11/26/2005

Dictionary of Republicanisms

This from the current issue of the Nation:

Over the past few decades, the radical right has engaged in a well-funded, self-conscious program of Orwellian doublespeak, transforming the American political discourse to suit its ends. Think tanks like the Cato Institute routinely market phrases for their political resonance, like "personal" vs. "private" accounts. Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, lexicographer and MSNBC pundit who combines Madison Avenue techniques with K Street connections, sends out regular missives informing Republican operatives and politicians on how to spin conservative policy proposals. (He was on The Daily Show demonstrating his talents, defining "manipulation" as "explanation and education.") Paul Wolfowitz admitted to Vanity Fair that "weapons of mass destruction" was agreed upon as the reason to go to war with Iraq because it was the most salable rationale. And we all know how that turned out.

...Unlike Republicans, who rely on rich old cranks and intellectuals-for-hire to do their dirty work, we opened up the process to the people. For six months, thenation.com accepted suggestions from everyone who wanted to participate. The result was an overwhelming grassroots groundswell of hilarious submissions from citizens who are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. Thousands of definitions were entered from all over the country, forty-four states in all, along with Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. (We even received a few from outraged Canadians, Australians and Brits.)

Here's a few samples:

bankruptcy n. A punishable crime when committed by poor people but not corporations [Beth Thielen, Studio City, Calif.].

class warfare n. Any attempt to raise the minimum wage [Don Zweir, Grayslake, Ill.].

compassionate conservatism n. Poignant concern for the very wealthy [Lawrence Sandek, Twin Peaks, Calif.].

Read more: The Nation

Pen & Ink Jabs: GM Cuts

Quotes To Ponder: No Veteran Left Behind

"We have No Child Left Behind. Why don't we have a program called No Veteran Left Behind? When it comes to health care, no veteran left behind! When it comes to jobs, education and pension, no veteran left behind! We have a message to take to Washington."

Richard Blumenthal
Connecticut State Attorney General
At state veterans rally
----

New Edition of Marx's "Communist Manifesto" Explores Its Contemporary Relevance

“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society...All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.”

Karl Marx and Frederick Engel
The Communist Manifesto

---
Capitalism encourages greed, competition and aggression. It degrades human relations so that they are frequently based, as the Manifesto notes, on little more than “naked self-interest” and “callous ‘cash payment.’”

So it’s little wonder that, as economist Juliet Schor wrote, “Thirty percent of [American] adults say that they experience high stress nearly every day; even higher numbers report high stress once or twice a week...Americans are literally working themselves to death--as jobs contribute to heart disease, hypertension, gastric problems, depression, exhaustion, and a variety of other ailments.”

---
CAN A book published over 150 years ago still be relevant to understanding and changing the world today? PHIL GASPER, the editor of a new edition of the Communist Manifesto packed with annotations and additional materials, talks about the continuing importance of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels’ most famous work.

Read more about the new edition of the Communist Manifesto and "free market" economics in the current edition of the
Socialist Worker.

Other articles include:
What happened to "Bush County?"

Turning Preachers Into Teachers

Corporate Beggars Won't Go Hungry In A "Free" Market

This week, GM annouced it would slash 30,000 jobs and stop production at 12 plants.

In October, Ford Motor announced a quarterly loss of $284 million, and its chairman and CEO, Bill Ford, said the company’s restructuring plan, currently being discussed with the UAW, would include health care benefit changes and “significant plant closings.”

Tacitly alluding to GM and the demand of auto parts maker Delphi, currently under bankruptcy court protection, for wage cuts of up to 60 percent, Ford said, “Our industry is beginning a dramatic restructuring which is sorely needed.”

Brother Can Loan Me A Dime?
And while the pension pit grows at Ford, chief executive William Clay Ford Jr. has collected $53 million over the past three years. At GM, G. Richard Wagoner Jr. got $40.7 million over that period.

In January 2002 Mr. Ford announced a plan to restore the company to strong profitability by mid-decade. His revitalization plan is focused on improving quality, lowering costs and delivering exciting new products to customers. In the first year of the plan the financial performance of the company improved by nearly $5 billion.

"Our quality is up significantly, our costs have been reduced substantially and we are introducing the biggest wave of new products in our history," he says. "But as proud as we are of what we have accomplished so far, we our accelerating our efforts."

Corporate greed math 101
GM's Wagoner and Ford are each being paid approximately $15.5 million each a year. Both companies are on a down hill slide. In 2002, Ford said his company would be profitable by mid-decade -- it ain't. I'm sure I can dig around and find some glamourous quotes by Wagoner about his corporate alchemy skills and ability to turn manure into gold...

Does anybody have a clue why Ford would pay Bill Ford $15+ million annually? He has no experience as a CEO. Wouldn't you think they'd pay a rookie CEO minimum CEO wage? Maybe that could be a clue as to Ford's problem. Ditto for GM.

Last Tuesday, Bill Ford gave a speech in Washington at the National Press Club. He said, "Now more than ever, with the competitive pressures of globalization, America needs to respond to the economic challenges of our time...This is not the moment to stop investing and concede our competitive edge in vital parts of the economy. Just the opposite, we must take the lead and show the world that there is only one, true innovative manufacturing giant. And it has three initials:U.S.A."

You can almost hear the Press Club attendess gagging on their spoons...

Corpoarate welfare state
Ford urged Congress to offer a package of tax incentives to drive innovation in the auto industry that will help make the nation less dependent on foreign oil. He also like tax incentives to convert old plants into high-tech facilities.

Maybe he could get Congress to put caps on the amount of executive pay...

In September, Ford launched a campaign to promote its plans to produce 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010 -- more than 10 times the number currently produced. It says it will produce 250,000 ethanol-capable vehicles in 2006.

Let me see, wasn't it 1974 that we had the first "oil crisis?" That's 31 years ago. The 1966 Olds F-85 I was driving at the time got around 18 MPG. May 2001 Tarus wagon gets around 30 MPG on a recent trip to Denver. When I'm in a parking lot, I'm surrounded by Suburbans, Excursions, Expeditions, F-150 and a host of other American-made gas guzzlers...and this is 31 years after the first "oil crisis." I suppose this is the fault of the American consumer...

Those foreign names like Honda, Nissan and Toyota seem to have plenty of sedans and small SUVs that get excellent gas mileage. In September, I heard a Ford VP on the radio saying the reason Ford dosen't have more hybrids is because the Japanese are hording the technology. Don't they have an R&D department at Ford? Did they cut costs in R&D to increase the marketing budget?

Of course we know who will be taking the hit on this "restructuring" of the auto industry. Actually, it appears that only the American-made portion of the auto industry needs restructuring. How much money have GM and Ford spent on retooling their US facilities? How much have they invested "offshore?"

Ford Goes to Mexico
In 1986, Ford build a new assembly plant in Hermosillo, Mexico. According to the Ford corporate web site, the Hermosillo plant currently building the Focus ZX3, ZX5 and SVT, the plant is expanding to produce Ford's new midsize car for 2006. Not only has the focus of manufacturing changed over the years at Hermosillo, but also the relationship between the assembly plant and the local community.

As a result, Hermosillo attracted workers from farther away, and the employee mix included more older and married workers. Hermosillo officials responded to the changing work force by offering affordable housing to employees.

Employees Need Housing, Tranportation & Schools
"Ford built 500 houses, essentially a new community called Nuevo Hermosillo," said Felix Guillen, Ford director of manufacturing operations in Mexico. "The 600-square-foot homes are rented to employees on a rent-to-own basis. Employees pay a percentage of their salary as rent for approximately eight years. After that, the employee became the owner of the house. Currently, 93 percent of the renters have become homeowners."

All those employees living in all those homes need to get to work, and the Hermosillo plant is also involved in local transportation. The company runs a bus service to the plant, which serves not only as employee transportation, but also relieves some of the traffic burden from the city.

And if a community has jobs, homes, transportation and families, then it also needs schools. Ford and its dealers are only too happy to oblige. Since 1966, Ford and Ford dealers have built more than 200 elementary schools throughout Mexico. Fourteen of those schools were built in Sonora, home state to Hermosillo.

The Heart Has Two Chambers
Sounds like the big part of Ford's heart will be living south of the border...

...Ford's heart north of the border will be applying for a type of health insurance known as corporate welfare. Ford's workers up north are losing their homes and watching their schools crumble. It's all part of the "free" market economy.

Africa's first female president was Wis waitress

"I hope young girls will now see me as a role model that will inspire them," Johnson-Sirleaf said an interview with The Associated Press at her Monrovia villa late Monday. "I certainly hope more and more of them will be better off, women in Liberia, women in Africa, I hope even women in the world."

--Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

At age 67, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is set to become not just Liberia's first elected female president - but the first in Africa, and one of only a handful in the world.She has swept floors and waited tables in Wisconsin and earned a degree from Harvard. She has been jailed at home and exiled abroad. Now she's on the verge of making history.

Read more...

11/25/2005

Pen & Ink Jambs

Quote of Note: Molly Ivins

"I like conservatives, They're opposed to all questionable adventures abroad and for fiscal prudence and responsibility. It's right-wing nuts I can't stand."

Molly Ivins, columnist, Funny Times, June 2005

11/23/2005

New Flash! Big Bird Missing; PBS Cancels Sesame Street

One hand clapping...



The flower is not red, nor is the willow green.
-- Zen saying

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

...at an outpost in a remote, backwater universe know as Ippississim...before taxes became a big deal to turkeys...before unionized humanoids did the meat processing...before child were ever seen or heard...before disgruntled men cried "fowl" about kinked necks from always looking back...their leader, Dr. BillD gave thanks for everything his klan had destroyed, all the pain they had caused in the community and the unpleasant scent they left behind in their old neighborhood...

Attention New Richmond: New School Construction Costs Are Available on the Internet

Beware of the OTBL slime machine!

I noticed one of the enlightened junkyard dogs at the OTBL web site is sliming Lisa Singerhouse, a New Richmond taxpayer and citizen, because she said something OTBL slime-jobber, NR Resident, didn't agree with. She apparently asked a question concerning an idea raised at a recent Do Group meeting. Bill Derrick has an idea concerning the use of 20 acres of the school district's land for needed school expansion plans.

New Richmond's current school expansion discussion and supreintendent's exit have made for a increased level of emotional rebuttals to the issues and debates taking place within the school district. Now that the anti-public school, anti-teachers' union, anti-community bloggers from Hudson have pointed their skunk tails in the direction of New Richmond, I hope members of both groups of New Rcihmond concerned citizens will catch their scent and start to understand what they are about. Maybe you read the OTBL admin's -- Chris Kilber -- letter to the editor. Remember the talk about a forum for discussion and information? If you follow that blog, you should qucikly develop the mental picture that the OTBL style of debate as a pack of OTBL dogs lifting their collective legs on a fire hyudrant, i.e., anyone who disagrees with the OTBL political bent.

Anyway, NR Resident ends his/her posts with this comment: "Saving the taxpayers what could be tens of millions of dollars will not even be considered because of 3 Cross Country Track meets."

Excuse me NR, but what the hell are you talking about? "Tens of millions of dollars..." How are we going to save that kind of money with Bill Derrick's suggestion? Is Bill donating the cost of construction? Construction industry cost estimates put the cost of building a high school for 1,025 students at $27 million.

It's not that hard to get cost estimates for new construction. A minute Googgling will get you numbers to make educated cost estimates. These are not some mystical voodoo numbers worked up by the O, T, B & L consulting firm. They are current industry standards used by professionals in the business. The debaters in the New Richmond school district should find these cost estimates helpful to put so intellect numbers into their debate. Links to these estimates and more can be found at the bottom of this post.

New School Construction Cost Estimates:

I find it interesting the amount of gutless bravo certain OTBL bloggers have when they put-down, insult and demean citizens who are coming to the meetings, expressing ideas and trying to work together on serious issues that will impact the future of our community. Evidently, "NR Resident" is a resident of New Richmond, but we don't know that. But he or she can talk tough and put people down under the power of a anonomous hood name. Shame on you. If you have any guts, why not use you "Christian" name? Mine is James Patrick Nelson aka JPN.

Does anybody have any guess as to the identity of NR Resident? If so, please put your guess in the comments...you too can play NR Resident's anonomous game. Likewise, if you know the identities on any of the other OTBL bloggers sliming participants in the discussion, enter their names. Keep in mind, it's typical for OTBL posters to use a number of posting or "hood" names to hide under. My guess is that NR Resident and Luke are the same person.

Make sure your friends and neighbors in New Richmond get to see how the attacks dogs -- like NR Resident -- do nothing more than lift their leg on the people dedicating their time and effort to improve the New Richmond school system and prepare it for the future. The childishness of NR Resident's posts is obvious with such titles as "Spot The Idiot," "Teachers Defend Hictchens Payout and Bonus," "Poor Kent Elkin," etc. Note how the intent of such OTBL posters is to personally attack the individuals speaking out in favor of moving the school planning process forward. This is the attack method of ignorant, redneck people who don't know the facts or the basic schooling to figure out the ramifications of these community issues. These people won't take time to find out the facts and don't take the time to do the simple math involved here.

OTBL posters will still be attacking Hitchens a year from know. Just as the the Hudson branch of the OTBL klan continues to slime retired superintendent Ron Bernth. Of course, I really don't have tell you this. You are all educated adults and can see this yourself.

Do your own Googgle search on new school construction costs and explore the information available. There is plenty of it to help you make competient estimates on the costs of these projects.

Sample links for Googgle on: new school construction costs
New school construction estimates
Department of Education estimates
...numerous others links available

Daytona Beach: New School Construction Cost Examples

How fast are construction costs rising?

...The School Board had originally projected a $40 million cost for the school as part of its 2001 sales tax campaign. But a later decision to increase its capacity from 2,000 to 2,500 students coupled with rapidly rising construction costs have pushed the budget to $75 million from sales and property taxes.

To illustrate how fast construction costs have risen, Torbert talked about a Seminole County elementary school his firm designed that was built in 2003 for $4.5 million. The Seminole County School Board received a single bid of $9.5 million five months ago to build essentially the same school, Torbert said. The board held off in hopes of finding a more favorable market, but when the project was rebid two weeks ago, the lowest of four bids came in at $11.5 million...

Read more: type in web link name

Venezuela Subsidizes Americans, Bush/Cheney Subsidize Big Oil

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is one of the Bush administration's biggest adversaries in Latin America.
Gee, I wonder why? Could one reason be that Chavez is helping low-income Americans while
Bush buddy oil companies record record profits?
Officials from Venezuela and Massachusetts have signed a deal to provide cheap heating oil to low-income homes in the US state.

The fuel will be sold at about 40% below market prices to thousands of homes over the winter months. See Full BBC Story
Now that Ted Koppel is gone, you won't see this story on the American Networks with the new "Pretty Boy/Free Market" anchors.








11/22/2005

One hand clapping...



The willow is green; flowers are red.
-- Zen saying

Military Body Armor Recalled

It is the second recall in about six months.

WASHINGTON - The military is recalling more than 18,000 protective vests because they did not meet ballistic test standards when the body armor was made up to five years ago.

Some vests in the latest recall may have been used in Iraq or Afghanistan. Made between 1999 and 2001, they were green or woodland camouflage, making it less likely they were used in the Gulf, where troops use the newer, desert-colored camouflage vests.

Read more@ Military.com

Ontheborderline "Think Tank"

OTBL blogger "Comic" studying up for his next
act.


11/21/2005

One Hand Clapping...


I'm not young enough to know everything.

-- J.M. Barrie

Reining In the Blogs of War

Army warns that warfighters’ online diaries can place lives at risk and degrade the effectiveness of operations.

The popularity of online blogs kept by warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan has touched off renewed debate over operational security and the free flow of information in the Internet age.

At issue are blogs, or Web logs, created by in-theater soldiers in their free time to post personal comments and observations. The ubiquity of Internet technology has triggered the proliferation of these Web pages, in which ordinary people around the world report on what they see and experience and comment on the issues of the day. Blogs are set up at low or no cost and typically provide for interactivity, in which readers comment on blog content and respond to each other. Untold thousands of blogs have been set up by individuals worldwide, including hundreds by active U.S. military personnel.

“The enemy aggressively ‘reads’ our open source and continues to exploit such information for use against our forces,” Army Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker wrote in an August memo. “Some soldiers continue to post sensitive information to Internet Web sites and blogs, e.g., photos depicting weapon system vulnerabilities and tactics, techniques and procedures. Such OPSEC violations needlessly place lives at risk and degrade the effectiveness of our operations."

Read more@ Military Information Technology Online

When We Need Them, The Police Are Where They Need To Be

Wives and children! It's past 3 AM and the old man is still blogging on his computer in his boxer shorts. Have you ever wondered why?

The next time the old man jumps up on a diningroom chair, jabs a KFC drumstick heavenward and proclaims, "Magister Mundi sum!," tell him his fly is open. Then to leave him with the impression that his tax dollars are being well spent on your government education, conclude by telling him, "Utinam coniurati te in foro interficiant!"

President Bush Developes Avian Bird Cough Symptoms

One hand clapping...


Before a person studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are not waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.

-- Zen saying

The Charter School Movement: New York City and Beyond

The St. Croix Valley isn’t an island of isolated debate, discussion and finger pointing, when it comes to looking at the options available in K-12 education. There are options out there and they are being tried. The results vary, but I’ve long been under the impression that a huge part of education is trying and erring and learning from our mistakes. Charter schools are an option being tried. Below is a brief overview of charter schools. There is a link at the end that will lead you to a variety of articles and discussion of the pros,cons and history of charter schools. Charter schools seem more appropriate for larger metropolitan areas, but there maybe useful ideas and insights contained in the information linked to this post.

The charter school movement began in the 1970s, the brainchild of Ray Budde, a professor of education at the University of Massachusetts. He suggested that individual teachers could be given contracts, which he dubbed charters, to explore new approaches. United Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker then expanded the idea to call for granting entire schools charters (with union approval). The first charter school in the U.S. opened in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1992. Today about 580,000 students in the country attend 2,400 charter schools.

Charter schools receive public money but are independently and privately run. Though they must comply with certain state regulations and health and safety rules, they do not have to operate under union contracts, and they exist largely outside the Department of Education bureaucracy.

While much of the adamant opposition to charters has faded, conflicts remain over their performance and how they should be controlled and regulated. In many ways, these disputes come down to a battle over who should control education, what some have likened to a "power struggle."

Charter schools offer parents choice, particularly in poorer neighborhoods. But they also provide a counterweight to the so-called "educrats" and unions, often derided by Bloomberg and others. The lack of the union and of longtime school administrators holds particular appeal for many on the political right. It is no coincidence that one of the leading academic proponents of charters schools is the Goldwater Institute in Arizona -- named for the founder of the modern American conservative moment.

Want more information and details on the pros and cons of charter schools in New York and elsewhere? Check out the complete articles and numerous other articles and links in the Gotham Gazette…

Quotes To Ponder


"The right to work, I had assumed, was the most precious liberty that man possesses. Man has indeed as much right to work as he has to live, to be free, to own property."

William O. Douglas
U. S. Supreme Court justice
Dissent, Barsky v. Regents; 1954

Today In Labor History

November 21 1927: Six miners striking for better working conditions under the IWW banner were killed and many wounded in the Columbine Massacre at Lafayette, Colo. Out of this struggle Colorado coal miners gained lasting union contracts.

1945: The United Auto Workers Union strikes 92 General Motors plants in 50 cities to back worker demands for a 30 percent raise.

Learn More: Big Labor

11/20/2005

Chickenhawk Flu Sweeps Thru President Bush's Not So Swift Boat

"He jests at scars that never felt the wound." -- Shakespeare

"We're the targets. We're uniting the enemu against us. And there's terrorism all over the world that there wasn't before we went into Irag," said Rep. John Murtah, D-Pa.

President Bush's August 1972 suspension from flight status in the Texas Air National Guard -- triggered by his failure to take a required annual flight physical -- should have prompted an investigation by his commander, a written acknowledgement by Bush, and perhaps a written report to senior Air Force officials, according to Air Force regulations in effect at the time.

In harsh personal terms, Murtha, who won a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts in Vietnam, rebuked Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for their aggressive new campaign to denounce war critics. Martha compared his own combat experience with Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard and Cheney's draft avoidance during the Vietnam War.

"Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence. The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a 37-year Marine veteran.

If the mugging of Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia is a fair indicator of what is to come, the fall elections will be ugly. Cleland, a decorated veteran and triple amputee, was attacked by his Republican opponent, Rep. Saxby Chambliss, "for breaking his oath to protect and defend the Constitution."

"A disgrace," declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and neverbeen there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done. I resent the fact, on Veterans Day, he (Bus) criticized Democrats for criticizing them," said Rep. Murtha.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, for the second day in a row, refused yesterday to answer questions about Bush's failure to take the physical and appeared to retreat from Bush's promise Sunday to make public all of his military records. Asked at a midday press briefing if all of Bush's records would be released, McClellan said, "We'd have to see if there is any new information in that."

"The rankest of politics and the absence of any sense of shame," added Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat.

Throughout the country, patriotism, under Karl Rove's coaching, has become the sub-theme of the campaign. The message is sometimes coded, sometimes not. It is not the first time a campaign has turned into a brawl over custody of the flag: Remember the senior Bush's melodramatic 1988 trip to a flag factory?

"Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly," said Senator Robert M. La Follette.


In interviews and written reminiscences, Kerry has described how his 50-foot patrol boat came under fire from the banks of the Bay Hap after a mine explosion disabled another U.S. patrol boat. According to Kerry and members of his crew, the firing continued as an injured Kerry leaned over the bow of his ship to rescue a Special Forces officer who was blown overboard in a second explosion.

"We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat," said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Two retired National Guard generals, in interviews yesterday, said they were surprised that Bush -- or any military pilot -- would forgo a required annual flight physical and take no apparent steps to rectify the problem and return to flying. "There is no excuse for that. Aviators just don't miss their flight physicals," said Major General Paul A. Weaver Jr., who retired in 2002 as the Pentagon's director of the Air National Guard, in an interview.

"[T]he essence of so-called war prosperity; it enriches some by what it takes from others. It is not rising wealth but a shifting of wealth and income," said Ludwig von Mises.

"You guys are pathetic! Pathetic!" yelled Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass.

In Iowa, Democrat Tom Harkin is getting clubbed by opponent Greg Ganske, who went at him on the flag-burning amendment. Harkin's record as a Navy pilot during Vietnam was no help to him in Ganske's attack on him for voting against the amendment. Ganske, although he is running as "a compassionate doctor," made a tacky jest about Harkin's recent operation for a cancer on his lip.

Democrats gave Murtha, a decorated Vietnam War veteran with close ties to the military, a standing ovation as he entered the chamber and took his customary corner seat.

A Sept. 29, 1972, order sent to Bush by the National Guard Bureau, the defense department agency which oversees the Guard, noted that Bush had been verbally suspended from flying on Aug. 1. The written order made it official: "Reason for suspension: Failure to accomplish annual medical examination."

"It's a pathetic, partisan, political ploy," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. Added Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif.: "It's just heinous."


Asked if the same was true in 1992 when Bush's father criticized Governor Bill Clinton for not releasing his military records, stoking the controversy around Clinton's active avoidance of the Vietnam War draft by calling him "Slick Willie," McLellan replied, "I think that you expect the garbage can to be thrown at you in the 11th hour of a campaign, but not nine months before Election Day."

"This is a personal attack on one of the best members, one of the most respected members of this House and it is outrageous," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, however, "This is not an attack on an individual. This is a legitimate question."


Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Navy pilot who was imprisoned and tortured in North Vietnam, pushed the Senate into a 90-9 vote banning inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees, over Cheney's strong objections. Joining McCain were Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, a colonel in the Air Force Reserves and a miltary lawyer, and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a Marine veteran and secretary of the Navy during the Vietnam War.

Questioning the president on anything -- on early knowledge of the attacks, exclusion of the FBI and CIA from the homeland security complex -- is considered risky business for Democrats. Said Sen. Bob Graham of Florida on "Face the Nation": "If the administration takes a stonewall position, and every word in their plan is biblical, and if you change it, you are unpatriotic."

"They've been itching for a fight for a long time," Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said of the Democrats.

"It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate," said George McGovern, "I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. "

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism," said George Washington.

Murtha, discribing his weekly visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, said he visited one young man who had lost both hands and was left blind by friendly fire. "I was praising him, saying how proud we were of him and how much we appreciate his service to the country."Anything I can do for you?" His mother said, "Get him a Purple Heart.' I said, 'What do you mean, get him a Purple Heart?" Murtah recounted.

"War is the continuation of politics by other means," wrote Karl Von Clausewitz.

His mother said because her son was injured by friendly fire, the military had said he did not qualify for the honor. "I met with the commandant. I said, "If you don't give him a Purple Heart, I'll give him one of mine," Murtha said. "And they gave him a Purple Heart."

The terms "unnecessary suffering" and "superfluous injury" have not been formally defined within international law. In determining whether a weapon or projectile causes unnecessary suffering, a balancing test is applied between the force dictated by military necessity to achieve a legitimate objective vis-à-vis suffering that may be considered superfluous to achievement of that intended objective. The test is not easily applied. For this reason, the degree of "superfluous" injury must be clearly disproportionate to the intended objectives for development and employment of the weapon, that is, it must outweigh substantially the military necessity for the weapon system or projectile.


War would end if the dead could return.
War would end if the dead could return.
War would end if the dead could return.
War would end if the dead could return.
War would end if the dead could return.
~Stanley Baldwin

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war." -- Donald Rumsfeld

O, T, B & L Consulting Predicts Low Wisconsin Deer Harvest On The Border Line

Cautious of any forecasting, the great white hunters @ ontheborderline.net have decided to take off this deer hunting season. The major reason is because, when the doe starts talking, the buck stops here...