Year: 2007

Iraqi Parliament Majority Favors U.S. Withdrawal

Jon Ponder

Our Liberal Media seems desperate to bury this story. Via BuzzFlash.com, I found it buried inside the Washington Post site:

A majority of members of Iraq’s parliament have signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. The development was a sign of a growing division between Iraq’s legislators and prime minister that mirrors the widening gulf between the Bush administration and its critics in Congress.

The draft bill proposes a timeline for a gradual departure, much like what some U.S. Democratic lawmakers have demanded, and would require the Iraqi government to secure parliament’s approval before any further extensions of the U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2007

Florida’s Crist — Crank Up the Death Machine!

Buck Banks

Although Tennessee beat Florida to the punch in dropping its death penalty moratorium by offing a prisoner Wednesday, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist lost no time in getting our great state back on the state-sanctioned murder list. Florida and Tennesse were among 37 states that had suspended killing prisoners because of questions over whether lethal injection was really less painful than, say, hanging by the neck or having a couple million volts of electricity shot into your cranium.

The state has made some changes at Starke, the state penitentiary where we mete out the ultimate punishment in these here parts. They made the death chamber bigger, installed video cameras and locks for the wheels of the gurney, so it doesn’t roll when the injection is made. All that is supposed to get our average time between injection and death back down in the 15-minute range, which is deemed humane, compared with the 34 minutes it took us to off the last guy.

But one thing hasn’t changed — the three-chemical combo that Florida has used for years to put down the ultimate offenders. Turns out it took 34 minutes for Angel Diaz to die, not because of the chemical mix, but because the needle was pushed through his vein and the drugs were absorbed slowly rather than quickly. Besides, we haven’t had any official post-execution complaints about the potion from the guilty ones.

I have a suggestion. Screw the moratorium. Ban execution in the United States. We’ll save piles of money on prosecutions and appeals, the perps will still be terminated in prison and we won’t be a member if the real Axis of Evil — the four nations that account for 92 percent of the world’s executions: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and us.

Sussing Out Bush’s Never-Ending Surge

Buck Banks

Political analyst Craig Crawford equates the pattern the Bush administration has established with Congress with Muhammad Ali’s infamous boxing tactic he used against George Foreman — the “ropa dope.” By laying back on the ropes, Ali was able to prolong the fight until Foreman wore himself out whaling away on him.

The White House might be preparing the way for another “ropa dope” of Congress.

Crawford sees the same kind of tactic at work in George Bush’s surge, which seems to somehow keep getting extended. As Crawford sees it:

Back in December, when Bush announced his new Iraq strategy, his GOP war supporters — and even the White House itself — had pinpointed this summer as the soft deadline for determining whether it is working. But early last month the president announced that the troop boost would not even be completed until June, thus buying a few more months.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., among others in their party, are now settling upon September as a deadline. But the White House might be preparing the way for another “ropa dope” of Congress. Yesterday the Pentagon announced that another 35,000 troops were notified that they are likely to be heading to Iraq by December. That suggests that, come September, the White House will be asking for a reprieve until the end of the year — and possibly beyond.

Bush Nominee to Replace Call-Girl Scandal Figure Made Infamous Racist Remarks

Jon Ponder

To replace Randall Tobias, the State Dept. anti-prostitution czar who admitted using the services of the D.C. Madam (and who likened ordering a call girl to ordering a pizza), Pres. Bush has nominated Henrietta Holsman Fore, a California heiress whose record includes an infamous racist harangue:

A Wellesley College trustee’s remark that blacks preferred pushing drugs to working in a factory has precipitated an emotional debate on this bucolic campus already grappling with charges of racial insensitivity…

The trustee, Henrietta Holsman, a 1970 graduate of Wellesley who runs a manufacturing concern in Los Angeles, resigned from the board last weekend after apologizing for her comments, which also cast aspersions on the work ethic of Hispanic and white employees. But in a letter to the college newspaper, Ms. Holsman reiterated her statement that she had trouble keeping black assembly-line workers from going “…back to the street to earn more money … selling drugs.”

In her lecture, Ms. Holsman also said she had found Hispanic workers to be lazy, white workers resentful of having to work with machines, and Asians, while very productive, likely to move on to professional or management jobs. [NYT, 2/12/87]

With a statement like that in her past, naturally Pres. Bush nominated Fore to run human relations for the State Dept., a post she has held since June 2005. Prior to that, she headed the U.S. Mint.

Retired Generals’ Ads Might Be Last Straw on Iraq

Trish

If Bush means what he says about listening to the military, a series of ads featuring retired generals should produce critical mass on Iraq. Brought to us by Vote Vets, the first spot features former Iraq commander Maj. Gen. John Batiste.

Our ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people…Mentioning them by name at the end, the local spots will call on them to “Protect America, Not George Bush.”

Batiste comes right out and says he left the armed forces in protest over Bush putting service members at risk for a failed strategy.

Following is a list of the elected officials the ads are aimed at. If one of them belongs to you, remember that nothing makes an impression on a public servant like a call from the folks back home.

They are:

Sen. Susan Collins, Maine
Sen. John Sununu, N.H.
Sen. John Warner, Virg.
Sen. Norm Coleman, Minn.

Rep, Mary Bono, Palm Springs, Calif.
Rep. Phil English, Erie, Penn.
Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl, Bath, N.Y.
Rep. Jim Walsh, Syracuse, N.Y.
Rep. Heather Wilson, Santa Fe, N.M.
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Springfield, Mo.
Rep. Tim Johnson, Urbana, Ill.
Rep. Mike Rogers, Brighton, Mich.
Rep. Fred Upton, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Rep. Mike Castle, Wilmington, Del.

Future ads will feature Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and our personal favorite, Gen. Wesley Clark. Pony up some bucks, if you can, so the spots can be run nationwide.

Breaking: Bush Gets ‘Blunt Talk’ from GOP House Delegation

Jon Ponder
“My district is prepared for defeat.”
— GOP rep to Bush

NBC News is reporting that a delegation of House members called on Pres. Bush yesterday in the private residence of the White House to inform him that he has lost all credibility on the war among their constituents.

Pres. Bush was advised that he and his spokespersons should stop making claims about progress in Iraq altogether. One of the congressmen told him, “We need candor. We need honesty, Mr. President.”

Here’s a rough transcript of the NBC News report:

[…]

Second Life Slides – Inevitably – Into Virtual Kiddie Porn Realm

Buck Banks

From the ick files: I’ve been alternately fascinated and repelled by Second Life, the virtual world where 6 million people around the globe pursue virtual lives. But when I found out that some of those virtual people, or avatars, were having virtual sex with virtual teens and children — in exchange for real virtual money — the needle got stuck way on the repelled side.

Virtual sex with a virtual child is illegal in Germany, but not in America.

The whole idea of Second Life was creepy to me in the first place, but then, I have enough trouble keeping up with my non-virtual existence to imagine having to live in a parallel universe simultaneously. But Second Life has hosted politicians like former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Reuters and C-Net both have news bureaus there that report on happenings in the virtual world, L$1.93 in Linden dollars is traded in-world every month (that’s about $62.5 million real dollars), and some people have quit their real-world jobs to work full time in Second Life and are making a living at it.

Now German police are investigating reports of child pornography and virtual sex between adult and seemingly under-aged avatars. Seemingly, because there are real people who will take on childlike “skins” in Second Life and have sex as if they were children with adult avatars. Second Life’s touted age verification function apparently is pretty easy to circumvent. Virtual sex with a virtual child is illegal in Germany, but not in America. Same with virtual bestiality, which is reportedly also happening in Second Life.

When I first heard about Second Life, it reminded me of a Philip K. Dick science-fiction short story whose name escapes me. In the story, people in a remote mining colony on Mars play a virtual game using a dollhouse and figurines. By taking a drug, the real people inhabit the dolls and the dollhouse and have collective hallucinations where they explore different relationships with each other and take on different characters and personalities, and even have sex. But when the drugs run out, the social fabric of the colony crashes and real life gets really bad.

Trouble is, in Second Life, unless the world’s power grid fails, there will be no crash. And it’s not surprising that humans would import all that’s bad from the real world into Second Life — it’s natural for humans to contaminate their space, real or virtual. So you have drugs, sex for Linden dollars, virtual child pornography for sale and virtual criminals out to separate naive avatars from their hard-earned Linden dollars.

What really bothers me about Second Life, though, is that while people spend an average of 40 hours a month in that virtual world, the real world is getting progressively worse. There are very real political, social and environmental problems right here, right now, that don’t penetrate the walls of Second Life. It’s kind of like the millenialist Christians who say, Why bother with global warming, the end of the world and the coming of Jesus is nigh — global warming indeed is just another sign of the end times.

Why bother with the problems of the real world if you can stay hunched over your keyboard in whatever basement or cave you’ve descended to to get away from the harsh glare of a world gone wrong, making and spending your Linden dollars in a place that consumes only one extremely valuable non-renewable resource — time.

Florida: More Experiments in Voting

Buck Banks

Still glad I’m an Independent: Florida thinks it has been getting the short end of the presidential primary stick, so it has struck out into the no man’s land of January to set its vote date. This, despite the fact that the Democratic National Committee has threatened penalties, like stripping the state party of delegates, making the vote nonbinding and penalizing candidates who campaign in the state.

Whoa, them’s fighting words, but, like the big Republican-controlled brute it is, the Florida legislature moved the state’s primary from March to January, despite the threats.

Who needs Katherine Harris?

The result could lead to a scenario like this:

On Jan. 29, Florida Republicans and Democrats head to the polls to pick presidential nominees. Republican votes count, just as you would expect, but the results for Democrats would be nonbinding. No delegates would be awarded based upon the results and instead party activists and insiders would decide on some later date how to divvy up the state’s more than 200 delegates to the Democratic national convention.

See, while the Dems face stiff penalties for the primary shift, the Repugs don’t face any. So, we could potentially see Dem candidates giving the state a pass while Repugs campaign all over the place, with a predictable effect on the general election.

Who needs Katherine Harris when you’ve got a Republican-controlled state legislature to influence the presidential election outcome and guarantee we stay a red state.

First Day of Hurricane Season — Three Weeks Early

Trish


By all indications, 2007 will be the year frogs rain down from the sky and sinkholes swallow the Rockies.

My area is under a tropical storm watch. The first named storm of the season is here. She is Tropical Storm Andrea, with top sustained winds of 45 mph. This is huge.

For those of you who don’t know the dates of hurricane season like you know your own phone number, it’s June 1 through Nov. 30.

June 1 — as in three weeks from now — is the official start. The earliest hurricane in our country’s history was Alma, which hit the Florida panhandle on June 9, 1966.

But don’t worry, the federal government is on it. They will release their predictions for the 2007 hurricane season on May 22. I wonder if they’ll predict the season will start on May 9.

By the time they release their forecast, we will have probably had two more storms, four or five more tornados, and the Georgia wildfires will have spread to Washington, D.C. where Bush will give a speech about how it would adversely affect the economy if we were to try to do anything about global warming.

Why Wasn’t Mary Cheney at the White House State Dinner for the Queen?

Jon Ponder

Her baby is due in “late spring 2007” which, granted, is now, but it seems hardly anyone has noticed that Mary Cheney, the vice president’s lesbian daughter, and her partner, Heather Poe, were not on the guest list for the state dinner at the White House honoring Queen Elizabeth this week.

Mary’s non-gay sister Liz and Liz’s opposite-sex married partner were at the dinner.

Mary’s non-gay sister Liz and Liz’s opposite-sex married partner were at the dinner, as were, of course, her parents.

Mary Cheney has said her baby is not a political prop, but you have to wonder if it was decided that the presence of the vice president’s hugely pregnant lesbian daughter at an event honoring the Queen of England was a bit too off-message for the ultra-rightwingers who run the country.

Let’s hope that Mary and Heather were at least allowed to eat in the pantry and then peek through a doorway to watch all the fun.