Quotes for Veterans Day

“I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind. If nations were to go to war for every degree of injury, there would never be peace on earth.”
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed—those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone—it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech on April 16, 1953

"War is as much a punishment to the punisher as it is to the sufferer."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
-- Mahatma Gandhi, "Non-Violence in Peace and War"

"War is delightful to those who have not experienced it."
-- Erasmus

"When I take action, I'm not going to fire a 2 million dollar missile at a 10 dollar empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive."
-- George W. Bush, Newsweek, September 24, 2001

"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy."
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Reality Check

It has been two years since Bush invaded Iraq with the Shock & Awe^TM Show so it is time for a reality check.

• 1520 US military deaths


• 176 "Coalition" deaths


• 11,220 US wounded in action


• 212 foreign contractors killed in Iraq


• 24 journalists killed, at least six of them killed by US military


• thousands and thousands of dead Iraqi civilians


• American taxpayers have paid over $156 Billion so far


• No WMD


• No link between Iraq and 9/11


• There is a link between Iraqi Oil and Bush's War

File under: Politics, Iraq, War

Dumbgirl is hot

In her post entitled "Democracy & Freedom Are On the March!!" Dumbgirl regurgitated some Bush Administration propaganda about the United States making the world safe for democracy or something. One of her followers commented about the report in The Lancet that found 100,000 Iraqi civilians died because of American intervention in Iraq. I tried to correct her mistaken interpretation of the study; Dumbgirl promptly deleted my comment and banned my ip.

I tried again with another comment on the topic of Dumbgirl accepting public assistance in the past and her belief that she should not have her tax dollars used to pay for abortions.

All women should receive free pre-natal care, free births, and receive a stipend to care for the baby once it is born and free health care for children.

Amy, do (you) approve of your tax dollars going to pay for breast augmentations and liposuction for military people?
see: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040726ta_talk_schaler
Abortion maybe abhorrent to you but breast augmentation and liposuction are abhorrent to me. Why should I pay for military women to have bigger boobs?

March 9, 2005 | Rob

Dumbgirl responded:

Rob,

I will address you once, then never again.

As for the military breast augmentations, keep in mind that they are not all for vanity reasons. Medical care in the military has in the past covered masectamies (sic) for removal of the breast due to cancer and tumors, but not an implant to recover the form. If you think that these "boob jobs" are sickening, that's on you, but for the military to cosmetically replace the breast taken through surgery is very humane. As for doing it for vanity purposes, I am opposed to this. It is unnecessary and frivolous. However, being the anti-conservative that you are I'd think you'd 1) like seeing "bigger boobs" and 2) believed in bigger (pardon the pun) government.

So because I am liberal, or as she says "anti-conservative", that means that I like seeing "bigger boobs"? Actually I think big plastic breasts are as disgusting as abortions, but I am not going to try to pass laws or amend the Constitution to stop women from doing either.

And I'm for "bigger government"? Bigger than Dubya's government and his record budget deficit? I'm for a big government in the right places. If by big government she means keeping people out of poverty or making sure that people get health care and stuff like that, then okay, I'm for big government. If she means filling up the prisons with non-violent drug offenders and building a missile defense system, then no.

She goes on:

Finally, I can only assume you bypass my IP bans because you need to hear what I have to say. I am being sincere when I suggest you have a longing inside for the message of Jesus, since you beat down my internet door to come in and hear it. True, you attempt to discredit it, but I believe this is your attempt to quite your conscience and justify your own views to yourself. This is typically what people in need of saving do: if they know they need saving, they accept. If they don't want to change their lifestyle or their minds, they make it their life's work to make the truth wrong (which cannot be done) This really has little to do with me (unless you just think I'm hot) and everything to do with you.

Oh yeah, I think she's hot. Uh huh. Middle-aged, Catholic mothers of four are my thing.

I am not "longing for the message of Jesus" either. I know what it is and I agree with it. She is the one who discredits the message of Jesus more than I do. Would Jesus volunteer to work for George Bush and jump out of a plane to shoot at Muslims to secure a supply of oil? Or would Jesus be one of the millions of people protesting Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq?

"People in need of saving"? Saved from what? I need to be saved from over-zealous christians who think that they know what is best for their neighbors and the rest of the world.

Actually I'm on my own little anti-witnessing campaign. Every week I have christian pamphlets left in my door. On my radio, where I once picked up local community radio stations, I get a satellite feed from Tennessee or somewhere with christian preachers. In the public or university library when I check out a book there is a pretty good chance that there is a Chick tract in it. I guess it is okay for christians to come univited into everyone else's lives.

I am just trying to do my part to provide an alternative to "all Bush, all Jesus, all the time". If I comment and she deletes it then at least I know that she read it.

I am sick of the holier-than-thou attitudes of these people.

I am also sick of Rick Santorum's weaselly face. He will lose in 2006.

And now the baby is crying so I may have to come back and edit later.

File under: Religion,Hypocrites

Random thoughts on a Sunday

• More people voted against George "Dubya" Bush in 2004 (57,695,898) and in 2000 (54,916,568) than voted for Reagan in 1984 (54,451,521).


• 51% is not a Decisive Victory or a Mandate!


• Bill Clinton has been out of office for more than four years yet Republicans are still bashing him.


• Some people claim to "follow the evidence", but even after almost two years of US occupation and NO evidence of WMD (the reason Dubya gave to the American people for starting a war) they still support the war and the man who has sent more than 1,500 American servicemen and women to their deaths.


• There is no Social Security Crisis.


• Why has Bush not been impeached for lying to Congress?


• Dubya does not care about the Iraqi people, all he cares about are US economic and strategic interests in the region.


• Congratulations to Dubya and Rummy on their recent awards.

Iraqi Elections

I just want to interrupt the GOP's self-congratulations to remind everyone that voter turnout in Cuba's last election was 95%. And, as Mr. Zakaria points out "Elections Are Not Democracy." Let's see what happens in the next few months. I hope that Iraqis take control of their country and ask the Americans to leave.

Elections Are Not Democracy
The United States has essentially stopped trying to build a democratic order in Iraq, and is simply trying to gain stability and legitimacy

By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek

Feb. 7 issue - By the time you read this, you will know how the elections in Iraq have gone. No matter what the violence, the elections are an important step forward, for Iraq and for the Middle East. But it is also true, alas, that no matter how the voting turns out, the prospects for genuine democracy in Iraq are increasingly grim. Unless there is a major change in course, Iraq is on track to become another corrupt, oil-rich quasi-democracy, like Russia and Nigeria.

In April 2003, around the time Baghdad fell, I published a book that described the path to liberal democracy. In it, I pointed out that there had been elections in several countries around the world?most prominently Russia?that put governments in place that then abused their authority and undermined basic human rights. I called such regimes illiberal democracies. In NEWSWEEK that month, I outlined the three conditions Iraq had to fulfill to avoid this fate. It is currently doing badly at all three.
[more]

GOP steps in Al Qaqaa

Who's lying now?

Video Suggests Explosives Disappeared After U.S. Took Control
Evidence Indicates U.S. Military Opened Al-Qaqaa Bunkers, Left Them Unguarded

Oct. 28, 2004 -- The strongest evidence to date indicates that conventional explosives missing from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa installation disappeared after the United States had taken control of Iraq.

Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 -- nine days after Baghdad fell.
[more]

Pentagon Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "Another explanation is that regime loyalists or others emptied the facility prior to coalition forces arriving in Baghdad in April." And Dubya finally responded while campaigning in Pennsylvania yesterday using the same line, "the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site."

TV Crew Photographed Explosives Cache at Al-Qaqaa
Images Suggest Explosives Were There When U.S. Troops Arrived
JOHN MASON and JOANNA HJELMELAND, KSTP-TV


Oct. 28, 2004 -- A Minnesota television station news crew reporting from Iraq in the spring of 2003 came very close to the spot where tons of high explosives are alleged to have disappeared.

Based on GPS data and confirmation from officials of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, KSTP-TV 5 Eyewitness News determined its crew was on or near the southern edge of the Al-Qaqaa installation on April 18, 2003, nine days after the fall of Baghdad.

KSTP in St. Paul is an ABC News affiliate station. Its journalists were embedded with the 101st at the time and shot exclusive footage that may raise new questions about the controversy surrounding the fate of those munitions.

Some 377 tons of high explosives -- HMX and RDX and PETN -- are said to be missing from the Al-Qaqaa weapons depot and questions have arisen about what the United States knew about the site and what it did to secure it.
[more]

Meanwhile Rudy Giuliani went on NBC's Today show to bash the troops in Iraq:

"No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?"