The Countdown Clock

Man, those seconds just can't run out fast enough for me. Or any other of my fine fellow bloggers. The remaining denizens of La Casa de Los Gatos don't seem to care as long as they get their 18 hours of shuteye per day, interspersed with fine kibble, treats, toys, pets, catnip, and the daily constitutional exploration of the hillside, but.


Me, I can't bear waking up to a headline such as this:

Bush 'very pleased' with Iraq war outcome: Report

Is there anything that bothers this pathetic, revolting little man? Does he think for even one minute of the nearly 5,000 coffins in which the remains of his fellow-citizens lie moldering? The tears of their parents? Their spouses and children? The suffering their families and friends endure, having lost a loved one? The estimated 50,000 or so lying in their own piss in military hospitals or suffering quietly at home? Missing a limb or an organ, struggling to get along on disability payments, homeless? Doomed to a lifetime of fighting the mental and emotional impact of what has been seen and lived through?


And what of the Iraqis who have died by the hundreds of thousands? Does he ever think about, see, respond to, the sight of a pool of blood blackening in the desert sun? Filled with the limbs, separated from their erstwhile owners, of children, housewives, cab-drivers, innocent bystanders, stallholders in the marketplace where the latest atrocity occurred? A little more than two years ago, a Lancet study estimated the number of Iraqi dead at 655,000. UNHCR estimates 4.7 million refugees, both inside and outside Iraq, most in dire need of food, shelter, medical aid.

Does the monster-in-chief ever contemplate the children who have seen their parents blown up before their eyes, the fathers who have no jobs but still must feed their children, the mother whose child burned and stuck to her body when our troops opened fire on her car?


Because, in addition to that first heart-wracking headline, in fact, almost immediately below it, I notice this:

Baghdad blasts kill 19

The Green Zone blast splashed blood and seared flesh across the grey concrete barriers at the entrance, according to an AFP correspondent.

Meanwhile, the rotten thing that wears the mantle of this country's leader announced today that he

believes the Iraq war was a success and is "very pleased" with what is happening there.

[He added] ..."remarkable" progress had been made in Iraq since the late dictator [Saddam Hussein] was toppled in 2003.

"People have been able to take their troops out of Iraq because Iraq is becoming successful. I'm very pleased with what is taking place there now," he said, adding there still is "a lot of work" to be done.

"We are bringing troops home because of the success in Iraq. But Iraq is not yet completely safe.

"So there will be a US presence for a while there at the request of the Iraqi government," he said.

"The United States is willing to continue to help. Most countries there within a very broad coalition have come home but we want to help this government," he said without further elaborating.

Of course, without further elaborating. Either he's lying through his teeth or he, as usual, doesn't have the first fucking clue what he's talking about. He doesn't elaborate on his statements because someone, some very malevolent wretch in the bowels of this misadministration, writes these deliberately disingenuous things for him to say, and he parrots them as his "handlers" tell him to. He has nothing to say about the armless, the legless, the blind and insane, those proud wounded heroes of his money-burning war that is crashing and burning our economy around our ears. Jesus, what a fucking blind, limited, self-satisfied pig he is. A thousand, no, a million curses on his empty head.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

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The Real 2008 Election Picture

From Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan:

Election results by state

Most of us are, by now, familiar with the maps the TV channels and web sites use to show the results of the presidential election:




The states are colored red or blue to indicate whether a majority of their voters voted for the Republican candidate, John McCain, or the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, respectively. Looking at this map it gives the impression that the Republicans won the election handily, since there is rather more red on the map than there is blue. In fact, however, the reverse is true – the Democrats won by a substantial margin. The explanation for this apparent paradox, as pointed out by many people, is that the map fails to take account of the population distribution. It fails to allow for the fact that the population of the red states is on average significantly lower than that of the blue ones. The blue may be small in area, but they represent a large number of voters, which is what matters in an election.

We can correct for this by making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states are rescaled according to their population. That is, states are drawn with size proportional not to their acreage but to the number of their inhabitants, states with more people appearing larger than states with fewer, regardless of their actual area on the ground. On such a map, for example, the state of Rhode Island, with its 1.1 million inhabitants, would appear about twice the size of Wyoming, which has half a million, even though Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island.

Here are the 2008 presidential election results on a population cartogram of this type:

Hat Tip To BentLiberal @ Docudharma

And on the flip: Palin's "real" America: From Larisa Alexandrovna at-Largely this morning...

Sarah Palin has told us over and over that she represents real Americans. So consider this very interesting analysis from New York Times, showing the areas of America that delivered more Republican votes than in 2004:

In comparison, look at the below map showing where there was an increase in Democratic voters:

Um, Sarah, looks like your real America is a tiny strip where mountain folk still dwell.

There's more: "The Real 2008 Election Picture" >>

The war won't end on Tuesday

From our friends at the Iraq Moratorium:

Yes, we know there's an election in four days, and a lot of folks are preoccupied. By all means, cast a ballot. But don't stop there.

No matter who wins or loses on Tuesday, the war in Iraq won't be over. It will drag on. More blood will be shed.

We want the war, the occupation, and the bloodshed to end as quickly as possible.

That's why in three weeks, on Nov. 21, we will observe the Iraq Moratorium once again. We hope you will again be part of it, as people all across the country interrupt business as usual and take action to call for an end to the war.

If we're going to end this war, it is essential that we keep the pressure on the people who are elected on Tuesday. We learned after the 2006 elections that change does not come quickly, easily, or automatically.

Please plan to join thousands of others who will take some action, big or small, on Nov. 21 to mark the Moratorium. You'll find lots of ideas on the website, IraqMoratorium.com.

And please take a minute to list the activity you're planning, so others can learn about it and participate, or take heart and inspiration from what you do. Use this easy form to share your plans.

And if you can spare a dime, buddy, we sure could use it, now that the campaigns are winding down. We've operated for more than a year on almost no money or paid staff. But even a shoestring operation needs to buy a shoestring now and then. We'd be most grateful for any help you can offer. Go here to donate.

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Landmark Supreme Court Win for Liberty Points Way for Dem Victory in November

Update: CCR Produces Analysis of Landmark Supreme Court Decision

via mal contends
The Supreme Court decision (in Boumediene v. Bush /Al Odah v. United States) is a historic affirmation of the principle of habeas corpus (in Latin, "you shall have the body"), and a rejection of the acclaimed right of the tyrant, George W. Bush in this instance, to imprison another with no sound recourse for the accused; in these cases, the detained prisoners at the U.S. base at Guantánamo.

Habeas corpus refers simply to the right of the accused to go before an impartial judge and challenge the rationale behind the denial of his/her liberty.

"One of the oldest and most basic legal protections, habeas corpus affords the incarcerated the right to stand before a judge and confront the charges presented against him or her. The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has been sending habeas counsel to represent the prisoners at the base since winning the first Guantánamo case, Rasul v. Bush, in 2004, and applauds today’s decision," reads CCR's press release.

That's a modest statement.

It's fitting that CCR, an organization that grew out the civil rights movement— specifically Arthur Kinoy and the Kunstler brothers (nigga-loving Jews as they were known back then, and let's never forget, in the 1960s by the southern states' white power structures) and 1,000s more heroes of liberty whose names history will not record—researched and argued this landmark victory for liberty.

It is also sobering, as a NYT editorial notes today, that "... habeas hangs by a single vote in the Supreme Court of the United States—a reminder that the composition of the court could depend on the outcome of this year’s presidential election. The ruling is a major victory for civil liberties—but a timely reminder of how fragile they are."

Sobering, yes, but also inspiring of optimism for the coming November rejection of the Bush-Cheney-McCain crowd.

Barack Obama who is for the moment underperforming with white women will undoubtedly improve his standing as the campaign crystallizes how dangerous an instrument the Supreme Court has become to the cause of liberty, specifically women's liberty.

Lose any one of the five-member majority, and replace him/her with a Scalia/Roberts/Alito/Thomas clone, as John McCain has promised to do were he elected, and the right of a woman to choose will vanish. MAKE NO MISTAKE.

The decades-old victory by the feminist movement (to which Hillary Clinton and many of her supporters can proudly lay claim) for women to have the simple power over their own bodies means nothing to the hateful ideology that is prepared to eradicate the centuries-old habeas corpus rights.

Thus, look for Hillary's supporters to move decisively to Obama's camp as the repercussions of a John McCain win become clear and unity beats back the forces of hate and tyranny. Obama should be thinking about Hillary as a Supreme Court appointment for when he wins this fall.

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2008 Elections: McInsane and Iraq

Muhannad Fala'ah /Getty Images

John McCain announced today that Iraq is approaching normalcy. What era is he living in? What drugs is he on?

McCain gave a relatively optimistic appraisal of the situation in Iraq, saying that the recent reductions in violence have returned the country to something "approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi."

Before the invasion in 2003, the average Iraqi suffered from the sanctions that were imposed on Iraq, but as a rule, they could go through an entire day, a week, a month &mdash sometimes even a year &mdash without having to pick up pieces of dead relatives, neighbours, or friends.



And, in fact, The Australian reports that rocket attacks today on the Green Zone in Baghdad and a U.S. military base in Baghdad killed 3 U.S. soldiers and injured 31. Correct us if we're wrong, but we were under the impression that it is not considered "normal" to have rocket and mortar attacks on the Green Zone.

Does the mainstream media even pick up on this shit? Here's this doddering old fool who can't tell a Sunni from a Shi'a after five fucking years of war. He's a fucking Senator, fer crisake, not some shit-shoveler in the George W. Bush Memorial Sewage Plant of San Francisco (no offense to shit-shovelers anywhere, but it's not in your job description to know the warring parties in wars your government starts).

He's accusing Iran of training al Qaeda in Iraq fighters. That would be a handy-dandy thing to do, given that Iran is Shi'a and aQI is Sunni and the two sects are as close to mortal enemies as it gets in the Middle East. Someone ought to let the old fool know that aQI is most likely getting its money, guns, and training from Sunni Saudi Arabia, home of the hardline fundie Wahabi school of Islamic thought and good buddies of McCain's old friend George Dubya.

Meanwhile, Jason Linkins writes in the Huffington Post that ambulatory slimebag Patrick McHenry (Repulsive-Nauseating Conman), who recently made a trip to Iraq on the taxpayer dime and called a serviceman a "two-bit security guard" as a way of showing his support for the troops, may have endangered U.S. troops. No doubt as a way of showing his support. Very supportive fellow, McHenry.

Pam's House Blend notes that Rep. McHenry supports sleepovers at his house involving studly young NOT-GAY college students involved in some sort of voting scandal. There's also plenty of sleaze involving gay prostitution, which resulted in some sort of love triangle murder in Florida.

This blog actively supports gay, bisexual, transgender, lesbian, and all-around QUEER folk. But we wonder why so many Republicans appear to be gayer than larks, yet actively working against LGBTQ rights, and so deeply closeted they're pooping hangers. C'mon, boys and girls, step out of your closet and fucking admit to being who and what you are. No crime, no sin, no shame. It's natural to love whoever your heart tells you to love.

It's not natural to cement the goddamn closet door shut and hate on everyone who refuses to climb in there with you. But his gayishly gay gayness scandals aside, Patrick McHenry may have done a Very Bad Thing, recently. According to Brandon Friedman of VoteVets:

"Only two days after McHenry promoted a video of himself in the Green Zone describing in detail the effectiveness of the rocket attacks on Easter Sunday," Friedman notes, "the area was hit with a barrage that killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded 17 others." Friedman goes on to assert, "The bottom line is that whoever launched that strike could take the information McHenry provided and use it to kill Americans in the Green Zone."

Friedman is far from alone in his concern:

On Saturday, I communicated with one military officer currently in the Green Zone who stated that this was "undoubtedly a violation of OPSEC." On Sunday evening, I spoke with a senior intelligence official in Washington who seemed dumbfounded by McHenry's remarks. Asked whether he considered this a breach of operations security, the official shouted over the phone at me, "Of course! He's helping to dial them in." He meant the people firing the rockets.

It looks like the Republican definition of "support the troops" is "Encourage the dumb fucks to sign up and put their bodies on the line if Der Leader starts a war. Cut vet benefits; if soldiers get injured in the line of duty, force them to pay back any signup bonuses; give military contracts to your buddies so they get rich giving the troops inferior gear; buy lots of yellow plastic magnets made in China or Kazakhstan; yell loudly anytime anyone points out that you're not really helping the troops at all." Very supportive.

Oh, yeah, and work hard to get some senile warmonger elected even as your own country is falling apart because all the money is being funneled into some tiny poor country that never did anything to you and your'n.

We gotta make sure that John McCain doesn't come with an arm's-length of the Presidency; and we gotta kick out of office all these liars, thugs, crooks, and thieves who purport to support while actively harming the military.

In other exciting news, USA Toady (no typo) is reporting that the number of military recruits requiring "conduct" waivers has tripled in the past four years. Great. Find a felon, sign them up, give them weapons training, teach them might is right. Expose them to ongoing physical and psychological trauma, then bring them home and let them loose on the population.

Oh, yeah, most of these people are guilty of "misdemeanors." That means that they were merely setting markers on the road to more disturbed conduct. So it's OK. Just like Pfc Greene, who raped and murdered Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, killed her entire family, and set all their bodies on fire to destroy the evidence of his criminal acts.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

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Frank Rich's Big Mistake on Iraq War and McCain

via MAL Contends
Madison, Wisconsin—Frank Rick has a piece in this morning’s Times arguing that Obama and Hillary “are flat-out wrong” in condemning John McCain for McCain's allegedly having expressed a willingness “… to keep this (Iraq) war going for 100 years,” as the two Democrats on the campaign trail state their desire for withdrawal, contra McCain.

Rich, among the most perceptive columnists today, cites other writers and fact checkers making the same point, including Zachary Roth in the Columbia Journalism Review.

So what are McCain’s words about the U.S. occupation/war made at a town meeting in January, and repeated since?

“Make it a hundred (in Iraq). ... We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as American, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day."

Writes the CJR’s Roth, “It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long.”

What?

Rich, though he goes on to blast McCain and the Neocon enablers on other points, chides the Democrats on the 100-year war point, writing: “…The sum total of (McCain’s) public record suggests that he could well prolong the war for another century — not because he’s the crazed militarist portrayed by Democrats, but through sheer inertia, bad judgment and blundering.”

What, how again are Hillary and Obama "flat-out wrong"?

McCain predicates his anti-withdrawal position on a lie—that troops can remain in Iraq without being injured, harmed or wounded—and McCain's conclusion, that of a multi-decade-long occupation, should be taken a commitment for a multi-decade-long occupation that will be justified by still more lies.

Video of McCain Saying “10,000 years” in Iraq with permanent bases


If you have US troops in Iraq, they will remain targets. McCain is simply throwing a bone to the public in his conditional reference (taken as fact, and not a lie, without challenge by the fact checkers) to maintain "...as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

No doubt, Rich and the fact checkers, having blasted Hillary and Obama for their critiques of McCain, will point to McCain's pursuit of withdrawal, for full context. No, they don't.

Then Rich and company will point to McCain's candid acknowledgement of the Neocon enterprise in Iraq, for full context? No, they don't.

Perhaps Rich and company will at least point to McCain's rejection of permanent bases, a super permanent embassy, and McCain's commitment to Iraqi control over their own natural resources. Wrong again.

Let's acknowledge that McCain's statement is compound-complex and not a model of clarity. Indeed, the statement is predicated on false premises and lies.

But reading Rich and the fact checkers we are to believe ".... only that it might be necessary to keep troops (in Iraq) that long,” (Roth) and that "...(McCain’s) public record suggests that he could well prolong the war for another century ... through sheer inertia, bad judgment and blundering;” (Rich); but Hillary and Obama's charges that McCain wants to keep the war going for 100 years are nevertheless bogus.

What has happened to Rich and Roth on this one?

Bush, McCain and Neocons don't want out; they want a client oil state, and they will commit troops there as long it takes to establish such a geopolitical agent, while spewing the WMD, al Qaeda, regional stability, and whatever other justification they come up with for however long this Neocon propaganda will hold up.

So Obama and Hillary are spot-on to blast McCain for his 100-year, one-million-year (whatever time comes to his mind) idiocies.

Their criticism accurately reflects his anti-withdrawal commitment and accurately reflects his pro-war statement.

Again, McCain predicates his anti-withdrawal position on lies—that troops can remain in Iraq without being injured, harmed or wounded, (and let's not forget that al Qaeda and Islamofascism are the threat in Iraq)—and McCain's conclusion, that of a multi-decade-long occupation, should be taken a commitment for a multi-decade-long occupation that will be justified by still more lies.

Rich and the fact checkers ought to give this affair a rethink.

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