Archive for February, 2007

(Tonight's selections are brought to you courtesy of the Rescue Rangers. SusanG)

February may be the shortest month of the year, but it was long enough to claim the lives of 78 Americans serving in Iraq. Highlighting one of them at random - 21-year old Spc. Lorne Henry Jr. of Niagara Falls, New York. He graduated from high school in 2004, was dating his high school sweetheart, and left behind an 11-year-old brother who idolized him.

This evening's Rescue Rangers are BentLiberal, my global conscious, paragraph, jlynne, Rippen Kitten, and smokeymonkey, with dannyinla as editor.

• Painting This War with Tears is JeeniCriscenzo's moving story of Carlsbad's Bring Their Buddies Home Vigil. Read her well-written, first person account of a quiet but visible protest against the reality of what "casualty counts" represent: wasted lives. (BentLiberal)
• attytood contextualizes the deafening silence and how it is broken for some in America with Doorbells. (my global conscious)
• If you're a fan of the TV show 24, or even if you're not, don't miss Vyan's truth is stranger than fiction essay, Troops turn to TV for Torture Techniques. (Rippen Kitten)
• In BEAUTIFUL MINDS: The Bush Family Compassion Deficit, Avenging Angel examines the Bush family's claims of compassion versus evidence of the same. (Rippen Kitten)
• Xpatriated Texan returns, calling the culture of life to the carpet with "It is Finished" And We Must Not Let It End. (my global conscious)
• Ampersand writes a compelling diary on institutional racism in the court system. Well written and well thought out, this diary refutes some simplistic assertions by right wing bloggers. Please check out The Long Beach Beating Case And Race (BentLiberal)
• Want to stop the war? Follow the money. Stranger in a strange land explains that Money Makes the World - and the Iraq War - Go Around. (jlynne)
• Nonpartisan kicks it back to the real issue at hand-sound judgement-and the obscurity of wordiness in Rhetorical Nukes, and When to Use Them. (my global conscious)
• In Focus On The Family: Say One Thing, Say Nothing Else, Jim Burroway tells the story of Andrew Anthos, a 72-year-old gay man who was beaten to death two weeks ago, and ponders discrepancies in public reaction. (Rippen Kitten)
• OrangeClouds115 gives her personal take on habeas corpus and why we need to reclaim what she never dreamed we could lose. Restoring Our Constitution: Land of the Free... except for that little "habeas corpus" detail (BentLiberal)
• In Canada Goes Sane: Two "Anti-Terror" Laws Scrapped, diarist Wreck Smurfy tells us the news that Liberals, New Democrats, and the Bloc Quebecois have come together to defeat the extension of two controversial anti-terror laws favored by Canada's Conservative government.(BentLiberal)
• Alegre reminds us that the genocide in Darfur continues in Updated - Fitzmas At the Hague (w/ resource guide). Alegre has compiled recent news and resource links on Darfur, so please hotlist this diary and do what you can to help the victims of Darfur. (Rippen Kitten)

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Hey remember how the war on terror is, like, the worst war this country has ever faced? Remember how WWII and the Nazi threat (and its millions of murders) pales in comparison to the scary scariness of a bunch of A-rabs cradling AK-47s and RPG-7s in caves?

Remember?

Well, apparently it's not that scary after all. At least compared to those even scarier union workers.

The U.S. Senate began debating legislation to bolster America's security on Wednesday with the White House threatening a veto because one part would extend union protection to 45,000 airport workers [...]

The overall bill would implement many of the stalled recommendations of the bipartisan commission created after the September 11 attacks.

The measure refines other recommendations and imposes new ones, such as the labor provision, and would let state and local governments share information with federal authorities, build better communication systems and provide grants to help high-risk areas prepare for disasters.

But White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said if the labor provision remains in the legislation, "the president's senior advisers would recommend he veto the bill."

Thirty-six Republican senators sent a letter to Bush on Tuesday saying they would provide the needed votes to sustain a veto in the 100-member Senate.

Got that? Terrorism is the GREATEST THREAT EVER to face this country. But apparently, implementing measures that would make our nation safer from terrorists will get vetoed and upheld by at least 36 Senate Republicans simply because 45,000 airport workers would be unionized.

They are putting the nation's safety in peril over the GOP's ideological jihad against unions.

Not that this would be the first time that ideology trumps our nation's security.

When is enough enough?  How much more clear do the American people have to be?  Fifty-six percent of us want our military forces withdrawn from Iraq.  Sixty-seven percent oppose Bush's escalation of his war.  Fifty-eight percent support Rep. Jack Murtha's plan to place readiness requirements on troop deployments.  So, what is the latest plan to get us out of Iraq?  

House Democratic leaders are developing an anti-war proposal that wouldn't cut off money for U.S. troops in Iraq but would require President Bush to acknowledge problems with an overburdened military.

Oh, snap!  That'll show him.  How ever will Bush react in the face of such firm resolve?  My guess is, he'll say something like:

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me...Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and
resolve...Thank you and good night.

...and then Operation Stay-The-Course will continue.  Said Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emmanuel:

...the objective is to "raise the bar of accountability"...the proposal would ensure that "the administration is held accountable as well as the Iraqi government."

We don't need to "raise the bar of accountability," we need to remember who is really being held accountable, and that is the more than 130,000 servicemen and women currently serving as targets in Iraq's civil war.  

It's time for Congress to stop with the non-binding resolutions and meaningless gestures.  It's time...no, it's past time for them to ask:

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

And then do something about it.

Glenn Greenwald has a great post on Cheney's bizarre demand that journalists in the pool on his return journey from Pakistan refer to him as a "senior administration official" even though he clearly identifies himself throughout the discussion.

In fact, the very first words out of his mouth were: "The reason the President wanted me to come, obviously, is because of the continuing threat that exists in this part of the world." He discussed at length the comments he made recently about Nancy Pelosi wanting to "validate Al Qaeda's strategy. So even though there was not a single security reason for the anonymity, Cheney insisted upon it anyway....

Cheney's petty demand that he not be identified -- like a petty tyrant's demand that his name never pass anyone's lips -- is just an assertion of secrecy and authoriatarian power for its own sake (even under the rule of Emperor Hirohito, "commoners were no longer forbidden to speak his name or look at his face"). But unlike Hirohito, Cheney is an elected public servant of American citizens and this attempt to prohibit journalists from attributing his own words to him is just bizarrely megalomaniacal and contemptuous, particularly in light of how he virtually went out of his way in the very first sentence to make clear that it was him.

The heart of the discussion with reporters was devoted to the GWOT and the role Cheney sees Iraq playing in it. This is where we get a glimpse into the bizarre workings of the Cheney White House brain trust in formulating foreign policy. Greenwald:

Towards the beginning of the interview, Cheney was referring to his meetings with Prime Minister Karzai and President Musharraf when, out of the blue, he began arguing that those leaders would somehow be endangered in their fight against terrorism if we withdrew from Iraq:

I've often spoken and would reiterate again today, when you think about the debate at home, some of my friends on the other side of the aisle arguing that we need to get out of Iraq, then you go spend some time with our allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, you can't help but be convinced that that would have a devastating impact, devastating consequences for what they're trying to do, what they've agreed to do in terms of their ongoing efforts with us as allies in these struggles in this part of the world.

Nothing makes less sense than that. By all accounts, the reason we face a resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda in that region is because there are insufficient troops there -- a troop deficiency we have suffered since our invasion of Iraq. In fact, Cheney himself, when asked to elaborate on the claim he was making, made clear that Karzai and Musharraf's problem is a lack of American and NATO troops in Afghanistan:

One of the reasons I think Karzai was upbeat was because of the United States' economic and financial commitment. We've asked for significant sums for him this year in the budget, the commitment of an additional brigade of troops to beef up what's already there, that's all taken as a sign of our commitment, specifically to Afghanistan. They worry about that.

The idea that withdrawing from Iraq would endanger Karzai and Musharraf's fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda is just laughable.

Laughable, indeed. I'm sure Karzai is spending a lot of time analyzing the adminstration's commitment to the Iraq debacle, leaving the force in Afghanistan understaffed and ill-equipped, facing a resurgent Taliban. I'm sure that Karzai takes great comfort in his country's virtual abandonment by the U.S. Of course, you could arge that withdrawing from Iraq would make it less of an attraction for al Qaeda, perhaps sending would-be al Qaeda terrorists back to Afghanistan and Pakistan to kill their own people instead of coalition forces and hapless Iraqis. We're fighting them in Iraq so Karzai and Musharraf don't have to fight as many of them?

As Greenwald says, Cheney's arguments for the continued occupation of Iraq are "sophistry of the most transparent order." And evidence that he will continue to do and to say whatever he thinks necessary to continue this occupation, regardless of the will of the American people to end it. I'll let Greenwald have the final word on this, because he says it so much better than I could:

Dick Cheney is an increasingly embittered and reckless government official. And the further damage that can be done from a large-scale military presence in Iraq is more than ample reason why a withdrawal from Iraq -- and sooner rather than later -- is the most urgent political priority we have.

(Totally unrelated video, but why the hell not? Sing it girl.)

The only reason I would ever watch The View is to see people make that conservative cretin chick cry. Rosie's apparently started getting around to it. Elizabeth was speaking in defense of the Patriot Act and big Rose shut her ass down.

On today's edition of the crack-like ABC gabfest, Rosie O'Donnell got Elisabeth Hasselbeck's conservative knickers into a big twist when Ro argued with her usual vehemence against the Patriot Act, concluding by hitting Liz with the ageist remark, "You're very young, and you're very wrong," (E is 30, Ro is 45). This, of course, just wound Elisabeth right up, prompting a strange pointy hand-dance of rage.

Rosie then really stuck it to Elisabeth, suggesting that resorting to ageism is the only way she can bottle her Hulk-like rage to sit at the same table with someone with whom she disagrees "so abhorrently."

The good people behind Oscar Blandi clued me in on how to steal the straight hair styles that were a hot trend on the Oscar red carpet. The Raffinata Straightening Balm was the secret weapon to score the look.

Oscar Blandi is a celebrity stylist and provides the answer to fight frizzy hair. Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Gwyneth Paltrow all sported the sleek and sexy look for the mother of all award shows. Their stunning look has spiked the interest in the super-sleek style.

A dime sized amount of the balm, a comb, and a blow dryer does the trick. Oscar's creation is designed to impart smoothness, body, and silky locks. The Raffinata prevents static and is an excellent frizz fighter. The look is achieved without build up and doesn't weigh your hair down. The wheat protein and sea algae further add moisture and protection for your locks.

To prove confidence in the product, I will personally be testing it, thanks to Oscar Blandi. Next week, catch a before and after post for a true testament of the power of Blandi's balm. Try it for yourself for just $19.00 at Sephora, Fred Segal, Jeffrey New York, The Oscar Blandi Salon and Nordstrom.