SOTU Speech Shame:

NOT A MENTION NOR ONE MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR
THE 502 TROOPS

NOT A WORD OF THANKS TO
THE WOUNDED

NOT A MENTION OF THE NAME
BIN-LADEN


"Hey you sports dudes- Stop takin' 'em steeroids!!"

Let Judy be Judith
I would never want to see Judith as a Judy-doll Stepford wife.
What the hell's wrong with America,anyhow?

Send idiots like Maureen Dowd back to 1950-- when men were men and women were barefoot and pregnant (yet somehow always kept the beehive coif perfect).
Leave her there.

Israel Planes Attack Hezbollah in Lebanon
While I understand Israel's right to defend herself, what implications will this have for her ally..the U.S.? Did Sharon think before acting...really? We'd best not get bogged down with Syria. We cannot afford it, nor is it an appropriate fight for us to enter. I hope this does not wind up smelling of NeoCon.

Israel rapped in UN probe

BEIRUT: Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said yesterday that a UN investigation had found that an Israeli military bulldozer hit by a Hizbollah rocket attack was in Lebanese territory at the time of the strike.
"The investigation carried out by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) command has shown that the Israeli bulldozer was inside Lebanese territory," Lahoud said in a statement.
"And this constitutes a clear violation of the Blue Line," said Lahoud, referring to the demarcation line marked out by Unifil when Israel ended its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in May 2000.

Republicans convert for Kerry?
Hmmmmmmm......

"...East Middle School precinct chairwoman Jan Olson said a few Republicans had converted just to participate for the day. "We are really glad you want to be a Democrat," Olson said, "as long as that day is in November," drawing a big laugh. Sturgeon said one site had eight typical Republicans taking part..."

I wonder if they were sincere converts. You see, in Iowa, even registered Republicans can switch parties - if only for the day - to participate in the caucus.

The Union Leader, New Hampshire's only statewide daily newspaper, has endorsed Joe Lieberman in the Democratic presidential primary.

HERE'S THE ACTUAL ENDORSEMENT.

One word- UGH.
~~~~~~~

Clinton agrees to be Middle East Envoy?
Did you know this?

"In a question-and-answer period, he [John Kerry] reminded a voter that he had already asked Clinton to be his Middle East envoy—and that Clinton had accepted."

~~~~~~~

Paul O'Neill: A Republican Rip Van Winkle

Think of O'Neill as some centrist Republican Rip Van Winkle, who came back to a GOP White House after 25 years only to find that his pragmatic approach to public problem-solving made him an alien to be ignored or a prop to be used for "cover" by zealots.."

Bruce Reed of the DLC is trying hard to crush Howard Dean by "going negative" on him

Last night on Charlie Rose, I saw Bruce Reed of the DLC ripping away at Howard Dean..attacking his viability, his electability, his style, his campaign...practically everything about the man. At the same time, Reed went on and on about the glory of being positive. What a hypocrite! Kerry attacked Dean in the debates at nearly every turn.
The DLC is lining up a disaster for November if they are falling for the old "must stay positive".
The GOP is going to use that against them...and yet they submit. We are going to need a tiger to stand up against Bush.This playing nicey-nice is not going to make the big cut.
Here's an example (from the bitterly partisan Washington Dispatch) of how the GOP will turn it around to bite a DLC candidate in the nice little a*s:

"The reason is that the DLC could wind up the real loser in Clark’s latest attempt to go ultra-negative in his attacks against the president and desert any positive tone in his campaign. The DLC bailed on its original candidate, John Edwards once his campaign seemed to stall early on. But Edwards stayed positive in Iowa despite early poll numbers that were in the single digits and is now polling well. Edwards now has an outside shot at winning in Iowa and can spin any close finish in Iowa into a victory as he came from way back to become competitive by staying above the fray. He will then use that in an attempt to bolster his positive campaign as the way to compete against the president. John Edwards has stayed positive while Wesley Clark has come unhinged with his accusations and negativity.
And that leaves the DLC with a dilemma.
Back an ex-General who was so uncontrollable in his last gig as the Supreme Commander of NATO that the Pentagon had to fire him over the phone, or throw everything behind the only positive campaigner in the entire Democratic field, John Edwards."

Wesley Clark unhinged? Do you see what's going on here? Any candidate coming out against Bush in an assertive and aggressive manner will be categorized as "unhinged...angry" by the Bushies. Will the DLC abandon Wes Clark for a "gentler, kinder" candidate? If there's one thing the Democrats don't need , it's more wimps.


In today's N.Y. Times column, Paul Krugman writes:

"...some Americans will respond to upbeat messages, no matter how unrealistic. And that may be enough for Mr. Bush, because while he poses as someone above the fray, he is continuing to solidify his base...the lying has already begun, with the Republican National Committee's willful misrepresentation of Wesley Clark's prewar statements. (Why are news organizations letting them get away with this?)"

Trading Votes: This is how it happens in the Iowa Caucus

"...Five minutes later, after a plea from Lyle Canceco, a 27-year-old political operative from Seattle who came to Iowa to be a precinct captain for Mr. Edwards, Mr. Kucinich's supporters joined the Edwards group.
Meanwhile, most of the Gephardt supporters joined Mr. Kerry's supporters...."

I'll be looking forward to see what New Hampshire, a non-caucus state, has to say. I want to see what happens when you have people going into the booth and deciding as individuals...without changing candidates because their preferred (weaker) candidate told them to go to a particular alternate candidate.

HERE'S A GREAT ARTICLE ABOUT THE IOWA CAUCUS


Springfield News-Sun:
OHIO: One thing's sure, nothing's certain

"..If Democrats and Republicans agree on anything, it's this: The winner of Monday's Democratic caucus in Iowa will not have a free ride to the party's presidential nomination."

..and I believe that Howard Dean will stand a good chance of winning Ohio.

Zogby: How Arab Americans will vote in Presidential race

"In the 2000 presidential election, Bush won 44.5 per cent of the community's vote. In a poll conducted in July 2003, Bush's support had dropped to 34 per cent, while in this January 2004 poll, his totals have further declined to 28 per cent. ...On the Democratic side, thirty-six per cent of Arab Americans indicated their preference for Dean in the Democratic primary. No other Democrat received a double-digit response. Retired General Wesley Clark received the support of nine per cent of Arab Americans, followed by Senator John Kerry with six per cent.

New Hampshire Primary Trivia:

Two tiny villages in northern New Hampshire -- Dixville Notch and Hart's Location (Population-37) -- will be the first to vote in next Tuesday's primary, as they do in presidential elections. Both have a tradition in which all citizens vote at midnight after which the votes are counted. In Dixville Notch, there are 23 voters: 12 Republicans, 11 independents and no Democrats. The 11 independents are eligible to vote in the Democratic primary.
Wow--Have you seen the Wentworth?


Now I've Heard Everything
Too many cannabinoids-
A guy ODs on Pot?!

"A man of 36 is believed to have become the first person in Britain to die directly from cannabis poisoning."

Well, there's one rare instance of which the drug czars will grab hold while they push the
"REPEAT AD NAUSEUM" button.

Lawrence Journal-World:
Young Republicans Crash Dean concert--Young Republicans get violent

"...Weinberg saw dozens of college-age supporters of President George W. Bush crash Saturday night's Dean bash at Drake University, which featured rock singer Joan Jett and comedian Janeane Garafalo.
Weinberg was close to the stage with a video camera and taped some of the Republicans who came in with signs, banners and chanted Bush's name. They grabbed signs from Dean supporters and one of them bumped Jett, Weinberg said. "She said, ‘You can hit me, but don't mess with my guitar,'" Weinberg said. "It was absolutely incredible."
Dean supporters started singing the national anthem to drown out the Bush people, who were finally ushered out by security, Weinberg said..."

COMPANION STORY HERE

Something tells me this is only the beginning. These Republican kids are a pretty angry lot.

Right now it looks like Kerry, Edwards, then Dean....Gephardt a surprising loser
As you might suspect, I'm surprised and disappointed in Dean's poor showing in Iowa thus far.
I will be curious to see why Iowans decided upon Kerry. I think they swallowed the "electability" Koolaid and lost their guts..their initial intuition about Dean. My intuition tells me that Kerry isn't all that intuitive of a leader. He wound up emulating Dean like a chameleon. That gives me the creeps. Eeewwww.
This bugs me about Kerry, too. Not only his wife's money vs. a lot of individual American donations to candidates such as Dean, but this:
Kerry Carries Water for Top Donor
"Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., whose largest campaign contributor lobbies on behalf of telecommunication interests, pushed the legislative priorities of its clients in the wireless industry on several occasions, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of campaign, lobbying and congressional records has found."
Double eewwww.

Rep. Dick Gephardt dropping out
Rep. Dick Gephardt intends to drop out of the Democratic presidential race after a poor, fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, a party official said Monday night.

Here comes New Hampshire, folks!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Debt Relief--
Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Asks, "Why Only Iraq?"

U.S. Imposes Flatly Wrong Tax on Iraq
The Bigshots in Iraq, without democracy, have imposed a new tax system on that country. Halliburton and other campaign contributors to the Bush administration have been declared exempt from the taxes. Senior editor Fred Foldvary analyzes the new scheme and finds it a poor choice in every way.

"....Imagine a tenant farmer in Iraq who has to struggle with contaminated water, insects, and theft of his equipment. On the way to market he has to pass through U.S. checkpoints, where he is delayed, quizzed and groped for guns. After paying for rent and supplies, he manages to make a profit just enough to feed his family and buy seeds and gasoline, but now, down comes the U.S. tax collector to take way some of his gains. The tax is 15 percent of his income, but what is the profit?
-..The Iraqi tax collector working for the military occupation has to guess at what the right income is and whether the farmer is telling the truth...maybe this farmer is unpopular, and tax evasion would be a good excuse to lock him up in prison......
-..Can you see the implications? Do we really want to sow more corruption and oppression? Just because a flat tax works OK in Estonia does not imply it will go smoothly in Iraq. This tax will be a nightmare and another excuse for U.S.-hating terrorists to do violence. This is just one more example of the incredibly inept and incomprehensively foolish U.S. policy in Iraq..."

N.Y.C. Benefit Concert for Bam Earthquake Victims to be held January 23

art by one of featured artists, Arita Shahrzad

To my friends and readers in NYC, there will be a gathering to celebrate and remember the lives of those lost in the earthquake, and to provide help and support to the survivors of Bam to recuperate and rebuild their city.
It will take place at St. John the Divine Cathedral this Friday, January 23, at 7:00PM.
Artwork on auction by artists including:
Shirin Neshat, Abbas Seyed Alavi,
Kamrooz Aram, Amir Fallah, (Amir Fallah also here) Y.Z. Kami, Sheila Karbassian, Pali Kashi, Laleh Khorramian, Nicky Nodjoumi, Behrooz Nournia, Kasra Paydavousi, (Paydavousi also here) Arita Shahrzad
and Sadegh Tirafkan

Performers will be:
Sussan Deyhim (Composer, Vocalist)
(She will perform excerpts from poetry by Rumi & Hafez)
Richard Horowitz & Alan Kushan
Composer Richard Horowitz and Iranian master musician
Alan Kushan will perform solos and duos on Ney and Santur
Haale (Singer/Song Writer)
Darya Dadvar (Vocalist)
Shahrokh Meshkin Ghalam (Choreographer and Dancer)

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS
--Sussan Lari (Architect, Urban Designer, Ex-President of American Institute of Architects - Long Island Chapter) will be speaking on the ancient city of Bam.
--Dr. Asghar Rastegar (Yale University Associate Chair for Academic Affairs, Philanthropist) will be presenting the humanitarian aspects of the disaster.
--Layla Diba (Persian Art Expert, Former curator at Brooklyn Museum of Art, Professor in Bard Graduate Center, New York) will present the donated works by Iranian Artists for auction.

SEE THE "BAM DIARY"

On This Iowa Caucus Day, Remember Howard Dean, "THE ORIGINAL"
As Charley Reese put it last October:

"....An honest man with sincere convictions will get angry when he hears lies. Some of our greatest presidents had ferocious tempers. George Washington, Andy Jackson and Harry Truman are three examples.
You don't see other candidates getting angry because they are all phonies..."
"...Whether you agree with him or not, Howard Dean actually believes in his convictions. He is a genuine man.
An honest, genuine man will not suffer fools lightly, nor will he stand around like a dummy with a phony smile on his face while he hears himself lied about..."

Remember who led the charge...and remember how every other candidate turned left and followed Dean's intuitive lead. Dean is "the original"..the intuitive..the consensus-bulider...the leader. Accept no substitutes.
Follow the leader...but first ELECT the leader.

Informed Comment:
"US and UN: Caught between Shiites and Sunnis"
This is a great summary of status of Iraqi politics and current US/UN efforts.

The LA Times has an informative article from 1-18. LINK (reg. required)
Excerpt:
".."If the United States brings in the United Nations, that would be a strong signal from Washington, and if there could be some certification that elections were not possible in such a short time, then Sistani might accept that," said Joost Hiltermann, head of the International Crisis Group's Jordan office, which tracks developments in Iraq. ICG is a Washington- and Brussels-based research organization that closely follows democracy development in troubled countries.
-"He only has to give one nod and he can turn off this stuff," Hiltermann said.
-With the U.N. certifying the difficulty of organizing free and fair elections, perhaps a compromise that called for caucuses with a broader membership, including some locally elected figures, might be palatable, he suggested.
-Others are less sanguine. They see Sistani as an unstoppable force who will refuse to back down from his demands.
-"They have to find an accommodation, and if they don't, when the transitional government is put in place, it will be broadly viewed as lacking legitimacy [by the Shiite majority], and that is a big problem," said Juan Cole, a professor of modern Arab history at the University of Michigan.
-Harder still is that whatever government is put in place will inherit the Sunni insurgency that has racked the center of the country, as well as the terrorist assaults — a long way from the stable democracy the United States has envisioned.

Guardian:"100,000 demand Iraqi elections"

Novak is wearing his twisted little heart on his scuzzy little sleeve
-Bob Novak outed Valerie Plame in his column last summer- knowing the criminally-secretive Bush White House would never allow his source to be "outed" themselves. Novak's safe from prosecution because of what he does for a living...but he knew what he was doing. He knew he could be risking the woman's life and safety. He knew it was a felonious and treasonous crime for someone within the White House to release that information. Ask yourself why a decent journalist would do something like that. Personally, I think he's a bit of a scum for doing what he KNEW he was doing to the Wilson family.
-Now--ask yourself why he wishes so badly for Howard Dean not to snare the Democratic nomination.
He's hawking Kerry here in this latest column..and doing all within his power as a journalist to pound and ground Dean.
We all know where Novak stands on the ideological scale. The very fact that he is fighting the idea of Dean tooth-and-nail leads me to believe Dean is a much bigger threat to these Bush-leaners than the confused mainstream press would have you believe.
-Novak is pining away about the fact that Dean told a disruptive Freeper heckler to sit down and shut up and give him a chance to speak in front of those who came to hear him.
I love it! Howard Dean shows the American people to take the power back and tell these Freeper-types to sit down and shut the hell up...someone should have proposed that idea long ago. Power to the People!
Novak..sit down and shut up, you're killin' me here. Bwahaha!

Martin Luther King Jr. Day-
Why we celebrate
"...[The Civil Rights movement]: King was never its only leader, but without his belief in nonviolence – "we must learn to meet hate with love," he told an angry black mob bent on revenge outside his bombed house – it might have failed.
King steered the mob's seething energies into passive resistance, which, as Gandhi had shown in India, is a formidable tool for the underdog.
King was not a popular figure for most Americans when he died – seen as an enemy of the established order, even a revolutionary. It took a quarter century for the nation to create a holiday for him.."

Out of the mouths of babes:
Celebrating the gift of Martin Luther King Jr.-


"I want everybody to be friends. I want the world to be better than the one I'm in now."
-- Jonathan, grade 2

"I had a dream about people being nice to people."
-- Tianna, grade 2

"To me, Martin Luther King Jr. means truth. He wanted little white boys and white girls to be friends with little black boys and black girls. The truth was that all people should be kind to other people. I can be like Martin Luther King Jr. I can tell people to be kind."
-- Marisol, grade 2


See I HAVE A DREAM speech here.

Could it be?
Bush planning to use Hispanic immigrants for a new draft?
"....The masses rarely catch-on until it is way too late in the game to go back. Every alien, illegal or not, denoted immediately above, that registers for the new three year immigration status will be simultaneously (though likely without knowledge of it) be registering to be selected for service in the United States Army or Marines. They will, along with other Americans chosen, be selected by a lottery system most are familiar with. Their tour of two years minimum will lighten the load on America’s Reserves and National Guard forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan presently, and it seems likely in Syria and Iran (but anywhere U.S. forces are deployed) later on in 2004-2008. It hasn’t helped any that there has been some 1,700 deserters from the Iraq war alone. Bush is having trouble convincing the youth of America that to enlist in the Armed Forces is the patriotic thing to do; enlistments is all branches of the military are off drastically. So reinstitution of the draft is a necessity if Bush and Pentagon are to continue their plans for an extended Pentagon “footprint” throughout the world. While there are some 12 million aliens in the United States presently (illegal and legal) Mr. Bush isn’t likely to overlook this unregistered pool of draftees for long..."

"...One can already hear Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity squealing: “If they want the benefits of the American dream they have to accept the obligations which come with these freedoms.” Of course nearly every single talk show host in America has never served their country either and will not be subject to the new draft as they will fall over the 25 year age limit (initially at least)..."

Toronto Star/Tom Harpur:
NASA photo captures sacred
"...One icon, one transcending image towers above all others at this hour--not the cross, not the steeple, not the minaret, not the dome, nor all the sacred books of all the faiths. It is the image of the Earth itself as portrayed by the NASA photo of the planet taken from outer space a few short years ago. A huge reproduction of it should hang prominently in every place of worship, of every creed, denomination, faith, sect, or "ism."



-There are no borders in that world. There are no divisions. Meditating on it leaves all claims by this group or that to have a monopoly on God's truth exposed as absolutely silly; or, even worse, perverse. It speaks transformingly of one God, one world, one brotherhood and sisterhood of all humanity. It trumpets both the beauty and the fragility of our sacred trust in being given stewardship of such a miracle. It convicts the sins of arrogance, avariciousness, indifference, and injustice wherever they are rampant. It evokes a reverence and awe beyond that contained in any temple or shrine. By it, the Great Spirit speaks..."

Universal fascism, freedom betrayed: What is Mr. Bush doing?
".....Bush may be neither a Christian nor a conservative. He is something all-together different; something the world hasn’t seen for many decades, but all-together dangerous and maybe worse than history portends. Yes, for the true believers of the Left, there are much worse things than your skewed view of a Christian conservative. And for Christians on the Right, your views are not held in esteem at this White House. There is a not-so-new breed in charge these days..."

"[Michael] Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote,

'Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence-our existence, not our politics-threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission'..."

"...What are we to make of all this? Is this just the isolated mad ramblings of an overwrought mind, an intellectual masturbatory rant the likes we would expect from Michael Savage rather than an American Enterprise Institute intellectual? I fear we must take this all-too-seriously...."

"..There is much to ponder from authors like Detlev J.K. Puekert, Zeev Sternhell, Sebastian Haffner, and the masterwork of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, who, each in their own way, their own research or memoirs, finds the German people of the inter-war years, like the American people today post 9/11, seemingly, willingly prepared to throw away liberty, the U.S. Constitution, be harangued by a president whose language increasingly fills {mine if not
yours) my ears with a Towering Babel of rant, obfuscation and mediocrity; language better suited to a lower ranking non-commissioned officer. Come-on? “Bring ‘em on!”
-This is not the language of a statesman but a tyrant; language of “you’re either with us or against us.” This is language not befitting a free republic based upon democratic principles and liberty; a nation founded upon dissent and discourse not defamation and vitriol. But like it or not, left or right, free or bond this is the language of the new world order..."

SF Gate runs article about fellow blogger Kos
"...The city that Markos Moulitsas Zuniga runs isn't named Berkeley. It's called Daily Kos...and it's a city in the metaphorical sense, reached by mouse and keyboard...According to the Truth Laid Bear, a blog that tracks blogs, Daily Kos is the second most popular political blog, with about 70,000 visitors a day, trailing only the conservative Instapundit.

Speaking of fellow bloggers, my vote for the TTLB Showcase this week goes to American Amnesia