Posts from — March 2006

Having been there and seen it, my hopes go out to the people of Queensland.

Update: More from Australian Broadcasting.

03/20: Latest update from Australian Broadcasting.

Fafnir noted that the Iraq War would have it’s feelings hurt if we didn’t hold a birthday party.

The traditional gift for the third anniversary is leather, which Anne Zook noted and suggested new hoods for those in Guantanamo. Anne also has a list of the general costs in blood and treasure.

Riverbend looks back at the three years and its impact on individual Iraqis and fears for her people as the fourth year begins.

CBS, among most media, notes that Protests Mark 3 Years Of Iraq War and Blondesense Liz has a nice photo montage.

FAIR and Glenn Greenwald cover the Chickenhawk Cheerleading Crew’s pronouncements of correctness and competence displayed by the Shrubbery in his noble and manly actions against Iraq.

To celebrate this anniversary the Shrubbery launched Operation Swarmer, another photo op. To call it a “Potemkin village” denigrates the style of Prince Potemkin.

For those who have short-term memory problems: Iraq did not have WMDs and, as a result, was not in violation of UN Resolution 1441. The UN weapons inspectors were forced out of Iraq by the actions of the President of the United States, not the President of Iraq. The “intelligence” was selected to support the desires of the White House, not the reality on the ground.

Every problem encountered in Iraq was anticipated, but the warnings were ignored.

Congratulations to everyone who made the attempt.

Update: More on Rachael at the Grumpy Forester.

Except that yesterday we were told Report: Airport screeners fail homemade bomb tests.

The thing about successful prevarication is that it requires an excellent memory, a good personality, and intelligence.

We are spending billions and are no safer than we were before 9/11. These people have been playing with “terror level” and don’t take terrorism seriously because they has been manipulating the system for political purposes.

For all of their illegal wiretapping, they didn’t detect any of the Asian-Pacific bombings, the Madrid bombing, or the London bombing. If their system was effective and their concept of the “international terrorism network” was accurate, they should have picked up something.

The only people we know for a fact the “homeland security forces” are watching are opponents of the Shrubbery and/or the war in Iraq.

I found that in order to get my regular page to appear I had to go to Dashboard, select my latest post for Editing, and then hit Publish.

If you don’t hit the Publish button, your page won’t be regenerated.

It worked for me, and it might for you.

This hurricane season is going to be just as bad as 2005 and we are on our own.

I wonder if the Republicans understand that if the power is out we will be voting with paper ballots and counting by hand, not using Diebold equipment.

This is a first, and does not bode well for Cruella’s chances, nor for Republicans in other statewide races.

The rest of us have been subjected to being “down for maintenance” or “403 – access forbidden” on a rolling basis as servers are played with at Blogger headquarters.

Now, only some of my Blogspot blog roll will respond.

I guess I may have to actually spend some money on my hobby and move this to a real server.

I hate the thought of fixing all of the links, a real pain.

Éireann go Brách

Well everyone agrees that he died on March 17 ^th, but the year is subject to debate. This is his feast day on the Catholic calendar. Enjoy as you are wont.

Wikipedia has more on Saint Patrick’s Day, if you need more.

Oh, That Cable

Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember tugging on that.

[Editor: Ringo is small and agile enough to reach the cables in the back of the sytem unit.]

Friday Ark

“The president believes that we must remember the clearest lesson of Sept. 11: that the United States of America must confront threats before they fully materialize,” national security adviser Stephen Hadley said.

“The president’s strategy affirms that the doctrine of preemption remains sound and must remain an integral part of our national security strategy,” Hadley said. “If necessary, the strategy states, under longstanding principles of self defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack.”

While self-defense is a longstanding principle, preemption is roundly condemned by treaties and conventions to which the United States is a signatory.

Hurricane Katrina vividly showed that this administration would rather stay on vacation than confront obvious and growing threats to the people of the United States.

The Iraq invasion was a preemptive strike based on selective intelligence that ignored the reality that Saddam Hussein was telling the truth and had destroyed his weapons of mass destruction. Thousands are dead and the United States is still trapped in a quagmire with no exit strategy. “We will stand down when the Iraqis stand up” isn’t a strategy, it is a sound bite and a prayer.

The woman does not want to lend her celebrity to a Republican Party fundraiser as she lobbies for her favorite charity, Operation Smile, which provides free surgery for poor children.

She’s not comfortable with helping a political party raise money, while she’s trying to raise the visibility of the charity. Apparently the only way you get to talk to the President is by raising money for the Republican Party.

When CBS posts a headline like, Rice: Iran ‘Central Banker’ For Terror, you are forced to realize that she still hasn’t figured out that the world has moved on from the Cold War model.

Iran has, for an extended period, given money to Hezbollah, a Shi’ia group in Lebanon, that is miffed by the fact that Israel invaded southern Lebanon and still occupies the Syrian Golan Heights.

The US is protecting the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq [MEK], a recognized anti-Iranian terrorist group, so it becomes a color squabble between pots and kettles.

This “pot-kettle” has just expressed itself in another way when: UN creates new human rights body. John “The Walrus” Bolton told them not to do it, but only Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau joined the US in voting against the plan. When you lose a vote 170 to 4 you might want to consider the reality that you have a credibility problem.

Now is the time to consider the US response when the new panel cites the US for its human rights violation at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, etc.

That credibility gap is not going to be filled by the Iraq Study Group writing a report. No one on the planet with an IQ above room temperature is going to accept the conclusion of a panel headed by Bush family consigliere, James Baker III.

In talking about the re-statement of the National Security Strategy, which amounts to what was said before invading Iraq with Iraq changed to Iran, the Shrubbery said: “If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur — even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack…”

If you use deadly physical force against another person and it is shown that the person you injured or killed was not actually a threat, you should expect to find yourself in prison.

The gang in Washington needs to understand that, based on the lying that took place prior to the invasion of Iraq, if the US Capitol was reduced to a smoking crater, most of the rest of the world would want further proof that the US had been attacked. Our credibility is gone. No one is willing to accept our word about anything.

Looking at the latest The Pew Research Center polling, two-thirds of the US population would be skeptical about the claim of an attack.

On March 19^th President Alexander Lukashenko will provide voters with the opportunity to decide how wide a margin he will receive in the elections he provides to prove that he is a modern dictator.

Lukashenko believes in the freedom of the press, as well as the rack, the iron maiden, hot pokers and other things that are outlawed in the West.

When it comes to the media:

The Committee to Protect Journalists has described Belarus as one of the 10 “worst places to be a journalist”. President Lukashenko appears on the Reporters Without Borders organisation’s list of “predators of press freedom”; it accuses his government of carrying out a “systematic crackdown” on the private press.

To improve the experience of people voting for him, Lukashenko has rejected election monitors who intended to watch while people counted ballots and other unnecessary annoyances.

Belarus was considering using electronic voting, but that would waste all of the pre-marked ballots currently in storage.

The President is getting a little jumpy having to wait until this Sunday to learn the margin of his victory.