wounded, 78 this past week. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

“… Three minutes' thought would have discovered his mistake. But thinking is irksome, and three minutes is a long time." Alfred Edward Housman, English poet and scholar

Just one post. Read it all, please.

Christ's moral values would be condemned by the GOP

By Randolph T. Holhut, December 16, 2004, The Smirking Chimp

Dummerston, VT - What does the term "moral values" really mean?

Does it mean opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, and "filth" in popular culture? Or does it mean sticking up for social and economic justice?

Sex and economics always seem to be the divide on morality. There will always be people who fit into H.L. Mencken's definition of Puritanism: "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” But the people who go into conniptions over sex don't seem to be as upset when you point out to them that the gap between rich and poor in the United States is now the widest it has been since the 1920s.

The question that needs to be asked is whether we allow "moral values" to be defined as concern about taking care of those that Jesus called "the least of my brothers" or merely concern about all things gonadal?

I come down on the side of the former. I am no longer a practicing Catholic, but I was profoundly influenced by the church's clear advocacy of social justice. Perhaps I was lucky to have been part of the church during the years immediately after Vatican II when Catholicism was at its most vibrant, and lucky to have been in a parish where the priests weren't hard-line conservatives. But I don't recall ever hearing anything from Leviticus at Sunday Mass. and very little of the wiggier books of the Old Testament. It was the New Testament that was emphasized. It was things like Chapter 25 of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the words Jesus said in describing how God would ultimately judge us, that ultimately stuck with me:

"For I was hungry and you gave me food...I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. ... Truly I tell you, just as you did it to the least of these, my brothers, you have done it for me."

The New Testament is filled with examples of Jesus talking about economic justice and how the most important ethical/religious test is how we treat the least of our brothers. I don't think Jesus would be too happy looking at George W. Bush's America.

Remember during the 2000 campaign when Bush said Jesus Christ was his chief political influence? When you look at the things Bush has done as president, you can see how empty that claim is.

It was Jesus who said that "it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" and deemed "the love of money" as "the root of all evil."

It was Jesus who tossed the moneychangers out of the temple, and flatly said that one "cannot serve both God and Mammon."

It was Jesus who turned a few loaves and fishes into enough food to feed the multitude who gathered to hear him preach him the Sea of Galilee, and didn't care who got fed.

It was Jesus who warned about the people who make a big show of their faith on Sunday morning and are less than godly the rest of the week. "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them," warned Jesus.

When you strip the teachings of Christ down to the essentials, they are about love for your fellow man and about an active display of that love. That is precisely what is lacking from the version of Christianity that currently controls the Republican Party,

It's bad enough that groups like radical cleric James Dobson's Focus on the Family are trying to push their version of morality onto the nation. It's even worse when they are trying to push their economic beliefs, too.

"Taxing the rich is such a negative approach," Charles Jarvis, a former Reagan administration official who now is executive vice president of Focus on the Family, recently told the San Francisco Chronicle. "The question (social justice activists) should be asking is what creates economic well-being."

The answer to Jarvis' question, in the view of the supply-side Christians, is more tax cuts for the wealthy, privatization of Social Security and the elimination of nearly all social welfare programs. Their free- market version of Christianity wants to the rich to be richer, and never mind pointing out that trickle down economics never works.

This isn't about Christianity. It seems to be the same old reverse Robin Hood scam that the Republican Party is so good at. For all the talk about the rise of the "moral values" voter, one of the best indicators of whether you voted Republican in 2004 was not how often you go to church but how much money you make.

Political scientist and blogger Phil Klinkler was cited in The Village Voice last month offering these choice statistics: in the 2004 election, 58 percent of folks making more than $100,000 a year voted for Bush, compared to 54 percent in 2000. This income group made up 18 percent of the electorate in 2004, up from 15 percent in 2000. By comparison, Bush got roughly the same amount of votes from heavy churchgoers (59 percent in 2000, 61 percent in 2004) with roughly the same turnout (42 percent in 2000, 41 percent in 2004).

All the constant nattering about morals does is obscure the real deal: Republicans have succeeded in replacing the words "conservative ideology" (or "class warfare," if you prefer) with the term "moral values."

"They (the GOP) have reworked the political calculus so thoroughly that liberal definitions of what is or isn't a moral value don't count," concluded Rick Perlstein in The Village Voice last month. "It's as if liberals didn't have any values at all."

And it worked. People voted for Bush because they believed he shared their values. Even though the winning margin was apparently provided by the people who believed they would benefit economically from four more years of Bush, the corporate press and the Democratic Party establishment continues to believe the so-called "values voter" made the difference.

If there was a real push for moral values, George W. Bush wouldn't be president. The real value that Bush and his staunchest supporters seem to believe in is as long as someone other than them gets screwed, all their policies are good. Let Social Security be destroyed. Let the poor pay more taxes. Let some other family's son get blown to bits in Iraq. Love, tolerance, and helping your neighbor is a sucker's game. Acquiring and maintaining power is all that matters.

That President Bush can wrap the most reactionary policies in American history in the cloak of Christianity is a perversion of the central tenets of that faith. That he can get away with it is even worse.

Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 20 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.

No comment needed.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 2100 EST, 12/15/2004

42 American men and women have died this month; 1160 since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1299 since the “war” began.

There have been 1448 total allied deaths. 9,844 American men and women have been wounded, 78 this past week. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use our financial support.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed and the Iraqi infrastructure has been virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely." Henry Louis Mencken, American journalist, known as the “Sage of Baltimore.”

Senators with scruples? We can only hope.

Bush will overreach at his peril
By Robert Kuttner, December 15, 2004, The Boston Globe

PRESIDENTS get into trouble in their second terms, especially when they interpret reelection as a huge mandate. The details differ, but most of them involve overreaching.

Franklin Roosevelt was overwhelmingly reelected in 1936, and almost immediately overreached in his scheme to pack the Supreme Court. Ronald Reagan won reelection by a landslide in 1984, but found that his tax cuts were creating serious deficit problems, bogged down in the Iran-Contra scandal, and ended losing the Senate in 1986. And Bill Clinton, reelected in 1996, imagined that he could treat the Oval Office as a boudoir.

What of Bush? His bungling of the nomination of Bernard Kerik to head the Homeland Security Department -- there was much more than a nanny scandal that would have led to a messy confirmation battle -- is pure second-term hubris. And there is a lot more to come. …

Consider his big plans for 2005: Social Security privatization, tax "simplification," making tax cuts permanent, and a forward strategy for US power in the Middle East and the world. …

Social Security. The more the press scrutinizes Bush's privatization scheme, the worse it looks. It's beginning to penetrate public opinion that the plan would reduce the basic benefit by about 50 percent for the next generation and that private accounts would not make up the difference for most retirees. …

Tax "simplification.” Every single version of Bush's so-called simplification plan is really a move to give further shelter to the upper brackets and shift taxation onto consumption. …

Dollar dependency. Many Republicans as well as Democrats (and most economists) are beginning to seriously worry that our entire economy is now dependent on the willingness of the central banks of Japan and China to keep buying our bonds. …

Here’s Kuttner’s money shot: “Though Bush has nominal majorities in both houses, he cannot count on Republican legislators to slavishly support his every move. The more he overreaches, the more Republican opposition he will court.”

We can only hope. The Congressional “leadership” enforces violations of loyalty with a viciousness that I believe hasn’t been seen before. Only the very powerful can risk speaking out against these demagogues from the right, but thankfully some do. The mess this administration is making of this nation, this nation’s reputation in the world, and this nation’s future is frightening.