Object Consistency

Personally, I was always a way bigger fan of "You Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine" over "peek-a-boo", although the occassional peek-a-boo was seldom shunned.

It's gettin harder to tell Dem apart.

Democrats no longer pushing Iraq pullout bills

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional Democrats have put on the back burner legislation ordering troops home from Iraq and turned their attention to war-related proposals that Republicans are finding hard to reject.

The legislative agenda marks a dramatic shift for party leaders who vowed repeated votes to end combat and predicted Republicans would eventually join them. But with Democrats still lacking enough votes to bring troops home, the party runs the risk of concluding its first year in control of Congress with little to show for its tough anti-war rhetoric.

"We can no longer approach the discussion on Iraq as a partisan issue," said Rep. John Tanner, a conservative Democrat from Tennessee. "Our soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and guardsmen aren't fighting as Democrats or Republicans but as Americans."

In the past week, the House passed two bills intended to curb misconduct by contractors in Iraq and one proposal by Tanner and Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, that requires updates on the Bush administration's plans for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. combat forces.

Following last week's rejection of a proposal by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, to cut off money for combat, the Senate is expected to follow suit with similar bipartisan measures.

Delayed until early next year is debate on the $190 billion the military says it needs to pay for the war through September 2008.

There is little doubt that Democrats are biding their time and deliberating their next step. Democrats are divided on whether to continue paying for a war they oppose, or cut off the money and be attacked politically for refusing to support the troops.

They also hope that Republicans will grow increasingly nervous about the war's effect on the 2008 elections. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, who chairs the panel that oversees military funding, predicted last month that GOP lawmakers will jump ship after the primaries end.

"I see what happens to a Republican when they say we ought to start to get out," Murtha said. "They bash them. I mean they attack them viscerally and of course they're the ones that nominate them. Until that plays out we're going to have a problem."

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/10/us.iraq.ap/index.html

Infants do show perceptual constancies in some domains at a very young age, now that modern technology allows testing that Piaget was unable to do, such as the work of Kuhl and Meltzoff.

This is a abstract of a paper I did with Kuhl back in the day, showing that young infants can already recognize "good" vowels (prototypical vowels, universal vowels found in all languages) at a very young age:

The internal structure of vowel categories in infancy: Effects of stimulus “goodness.”
DiAnne L. Grieser and Patricia K. Kuhl
WJ-10, Child Development and Mental Retardation Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195

We investigated whether perceived differences in stimulus goodness, that is, the degree to which a stimulus within a phoneme category is considered to be a “good instance” of the category, predicted differential responses to these stimuli by young infants. Two points were chosen in an F1/F2 coordinate vowel space: one judged to be a “good” representative of the /i/ vowel category, the other a “poor” representative, based on adult judgments. Then, variants were synthesized by manipulating the first two formants in both distance and direction from these two points. The resulting stimuli formed rings around the “good” /i/ and the “poor” /i/. Thirty-two 6-month-old infants were tested in a generalization task using a visually reinforced head-turn procedure. Half of the infants were tested using the “good” /i/ and its variants, and half using the “poor” /i/ and its variants. Results showed that generalization around the “good” /i/ was significantly greater than around the “poor” /i/. Moreover, infant response patterns correlated with adult subjective “goodness” judgments. ©1983 Acoustical Society of America

Infants also show these perceptual constancies:

prototypical faces (ideal features, including on schematics)
mouth shapes that correlate with vowels (stare longer at matches)
shape (will stare longer at shape that correlated with shape of
pacifier in their mouth)

There is a 30 year literature that shows that infants already are performing cross-modal matches.

Piaget also said they imitated around 18 months, and for certain research protocols, they have been shown to do some imitation (within motoric limits), such as protrusion, as early as right after birth.

This means that they have to have some type of "internal representation" of what it is that is the same in the model and in their duplication, which is flat amazing. They do it, though.

Kuhl and Meltzoff's book is "The Scientist in the Crib," which is a double-entendre, as the scientist is peering into the crib to study the baby, but the baby is also forming hypotheses about the adult perceptual world constantly.

Here is an interview with Andy Metlzoff about the book:
http://pdonline.ascd.org/pd_online/bridginglearning/el200011_darcangelo.html

I left this type of research to return to clinical work with young children, particularly as autistic children have difficulty doing these things that babies who are typically developing do quite naturally, such as imitation, joint attention, sound localization and cross modal matching.

http://www.imaginepeace.com/

Happy Birthday (yesterday) John Lennon

http://www.imaginepeace.com/

The job of an artist is not to destroy but to change the value of things.
And by doing that, artists can change the world into a Utopia where there is
total freedom for everybody.
That can be achieved only when there is
total communication in the world.
Total communication equals peace.
That is our aim.
That is what artists can do for the world!

Yoko Ono
What is the Relationship Between the World and the Artist?, May 1971

http://www.blimptv.net/farrightv4.html

I think that some of the rhetoric regarding the Democratic leadership is probably a little over the top.

Among others taking a close look at the current FISA bill is Glenn Greenwald. He's added several updates to his post at Salon about it.

Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, one of the nation's premiere FISA experts, has issued a statement (via email) which provides, in part:

"We welcome the bill by Chairmen Reyes and Conyers as an important first step towards restoring the civil liberties protections lost in August. Their bill would be a vast improvement over the current law passed at the President's urging, and it is much more protective of any of the bills considered in August."

Martin goes on to emphasize, however, that even this current bill violates the Fourth Amendment by failing to require individual warrants for every international call (Russ Feingold's statement made a similar objection).

There's a couple of others referenced in the diary that I posted yesterday that discussed the FISA bill as well including an email sent to the diarist from someone at the ACLU which repeated the same point as Kate Martin made above.

It sounds like it's not perfect but it is a big improvement and that they are still working on getting the individual warrant protection included per the discussion at dailykos.

monkey said:
Personally, I was always a way bigger fan of "You Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine" over "peek-a-boo", although the occassional peek-a-boo was seldom shunned.

It's gettin harder to tell Dem apart.

October 10, 2007 9:14 AM

Monkey--I'm not even gonna touch that!

I can't believe it took over three hours to deal with my computer locking up and refusing to re-load the internet.

At anyrate-- Just a quick comment and then I have lots to catch up on doing...

I appreciate dw's post about the new law being better than it first appears, but I think that taking a first step isn't good enough. I'm tired of the DC beltway blobs making half-hearted attempts to fix things.

We have investigations...that go nowhere.
We have committee hearings...with only one party showing up for them.
We have bills and committee hearings held hostage to politics.
We have Dems being Republicans but we have Republicans being Bush's lackeys.

I'm not going to applaud half measures when underneath the blanket is the same thing that was under the blanket before. It seems like we switched party majority in January but as of today, it doesn't look any different than a year ago.

Two New Videos:

My playing is not very good in the first part. I think I might re-do the entire soundtrack.

NO SOUND TRACK!!!

Sparrow, I responded to you on the last thread about Isreal.

NMP, did you ever answer me on the idea I had for your canvas? If you emailed I never got it.

I usually like Lou Dobbs, but I think he seriously misses the point in his weekly commentary...

Dobbs: Our flag belongs to all Americans

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/09/dobbs.Oct10/index.html

Christy...

I replied to your reply. So when can we smoke the peace pipe?

it's our responsibility what happens around the world. It's our responsibility for Vietnam, and all the other wars that we don't quite hear about. It's all our responsibility,
and when we all want peace we'll get it.
People have said we're naive for trying to
sell peace like a car, or bar of soap.
But I ask ya, is the Ford company naive...
or the soap powder company?
They're selling the same old soap that's been around for two thousand years, but now it's 'New Blue Soap.' Well, we're selling 'New Blue Peace!' ...and we hope some of you buy it!"

John Lennon, 1969

..."when can we smoke the peace pipe?"

Bring it on baby. I am willing to make peace 24/7.

Carter says U.S. tortures prisoners

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday.

I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."

Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.

Carter's comments come on the heels of an October 4 article in The New York Times disclosing the existence of secret Justice Department memorandums supporting the use of "harsh interrogation techniques." These include "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures," according to the Times.

The White House last week confirmed the existence of the documents but would not make them public.

Responding to the newspaper report Friday, Bush defended the techniques used, saying, "This government does not torture people."

Asked about Bush's comments, Carter said, "That's not an accurate statement if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored -- certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated.

"But you can make your own definition of human rights and say we don't violate them, and you can make your own definition of torture and say we don't violate them." Watch Blitzer's interview with the former president »

After reading a transcript of Carter's remarks, a senior White House official said, "Our position is clear. We don't torture."

The official said, "It's just sad to hear a former president speak like that."

Carter also criticized some of the 2008 Republican presidential candidates, calling former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani "foolish" for his contention the United States should be open to use force on Iran.

"I hope that he doesn't become president and try to impose his conviction that we need to go to war with Iran," Carter said.

CNN was attempting to get a response from the Giuliani campaign.

The former president didn't spare the rest of the GOP field either.

"They all seem to be outdoing each other in who wants to go to war first with Iran, who wants to keep Guantanamo open longer and expand its capacity -- things of that kind," Carter said.

"They're competing with each other to appeal to the ultra-right-wing, war-mongering element in our country, which I think is the minority of our total population."

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/10/carter.torture/index.html

Carter says that? But donchaknow he's the peanut Prez?

(utter sarcasm)

Might be a peanut, but it seems he has scared the torture boy.

BEAUTIFUL!

He has hired himself a top CRIMINAL DEFENSE attorney.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21224607/site/newsweek/

Hey Sparrow, my email won't send again so Ill respond here, try gently wiping that canvas with a damp cloth.

The reason it stuck was because it is red. For some reason the red does that when none of the others do.

But the paint is an acrylic and is basically liquid plastic until it dries, so just gently wipe the paper with a little dampness and it should free from the canvas.

Yes, a Spanish Flaminco dancer was my aim. You said you liked looking at faces of Spanish and latino, so I went with that.

I am glad you like her. And I am very glad you told me about the problem, it is easy enough to correct, but I have damaged so many pieces just trying to 'fix' them it is not even funny.

She actually has 5 layers of enamel on top of the paint, so don't be afraid to just wipe her down. As long as it does not wet the canvas it should be fine.

Red paint is always stickier than any other color. As an artist I notice it every time I use it.

Thanks Christy, that helped quite a bit. There's still a little there and i don't know if I should keep trying to get it cleaner.

Anyways, I wondered if she looked like you? Where you the model for it?

No, not me darlin.

I looked up maybe 400 pics of latin dancers trying to get ideas for her features. I find when I use the standard features you would expect to see, I usually wind up with very pretty people.

No, she does not really look like me. As I said, I look more native than latin, though I could easily pass as latin.

I only used myself as a model for one single nude sketch I did a few years ago, and I swear I will never do that again as long as I live. People say the dumbest things, ok men say the dumbest things about it, and none of them know it is me. Except my man, he recognized me. How such a crude race ever developed artistically I will never know.

The one spot that stuck, go ahead and get it a little wetter than before, the paper will dissolve before the paint will.

Marines Press to Remove Their Forces From Iraq

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/washington/11military.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1192076178-EeDkQUBQ1qIPmpiihHolzg

What a totally f*ed up situation.

October 10, 2007 11:13 AM
sparrow said:
I appreciate dw's post about the new law being better than it first appears, but I think that taking a first step isn't good enough. I'm tired of the DC beltway blobs making half-hearted attempts to fix things.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The part that always makes my jaw drop is the fact that so many Congress Critters voted away our rights and privileges and responsiblities in the first place. Patriot Acts, MCA '06, FISA fixes, et cetera and so on and so forth.... WHAT were they thinking?!? Almost every law enacted since January '01 needs instant repealing in their entirety (not to mention making all of Georgie's executive orders and signing statements null and void). Period.

The FISA law they pretended to amend a few months ago didn't fix anything. It legalized the illegal activities of the Bush administration. Whatever is set to expire needs to be allowed to expire and never be fixed or renewed. The original FISA law was working just fine thankyouverymuch.

Where, oh where, have Congress Critters misplaced their ability to logically think things through....? Congress Critters with half a functioning brain KNOW Georgie and Dickie lie every time they open their mouths. What would be different this time?

Fools and morons. We're being led by fools and morons who will themselves into believing endless lies just so they don't have to take responsibility for the fact that they've enabled those two war criminals every time they enact laws that help them take away more and more of our rights and privileges and responsibilities.

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons/2007/10/101007_liberty.html
American Progress Cartoon

Must see image, even if it breaks your heart. This goes directly to what Carter was talking about that monkey posted above....

Christy said:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21224607/site/newsweek/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
But the Democrats appear to be running out of patience. Their version of proposed new surveillance legislation, unveiled yesterday by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, contains a striking provision that would require Fine’s office to do a full audit of all surveillance activities undertaken by the Bush administration since September 11, 2001—and then prepare a public, declassified report to be delivered to Congress six months after the law is passed. In a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon to discuss the Democratic bill, a Justice official said that this one of the provisions the administration has “concerns” about.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Concerns." Is that all?

The Dems are SO concerned they haven't even enforced the subpoena deadlines they set for Turd Blossom and Harriet (and seems to me there was someone else, too).

The newest FISA fix won't be fixed to Georgie's satisfaction and the Dems will cave - AGAIN - and withdraw any words that may hold Georgie or Dickie or their ilk accountable for their illegal spying....

The whole dog and pony show is now absolutely predictable. We are witnessing the end of our Republic as given to us by the Founding Fathers. No Dems are willing to hold Georgie and Dickie accountable by impeaching them and/or turning them over to the World Court; they're seeking that cherrywood box with all of his extra powers. Our future will include war, war, and more war, and even that shameful horror: torture. They're all nucking futz.

So, Congress: Prove me wrong. Surprise me. Impeach Dickie and Georgie and repeal all the bad laws you've passed since January '01....

I dare you to surprise me...! Double dare ya....!

::::::::::::

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071011/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_blackwater

State Dept. may phase out Blackwater

{{{"May" is the operative word. I don't for one second believe it. They'll be back. Either under another corporate name, or they'll hire themselves out to Halliburton in Dubai or one of Halliburton subsidiaries like KBR or DynCorp or any other corporate mercenary entity who has a corporate contract with the government. After all, Georgie and Dickie and their PNAC and corporate oil buddies don't have "legal" permission from the Iraqi government per them approving their constitution that calls for them to legally hand over their oil. This story, too, shall soon be added to the dust bin with all the other neglected stories since January '01....}}}

Ahhh. Piaget. It's been a while since I've even thought of Piaget and the cognitive stages children go through from birth on. When I quit the teaching circus completely, I also quit paying attention to where my grandchildren were at.

When Trent (31 now) was just 3 he could add and subtract abstractly. As a young teacher, I couldn't believe it and kept trying to catch him out. I couldn't. In maths, Trent was well ahead of Piaget. And me.

However, being involved in Special Education, also meant dropping the stages for some much better and more identifiable markers of progress. In all the theories, the majority are catered for. And the exceptions at all ends and sides of the spectrum provide challenges for their families and their teachers and schools.

I should stop now or I'll end up writing an essay about it all. Thanks sparrow. Nostalgia. This kind of learning never really goes away, does it?

They censored Bono.

Bono speaks out against torture - and gets censored

Snip

"Let's face it: When you feel you must censor the acceptance speech of a Liberty Medal recipient, something is seriously wrong.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/10211

I think that where Piaget was right on was less on the developmental markers, age-wise (I, too, had children were at the edges of the bell curve, in both directions) and more on the notion that the means whereby intelligence is built is through interaction with the world of objects.

"All thought is operation, and operation is internalized action."

In other words, we know what we know, in large part, because of our direct experiences with the world.

The problem with men making war when they have not actually experienced war is that their intelligence is flawed. On all levels.

The problem with men making war when they have not actually experienced war is that their intelligence is flawed. On all levels.
October 11, 2007 8:26 AM
Karen

Karen... Gee fuggin willikers, if only the legions of TARDS in this country actually got that correlation, like in say, 2004...

This nations intelligence level is flawed on all levels, and we're fugged because of it.

I used to be in a band called "The Homewreckers" and we did a song called "Brainwash Shampoo."

Last week I wrote about "Torture Shampoo" - I had been alerted by my friend Nyc, who saw the commercial on tv late at night and finally tracked it down.

He had also contacted a blog called "Feministing" and had heard nothing so gave me the contact info & I wrote to them.

Now:

http://feministing.com/archives/007876.html#comments

amazing

On October 4, 2007, CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin and Retired Colonel/ diplomat Ann Wright were denied entry to Canada because they have engaged in acts of non-violent civil disobedience against the war in Iraq. The Canadian border officials said the women's names appeared on the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, and anyone convicted of a criminal offense, including a minor misdemeanor for peace and social justice, was "inadmissible."

(from Code Pink mailer)

Christy
We would like to feature your work at our art blog, in a series about three women artists, so will want your permission, examples and bio info eventually, if ok - no hurry.

Petition to ask the FBI to stop treating women for peace as criminals. Ann Wright and Medea Benjamin were stopped at the Canadian border as criminals, but we know where the criminals are:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=1988

Jimmy Carter calls Dick Cheney a 'disaster'
Former president also says U.S. tortures prisoners

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 1 hour, 4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney as a "disaster" for the country and a "militant" who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy.

Cheney has been on the wrong side of the debate on many issues, including an internal White House discussion over Syria in which the vice president is thought to be pushing a tough approach, Carter said.

"He's a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world," Carter told the BBC World News America in an interview to air later on Wednesday.

"You know he's been a disaster for our country," Carter said. "I think he's been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he's prevailed."

Asked to comment on Carter's remarks, Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for the Republican vice president, said, "We're not going to engage in this type of rhetoric."

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21246739/

NMP,

Wow. I am so honored and proud you would ask me. The answer is yes, absolutely!

I don't even know what else to say except 'Wow." I'm all choked up.

I can not understand why I wasted so much time when it was right here in my hands, literally the entire time. How could I have been so stupid and blind?

Just. Wow.

Hey DEMOCRATS.

Behold your leader.

"Look," she said, the chicken breast on her plate untouched. "I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things -- Buddhas? I don't know what they were -- couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk."

Unsmilingly, she continued: "If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have 'Impeach Bush' across their chest, it's the First Amendment."

Though opposed to the war herself, Pelosi has for months been a target of an antiwar movement that believes she hasn't done enough. Cindy Sheehan has announced a symbolic challenge to Pelosi in California's 8th Congressional District. And the speaker is seething.

"We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow," Pelosi told the gathering at the Sofitel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. Though crediting activists for their "passion," Pelosi called it "a waste of time" for them to target Democrats. "They are advocates," she said. "We are leaders."

It was a rather fierce response to the party's liberal base, which frightens many a congressional Democrat. But it wasn't out of character for the new speaker. Pelosi's fixed and constant smile makes her appear as if she is cutting an ad for a whitening toothpaste. But when you listen to the words that come from her grinning maw, the smile seems more akin to that of a barracuda.

One reporter asked about Democratic lawmakers who proposed a tax increase for the war. "They were not making legislation; they were making a point," Pelosi judged.

Another asked about a Republican congressman's complaints that the word "God" was removed from certificates accompanying congressional flags. "I don't know what his point is," Pelosi volleyed.

Complaints that she didn't go far enough on climate-change legislation? "We did not say we were going to do any more than we did."

The Senate's stalemate on the war? "We in the House will not be confining our legislation initiatives to what is legislatively possible in the Senate."

Pelosi admitted no mistakes and claimed no regrets as she reflected on her first session in the speaker's chair. "I'm very proud of the work of this Congress," she declared. Evidently so: She repeated how "proud" she was nine times. Passing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission made her "very proud," while energy legislation made her "very, very proud," and new ethics rules made her "especially proud."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/09/AR2007100902006.html

I am through with Nancy Pelosi.

That is it! OMG!

From page 2

And she laughed while discussing how she has "striven" to work with Bush on Iraq. "Is that a word? 'Striven'? " she asked.

Yeah. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Though crediting activists for their "passion," Pelosi called it "a waste of time" for them to target Democrats. "They are advocates," she said. "We are leaders."

umm, WHAT THE FUGG does that mean???

monkey said:
Though crediting activists for their "passion," Pelosi called it "a waste of time" for them to target Democrats. "They are advocates," she said. "We are leaders."
umm, WHAT THE FUGG does that mean???
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I read that same article with a sense of horror. I think that sentence quoted means she's trying to give herself a pep talk. She knows she has no real power as long as Dickie and Georgie hold their offices and she refuses to allow impeachment to happen.

Loosely interpreted, I'd say Pelosi has now gone completely to the dark side and she's been drinking their delusional kool-aid which is causing her hallucinations. First she took impeachment off the table and it's just been a greased slippery slope from Democrat to Republic talking points since then. She should change her political party to Republic, since that's clearly who she represents as long as she refuses to impeach Dickie and Georgie, and, in fact, continues to lead in giving the top two criminals in this nation more and more power.

Too bad. I really had high hopes for the first woman Speaker of the House way back when. (Was it really only 10 months ago?!? Those two cretins could have been impeached by now; Clinton's impeachment process only took something like four months.)

I hope whatever the RepublicCONS are paying her to keep supporting their illegal war crimes is worth the guilty conscience she "should" be having over her political errors in not removing criminals from leading this country to certain disaster. She's been looking a bit wild-eyed and hysterical for a while, like she wants to break out in tears, and I hope that's because she's feeling guilty for leaving the top two criminals in power and refusing to allow impeachment bills to the floor of the House. And, besides which, none of those "accomplishments" she was so proud of for domestic bills in the first 100 hours in office have ever become law. So much for 'mission accomplished.'

Nancy: Confession is good for the soul. Confess your grevious errors in leaving the criminals in power and the errors in giving them more power and money, but then correct your past prior bad judgements and let those impeachment bills against Dickie and Georgie come to the floor of the House. Even at the eleventh hour we may forgive you (well, someone else may; I won't), but no one who values their votes will help elect you again. We need people with backbones in the House and the Senate, and we're all tired of you and the other invertebrates who refuse to abide by your oath of office.

AP Exclusive: Afghanistan cracks down on private security; 2 companies closed
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20071011/tap-as-gen-afghan-contractor-crackdown-d3b07b8.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071011/ts_nm/usa_iraq_marines_dc
Gates plays down report Marines want Iraq exit

Excerpt:

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday played down a newspaper report that the U.S. Marine Corps was pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and switch to a leading role in Afghanistan.

"I have heard that they were beginning to think about that and that's all that I've heard. I've seen no plan, no one's come to me with any proposals about it," Gates told reporters in London after meeting his British counterpart, Des Browne.
~~~~~

{{{Y'know, it's all very well and good that this story is even reaching Lamestream Media.... However... If Gates has no idea what some Marines want, then he's not doing his job, is he? Sounds like someone within the chain of command in the Marines knows the military should have finished going after OBL years ago and should never have gone into Iraq. Not that Gates or anyone in the Pentagon or the White House would ever admit that, of course. They need OBL free so they can drag him out as a boogey man every few months for Georgie's and Dickie's fake "war on fear." Otherwise OBL's perpetually Osama Been Forgotten.}}}

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/10/daily-show-fox-equates-obamas-lapel-to-lewinsky-scandal/
Daily Show: FOX Equates Obama’s Lapel to Lewinsky Scandal

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/10/daily-show-president-bush-describer-in-chief/
Daily Show: President Bush, Describer-In-Chief

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/10/countdown-bush-white-house-eager-to-brag-to-foxnews-unconcerned-with-national-security/
Countdown: Bush White House Eager To Brag to FOXNews; Unconcerned with National Security

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/10/the-w%c3%b8rd-on-torture-fatigue/
The Wørd: On Torture Fatigue

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/10/countdowns-worst-person-in-the-world-2/
Countdown’s Worst Person In The World: O’Reilly

EXCLUSIVE: E-mail Reveals That McConnell Staffer Propagated Smear Campaign Against Graeme Frost
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/11/mcconnell-staffer-smear-graeme/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071011/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_us_genocide

Turkey recalls US ambassador for talks

{{{Can anyone please explain WHY something that happened in nearly a century ago (and, I hope which the US had nothing to do with originally, but I know I never studied this in high school over 45 years ago) and long before most of us were even born, is now being made an issue of on the floor of the US House of Represenatataives....? To WHAT purpose (other than to try to blackmail Turkey into allowing US bases to continue to be in their country since it's conveniently close to Iraq)...?!? The Bush administration and the US Congress does NOT have any wiggle room to point hypocritical fingers at an historical event as long as the US military and US mercenaries are killing innocent people in Iraq (which, technically, amounts to genocide because the invasion and occupation is a war crime) and "someone" is illegally detaining and torturing people at Gitmo and elsewhere. This proposed resolution makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and I've yet to read who's behind it or why it's even being proposed. Anyone have ANY logical explanations? This seems to have come out of left field, and I can't figure out why - except it's a diversionary topic to be discussed in Lamestream Media instead of the current war crime in Iraq and torture at Gitmo, and lack of impeachment, etc....}}}

Running for President in Iraq: Which candidate will win the grunts' vote?
http://www.opednews.com:80/articles/opedne_jane_sti_071010_running_for_presiden.htm

Just arrived in my mailbox:

Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright of Code Pink were denied entry to Canada, because they, as nonviolent protesters, were included in an FBI criminal database.

http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?list=type&type=328

Canada is no better than Australia, UK, Japan, Poland, and South Korea, all puppet states of the W regime. Looks like I'll have to think twice about moving to Canada.

NMP
You beat me to the CodePink story...

And this is precisely why the peace and progressive organizations must work on a global scale, to prevent the likes of Harper and Sarkozy from taking power and becoming W's enablers. Our opponents are already shoving globalization down our throats and working together globally.

Harper banned Medea Benjamin from Canada just to appease the W regime. Simple as that.

The tragedy of it all, is the lies that have delivered Iraqi women to this.
Pink and Red Clouds...
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
...From being one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East in gender matters, Iraq has been turned in the space of 4 years into one of the most oppressive countries for women. From being a secular state that allowed and encouraged women in all walks of life, it has become a sectarian prison state that targets and murders women... From being a country that respected its women and their contributions to society in arts, politics, literature, poetry, music, science...it has become a country that tortures, imprisons, rapes, mutilates its women and send them to the gallows. From what used to be a civil society, emerged the monsters of Freedom and Democracy, destroying our families, our parents, our children, our lovers, our husbands, our friends...and us. Look at the current ideological atmosphere that reigns over Iraq. It is a disaster of monumental proportions. All the laws pertaining to gender equality have been changed. Everything that Iraqi women struggled for since the 1920’s, everything that the previous governments tried to establish in matters of gender equality, has been ripped apart....
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2007/10/pink-and-red-clouds.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071011/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iran
Rice says Iran 'lying' about nukes
SHANNON, Ireland - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday accused Iran of "lying" about the aim of its nuclear program, saying there's no doubt Tehran wants the capability to produce nuclear weapons and has deceived the U.N.'s atomic watchdog about its intentions.

"There is an Iranian history of obfuscation and, indeed, lying to the IAEA," she said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"There is a history of Iran not answering important questions about what is going on and there is Iran pursuing nuclear technologies that can lead to nuclear weapons-grade material," Rice told reporters aboard her plane as she headed to Moscow.

~~~~~~~~~

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Does Condisleazy not realize that anyone with an IQ higher than her shoe size knows the difference between fantasy and reality...? Iran may want nuclear capability above that of nuclear power plants, but that doesn't mean they'll ever achieve it, and the earliest estimates of when that might happen is at least 10-15 years out (and Georgie and Dickie won't be "leading" this country by then unless they take over the reigns of government by force and install a dictatorship). Many people fantasize daily about impeachment proceedings against Dickie and Georgie, but that doesn't mean it will happen....

As for calling Iran (the whole country?) a "liar" about their nuclear program, Condisleazy, you might want to keep your hypocritical mouth shut, since the US "leaders" have lied virtually every time they've opened their mouths since the pretzelnitwit debates of 2000, and Georgie and Dickie and you lied about the truth of what Hans Blix and the other inspectors did NOT find in Iraq leading up to the illegal invasion and war for oil based on lies (you've played that card before, remember, and we know the IAEA told the truth before and you didn't tell the truth but told a string of obfuscating lies, so their words are more credible than your lying words)... and we KNOW you've been one of the leading liars. So, go wash your mouth out with soap.... OTay? (Iran's leader may be just as much of a bullying nut job as Georgie and Dickie, but at least normal people can figure out who's lying and who's not, and that the lies you're currently telling are not just reasons for starting yet another illegal war.)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071011/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/pentagon_commando_costs

Six-figure bonuses retain US commandos

~~~~~

This just keeps getting creepier and creepier.....

U.S. attack kills 15 civilians — including 9 kids
U.S. officials: 19 insurgents also died in operation targeting al-Qaida in Iraq

BAGHDAD - A U.S. attack killed 19 insurgents and 15 civilians, including nine children, northwest of the capital Thursday — one of the heaviest civilian death tolls in an American operation in recent months. The military said it was targeting senior leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21233421/

Hey, but we got 19 "insurgents", so it's ok, right?

We're all going to Hell...

You are right Monkey.

We are all going to burn for georgie.

Might as well go all the way then.

Goddamn him.

And Goddamn Nancy Pelosi.