Pickin' and a grinnin'

On Tuesday, the President was busy strumming guitar at a photo op while residents of one of the nation's major cities fought for their lives.

The Times- Picayune accurately predicted that money diverted to the war in Iraq could have been spent to strengthen levees and other protective measures for the Mississippi delta communities, including New Orleans.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA [the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project], spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

So in the modern version, does Nero play guitar?

Troops deserve death??

I'm totally speechless here:

By BETH RUCKER, Associated Press Writer Sun Aug 28,10:16 AM ET

SMYRNA, Tenn. - Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.

Full story linked above.

If she says it again, it must be true*

Coulter repeated claim that New Yorkers "would immediately surrender" to terrorists

On the August 25 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter once again stated that residents of New York City "would immediately surrender" if terrorists invaded their city. Coulter added that she would "rather have them [terrorists] trying to invade Mississippi or Georgia, Alabama, you know, the states where I want [war critic] Cindy Sheehan's bus tour to go."

Coulter made her comments in response to co-host Alan Colmes's questions about her August 10 syndicated column, in which she wrote:

As Republicans were saying repeatedly -- captured on Lexis-Nexis for a year before it showed up in a [Republican pollster] Frank Luntz talking-points memo in 2004 -- the savages have declared war, and it's far preferable to fight them in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York (where the residents would immediately surrender). That strategy appears to be working. Then again, maybe it's just that it's so damnably hard to find parking in New York ...

[...]

But you will notice, the jihadists are not pouring across the Syrian border to, say, Brooklyn Heights. They are running to Iraq, where they run smack dab into the glorious U.S. military.

From the August 25 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

COLMES: And I want to ask you about something, Ann, that you wrote in your most recent column. You had a very funny line, actually, that it is hard to find a parking spot in New York City. There's no question about it. You've had a pretty good day if you can do that. But then you said, "It's far preferable to fight them on the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York (where the residents would immediately surrender)." Now, some New Yorkers felt that you were calling them cowards by making that statement.

COULTER: No, I think I was calling them supporters of Cindy Sheehan.

COLMES: Is that what that is? You certainly don't feel that New Yorkers are cowards?

COULTER: I think they would immediately surrender.

COLMES: So you do think that?

COULTER: I don't -- I don't think -- I think I'd rather have them trying to invade Mississippi or Georgia, Alabama, you know, the states where I want Cindy Sheehan's bus tour to go.

COLMES: I see.

[crosstalk]

ELLIS HENICAN (Fox News political analyst): Can I stand up for my adopted town for a second?

[crosstalk]

COLMES: Go ahead.

COULTER: Wait, could I just make an historical note?

COLMES: Yes, go ahead, Ann.

[crosstalk]

COULTER: When the Nazis landed in World War II, they did land in the Hamptons.

HENICAN: Ann, I know it's a tough town, not everybody can handle living here, but this is one very tough town. We stand up for whatever we have to. Don't worry about it.

[crosstalk]

COLMES: And we saw how tough we were on September 11.

* post title refers to a line in Lewis Carroll's "Hunting of the Snark" which is "What I tell you three times is true."

Traveling to the US

Charles Stross, a science fiction writer who recently won the Hugo award for his novella "The Concrete Jungle", outlines in his blog the reasons he is going to restrict his travel to the US to necessary travel ONLY.

Here's an excerpt about why (full blog entry linked in the title):

Now, according to the New York times, the office of the Attorney General is contending in court that foreigners have no rights: "Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday."

This legal theory is being advanced in the context of the Arar case, of a Canadian citizen who, changing planes in New York, was arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorism (for which he was later exonerated), held in solitary confinement without access to legal advice or any charges, and subsequently bundled off to Syria for interrogation under torture.

Fun times ahead, folks...

Eye-opening article on how congress works

Full article at
this site
(also linked above)

Excerpt:

It was a veritable bonfire of public money, and it raged with all the brilliance of an Alabama book-burning. And what fueled it all were the little details you never heard about. The energy bill alone was 1,724 pages long. By the time the newspapers reduced this Tolstoyan monster to the size of a single headline announcing its passage, only a very few Americans understood that it was an ambitious giveaway to energy interests. But the drama of the legislative process is never in the broad strokes but in the bloody skirmishes and power plays that happen behind the scenes.

To understand the breadth of Bush's summer sweep, you had to watch the hand-fighting at close range. You had to watch opposition gambits die slow deaths in afternoon committee hearings, listen as members fell on their swords in exchange for favors and be there to see hordes of lobbyists rush in to reverse key votes at the last minute. All of these things I did -- with the help of a tour guide.

Lessons in Irony

VERBATIM QUOTES FROM WHEN CLINTON WAS COMMITTING TROOPS TO BOSNIA:

"You can support the troops but not the president."
---Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years."
---Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"
---Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
---Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."
---Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."
---Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."
---Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"
---Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
---Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

Buy-cott of Citgo Gas

Turns out this isn't true but here's what I saw today:

From easy bake coven:

Buy Your Gas at Citgo: Join the BUY-cott!

Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations.

And tell your friends.

Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is Hugo Chavez. Call him "the Anti-Bush."

Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US. By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.

Instead of using government to help the rich and the corporate, as Bush does, Chavez is using the resources and oil revenue of his government to help the poor in Venezuela. A country with so much oil wealth shouldn't have 60 percent of its people living in poverty, earning less than $2 per day. With a mass movement behind him, Chavez is confronting poverty in Venezuela. That's why large majorities have consistently backed him in democratic elections. And why the Bush administration supported an attempted military coup in 2002 that sought to overthrow Chavez.

So this is the opposite of a boycott. Call it a BUYcott. Spread the word.

Of course, if you can take mass transit or bike or walk to your job, you should do so. And we should all work for political changes that move our country toward a cleaner environment based on renewable energy. The BUYcott is for those of us who don't have a practical alternative to filling up our cars.

Store Locator

So get your gas at Citgo. And help fuel a democratic revolution in Venezuela.