No, I didn't forget.....

Sometimes I get engrossed in some of the Nationally prominent issues and forget about our own, State-wide issues and our STATE ELECTED OFFICIALS.... Well, here they are:

Senator Julie Lassa

Assembly Person Marlin Schneider

Assembly person Amy Sue Vruwink

Honestly...I'm working on it...

I'm still working on our website....it's a matter of time AND learning curve...I spent about three hours on it this afternoon...it's coming along...

trust me....

Fool Me Once.....

I can't believe the New York Times reprinted without critical assessment the newest hype for war with Iran...








snip:


The link that American intelligence has drawn to Iran is based on a number of factors, including an analysis of captured devices, examination of debris after attacks, and intelligence on training of Shiite militants in Iran and in Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and by Hezbollah militants believed to be working at the behest of Tehran.








and:





' In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military officials say.'





It's Judith Miller all over again.....and it's just as inaccurate (or unlikely) this time as it was in 2002...Juan Cole over at Informed Comment summarizes it for us...

This claim is one hundred percent wrong. Because 25 percent of US troops were not killed fighting Shiites in those three months. Day after day, the casualty reports specify al-Anbar Province or Diyala or Salahuddin or Babil, or Baghdad districts such as al-Dura, Ghaziliyah, Amiriyah, etc.--and the enemy fighting is clearly Sunni Arab guerrillas. And, Iran is not giving high tech weapons to Baathists and Salafi Shiite-killers. It is true that some casualties were in "East Baghdad" and that Baghdad is beginning to rival al-Anbar as a cemetery for US troops


Robert Burns of AP observes,

"The increasingly urban nature of the war is reflected in the fact that a
higher percentage of U.S. deaths have been in Baghdad lately. Over the course of
the war through Feb. 6, at least 1,142 U.S. troops have died in Anbar province,
the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, according to an AP count. That compares
with 713 in Baghdad. But since Dec. 28, 2006, there were more in Baghdad than in
Anbar - 33 to 31."

In addition to this, there was a briefing on the same subject in Baghdad this morning making basically the same claims Here's the Reuters link. Later reports tell us that the "briefing" was "off camera" and made by officials who remained anonymous. Hmmmmmmm......





Just for the record, the saying is:





Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME!

Howie Kurtz rant

I went a little "bananas" over the representation of "typical blog reaction"...as presented by Howie Kurtz

You can read what it's all about at THIS SPACE RESERVED
f
There is also some thought being given to the recent works of Francis Fukuyama (a "reformed neocon"?) about the what the neocons have learned over the past five years. An exerpt from his most recent work is printed in The Guardian here but it has raised some serious points which I think must be discussed in detail so I'll probably "riff" on it at This Space Reserved.

Hint: What they've learned rhymes with "Nero"

For your Saturday amusement...

This picture (photoshop job) comes to use courtesy of http://www.allhatnocattle.net/. I don't know who runs the site but they have an absolutely WICKED SENSE OF HUMOR....

Those of you following the "Scooter" Libby trial will appreciate this more than others...

Powerful

and to the point....

I just stopped in for my friday dose of "Izzard Blogging" on TBogg's blog...and the picture that was staring at me, the caption and the story...well...see for yourself

We interrupt this interruption....

If you're watching CNN, you probably think the untimely death of Anna Nicole is THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY....and why wouldn't we when we have such luminaries as Wolf (if I'm breathless, this must be important)Blitzer and LARRY(for the hourrr..) KING to tell us so.

Brother Attaturk has a few (ahem)"thoughts" on the matter here.

Among the most notable of his observations:

In fact, thanks to CNN, I know that being shocked and dismayed is akin to deep feelings of annoyance. Because during the non-stop coverage of the event I was pretty sure that I was incredibly annoyed throughout. But no, Wolf told me that I was shocked and dismayed. I await Chris Matthews breathless malaprops during the "modest" State Funeral.

But, being the contrarian that I am, I think THESE are important issues today:

Over at TPM, they find an Inspector General's report that shows the OSP (Office of Special Projects) which "stovepiped" raw (pronounced BOGUS) intelligence straight to Cheney and the White House in order to build a case for the war was "INAPPROPRIATE". Ya Think? duhhhhh.

Actually the report is much more critical than that and subsequent updates show Feith and a few others backpeddling as fast as they can (Feith ran the office and was branded by General Tommy Frank's as "the dumbest son-of -a-bitch I ever met". ) Here's a flavor of a few of the replies....You can read the actual findings here

Word from the Senate, where Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has been presiding over a Armed Services Committee hearing on the Inspector General's report.Levin says that, dividing the work with the Senate intelligence committee, they will seriously pursue the issue and plan to interview members of the administration who received briefings from Doug Feith, including National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former chief of staff to VP Cheney (and current criminal defendant) Scooter Libby.
and
One of the more interesting assertions in both Douglas Feith's and Eric Edelman's reactions to the IG report on the Office of Special Plans is that the office's activity can't be inappropriate because it was authorized by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, then the secretary and deputy secretary of defense. As Feith puts it:
It is bizarre for the Inspector General to disapprove of policy officials' doing work that they were directed to do by the Secretary or Deputy Secretary of Defense, given that those tasks were lawful and authorized and the Inspector General found nothing at all wrong with the Secretary and Deputy Secretary directing that the work be done.

So it was "inappropriate but not illegal". There are several interesting battles going on here. First, Feith and Edelman are saying that Wolfowitz and Rummy told them to do it so it can't be illegal, and it really wasn't intelligence gathering (which would have been illegal) it was actually "something else".

So that's brewing ...

And while that's going on, Secretary of Defense Gates releases his intel report on IRAN. This report was held up several times and was hyped as the "smoking gun" about Iran's involvement in Iraq. The Administration has backed off that claim and reaction to the report has been an overwhelming "yawn".

SEVILLE, Spain - Serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide "pretty good" evidence that Iran is providing either weapons or technology for militants there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted Friday.Offering some of the first public details of evidence the military has collected, Gates said, "I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found," that point to Iran.

At the same time, however, he said he was somewhat surprised that recent raids by coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq swept up some Iranians

Let's see here: The Shiia Militia are allies of Iran. We've effectively made Iraq a client-state of Iran. We support the Shiia-lead Government and we're "surprised" to find Iranians in Iraq?

Has the whole world gone mad?

Over at The Washington Post, a former "contract interrogator" by the name of Eric Fair gets a load off his chest. And I DO MEAN LOAD! Wow.

The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.
and,
Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

I may be making a mistake here but I am assuming that the Washington Post has vetted this man and his story to determine it's accuracy. There was a time when you didn't have to worry about making such assumptions because the integrity of the press (the much-derided M-S-M (main stream media) ) was beyond reproach. Now even if the news supports your side of the political argument, you still have to wonder....you still have to be careful. For the sake of Eric Fair, if that is his real name, I hope his past is sqeeky clean...his story corraborated by hundreds of others...that all the "i's" are dotted and all the "t's" are crossed...and I hope he's wearing clean underwear because he is about to be assaulted in a way that he could never imagine....We call it "Swiftboating" these days.

And now,

We return you to coverage of the life, death and wake of Anna Nicole Smith.....
snark.