lubablog

Scam Alert

2011-01-09T14:46:00.000-05:00

I got this in the mail yesterday, and smelled a scam. I've recently ordered a lot of books on line, but knew they would be coming to me via the USPS or other carriers I've heard of.

I Googled the "delivery service" and, lo and behold, it is a scam. Apparently you call the number and they try to sell you a "free" vacation. The no-call list means these scammers can no longer call you (well, not legally), so they have to try and get you to call them. Beware, and, if you get one of these in the mail, just throw it out.

My Christmas Tree and I, 2010

2010-12-28T12:58:00.001-05:00

My tree made it into this year's Detroit Free Press, the Christmas Day edition. You can read the article (and see more photos) at this link.

Special thanks to Fuzz and Nick, who cut down the tree and helped me drag all the ornament boxes out of my attic and down the stairs, my neighbors Sonny, Jeff and Grant, who helped me set up the tree, and my parents, Nick and Sonia Petrusha, whithout whose help I would never have gotten the lights and ornaments onto the tree.

Christmas Music

2010-12-28T12:52:00.003-05:00

Christmas guitar music from Magnatune, lovely in its simplicity:

Christmas Guitar by Jeff Wahl

Dear Comment Spammers

2010-12-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

The comments on this blog are moderated, which means all your efforts are wasted. Your ads for Russian software and penis enhancers will never see the light of day.

So don't bother. Really. Not worth your effort.

And Happy Holidays to all!

Hubris

2009-12-17T23:48:00.002-05:00

It's been a buy few days, as I've been decorating the tree and getting ready for my party (this Saturday, all welcome). I finished the tree last night--snowflakes and tinsel, and getting it into just the right position (bad side to the wall, room to squeeze by to get ot the stairs.

Today I had a minor emergency--half of my speakers weren't working. I did simple diagnostics, and determined it was the integrated amp that had malfunctioned. I called my sold stereo shop, and was told to bring it in for repair, with the promise of a loaner of the party. As it turned out, the tech was there, and quickly replaced the blown fuse while I did some grocery shopping at the Royal Oak Kroger Senior Center. When I got home I checked for speaker short circuits, and found the culprit.

Things seemed to be going swimmingly, as they always do before a catastrophe. I was a bit ahead of schedule, and had rolled out the rug in the living room and begun to bring the knick-knacks in from the porch. I went to sweep under the tree, so I could put down the small Indian throw rug, when I noticed that the tree stand with its wooden leg extensions seemed to be tipped a bit--two of the legs were slightly off the ground. This worried me, so I ran out to the hardware store and bought wire.....heavy gauge wire. By the time I got home, the tree was definitely seriously listing away from the wall.

I quickly tied the tree to the wall (old screws were in place from a previous unsteady tree) and then called Sonny, my neighbor. He came right over, and, while I held the tree in place, screwed the trunk down even more tightly. Then, while he held it, I did a better wiring job, with two separate wires to the trunk. I then pulled the bottom branches of the tree, and the stand, away from the wall, straightening it.

Disaster averted.

There were some casualties. Three ornaments were broken, many more littered the ground, and many snowflakes and icicles fell. I've replaced some of the ornaments, particularly those at the center of the tree, but have almost a wastebasket full that aren't going back on.

My theory for the near-fall is that this tree was uneven--one side was much fuller than the other. I figured that it wouldn't be a problem, as I would just put the less full side to the wall, and had. But once the tree got loaded up with ornaments, the center shifted and so did the tree.

I think I'm OK for now, and will probably have a standing tree for the party, but it was really a close call. My fear was that the tree would fall, and I would catch it.........home alone, and far from the phone. Then what?

Next year, the wires go on after the lights...............

Done Decorating

2009-12-16T23:04:00.001-05:00

..........the tree. The last of the tinsel has been placed and ribbon birds placed. I will add details later. (Photo above is last year's tree; none this year yet.)

The house is another matter. There now remains only to clean house and decorate. And cook. And clean. And.......oh, hell, lots to do still. Best get some sleep.

Bailey's Irish Cream

2009-12-13T10:25:00.005-05:00

As I've gotten older and lazier, I've whittled down my Christmas shopping list radically. I buy gifts only for close/nuclear family members. Mom, Dad, nieces and nephew (including dog niece), brother and sister-in-law. But I still give lots of gifts. How? Home made gifts.

Starting in October, I begin making snowflake pysanka ornaments. It's a relaxing activity, as I don't follow any pattern, just sort of doodle the designs as I go along. By early December I've made more than enough for friends and family.

I also make huge quantities of Bailey's Irish Cream. You can find the recipe here on my blog. Jars of it make a lovely gift; a little bit of it over ice, or in coffee, can be quite pleasant. I know my mailman appreciates it, as do the nurses I work with. And several gallons of it get drunk at my Tree Party.

It's a bit of work though, especially when making it in quantity. I purchased a large capacity blender a few years ago that lets me make two batches at once, but the bulk supplies and empty jars take up all of the counter space in my tiny kitchen, as you can see below. Mixing occurs near the sink; and that bit of paper hanging from the cabinet is the recipe.

Jars get filled near the stove. In the end I have three dozen jars and four 1.75 liter vodka bottles of the stuff, the result of 32 batches, or about 1.35 quarts of Bailey's per batch*.

* Based on adding 1 cup vodka per quart.

Lights. Lots and lots of lights.

2009-12-12T21:59:00.006-05:00

Today was the day I had designated for hanging lights on the tree. I got up incredibly early--well, early for me on a weekend--and got going. My parents came over at ten, and the assembly line began.

My father checked the strings of lights to make sure they lit up, and did the shake test to look for short circuits and broken wires. There is nothing more frustrating than getting a string of lights onto the tree, and then having it go out....or worse, go off intermittently. He also replaced bad bulbs on the strings from my box of 500 or so spares. (I save bulbs when I throw out bad strings.)

My mom and I wrapped branches. The strings of lights, almost all of the 50s, were plugged in along the trunk, and then wound outwards along branches. There were up to six strings plugged in at each of the 12 outlets on the trunk:

The strings are green and, when wrapped properly, are not very visible. This is what the branches look like:

I got to climb the ladder--a nice ladder, mind you, with wide steps to stand comfortably on--but a ladder none-the-less, and get all those small branched at the top, and then stand and do the branches slightly lower down. My mother got to sit in a chair and wrap, a much better gig. Wrapping the small branches from a ladder takes forever, and little seems to get done. Here's my mom at work, deep inside the tree:

In the end, we didn't use as many strings of lights as in previous years, as this tree is a bit smaller than the one I had last year. Based on our primitive tabulation system, and counting the number of strings plugged in along the trunk, I estimate about 3500 small white lights.

I had to remove two strings, one a 50 that went out on me after I'd wrapped half of it, and then a string of 100. That string started acting up, with half of it going on and off when it was touched. This is why I no longer buy strings of 100--there are two separate circuits, and often one will go and the other still work. it's a waste, and It's twice as much work to remove.

So how does the tree look? Not too bad. Judge yourself:

I've shaken the spruce needles out of my hair, and picked them out of my sweat shirt, and am looking forward to a long, hot soak--after I make 32 batches of Bailey's.....................

Preparations

2009-12-11T17:15:00.005-05:00

Getting ready for Christmas is a job of epic proportions in my household. I've gotten the outside stuff done before the before the snows came, thankfully, but lots of work remains. By next Saturday evening I have to make the Baileys, decorate the tree, hang the cedar roping indoors, set out the snow globes and candles, clear out the basement, decorate the basement, and get the food ready. Oh, and get started on Christmas letters and cards.........

My neighbors, Sonny and Jeff, helped bring the tree in Thursday--we shook the snow off, sawed half a foot off the bottom, drilled a hole in the trunk, and then put it in the stand. The trunk is a bit crooked, but that won't be visible once it has been properly decorated. (Photo above from before I cut the mesh tube off.)

The tree seems a bit smaller this year; once the branches relax (it's been bundled into a mesh tube for two weeks) it will be much wider. I've already trimmed out half a 33-gallon garbage can full of branches, as the tree was too dense and bushy. I need room for the ornaments. And I've run four special extension cords up the trunk, each with nine outlets.

It stands ready, sucking up water (I have to fill the reservoir three times a day) and perfuming the house. Saturday--the lights!!!!!

Merry Christmas from the Family

2009-12-11T10:25:00.001-05:00

A genuine all-American red state Christmas song.........

Knowledge vs. Ignorance

2009-12-10T19:59:00.002-05:00

Maha of the Mahablog has a very good discussion of climate change deniers and why they are in denial. Have a look.

War Bonds

2009-12-10T19:32:00.005-05:00

A constant in movies about WWII was war bonds--buying them was patriotic, and rallies were often headlined by Hollywood stars.

Senator Ben Nelson has watched too many old movies, I suspect. He has decided that we should reprise war bonds instead of raising taxes to pay for our many wars. He says:

"We need shared sacrifice and fiscal discipline in financing the war effort. I don't believe our first instinct should always be a rush to tax. The government has gone to great lengths to address the economic downturn, and adding new taxes right now could undermine those efforts. We need to work to reduce federal spending wherever possible and reduce the growth in spending to finance the important missions in Afghanistan and Iraq."

So one has to wonder, does Ben Nelson have any idea what-so-ever of how war bonds work? Does he think people buy them and just hang them on the wall? They are bonds, after all, meant to be redeemed at some point, with interest paid.

He seems to be under the impression that past wars were paid for with bonds alone; not so. Income taxes were raised to pay for wars time and again. Before WWII only about 10% of Americans paid income taxes; by 1944 nearly everyone did.

War bonds are just a way to involve civilians and to postpone payment on a war; they are not a way to avoid paying for it.

I will agree with Nelson's plan, on one condition--all funding for our wars come from bonds alone, and they be interest-free. Redeemable, say, in 20 years. No money from general funds to fund the wars.

Then we'll see how patriotic our war hawks really are, if they are willing to put their money where their quite commodious mouths are.

Winter Time

2009-12-10T12:55:00.003-05:00

We've had a lovely fall this year, with fairly warm temperatures and minimal precipitation. I was able to get all of my outdoor decorating done without having to plow through piles of snow.

And now that is over. Two inches of snow on the ground, and very cold out. It looks lovely from my indoor vantage point, but I hate going out unless I'm thoroughly bundled up.

Today my neighbors helped me bring the tree in; we sawed a few inches off the bottom, and put it in its stand. That's when I realized I had to take quite a bit more off the top. I've done so, trimming out the small branches, and putting the angel on top.

This year my tree was about the right size--usually I pick one a few feet too long and cut a row or two of branches off the bottom once I get it home. Since it was smaller, it fit through the baggers, and is, even now, enclosed in its mesh sleeve, looking like a tall, thin bush. I'm letting it thaw a bit, and soak up some water.

Then I plan to open it--and hope it won't be quite as large as the Griswold family Christmas tree (see 1:40):

Spam

2009-12-10T12:08:00.000-05:00

Either Blogger has gotten lax, or the spammers have gotten trickier. I've gotten several spam comments the last few days for old posts on a blog that hasn't been active, until today, for more than a year. That's why I have moderation, and why blogger features, IIRC, an "are you a human or a bot" test for posting.

Did you know that somewhere around 95% of ALL E-MAIL is spam? That's why I have several layers of filtration on my e-mail accounts. And that's why blogger challenges you to prove your humanity.........

Anyway, please comment if you wish, and I will make sure the comments get posted in a day or so. Unless you are a spammer--then may you burn in eternal hellfire.........

Poking Around in the Attic

2008-11-12T18:03:00.008-05:00

....that's what coming back to this blog after all this time feels like. When I first began it, I had such high hopes. All incipient bloggers do. Everyone yearns to be the next Atrios or TPM or even, depending on your political bent, then next Instapundit. But most blogs end up with only a few posts before the proprietor realizes how much work it actually is and gives up.

(Mind you, it's only hard work if you try and write reasoned, well argued posts with a dash of humor and appropriate artwork. Simple political ranting with numerous mentions of Hitler, Marx or Stalin require much less brainpower and energy, as does WRITING IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!!)

Mine lasted a bit longer than most.

Most of the hits, though, were friends visiting, or people looking for a good recipe for home-made Bailey's Irish Cream. I'd get the occasional person who found the blog by chance and commented (which often made my day), and even got linked to on two other blogs. But it was a lot of work for very little recognition.... Still, for quite some time, I toiled on.

I must confess that I got distracted this year. Aging parents with medical problems take a toll on one's time, as does trying to make a living and keep up with commitments (in my case, charity work).

And keeping current with the news, which changes ever so fast during an election year, is work. I could have blogged about the election, but I didn't really have a horse in the race.

It's not that I didn't care who was elected.

I cared deeply.

It's just that I'm a lefty, with strong opinions on single payer, civil liberties and the war, and the candidates who most strongly agreed with me dropped out early in the primary season. I liked both Hillary and Obama, but both are fairly centrist, and I didn't much care which one won. I was voting Democratic one way or another.

Don't get me wrong. I like Obama. And I hope he can unite this country and do wonderful things. It's just that my generation has a long history of being disappointed by politicians (more so if you follow Ukrainian politics), and we don't like to get our hopes up. It hurts too much when they're dashed to smithereens.

I worked to get him elected. I proselytized via e-mail and in person, did GOTV work and canvassing. I passed out lawn signs and bumper stickers in my neighborhood. And I even worked in Precinct 9 of West Bloomfield as an election inspector (poll worker) from 6 AM to 10 PM on election day to help keep the vote honest.

I was at our local Obama headquarters on election night after the polls had closed. The excitement there was enough to give anyone a contact high. We watched one state after another turn blue. I knew we had won when Pennsylvania was called for Obama. But there was still nothing like the thrill of hearing it announced at 11 PM, of seeing John McCain concede (graciously, for a change) and of watching a million people in Chicago greet their new president. It brought tears to my eyes and hope to my jaded heart.......

So I may tidy up here a bit and start adding some new posts, now that things are quieting down. My father is recovering well from his third open heart surgery (valve replacement at the age of 82--he's one tough patient!), the world has been righted a bit, and we've stepped away from the edge of the political abyss. I'm starting to feel as though I can stop and take a breath at last.

Vote the Environment

2008-06-29T12:54:00.000-04:00

Secret Terrorist Plot

2008-04-04T00:31:00.005-04:00

Oddly enough, I suspect many right wingnuts really do believe much of this....including the McCain part. And I find it just a bit disconcerting that the next president of the United States may end up being younger that my kid brother! Still, better than having one who's older than dirt......and keeps [promising us more and better wars (remember "Bomb Iran"?)

((Note: Click on the cartoon to make it big enough to read)

Best Campaign Ad....Ever

2008-04-03T12:04:00.000-04:00

Well, maybe after the "Daisy" ad in 1964:

And Gravel's other ad:

Penguins in the News!

2008-04-01T12:10:00.000-04:00

In birding, we sometimes describe cormorants as looking like "flying penguins." I guess we'll have to find a new descriptor after this!

Pointillism

2008-03-26T18:42:00.001-04:00

Pointillism is a style of painting in which small distinct points of primary colors create the impression of a wide selection of secondary and intermediate colors. One of the best known proponents of this style was Seurat.

Why do I bring this up? Fuzz and I spent a morning doing the aunt-niece bonding thing at the Detroit Institute of Arts. It was their first time of us had been there since the massive renovation and reorganization had been completed. We had a lovely time wandering the galleries and discovering interesting things while trying to locate other things.

Like many of us, fuzz had studied pointillism in school. Art teachers, having a bit of a masochistic streak, enjoy assigning the creation of a pointillist painting o their student–hours and hours of making small colored dots on a large piece of paper. I hated it. But I do like Seurat's paintings, and located one for Fuzz.

And I snapped this photo of in front of the painting:

(Click on photo to enlarge and appreciate)

Since it was dark in the galleries, and since flash photography is not allowed, I at an ISO 0f 1600, resulting in a very grainy photo. And, oddly enough, it ended up looking like a pointillist photo of a pointillist painting.

Regrets, I've had a few

2008-03-24T18:18:00.002-04:00

(Click on cartoon to enlarge.)

....but then again, too few to really mention.

Apparently, Being a NeoCon means never having to say you're sorry.

4000

2008-03-24T17:38:00.005-04:00

The odometer of death took another major turn today, as the US recorded the 4000th fatality in Iraq. 4000.

Remember "they will greet us as liberators"? Or "it will take a few weeks, or perhaps a month"? Or the risk to the USA, the WMDs and potential mushroom clouds?

That was five years ago. We still haven't located those WMDs, and we're still over there.

Those who initiated the war have no regrets. Bush thinks it was a grand adventure. Cheney (he of the five draft deferments) points out that all the servicemen who died were volunteers. Mind you, many joined up to fight those who attacked us on 9-11, but got sent to Iraq instead. From and interview with ABC news:

"I want to start with the milestone today of 4,000 dead in Iraq. Americans. And just what effect do you think it has on the country?" asked ABC News' White House correspondent, Martha Raddatz, who traveled with the vice president on a nine-day overseas trip to Iraq and other countries in the Middle East.

"It obviously brings home I think for a lot of people the cost that's involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan," Cheney said in the interview, conducted in Turkey. "It places a special burden obviously on the families, and we recognize, I think it's a reminder of the extent to which we are blessed with families who've sacrificed as they have."

"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us."

Raddatz noted that some soldiers, Air Force members, and Marines have been on multiple deployments and have been sent back to Iraq because of the stop-loss policy, and involuntary extension of a service member's enlistment contract. The Army alone says 58,000 US soldiers have been redeployed to war because of the stop-loss policy.

"When you talk about an all-volunteer force, some of these soldiers, airmen, Marines have been on two, three, four, some of them more than that, deployments," Raddatz said. "Do you think when they volunteered they had any idea that there would be so many deployments or stop-loss? Some of those who want to get out can't because of stop-loss?"

"A lot of men and women sign up because sometimes they will see developments," Cheney said. "For example, 9/11 stimulated a lot of folks to volunteer for the military because they wanted to be involved in defending the country."

Notice that Cheney never answers the second question. But really, war is a glorious pursuit as long as you're not the one having ot do the fighting and the dying.

P.S. As for how many Iraqis have dies, no one in this administration seems to care about that. After all, they dies free, and that's what matters. We don't count the Iraqi dead, probably because we are afraid of what the numbers might be (over 1,000,000 according to some epidemiological estimates).

ADDENDUM: Blogwhoring is the process of leaving a link to your blog in the comments of another blog (in order to increase traffic to your own blog). It is generally considered poor nettiquette, but tolerated. And I don't mind it, unless the blog you are linking to DOES NOT ALLOW comments. In that case, fuggedaboutit. Goose, gander, sauce, etc.

Merry Easter

2008-03-23T18:08:00.000-04:00

....and may all your Easters be white!

Some holiday confusion here in Michigan, as there is quite a bit of snow on the ground at the moment–more than we had at Christmas, actually. And, anyway, it's not really Easter for some of us–those of the ancient eastern rite won't be celebrating until April 27th, by which time, I can only assume, the snow will have melted.

Below is a shot of some of my snowflake pysanky, which seem appropriate today. I haven't made many "regular" pysanky yet this year, so these will have to do for now. Expect those photos in late April or early May. And, if you need an Easter fix of pysanky, you can always visit my website.

As always, click on the photo for a closer look!

Bunny Easter

2008-03-23T17:32:00.000-04:00

Today is the day a huge rabbit brings chocolate eggs to children in countries with germanic heritage. Why?

Remnants of ancient fertility rituals?

Or perhaps.............atonement?

Peep Show

2008-03-21T17:22:00.000-04:00

I will never be able to look at peeps the same way now......

5 Years

2008-03-19T18:03:00.001-04:00

Isn't it Romantic?

2008-03-15T17:59:00.000-04:00

New Mandry Video

2008-02-27T12:09:00.001-05:00

A lovely song about the tragedy of Ukraine under Soviet domination - the many dead, both famous and not.

Tempis Fugit

2008-02-03T14:15:00.001-05:00

It seems just yesterday I was writing the Thanksgiving post, and now it's February and Punxsutawney Phil has predicted six more weeks of winter. Or is it four? I'm never sure, but it's cold and gray here in Michigan, and chances are good that it will stay this way until sometime in April.

I'm leaving today for India, to spend a month in Vellore. I'll be working and visiting with friends, and enjoying my friend Jiji's wonderful cooking. I love southern Indian food. I will try to blog while I'm there–I've added a link to an India blog in my blogroll on the right. Check it from time to time.

Can't say I'll miss the campaign much–I'm getting tired of it already, and there's nine months to go. It's going to be a very long year.........

Turkey Day

2007-11-21T21:44:00.000-05:00

Today is the day that we Americans celebrate the beginning of the long genocide of our original native population. We also give thanks to the applicable deity for what we have (for many, it's much less than last year and barely enough to get by). Mostly, we just eat a lot of turkey, watch football (some) and gather with family.

Happy Thanksgiving/Turkey Day!

And who can forget this perennial favorite:

(cartoon from this site)

Tooth Abcess

2007-11-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

According the folks at the Dove Dental Center (from whose site I cribbed this text):

A dental abscess can cause pain in the face (usually from an upper tooth), or pain in the area of the lower jaw (mandible) - (usually from a lower tooth), due to a build up of pressure from an infection which is emanating from the pulp chamber of the tooth, causing pressure along tissue planes. The pain can be quite severe. You should seek advice from a dentist urgently to get the abscess drained. It may be possible to drain the pus through the tooth itself so the tooth can be saved (root canal treatment). If not, the tooth will need to be extracted to prevent the abscess from recurring.

There is nothing quite like the pain of a tooth abscess--it is constant, throbbing, and eventually involves the entire head. Sleep is impossible without serious narcotics (Vicodin is my palliative of choice). It is the worst pain I have ever experienced, not having gone through childbirth nor passed any kidney stones.

Luckily, although I don't have dental insurance, I do have money, so I could afford to get my tooth treated and avoid death. The pain is better, although not completely gone, but I still don't have much of an appetite and a do have a fold drainage in my mouth (from the opening left in my tooth). I am mid-root canal, awaiting subsidence of infection and inflammation in my tissues before the tooth can be closed up again.

My dentist had closed the tooth with a soft plug after initially draining it; this caused a second night of excruciating pain and heavy narcotic use before he pulled the plug out. I am now recovering, and hope to return to blogging and other normal activities soon.

Veterans' Day

2007-11-11T21:36:00.000-05:00

Armistice Day was meant to commemorate the end of WWI, the war to end all wars. (That didn't work out, did it?) The war officially ended on the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

In the US, it has been transformed into an all-purpose "honor the veterans" affair. If only our government did more than pay them lip service this one day a year.

Back

2007-11-11T14:08:00.000-05:00

I'm back...almost. It's November, gray, cloudy and cold, and I'm working away at the dining room table. I'm trying to finish up my NEJM CME (it was due November 1, but I've gotten an extension). Once I finish, I hope to have more time to blog and do other things I enjoy.

It's been a busy few months. I spent September and the first week of October in Ukraine. I visited seven orphanages with our UCARE group, and two more on my own. I visited family and friends, and stayed quite busy. I saw many parts of Ukraine that I'd never had a chance to visit before (Transcarpathia, Chernihiv). When I got home, I found that I had a heavy work schedule--52 hours a week--and managed to catch some unpleasant virus at work. I ended up spending my "free" time sniffling, sneezing and sleeping. I'm only now beginning to feel better.

And the were the funerals--two in the past three weeks. Two close family friends passed away, so it's been a sad time all around.

But things are finally looking up a bit. I have more normal work hours beginning next week, so I can finish unpacking, get my teeth cleaned, and try to catch up on my photos and blogging. And last weekend was Val's annual birdseed sale: I stocked up on thistle, suet and seed, and refilled my feeders, which have been empty since long before I left for Ukraine. I wondered how long it would take the birds to find their way back. It took only a few minutes.

From my seat at the dining room table/desk, I can see a bevy of winter plumage goldfinches feeding away greedily at the thistle seed.

Nuthatches, chickadees, woodpeckers and others sneak in for a bit of suet. The jays hog the feeder, scattering seed everywhere, and the titmice, sparrows, cardinals and juncos grab a bite when they're not around. My smart squirrel had once more figured out how to get into the feeder, so I had to adjust the baffle and move the feeder again, keeping it away from overhead lines and nearby branches. So far, so good, but it's only a matter of time. (I'm not cruel, but the ground is covered with thousands of acorns for her, and the seed is meant for the birds.)

Oh well, back to work. I'm through April 12th, and have to get through the end of June as quickly as possible.....

Halloween

2007-10-31T21:53:00.000-04:00

After splashing out on really good candy (Reese's cups, Kit-Kats, Almond Joy and Gummi body parts), I was disappointed to have only THREE trick-or-treaters come by my house. They told me I had the best stuff, but still....

My personal favorite, Gummi body parts. The eyes are the best.
They come in a coffin box!

I tried. I put the lights on, and I sat near the door just in case anyone came by. But I haven't been home for Halloween in so long that no one is used to stopping by. Most kids bypassed my street completely, as the houses were mostly dark, their occupants having departed for warmer climes.

Not that it was cold. Global warming has meant a very warm October, and the leaves on the trees have barely begun to turn, much less fall. I miss autumn--I don't think we're having one this year. We will segue from late summer to early winter without our usual wonderful autumnal interlude.

Gone Traveling

2007-09-03T22:06:00.000-04:00

Click on map to enlarge

I'm off for a five week stay in Ukraine. I'm going to be busy–I have family to visit, and lots of work to do for UCARE. We will be interviewing our scholarship students, buying goods, and visiting nine different orphanages to distribute the goods.

I'll be back in October.

It's not what most people would consider a vacation.........

Recipe for Disaster

2007-08-02T13:08:00.000-04:00

Inaction has its consequences. From Attytood:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday proposed deep cuts to federal health care, education, and transportation programs, searching for new money in the federal budget to pay for increasingly costly defense programs and the war in Iraq.
-- Boston Globe, Feb. 6, 2007.

WASHINGTON - The White House said Thursday that an inspection two years ago found structural deficiencies in the highway bridge that buckled during evening rush hour in Minneapolis.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Interstate 35W span rated 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability.

"This doesn't mean there was a risk of failure, but if an inspection report identifies deficiencies, the state is responsible for taking corrective actions," he said. The bridge was 40 years old.
-- AP, Aug. 2, 2007.

A 2005 federal study found that the bridge was "structurally deficient."
"A structurally deficient bridge might be one not adequate for the traffic it takes, but not necessarily dangerous," Burnett (former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board) said. "But a lot of structurally deficient bridges are dangerous."

Burnett said he believed it would be the state's responsibility to check on the bridge in light of those reports. But he conceded that there could be a federal role and an issue of whether fed standards are adequate.
-- Scripps News, Aug. 2, 2007.

Recipe for disaster: Find a problem. Ignore it (for over two years).

We were warned about New Orleans–we knew the levees wouldn't hold. But funding for their repair was cut, and the money diverted to Iraq.

We were warned about our bridges, and our crumbling infrastructure. But there is no money to pay for the repairs–it has all been diverted to Iraq, and to fund huge tax cuts for the richest of the rich.

Then again, what did you people expect, when you continue to vote for a party that doesn't believe in government, and is hell bent on PROVING that government doesn't work?

Five Down, Two To Go

2007-07-08T14:48:00.000-04:00

A recent world-wide survey has come up with a list of the NEW Seven Wonders of the World. The old list of wonders was centered around the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and consisted of

Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Temple of Artemis
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Mausoleum of Maussollos
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria

Seven Wonders, as depicted by 16th-century Dutch artist Marten Heemskerk

Of the old wonders, only the pyramids of Giza still remain. I had a chance to see (and crawl through) them back in 1990.

A new list of wonders, spanning the globe, was announced 7-7-07. Of the new seven wonders, I have visited the five:

Great Wall of China

Machu Picchu, Peru

Chichen Itza, Mexico

Colosseum, Rome, Italy

Taj Mahal, India

This leaves two items on my to-do list:

Petra, Jordan

Christ the Redeemer (statue), Brazil

Summer Vacation

2007-07-07T13:29:00.000-04:00

It's summer, and the livin' is NOT easy. I've got a lot going on. I'm helping write a (non-political) book, trying to organize my photos, preparing for my September UCARE trip to Ukraine, working in the yard, going out of town, updating my web site, trying to do my ABOG recertification, and hanging out with family.

Busy, busy, busy.

I'll still send the occasional e-mail, but will be taking it a bit easy blog-wise.

Read the blogs in my blogroll (right) to keep informed.

See you later!

'Nuff Said

2007-07-05T11:15:00.000-04:00

Rebuild America First

2007-07-04T14:17:00.001-04:00

Merle Haggard tells it like it is on this Fourth of July:

Bush the Merciful

2007-07-04T12:03:00.001-04:00

I've been a wee bit upset with the commutation of traitor Libby's sentence by Dear Leader, and a mild upset of this sort often leads to incoherent ranting. I found a blog post on BeggarsCanBeChoosers that says it all so well:

Bush Wasn't Known For Mercy Before Libby Case

By MARC McDONALD
George W. Bush has shown us a side we never knew he had in extending mercy to former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Bush spared Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term, calling his sentence "excessive."

Perhaps Bush is following the advice of Jesus, who once said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." After all, Bush once declared that Jesus was his favorite philosopher.

Yeah, right.

The fact is, if you look at Bush's political career, you'll find a man who has never cared much for mercy. Indeed, you find a cold, callous person who never blinked as people were sentenced to harsh prison terms and given the death penalty under his watch.

Take the case of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War. Serving as Texas governor at the time, Bush ignored an international outcry for granting clemency for Tucker, who'd become a born-again Christian while in prison (and who, the prison warden testified, had become a model prisoner who had been reformed). Bush ignored all pleas for mercy from everyone from Pope John Paul II to the United Nations to the World Council of Churches.

Indeed, according to an account by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, Bush showed shocking callousness in the case. Carlson described how, during an interview, Bush smirked and pursed his lips and said "Please don't kill me," as he mocked Tucker's pleas for clemency.

In fact, Bush was never a man known for mercy in death penalty cases. In his five years as governor, Texas executed 152 prisoners, by far the highest total for any state and more than any other governor in modern American history.

A number of commentators argued that Bush routinely failed to give serious consideration to clemency requests in death penalty cases. Among these critics was Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and leading advocate for the abolition of the death penalty.

As CommonDreams.org pointed out Bush presided over a death penalty cases that was noted for "notorious examples of unfairness," noting cases in which lawyers were under the influence of cocaine during the trial, drunk, or even asleep.

CommonDreams.org quotes a report by The Chicago Tribune on the 152 death cases that occurred in Texas while Bush was governor:

In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial.

Of course, there's a big difference between the vast majority of defendants in these death penalty cases and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Most of those executed in Texas were poor people from destitute backgrounds. Many were minorities.

By contrast, Libby is more like Bush himself: male, white, wealthy and from a prosperous, pampered, silver-spoon background.

See, if everyone were rich, white Republican and male, we COULD have equal justice for all!

Who Said It?

2007-07-03T12:20:00.000-04:00

"I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own, unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair."

Answer: George W. Bush, while governor of Texas

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

2007-07-02T12:11:00.000-04:00

What does the cartoon above tell us? That all reporters are Democrats and that the news has a well-known liberal bias*. Right?

Well, that's what it wants us to think. The data come from a recent study, but there was a bit of elision performed: what the study actually showed was that, of the less than one percent of journalists (143 out of 100,000+) who actually contributed money to political candidates, 87% of them contributed small sums to the Democrats.

Additionally, what is left unspoken is that the majority of OWNERS media outlets (newspapers, radio and television stations) contributed much larger sums of money to the Republicans.

Besides, who gets to decide what is shown on the TV or written in the newspaper–the hired hand (reporter) or the owner (via his editor)?

As A. J. Liebling said, "Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one. "

______________________________
*As Stephen Colbert once said, the FACTS have a well known-liberal bias, and that is why Fox has decided to go with a fact free format.

Popular Support

2007-07-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

Last night, at the Giants' game, as the National Anthem, began some unidentified people unfurled a banner about 14 feet long and 5 feet high that simply said "IMPEACH." They were up in the walkway above the bleachers, so the majority of the fans could have seen it.

Within a minute, stadium people were on the scene and the banner was taken down.

Creationism

2007-07-01T12:16:00.000-04:00

Now here's a version of the creation story I could believe:

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

State of the Nation

2007-06-30T11:40:00.000-04:00

A recent CBS News poll shows that

Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the Iraq war, President Bush and the Congress, as well as the overall direction of the country.

More Americans than ever before, 77 percent, say the war is going badly, up from 66 percent just two months ago. Nearly half, 47 percent, say it's going very badly.

While the springtime surge in U.S. troops to Iraq is now complete, more Americans than ever are calling for U.S. forces to withdraw. Sixty-six percent say the number of U.S. troops in Iraq should be decreased, including 40 percent who want all U.S. troops removed. That's a 7-point increase since April.

The poll has bad news for President Bush, too. His job approval rating slipped to 27 percent, his lowest number ever in a CBS news poll – 3 points less than last month,and 1 point below his previous low of 28 percent in January. His disapproval rating is also at an all-time high of 65 percent.

Vice President Dick Cheney received a similarly low rating, with 28 percent approval and 59 percent disapproval.

The poll found a record number of Americans, 75 percent, believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Only 19 percent think the U.S. is on the right track — the lowest number since CBS News first asked the question in 1983.

And so it goes. Americans have finally opened their eyes; htey must now take back the power and set this country back on the right track.

Thomas Jefferson said it best...

And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Especially tyrants.

Boston Liberty tree

King George

2007-06-29T12:07:00.000-04:00

Click on cartoon to enlarge

Waterloo

2007-06-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

...is not just a town in Belgium or Ontario. For Nixon, it was in Viet Nam. For George and his merry band of Neocons, it seems to be located a bit north of there.

Volunteers

2007-06-25T13:56:00.000-04:00

When the President Talks to God

2007-06-25T13:51:00.000-04:00

The General's Report

2007-06-19T12:49:00.000-04:00

Sy Hersch strikes again in this week's New Yorker, with his profile of General Antonio Taguba, yet another member of our military who has had his career cut short by the Bush administration. Why? For reporting the truth about Abu Ghraib.

Taguba was sent to Iraq to do a job–investigate the abuses at Abu Ghraib. His mistake was believing that this administration wanted the truth; others (Lee Hamilton?) would have known that a whitewash was in order.

You can read his story here.

Sick Children

2007-06-19T11:57:00.000-04:00

"Who in their right mind would send 363 TONS of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did."- Henry Waxman (D-CA)

Over 4 billion dollars were shipped to Iraq on pallets, and then, well, disappeared. No receipts were asked for, none given. Altogether, more than 8 billions dollars have just gone missing in Iraq. And that does not even begin toinclude the billions of dollars in overcharges, graft corruption and no-bid Halliburton rip-offs.

We have spent close to a trillion dollars in Iraq so far, with no end in sight. (Mind you, this is the war that the Neocons swore would pay for itself through oil revenue. I wonder what happened to all that oil money?) The last reauthorization bill was for 80 billion dollars.

Why is this salient? Bob Herbert writes in today's NYT:

You won’t see these stories on television, but Marian Wright Edelman and Dr. Irwin Redlener could talk to you all day and all night about children whose lives have been lost or ruined because they didn’t have health insurance.

This is not a situation one associates with a so-called advanced country. That you can have sick children wasting away in the United States, the wealthiest nation on the planet, because medical treatment that could relieve their suffering is withheld by men and women with dollar signs instead of compassion in their eyes is beyond unconscionable.

Ms. Edelman is the president of the Children’s Defense Fund, and Dr. Redlener is president of the Children’s Health Fund.

Both are appalled at the embarrassing fact that nine million American children have no health coverage at all. Among them are children with diabetes, chronic asthma, heart conditions, life-threatening allergies and so on. In many instances they are left untreated until it is too late.

Leaving children uninsured is a form of Russian roulette, Dr. Redlener said.

“All children should be covered,” said Ms. Edelman.

Congress and the president could do something about this right now. Of the nine million children without coverage, six million are already eligible for either Medicaid or the popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-chip, which covers children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private health insurance. The bulk of the funding for S-chip comes from the federal government.

S-chip, which had strong bipartisan support when it was established 10 years ago, is currently up for reauthorization in Congress. The program should be expanded as part of a broader effort to cover as many of the six million eligible-but-uninsured kids as possible.

Eligible children remain outside of S-chip and Medicaid for a variety of reasons, including the following: because there is insufficient funding to cover them; because families do not realize their children qualify for coverage; because red tape and complicated regulations discourage families from signing up.

A number of S-chip re-authorization proposals are being developed. The best-case scenario would be legislation — costing as much as $50 billion in additional funding over the next five years — that would cover millions of additional youngsters from poor and working-poor families. This would put the U.S. on the road toward universal coverage for children.

Ten billion dollars a year is considered a pittance when it comes to funding wars and tax cuts for the very wealthy. But it’s suddenly a lot of money when the subject is the health of American children.

One of the worst scenarios has been offered by President Bush in his White House budget proposal. That calls for just $4.8 billion in new funding for S-chip over the next five years. The result, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would be a net loss of coverage for 1.4 million children.

The old expression was “taking candy from a baby.” The White House is ready to take away vitally needed medicine.

Negotiations over the reauthorization of S-chip are under way. It will be interesting to see whether the Democrats who crowed so much about their newfound power when they took control of Congress will stand tall for the kids of the poor and working poor, and whether there are enough caring Republicans to resurrect the spirit of bipartisanship from a decade ago.

As the heat gets turned up on this issue, the White House appears to be falling into its old habit of creating its own reality.

The Congressional Budget Office and most researchers have agreed on the six million figure for the number of youngsters who are eligible for government-sponsored health coverage but remain unenrolled — roughly four million for Medicaid and two million for S-chip. This has not been controversial.

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services began circulating a study that tries to make the case that the total number of eligible but uninsured youngsters is a mere 794,000, an absurdly low figure.
If you can wave a magic wand and make five million poor kids disappear, you no longer have to think about caring for them.
Advocates like Dr. Redlener and Ms. Edelman don’t have that luxury.

“Kids who grow up with poor access to health care carry a high risk of having underdiagnosed and undertreated chronic illness, both physical and emotional,” said Dr. Redlener. “We know what to do. We should fully fund this effort at the $50 billion level and make coverage mandatory for all children.”

But Bush and the Neocons had to have their war and their tax cuts cuts for the rich, and now the children of America must pay the price.

Fathers' Day

2007-06-17T12:32:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday, Beth!

2007-06-11T12:35:00.000-04:00

Memory Loss

2007-06-11T10:19:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reported that Alberto Gonzales used the phrase “I don’t recall” and its variants 64 times during a five-hour hearing in April, “treat[ing] the committee to a mixture of arrogance, combativeness and amnesia. Even his would-be defenders on the Republican side were appalled.”

Recent hearings with his aides have shown that such memory loss seems to be rampant in the Justice Department. Perhaps it's something in the water there?

Yet Another Terrorist Plot Foiled!

2007-06-04T07:09:00.000-04:00

Another plot foiled, the headlines read. A group of home-grown Muslim terrorists had planned to put a bomb in the fuel lines at JFK airport and cause a huge explosion and massive loss of life.

Except they hadn't really planned it so much as talked about it.

And none of them had the necessary access.

And it wasn't even technically feasible.

But arrests were made, the media was notified, and the American public has been appropriately scared and lie quivering in their beds. Our brave Homeland Security team has saved us again!

And nothing will come of it, because there was no there there. The plot was as real as fantasy football, dreamed up by a governmetn informer, who then urged on a group of losers and malcontents to go along with him. And the FBI helped out with money and wires, and took credit for a save. As before, and will over and over agian. It's easier to create criminals than to actualy infiltrate al Qaeda and stop real ones.

Nora Ephron has a take on this, explaining "How to Foil a Terrorist Plot in Seven Simple Steps":

1. In order to foil a terrorist plot, you must first find a terrorist plot. This is not easy.

2. Not just anyone can find and then foil a terrorist plot. You must have an incentive. The best incentive is to be an accused felon, looking at a long prison term. Under such circumstances, your lawyer will explain to you, you may be able to reduce your sentence by acting as an informant in a criminal case, preferably one involving terrorists.

3. The fact that you do not know any actual terrorists should not in any way deter you. Necessity is the mother of invention: if you can find the right raw material -- a sad, sick, lonely, drunk, deranged, disgruntled or just plain anti-American Muslim somewhere in the United States -- you can make your very own terrorist.

4. Now the good part begins. Money! The FBI will give you lots of money to take your very own terrorist out to lots of dinners where you, wearing a wire, can record yourself making recommendations to him about possible targets and weapons that might be used in the impending terrorist attack that your very own terrorist is going to mastermind, with your help. It will even buy you a computer so you can go to Google Earth in order to show your very own terrorist a "top secret" aerial image of the target you have suggested.

5. More money!! The FBI will give you even more money to travel to foreign countries with your very own terrorist, and it will make suggestions about terrorist groups you can meet while in said foreign countries.

6. Months and even years will pass in this fashion, while you essentially get the FBI to pay for everything you do. (Incidentally, be sure your lawyer negotiates your expense account well in advance, or you may be forced -- as the informant was in the Buffalo terrorist case -- to protest your inadequate remuneration by setting yourself on fire in front of the White House.)

7. At a certain point, something will go wrong. You may have trouble recruiting other people to collaborate with your very own terrorist, who is, as you yourself know, just an ordinary guy in a really bad mood. Or, alternatively, the terrorist cell you have carefully cobbled together may malfunction and fail to move forward -- probably as a result of sheer incompetence or of simply not having been genuinely serious about the acts of terrorism you were urging it to commit. At this point, you may worry that the FBI is going to realize that there isn't much of a terrorist plot going on here at all, just a case of entrapment. Do not despair: the FBI is way ahead of you. The FBI knows perfectly well what's going on. The FBI has as much at stake as you do. So before it can be obvious to the world that there's no case, the FBI will arrest your very own terrorist, hold a press conference and announce that a huge terrorist plot has been foiled. It will of course be forced to admit that this plot did not proceed beyond the pre-planning stage, that no actual weapons or money were involved, and that the plot itself was "not technically feasible," but that will not stop the story from becoming a front-page episode all over America and, within hours, boilerplate for all the Republican politicians who believe that you need to arrest a "homegrown" terrorist now and then to justify the continuing war in Iraq. Everyone will be happy, except for the schmuck you shmikeled into becoming a terrorist, and no one really cares about him anyway.

So congratulations. You have foiled a terrorist plot. Way to go.

Not Forgotten

2007-05-28T15:19:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day

2007-05-28T15:15:00.000-04:00

Justifiable Violence

2007-05-24T17:00:00.000-04:00

According to a recently released Pew poll, American Muslims are much more assimilated into our society than are, say, French Muslims into theirs. That is a good thing. But what has righties upset is the finding that the finding that while 80% of American Muslims oppose attacks on civilians in all cases, 13% said they could be justified in some circumstances.

There has been much gnashing of teething, rending of garments, and general frothing at the mouth from the conservative punditocracy, of course. Why? Because such violence is unacceptable, and would never be condoned by real red-blooded peace-loving Americans. Or would it?

Glen Greenwald has this to say about the Pew poll:

The reality, though, is that it is almost impossible to conduct a poll and not have a sizable portion of the respondents agree to almost everything. And in particular, with regard to the specific question of whether it is justifiable to launch violent attacks aimed deliberately at civilians, the percentage of American Muslims who believe in such attacks pales in comparison to the percentage of Americans generally who believe that such attacks are justifiable.

The University of Maryland's highly respected Program on International Public Attitudes, in December 2006, conducted a concurrent public opinion poll of the United States and Iran to determine the comparative views of each country's citizens on a variety of questions...

One of the questions they asked was whether "bombings and other types of attacks intentionally aimed at civilians are sometimes justified"? Americans approved of such attacks by a much larger margin than Iranians – 51-16% (and a much, much larger margin than American Muslims – 51-13%):

Click on image to enlarge

A rather substantial 24% of Americans thought that such attacks are justified "often" or "sometimes," while another 27% thought they were justified in rare cases (total=51%). By stark contrast, only 11% of Iranians think such attacks are justified "often" or "sometimes," with a mere further 5% agreeing they can be justified in rare cases (total=16%). Similar results were found with the series of other questions regarding violence deliberately aimed at civilians – including women, children and the elderly. Americans believed such attacks could be justifiable to a substantially higher degree than Iranians.

As Kenneth Ballen noted in The Christian Science Monitor in February of this year, Americans express greater support for "attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria." Make of that what you will -- and its meaning is debatable -- but those are just facts.

Where is the rightie outrage here? It does make sense, though, from their perspective–I suppose they feel that it's wrong for Muslims to want to attack us, but OK for us to want to attack them, because we are right and good and doing God's work.

Worse than McCarthy?

2007-05-24T16:30:00.000-04:00

Bush held a press conference today–always a risky venture for him, being a sufferer of foot-in-mouth disease. Today he was in peak form. As Rick Perlstein noted:

President Bush today: "These people attacked us before we were even in Iraq!"

Can we have a little frankness, please?

The President of the United States is a racist. Or at the very least, an anti-Muslim bigot.

In Iraq, Shi'ites and Sunni are fighting each other to the death. Under what possible logic can they be joined by a common identity?

There is no "these people" except in their common Middle East-ness.

Iran and Iraq fought a decade-long war - Shia against Sunni. They are, to our president, "these people." "They" attacked us. "They" continue to attack us. Iran, Iraq: all the same.

The people who attacked us on September 11 were from a group called "al Qaeda." According to U.S. intelligence, Iraq was one of the few countries in the Middle East where Al Qaeda did not have a beachhead.

In the 1960s, to much of the public, China and Russia were equally "these people." Even as those countries were on the verge of nuclear war with one another. Bad people stoked the equivalence of the two even after they knew better (Richard Nixon did it nearly until the day he made China our ally). They did it to keep a monstrous war going, as the American people began to know better.

It's much worse now. Who are "these people," Mr. President? Why are you worse than McCarthy?

That about sums it up. We're in Iraq because some brown-skinned Arab types brought down the World Trade Center. And because, as Cheney pointed out, when told that al Qaeda was actually responsible, "there are no good targets in Afghanistan!" Nor oil........

UCARE

2007-05-24T15:34:00.001-04:00

I spent most of my free time last week updating the UCARE website. We had reached the limits of the old technology, so I switched to new templates, moved around a lot of old material, made some deletions, and have begun adding new material. It's a lot of time-consuming effort.

Make an orphan (and a poor webmaster happy)–go and have a look!

April is the Cruelest Month

2007-05-23T15:12:00.000-04:00

A particularly attractive fungus from northern Michigan

It's been a month since I posted anything on this blog, and longer that that since I made any regular postings. Blog fatigue set in, and it was April.

Very few have the stamina, the dedication, or the attention span to be a blogger. Posting several bits of genius every day is not an easy task; neither is posting several bits of drivel, which is what most bloggers really do. Still, either takes time and effort and, every once in a while, you just get tired.

So I took a break. It was not an entirely voluntary break; April is a busy time for me, what with taxes and my NEJM CME both being due. (Yes, I could have done either much sooner, but I am a procrastinator by nature, and need deadlines to accomplish anything.) And then there is Easter; when you are a maker of pysanky, it's a busy time of year.

Still, it's May that's devoid of postings. I went away for the first to weeks, my annual trek to the UP, to visit friends and watch hawks. The weather was great, the sompany stimulating, and spent minimal time on the internet, just a few minutes a day to check my e-mail and make sure we weren't at war with Iran yet.

But now I'm back, and having recovered some of my mojo by sending out mass e-mailings to my friends on various political themes, and ready to once more take up the mantle of blogger.

Sorry.

Clueless Bozos

2007-04-23T17:21:00.000-04:00

Which crazy leftie said the following:

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough."

And this:

Why are we in this mess?

How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

Answer: Lee Iacocca. He saved Chrysler once. Now he's trying to save the rest of us.

So It Goes

2007-04-14T12:33:00.000-04:00

Kurt Vonnegut died quietly on Thursday, news of his death being lost among all the Imus blather in the media. Kurt was the anti-Imus: knowledgeable, never purposely cruel, a humanist who came by his views through life experience–he survived he bombing of Dresden in WWII–and wanted to make the world a better place.

His books were an important part of my youth; I read them all throughout high school and college. Unlike many other favorites of my youth (e.g. Heinlein), they have stood the test of time, and I enjoy them still. His books were a melange of science fiction and social consciousness, with a good deal of humor. His plots were nonsensical yet meaningful. He was Kilgore Trout with good writing skills, a latter day Mark Twain.

The purpose of his books, was, in his own words, to "catch people before they become generals and presidents and so forth and poison their minds with humanity."

He opposed the War in Iraq, and took other unpopular stands. The was a humanist/atheist, and never felt compelled to lie about or justify it. He love his country, but not unconditionally, and could see her flaws:

Kurt on the state of our country:

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka 'Christians,' and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities.'

On Bush's foreign policy:

So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he won't soon forget.

About the causes of the Iraq war:

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

About how our two-party system has come to be defined by the media:

If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal. If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative. What could be simpler?

About Bush's former popularity:

"The overwhelming popularity of President Bush, in spite of everything, finally shows us what the American people, whom we have so sentimentalized for so long, a la Norman Rockwell, really are, thanks to TV and purposely lousy public schools: ignorant. Count on it!"

About global warming:

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.

About his general political philosophy, one with which I am in complete accord:

I don't want to belong to a country that attacks little countries.

Per PZ at Pharyngula, I think it is also only fair to give him Kilgore Trout's epitaph:

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

PZ Myers also notes a request from Kurt:

I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke.

Per his request.......Kurt is up in heaven now!

A nice eulogy here.

Compare and Contrast

2007-04-13T19:35:00.000-04:00

The massive crowd that gathered to tear down the statue of Saddam four years ago:

The "meager" crowd that got together this past weekend to protest American occupation of Iraq:

Adjectives courtesy of our right wing press.

Photos courtesy of Greg at This Modern World.

Easter Fun

2007-04-08T23:57:00.000-04:00

Pysanky

2007-04-07T16:58:00.000-04:00

I've been busy this week, both at work (my favorite place to blog), where it's been crazy, and at home, where I've been getting ready for Easter. It would be embarrassing to not make enough pysanky!

As I type, it is snowing outside. When Passover comes early, we (the Orthodox) get a lousy Easter. It's not the weather I would pick for marching around the church at midnight.

I've taken a photo of some of this year's pysanky. To get a better view, click on the photo:

If Only........

2007-04-01T21:28:00.000-04:00

Some are April fools. Other are are just plain fools.

Success in Iraq!

2007-04-01T20:44:00.000-04:00

Iraq has been pacified, and all is well there. How do I know?

First, Republican congressman Tim Walberg from Michigan told us that "parts of Iraq are no more dangerous than Detroit, Chicago or Harvey, Illinois." Now, I lived in Detroit for over 6 years, and never had any sorts of problems. I had my my car broken into, and hubcaps and purse stolen in the suburbs, but no crime problems in Detroit.

So I know that Iraq must be safe.

Second, two Iraqi dentist bloggers say that things are much better. I don't read their blog, but they were quoted in the Wall Street Journal and by President Bush recently. And they're on the ground in Iraq, so they must know. In fact, they're such good bloggers that they got to meet with Bush in the White House a few years ago. The blogger who wrote this:

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

was obviously just suffering from sour grapes, upset that SHE didn't get invited to the White House. Why else would she spread such lies about the glorious American victory in Iraq?

And then today, St. John McCain, Mr. Straight Talk himself, took a stroll in Iraq to show how safe it is. He strolled briefly through an open-air market in Baghdad to show how safe it is. He wore a bulletproof vest, and was accompanied by 100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.

In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market today was proof that you could indeed “walk freely” in some areas of Baghdad. Video here.

Of course, malcontents who work and live in Iraq disagree:

But what do they know?

WWJD?

2007-04-01T12:26:00.000-04:00

Family Values

2007-03-29T19:58:00.000-04:00

Republicans talk the talk, but Democrats walk the walk.

Treason

2007-03-28T11:30:00.000-04:00

I didn't used to find much of Bill Maher's stand-up to be particularly funny. But, with practice, he's gotten better (although he could work on his delivery). What he had to say about Valerie, Plame, though, was spot-on:

The party that flatters itself that they protect America better is the party that has exhausted the military, left the ports wide open and purposefully outed a CIA agent, Valerie Plame. That's not treason anymore? Outing a spy? Did I mention it was one of our spies? And how despicable that Bush's lackeys attempted to diminish this crime by belittling her service, like she was just some chick who hung around the CIA. "An intern, really. Groupie, if you want to be mean about it."
Valerie Plame was the CIA's operational officer in charge of counter-proliferation. Which means she tracked loose nukes. So when Bush said---as he once did---that his absolute, number-one priority was preventing terrorists from getting loose nukes, okay, that's what she worked on. That's what she devoted her life to, staying undercover for 20 years, maintaining two identities every goddamn day. This is extraordinary service to your country.

Valerie Plame was the kind of real-life secret agent George Bush dreams of being when he's not too busy pretending to be a cowboy or a fighter pilot. ... George Bush likes to claim that he doesn't question his critics' patriotism, just their judgment. Well, let me be the first of your critics, Mr. President, to question your judgment and your patriotism. Because let's not forget why they did it to her. Because Valerie Plame was married to this guy---Joe Wilson---who the Bush people hated because he busted them on one of their bullshit reasons for invading Iraq....Valerie Plame's husband told the truth about their lie, so they were willing to jeopardize an entire network of spies to ruin her life....

Mark Twain said, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." And I say Valerie Plame is a patriot because she spent her life serving her country. ... Valerie Plame kept her secrets. The Bush Administration leaked like the plumbing at Walter Reed.

The Bushies care only about one thing--Power. They care about using it and keeping it. They care about a permanent Republican majority because, with it, there is no oversight. They will sacrifice anyone or anything to stay in power. Goodbye Valerie. Goodbye Geneva conventions. Goodbye Bill of Rights. Goodbye Constitution.

They don't care about the security of our nation or the lives of their fellow Americans. Dubai can run our ports, and our servicemen and women can continue to die in Iraq, as long as they have their power, their money, and their oil.

You can watch Bill here:

650,000

2007-03-27T18:58:00.000-04:00

When the Lancet report came out (a statistical estimate of excess deaths in Iraq since the invasion of March, 2003), it was quickly criticized both the Bush and Blair administrations, as well as the mainstream (aka right-wing) press. Now, according to the BBC, it turns out that the British government was warned that the report was accurate, but chose to deny it anyway:

Iraqi deaths survey 'was robust'

By Owen Bennett-Jones
BBC World Service

The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt.
Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet.
But the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust".
Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested".

Mortality rates
The Iraq government asks the country's hospitals to report the number of victims of terrorism or military action.
Critics say the system was not started until well after the invasion and requires over-pressed hospital staff not only to report daily, but also to distinguish between victims of terrorism and of crime.
The Lancet medical journal published its peer-reviewed survey last October.
It was conducted by the John Hopkins School of Public Health and compared mortality rates before and after the invasion by surveying 47 randomly chosen areas across 16 provinces in Iraq.
The researchers spoke to nearly 1,850 families, comprising more than 12,800 people.
In nearly 92% of cases family members produced death certificates to support their answers. The survey estimated that 601,000 deaths were the result of violence, mostly gunfire.
Shortly after the publication of the survey in October last year Tony Blair's official spokesperson said the Lancet's figure was not anywhere near accurate.

He said the survey had used an extrapolation technique, from a relatively small sample from an area of Iraq that was not representative of the country as a whole.

President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report."
But a memo by the MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: "The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to "best practice" in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."
'Cannot be rubbished'
One of the documents just released by the Foreign Office is an e-mail in which an official asks about the Lancet report: "Are we really sure the report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies."
The reply from another official is: "We do not accept the figures quoted in the Lancet survey as accurate. "
In the same e-mail the official later writes: "However, the survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones."
Asked how the government can accept the Lancet's methodology but reject its findings, the government has issued a written statement in which it said: "The methodology has been used in other conflict situations, notably the Democratic republic of Congo.
"However, the Lancet figures are much higher than statistics from other sources, which only goes to show how estimates can vary enormously according to the method of collection.
"There is considerable debate amongst the scientific community over the accuracy of the figures."
.......If the Lancet survey is right, then 2.5% of the Iraqi population - an average of more than 500 people a day - have been killed since the start of the war.

Spring Has Arrived

2007-03-27T18:39:00.000-04:00

...of that there is no doubt. The temperatures were in the 70s today, and the lake has completely melted–no more patches of ice. That doesn't mean there won't be any more snow–this is Michigan, after all–but, generally, winter is pretty much over.

The birds seem convinced it's spring as well. My ducks have arrived, and are gobbling down whatever they can find under the feeder. I've seen my first purple finch (see below), and the goldfinches are becoming very patchy looking, as they grow in their breeding (yellow) plumage.

Purple finches are actually quite red!

I've been busy, and just haven't had the inspiration to blog much. The mainstream press is finally covering the many sins of the Bush administration, so I don't really need to. I should put in my two cents as well, but Easter is near, and I have lots of pysanky to make. I may post a few more items if it is slow at work tomorrow.

The rain is pouring down, a reminder that a Michigan spring is usually gray and wet. I took the car to the car wash today–every time I lean against it, even inadvertently, I get coated with salt, so it was time. I enjoyed that clean car feeling for all of thirty seconds–the minute I left the car wash it began to rain.

4 Years

2007-03-19T12:39:00.000-04:00

From today's Guardian:

His hands were bleeding and his eyes filled with tears as, four years ago, he slammed a sledgehammer into the tiled plinth that held a 20ft bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. Then Kadhim al-Jubouri spoke of his joy at being the leader of the crowd that toppled the statue in Baghdad's Firdous Square. Now, he is filled with nothing but regret.

The moment became symbolic across the world as it signalled the fall of the dictator.... Now, on the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, he says: "I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day."

The weightlifter had also been a mechanic and had felt the full weight of Saddam's regime when he was sent to Abu Ghraib prison by the Iraqi leader's son, Uday, after complaining that he had not been paid for fixing his motorcycle...

Yet he now says he would prefer to be living under Saddam than under US occupation. He said: "The devil you know [is] better than the devil you don't. We no longer know friend from foe. The situation is becoming more dangerous. It's not getting better at all. People are poor and the prices are going higher and higher."

Saddam, he says, "was like Stalin. But the occupation is proving to be worse".

And:

According to an opinion poll of 5,000 Iraqis carried out over the past month, 49% say they are better off now than under Saddam, and 26% say life was better under Saddam. More than one in four said they had had a close relative murdered in the past three years.

But the surge is working, and victory is in sight. SO says Bush, and so parrot the 29%-ers.

If this is success, what would failure be like?

The State of the Nation

2007-03-06T15:09:00.000-05:00

Or, rather, the state of the nation's health care system.

Blogger and president of the California Nurses associated Deborah Burger says it all so much better that I can. From the Huffington Post:

There's another side to the unfolding scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other Veterans Administration facilities. The Bush administration's attitude toward our wounded veterans parallels its behavior toward the rest of our healthcare system - neglect, inadequate funding, and privatization.

It also illustrates a disturbing pattern of misplaced priorities, record spending on a disastrous war while our healthcare security for veterans and millions of other Americans is left behind.

For those who have missed the headlines, or are just too horrified to read the details, here's a snapshot of the administration's greatest domestic disaster since Katrina.

It starts with brutally substandard care and abandonment of tens of thousands of veterans, not just at Walter Reed, but at VA hospitals and clinics around the country, as the Washington Post has revealed in ghastly detail.

Second, starving the VA. Since 2001, as Paul Krugman reported in the New York Times, federal allocations for veterans medical care lag behind overall healthcare spending, rather stunning when you consider we have sent 1.5 million of our young men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan and over 184,000 have sought VA care after serving.

There's more. Due to funding cuts, some 263,257 veterans were denied enrollment for Veterans Administration health coverage in 2005. To cut costs, enrollment has been suspended for those deemed not having service-related injuries or illnesses. So much for the guarantee of lifetime healthcare. And, if all the other indignities were not enough, some Walter Reed patients had to buy their own meals.

The final piece of this unholy troika is privatization. As the Army Times notes, Walter Reed handed a five-year $120 million contract to a private company run by an ex-Halliburton executive. The contracting out of support services was followed by a mass exodus of support personnel.

Now if you think this is an aberration, look at other ways our healthcare safety net is being dismantled.

Since President Bush arrived in Washington, the number of uninsured has ballooned by 11%. It's not much better for the insured. Nearly half say their insurer has refused to pay a medical bill they received, about a third say they have hesitated seeking needed care due to cost. Today half of all bankruptcies, and a third of credit card debt, is directly linked to medical bills.

Concurrently, the number of public hospitals in America has fallen by 30% the past 30 years, a period in which the combined debt of state and local governments has grown by 852% to nearly $200 billion.

It's affecting huge proportions of our population. New York is preparing to close or merge dozens of hospitals, and Chicago officials just signed off on plans to shut or downsize 19 community and school based clinics.

The U.S. spends more, far more, on health care than any other nation, but much of it is diverted into the pockets of corporate CEOs, gobbled up in record profits for the healthcare industry, and consumed by administrative waste. Just last week the commission that advises Congress on Medicare reported that Medicare has to spend 12% more for care that is administered through private insurers than through traditional Medicare.

Meanwhile the healthcare lobby cheerleads for more privatization, and the Bush Administration, joined by a number of politicians and even some advocacy groups, argue that the solution to our healthcare nightmare is more private insurance, not more healthcare....

Our nation trails 36 other countries in the mortality rate for adults ages 15 to 60, 31 countries in infant mortality, and ranks just 26th in the mortality rate for cardio vascular disease.

All those nations, of course, also have some form of guaranteed universal healthcare system, sort of an expanded Medicare as has been proposed for the U.S. in HR 676. The public is ready for it. The latest New York Times/CBS poll found that 64% said the government should guarantee health insurance for all, 55% identified it as the top domestic priority for Congress and the President.

The Bush Administration can fire a general or two, but until it shows the same commitment to caring for the war wounded and the rest of our nation's health that it does in waging war, Walter Reed will just be another name on a growing list of shame.

Spend more, get less, and the corporations make huge profits. That appears to be the new American Way.

All Better

2007-02-28T09:59:00.000-05:00

The military has taken swift action to take care of the problems at Walter Reed. The recent articles by Dana Priest in the Washington Post spurred them into action.

What sort of action? According to the Navy Times:

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media. “Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.

The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.

It's all about the perception. Mission Accomplished!

Ingrates!

2007-02-27T16:16:00.000-05:00

The Iraqi people are ingrates, or so Laura Bush intimates. She recently said:

"Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, uh, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone."

Because, you know, everything is just going so swimmingly in Iraq. One measly bombing a day? Americans would just laugh it off, right?

Like this one, for instance:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A car bomb exploded Tuesday near a park popular with young soccer players, killing at least 18 boys in a city west of Baghdad known as a center of the Sunni insurgency, police said.

The bomb-rigged car blew apart in central Ramadi late Tuesday afternoon while the boys were playing, and police said those killed were ages 10 to 15. The attack was also reported on Iraqi state television.

Really, what ARE those people complaining about? Why do they keep discouraging us? Why do they inflict these images onto our "beautiful minds"?

Don't we all have days like this?

2007-02-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

From the AP wire:

Woman Allegedly Shoots at Tailgater

HARRISON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A woman who told authorities she was fed up with tailgaters pulled out a gun and shot at the tires of a pickup that got too close, police said. Officials believe the bullet missed the pickup, and no one was hurt.

Bernadette Headd, 39, was in rush-hour traffic Wednesday in suburban Detroit when the pickup pulled behind her, police said.

Headd changed lanes and fired one round from a 9 mm handgun, police said. The driver followed her and flagged down a deputy, who stopped her and found the weapon.

"She said she was tired of people tailgating her," Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel said.

Headd, who had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm from a vehicle and use of a firearm during a felony.

She was ordered held on $50,000 bond.

The proper spacing between cars!

Economics 101

2007-02-26T10:54:00.000-05:00

Branford

2007-02-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

I attended the DSO concert last night with my sister-in-law, Laurie. All I had told her about it in advance was that the soloist would be playing saxophone–or so she claims. My nieces and nephews all declined to come for various reasons, so Laurie came with me.

Symphony Hall, unusually for a concert on a cold night in February, was packed. Branford Marsalis was playing, his first appearance there in 13 years (when I'd seen him last). It turns out she is a huge fan of his, as he often appears on the Mitch Albom radio program, which she listens to.

It was a brilliant show. His playing was superb, and the Brazeal Dennard Chorale was great (as usual). Afterwards, I wanted to buy his most recent classical CD; the music shop directed me to the Atrium, where I could buy a CD and have it signed by the artist.

There was a time when classical artists, at least the well known ones, rarely met with the hoi polloi and signed autographs. Times have changed and, the last few years, more and more of them do. The CD market is shrinking, especially in the classical field, and they've come to appreciate the need to build popular support.

It's also a good fund-raiser for the DSO (at $22 per disc).

So I bought a disc and Laurie and I got in line, which wasn't that long. When we got to the front, I chatted with Branford, who was very sweet and friendly, an absolute non-diva. Laurie decided to get a photo of th etwo of us with her camera, and he popped out to pose with me. Only, she couldn't get the camera to work. After fiddling with it for a few minutes, we got out of the way (we were holding up the line), and Branford laughed and went back to signing CDs and programs.

One of the DSO staff and Laurie struggled with her camera, finally figuring out where the lens was, and that her kids had turned it around to take self portraits. Branford then came out from behind the table, posed with us again, and we shook hands and thanked him profusely (while apologizing).

I just wanted to note how gracious he was; not at all as I've come to expect "stars" to behave.

And, FYI, the album was brilliant. I've been listening to it in the car since Friday. Lovely melodies, and such smooth sax playing that you'd think it was a clarinet. Ravel's Pavane is very nice, and Ibert's Concertino da Camera very lush and lively.

The Support They Deserve

2007-02-21T16:41:00.000-05:00

.....is not forthcoming. The Bush administration failed to plan adequately for this war, failed to give our troops the armor and equipment they needed to fight the war, and are now shirking their responsibility to those maimed and wounded by this war.

Dana Priest writes about it in a two part series in the Washington Post. The first part got a lot of coverage–horrible conditions at Walter Reed–but the second part deserves a look as well. Our poor veterans being denied the medical care they need, and the disability pay they deserve, by an administration trying to cut costs so they can preserve their tax cuts to the richest of the rich.

For Shame!

The Rape of Iraq

2007-02-20T13:05:00.000-05:00

In the Muslim world rape is not something to be spoken of lightly. Women who are raped rarely speak of it, because to do so brings shame on the woman and on her family. This is not right, but this is how it is in a patriarchal society.

Sabrine, a very brave Sunni woman, decided to speak publicly about her treatment — rape — at the hands of Iraqi security forces (trained by the USA). She did so on al Jazeera. The result —

In Baghdad, Prime Minister Nouri al-Makiki moved quickly to try to defuse a potentially explosive scandal after a Sunni woman claimed she was raped by three officers of the Shiite-dominated police.
But the government's response — siding with the officers and trying to discredit the allegations — threatened to bring even more backlash.
A statement by al-Makiki's office accused "certain parties" — presumably Sunni politicians — of fabricating the claims in an attempt to undermine security forces during the ongoing Baghdad security operation, which began last week.
The 20-year-old married woman said she was assaulted after police commandos took her into custody Sunday in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Amil, accusing her of helping insurgents. She was taken to a police garrison and raped, she said.
"It has been shown after medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual attack whatsoever and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants against her issued by security agencies," the government statement said.
It added: "The prime minister has ordered that the officers accused be rewarded."
There was no comment from Sunni officials, who expressed outrage over the alleged rape and demanded swift punishment. Sunnis blame the police for many of the death squad killings of Sunnis over the past two years.

Calling the victim a liar, and rewarding her attackers. This is what we're teaching? These are the values we're instilling?

And what will be the Iraqi response to this violation? Sabrine could have been anyone's sister, wife, daughter... There are three women scheduled to be executed by the government. Their crime? Ties to the resistance. As Riverbend notes:

Humanitarian organizations are warning that three Iraqi women are to be executed next month. The women are Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Omar Muhammad.
They are being accused of 'terrorism', i.e. having ties to the Iraqi resistance. It could mean they are relatives of people suspected of being in the resistance. Or it could mean they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of them gave birth in the prison. I wonder what kind of torture they've endured. Let no one say Iraqi women didn't get at least SOME equality under the American occupation- we are now equally as likely to get executed.

And what of the situation in Iraq?

And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse?
Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts:
It’s worse. It’s over. You lost.
You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

It hasn't. And it never will.

Happy Near Year!

2007-02-18T13:31:00.000-05:00

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."
–Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

In Asia, today marks the first day of the new year, which is the Year of the Pig. According to Chinese astrology, people born in pig years are polite, honest, hardworking and loyal. They are also lucky, which is why many Chinese like to have babies in a pig year.

A Difficult Choice

2007-02-14T08:58:00.000-05:00

With huge budget deficits looming, the Bush Administration is faced with a difficult choice: preserve tax cuts for the rich, or fully fund the Veterans Administration. One can only imagine how the poor man must struggle, trying to choose between two equally deserving propositions.

On the one hand, you have our nation's veterans, many thousands now disabled due to Bush's wars, who will need rehabilitation services and continuing medical care. On the other, Bush's base, the "have-mores" need their new yachts and summer homes.

Solomon would struggle with a decision such as this.

Paris Hilton.....

..or our wounded warriors?

So which has this administration chosen to fund?

Isn't it obvious?

Obama and little Johnny

2007-02-13T11:43:00.000-05:00

John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia, is about as popular there as GWB is here. Noting that Tony Blair was on the way out, he is obviously angling for the role of Bush's bestest li'l foreign buddy. (It should be noted that Howard's son actually worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004.) To wit:

Only days after saying Australia's alliance with the US was about more than his personal friendship with US President George W Bush, Mr Howard warned that an Obama victory would be a boost for the terrorists.

The man who wants to be the first black US president has pledged to withdraw US troops from Iraq by March 2008, a timetable Mr Howard believes is dangerous.

"I think that would just encourage those who wanted completely to destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for (an) Obama victory," Mr Howard told the Nine Network.

Labor spokesman Robert McLellan replied:

"It's the first time that I can recall that an Australian prime minister has engaged in US politics in such a partisan way... actually telling US citizens what side of politics they should vote for," he said.

"It's most inappropriate, it demeans the Australia-US alliance to suggest its a relationship between political parties rather than an enduring relationship between two people."

"If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats."

But the best response to Bush's new poodle came from Obama's camp. His spokeman, Robert Gibbs, said:

"If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home. It's easy to talk tough when it's not your country or your troops making the sacrifices."

Or, in Bush's case, when it's not your friends, family or social class.

Lies, Lies, Lies

2007-02-13T11:27:00.000-05:00

Imagine....the Bush administration has been lying to us again! A few days ago, unnamed sources gave a dog and pony show to the press to demonstrate how evil Iran was and how involved they were in the mess in Iraq:

At a briefing Sunday in Baghdad, U.S. military officials said the al-Quds Force, an elite Iranian paramilitary organization, is sending arms into Iraq that include bombs that shoot molten metal jets through the armor of American tanks and Humvees.

They said these "explosively formed projectiles," or EFPs, have killed 170 U.S. troops and wounded more than 600 others and are "coming from the highest level of the Iranian government.

The right got its collective panties in a twist and helped beat the drums of war.

And then yesterday we learned that it wasn't actually so!

A day after the U.S. military charged Iran's government with shipping powerful explosive devices to Shiite Muslim fighters in Iraq to use against American troops, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that he hasn't seen any intelligence to support the claim.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace's comment could make it harder for the Bush administration, its credibility about Iran questioned because of its false pre-war claims about Saddam Hussein, to make its case that Iranian meddling in Iraq is fueling sectarian violence and causing U.S. casualties.

The American people have had enough of Bush's lies; they demonstrated this in November. And now the military has had enough of Bush's lies as well.

As a fool once said, "Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice.......won't get fooled again!"

Happy Anniversary!

2007-02-12T07:52:00.000-05:00

Fifty one years today. All the best to my parents, who were married in 1956 on the coldest, snowiest day of the year.

Mногії літа!!!

Believing in Tinkerbell

2007-02-12T07:06:00.000-05:00

Tom Tomorrow takes up the magical thinking meme. His entire plan for Iraq is thinking we will win because we HAVE TO win. If we believe hard enough, we'll win.

Right.

Onward to Iran!

Click on picture to enlarge

Support the Troops

2007-02-11T14:57:00.000-05:00

The Republican view:
The troops' view:

Support our troops. Bring them home.......NOW!

Next Stop......Tehran?

2007-02-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

From Newsweek:

At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. “They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for,” says Hillary Mann, the administration’s former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs. …

A second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf, and NEWSWEEK has learned that a third carrier will likely follow. Iran shot off a few missiles in those same tense waters last week, in a highly publicized test. With Americans and Iranians jousting on the chaotic battleground of Iraq, the chances of a small incident’s spiraling into a crisis are higher than they’ve been in years.

Afghanistan. Iraq. And soon Iran.

Why can't these Neocons at least WIN (or admit defeat in) the first war before moving on to the second? Like the spoiled boy he is, Bush makes messes and then leaves them for others to clean up.

And the lies are beginning to appear in the press - hints of Iran 's involvement in Iraq, stories about nuclear weaponry, all attributed to nameless government sources. All while the IAEA states that Iran is ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon, and the Saudis have been shown to be funding the Sunni insurgency to the tune of millions of dollars.

WMDs, terrorism, fight them over there so we won't have to fight them over there : It's deja vu all over again!

Freedom and Democracy in Iraq

2007-02-06T13:47:00.000-05:00

From CNN (via Atrios):

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence.

Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's seat in parliament gives him immunity from prosecution. Washington says he supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq.

U.S. military intelligence in Iraq has approached al-Maliki's government with the allegations against Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, whom it says assists Iranian special forces in Iraq as "a conduit for weapons and political influence."

...A Kuwaiti court sentenced Jamal Jafaar Mohammed to death in 1984 in the car bombings of the U.S. and French embassies the previous December. Five people died in the attacks and 86 were wounded.

So, let me get this straight–our servicemen and women are dying to protect anti-American terrorists?

Apparently, we are no longer fighting terrorists either here OR over there!

The Republican War

2007-02-05T20:08:00.000-05:00

The Republicans have tried to paint the Iraq conflict as a bipartisan fiasco. They point out that many Democratic senators and congressmen voted for the resolution to give Bush the authority to potentially attack Iraq after consultation with the UN. That he lied to them about WMDs, and that he went to war despite a lack of the support from the UN does not temper their arguments.

So when the bipartisan Iraq Study Group came out with its report, and a way out of the quagmire, and Bush chose to ignore it, the war became Bush's war.

And it looked as though it would remain Bush's war. But the Senate Republicans, many of whom have been speaking against the war recently, today made the war a Republican war. How? By voting against debating the "Surge". They voted against allowing debate to proceed on the non-binding resolution, even Hagel and Collins, and all the "anti-war" republicans. Republicans are so far gone on the issue, that Warner and Hagel voted to prevent debate on their own resolution. (60 votes are needed to proceed with the debate under Senate rules on the issue.)

Not a single Democrat voted with them*.

So there. Republicans, we tried to give you an out, but you wouldn't take it. Iraq is now officially yours, it is a Republican War and a massive Republican failure.

______
* Reid, the majority leader, voted with the Republicans as a procedural matter. This will allow him to bring the matter up before the Senate again. This is why Frist foten voted with the Democrats in the previous coongresses.

Cold and Getting Colder

2007-02-04T22:13:00.000-05:00

It is really, really cold out there, at least in part due to the wind chill (-21°F). You can freeze getting from the house to the car, and it takes forever to warm up again. At the moment, we have this:

All is not lost; it's meant to get warmer this week – we may get into positive numbers!

Brrrr! Time for a hot bath to try and melt a bit. This is why I almost never spend February in Michigan!

Support the Troops

2007-02-04T22:06:00.000-05:00

This ad ran during the Super Bowl in several states (not, alas, in Michigan):

Support the Troops - bring them home!

The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

2007-02-04T11:16:00.000-05:00

Iraq edition:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates that about 1,000 people have been killed throughout Iraq in the past week due to gunbattles, drive-by shootings and bomb attacks, a ministry official said Sunday.

The figure includes members of militia and terrorist groups, civilians and Iraqi security forces. The official said the data was gathered by Iraq's Interior, Health and Defense ministries.

The grim estimate came just a day after a bloody bomb attack on a crowded market in central Baghdad that killed 128 people and wounded 343 others Saturday, according to a Health Ministry official.

The incident, which also destroyed cars and surrounding stores, occurred in Sedriya, a mixed district of Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds.

The Health Ministry official said he expected the death toll from that attack to rise. Already, it is the deadliest attack in Iraq since November 23, when Shiites were targeted by coordinated car bomb attacks in Sadr City. At least 200 civilians were killed in those attacks.

Jihad Jabri, head of the Interior Ministry's bomb squad, said a Mercedes truck used in Saturday's blast contained a ton of explosives.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the attack on Saddam Hussein loyalists and Sunni extremists.

And this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq Feb 4, 2007 (AP)— The four U.S. helicopters that have crashed in Iraq since Jan. 20 were apparently shot down, the chief American military spokesman said Sunday the first time the U.S. command has publicly acknowledged that the aircraft were lost to enemy fire.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters that the investigations into the crashes of three Army and one private helicopters are incomplete but "it does appear they were all the result of some kind of anti-Iraqi ground fire that did bring those helicopters down."

Feel the SURGE! Victory is around the corner! And freedom is on the march!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

2007-02-04T02:15:00.000-05:00

I've been keeping warm by cooking today; I spent quite a few hours making a huge roaster of stuffed cabbage (in a tomato-onion sauce). Apparently there is a football game tomorrow, which we're going to watch (or not, as the case may be) at my parents' house on the new HDTV.

Their 6.5 year old Sony TV died last month, and we replaced it with a 37" Vizio. (No more Sony products for us; my brothers' unit died after only three years, and they had to argue to get any warranty coverage for it). I've learned more about HDTV that I ever wanted to, and my parents have learned to fear their remote --too many buttons that do strange things and inexplicable things (PIP, different screen widths, etc.).

Worse than Satan?

2007-02-03T22:03:00.000-05:00

Polls don't lie:

Groundhog Day

2007-02-02T14:09:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday, Alex!

2007-01-31T12:31:00.000-05:00

Seen here with his mom, Aunt Dusia