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Good Times... Good Times

How the Bush Family Makes a Killing from George's Presidency

Halliburton scored almost $1.2 billion in revenue from contracts related to Iraq in the third quarter of 2006, leading one analyst to comment: "Iraq was better than expected ... Overall, there is nothing really to question or be skeptical about. I think the results are very good."

Very good indeed. An estimated 655,000 dead Iraqis, over 3,000 dead coalition troops, billions stolen from Iraq's coffers, a country battered by civil war - but Halliburton turned a profit, so the results are very good.

Stay The Course?

... You bet!

Exxon Reports $10.49 Billion Profit in Quarter

The ExxonMobil Corporation reported today that it earned $10.49 billion in the third quarter, the second largest quarterly profit ever posted by a publicly traded American company. The largest on record was also reported by ExxonMobil — $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.

Stephen Colbert vs. Congressman Lynn Westmoreland

This is hilarious...

False Feathers v. True Colors

Field Guide to TV's Lukewarm Liberals

Sam Donaldson

False Feathers: "Resident liberal" on ABC's This Week, according to the Washington Post (1/21/96).

True Colors: Donaldson is mostly seen as liberal because of his years of shouting inaudible questions at President Reagan. Hawkish on foreign policy, he used to refer to the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev as "a terrorist system" (This Week, 11/27/88) and to Nicaragua's elected President Daniel Ortega as "the Nicaraguan dictator" (This Week, 12/4/88).

Donaldson's no environmentalist, either: A big recipient of federal subsidies for his sheep ranch, he's received federal help to exterminate wildlife, authorizing leghold traps, neck snares, cyanide, aerial gunning and the killing of young in their dens to rid the ranch of coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions and black bears (Extra!, 5-6/97). Referring to the reintroduction of endangered species, he told David Letterman (11/28/95), "If they introduce the Mexican wolf, you'll never see a Mexican wolf on my ranch. You might see some newly spaded ground."

Better Than Fiction

Accused priest got naked with Foley

An elderly priest admitted getting naked in saunas with Mark Foley decades ago when the page-preying ex-congressman was a boy in Florida.

Right On Cue

Saddam Verdict Expected Within 3 Weeks

A verdict against Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants charged in connection with an anti-Shiite crackdown in the 1980s will be issued by early next month, the chief prosecutor in their trial said Sunday.

We Invaded Iraq Because -Insert Justification Du Jour-

Bush keeps revising war justification

President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now.

Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader's weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.

But 3 1/2 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, the justification has become far broader and now includes the expansive "struggle between good and evil."

Republicans seized on North Korea's reported nuclear test last week as further evidence that the need for strong U.S. leadership extends beyond Iraq.

Bush's changing rhetoric reflects increasing administration efforts to tie the war, increasingly unpopular at home, with the global fight against terrorism, still the president's strongest suit politically.

The Gall Of These People

What Washington is talking about this week. By Michael Grunwald - Slate Magazine

Republicans. After polls suggest that the mess surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley, R.-Fla., is poised to end GOP control of Congress, embattled House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., calls for the resignation of anyone who knew about Foley's conduct, not including embattled House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Meanwhile, amid allegations that several Republicans knew that Foley had tried to crash a party for teenage House pages, GOP lawmakers demand an investigation of … the Clinton administration's Sandy Berger? Next month, they may get to watch their own party crash.

One Nation Under Survailance

Documents Reveal Scope of U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests

Internal military documents released Thursday provided new details about the Defense Department’s collection of information on demonstrations nationwide last year by students, Quakers and others opposed to the Iraq war.

The documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, show, for instance, that military officials labeled as “potential terrorist activity” events like a “Stop the War Now” rally in Akron, Ohio, in March 2005.

The Defense Department acknowledged last year that its analysts had maintained records on war protests in an internal database past the 90 days its guidelines allowed, and even after it was determined there was no threat.

That's Six Hundred Fifty Five Thowsand

Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

Short Attention Span

Democracy Now! | Headlines for October 10, 2006

Rep. Kucinich: Bush is Preparing For War Against Iran On Capitol Hill, Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich is leading a briefing on Wednesday on whether the Bush administration is ramping up for a war against Iran. Among the experts testifying are former UN nuclear weapons inspector David Kay and retired Air Force colonel Sam Gardiner. Gardiner has said evidence exists that the United States is already conducting covert military operations inside Iran. Time Magazine recently reported the aircraft carrier Eisenhower has been deployed to the Persian Gulf. In a recent campaign fundraising letter, Congressman Kucinich warned “The Bush Administration is preparing for war against Iran, using an almost identical drumbeat of weapons of mass destruction, imminent threat, alleged links to Al Queda, and even linking Iran with a future 911.”

The Futility of Hot Air

The mystery of America

It happens once every few months. Like a periodic visit by an especially annoying relative from overseas, Condoleezza Rice was here again. The same declarations, the same texts devoid of content, the same sycophancy, the same official aircraft heading back to where it came from. The results were also the same: Israel promised in December, after a stormy night of discussions, to open the "safe passage" between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This time, in what was considered the "achievement" of the current visit, Israel also promised to open the Karni crossing. Karni will be open, one can assume, only slightly more than the "safe passage," which never opened following the previous futile visit.

Rice has been here six times in the course of a year and a half, and what has come of it? Has anyone asked her about this? Does she ask herself?

It is hard to understand how the secretary of state allows herself to be so humiliated. It is even harder to understand how the superpower she represents allows itself to act in such a hollow and useless way. The mystery of America remains unsolved: How is it that the United States is doing nothing to advance a solution to the most dangerous and lengthiest conflict in our world? How is it that the world's only superpower, which has the power to quickly facilitate a solution, does not lift a finger to promote it?

How Ironic

In N.Y., Sparks Fly Over Israel Criticism

Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate here last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry.

The historian, Tony Judt, is Jewish and directs New York University's Remarque Institute, which promotes the study of Europe. Judt was scheduled to talk Oct. 4 to a nonprofit organization that rents space from the consulate. Judt's subject was the Israel lobby in the United States, and he planned to argue that this lobby has often stifled honest debate.

An hour before Judt was to arrive, the Polish Consul General Krzysztof Kasprzyk canceled the talk. He said the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee had called and he quickly concluded Judt was too controversial.

There You Have It--Another Lie From the Bushites

British Find No Evidence Of Arms Traffic From Iran

Since late August, British commandos in the deserts of far southeastern Iraq have been testing one of the most serious charges leveled by the United States against Iran: that Iran is secretly supplying weapons, parts, funding and training for attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

A few hundred British troops living out of nothing more than their cut-down Land Rovers and light armored vehicles have taken to the desert in the start of what British officers said would be months of patrols aimed at finding the illicit weapons trafficking from Iran, or any sign of it.

Iran driving

This is amazing!!!

Who Knew...

... It's Clinton's fault!

Hastert dodges Foley heat, denies report of repeated warnings

He went on to suggest that operatives aligned with former President Bill Clinton knew about the allegations and were perhaps behind the disclosures in the closing weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections, but he offered no hard proof.

This Thing SUX!

First of all, the touch sensitive right and left button sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, sometimes works, and somtimes stops... now and again. There is always a surprise about that.
(and NO, I do know about the fact that you have to lift your index finger away from the left side before touching the right side--so that is not the issue).

Then, the side buttons are completely useless. I mean, you have to let go of the entire mouse, reposition your hand and squeeze the sides of this thing... Who wants that?

The only thing that Apple has gotten right about this thing is the 360-degree scrolling capability. Now that is nice. But not nice enough for me not to return this thing.

Back to the drawing board Apple.


Apple - Mighty Mouse

The Force Behind Sarkozy