Phishing Alert, Fake E-mail

Phishing is the term used to name the practice of sending legitemate looking e-mails with links to a website that has been specially set up in order to harvest the victim's passwords and other info.


Below is a screenshot of one I have recieved many times in the last few days.






Beware, if you own a PAYPAL account. Do NOT click on the link provided. Use some other path to go to your account.


GOWAIN

Well.......SHIT!

It's crap like THIS that makes you wanna bawl and beat your head against a wall. How do these incompetent, ignoramuses get appointed to these positions? And why didn't anyone say anything about it. If it were not for the curiousity and tenacity of a single congressman, this would have probably never come to light.

"Ambassador Nancy Powell, America’s representative in Pakistan, refused to allow the distribution in Pakistan of wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items advertising America’s $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Mr. bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

Instead, thousands of matchbooks, posters, and other material — printed at taxpayer expense and translated into Urdu, Pashto, and other local languages — remained “impounded” on American Embassy grounds from 2002 to 2004, according to Rep. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois." New York Sun

Score One...No, Three for the Good Guys

These civilians turned the table on the bad guys.

Ordinary Iraqis Wage a Successful Battle Against Insurgents
By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: March 22, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 22 - Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon today, a carpenter named Dhia saw a troop of masked gunmen with grenades coming towards his shop and decided he had had enough.

As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia and his young relatives shouldered their own AK-47's and opened fire, police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed, and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's young nephews and a bystander were injured, the police said.

"We attacked them before they attacked us," Dhia, 35, his face still contorted with rage and excitement, said in a brief exchange at his shop a few hours after the battle. He did not give his last name. "We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen. I am waiting for the rest of them to come and we will show them."
...
The battle was the latest sign that Iraqis may be willing to start standing up against the attacks that leave dozens of people dead here nearly every week. After a suicide bombing in Hilla last month that killed 136 people, including a number of women and children, hundreds of residents demonstrated in front of the city hall every day for almost a week, chanting slogans against terrorism. Last week, a smaller but similar rally took place in Baghdad. Another demonstration is scheduled for Wednesday in the capital.
...
Just hours before the gun battle this morning, an Interior Ministry official was gunned down in Doura as he drove to work, officials said.
...
After a group of insurgents fled, leaving the Honda and three of their dead behind them, one was left behind, said the Doura police chief. The gunman broke into a nearby house and hid there, holding the residents at gunpoint, until his friends arrived and drove him away, the police chief said.

The owner of the house, who spoke on condition that he not be named, said the gunman entered through the garage and made his way to the living room.

"I heard the screaming of the women, so I went to see what was the matter and I saw a guy holding an AK-47," the man said.

The homeowner said the gunman then shouted: "Keep me here for a short time until I can leave the area or I will kill you all. I don't want anyone to leave this room."

They obeyed. The gunman telephoned some friends, and stayed for about an hour until they arrived to pick him up. Before he left, the owner of the house said, he issued a final warning: "If you scream or call the police, my friends will come and kill you. They know where you are."

Two of Dhia's nephews who were with him during the attack, one aged 13, one 24, were wounded, family members said. After the police arrived, they recovered the bodies of the three dead insurgents, who were identified through documents in their clothing as Abdul Razzaq Hamid, Abdul Hamid Abed, and Zaid Safaa, officials said.

Hours later, Dhia was still furiously cursing the mujahedeen when he spoke to a reporter in his carpentry shop. A Shiite cleric quickly told him to stop talking, and he complied.

Meanwhile, a group of armed neighborhood men stood watch on the roof of the house, guarding the streets leading to the Husseiniya mosque and Dhia's shop.

"I am sure they will be back," one of the guards said. "We killed three of them."

Censorship Coming Soon to the Web?

The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Law may one day be interpreted so YOU can't comment on anything political.

"The problem facing the FEC is that McCain-Feingold broadly restricts coordination with, and contributions to, political candidates. So what is the agency to do with all those people who use their Web sites to praise a candidate? Computers and Web access cost money, which could be construed as a financial contribution to a campaign. Ditto bloggers who link to politicians' Web sites, or any individual who forwards a candidate's press release to a list of buddies. All this is to say nothing of blogs that are affiliated with political campaigns and coordinate their activities.

To its credit, the FEC tried to avoid this headache in 2002 by exempting the Internet from campaign-finance rules. This proved far too sensible for the sponsors of the law, who sued the commission for allowing "loopholes" and got a federal judge to strike down the exemption. The FEC must now decide just how it intends to monitor and penalize all those attempting to corrupt the U.S. political system via modem."

Read the whole story.

When the time comes, remember who sponsored the bill and remember who sue sued to make it apply to YOU.

Gowain

Congress has the power to curb Judicial overreach.

The federal courts have grown too big, even for robes as capacious as the ones they inhabit! They have overstepped their bounds time after time with decisions that have thwarted the will of the People, have been made up out of whole cloth, and, in some cases, put the People in jeopardy (i.e. War on Terror). It is time for this to stop!

The United States is governed at the behest of the the People through their representatives (Congress). Congress has the power to configure (make or dissolve lower courts) and REGULATE the Supreme Court.

With the power vested, by the Constitution, in the U.S.Congress, they can decide, through legislation, what kind of cases the Supreme Court can review, the parameters the Court can use, and the existence, or non-existence, of lower courts.

Section 2 of Article 3 reads " ...with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." This gives Congress the power to decide what cases can be reviewed by the Courts, and under what criteria. Congress should remove the power of the courts to review "enemy combatant" cases so the war on terrorism can be fought, unhampered. Congress should also stop the Courts from using precedents from foreign sources, as in the recent decision removing the threat of execution from criminals who committed their crimes before they turned eighteen.

Section 1 of Article 3 gives Congress the power to "ordain and establish" lower courts. Throughout the history of this nation, lower courts have been dissolved and established as needed. If a lower court keeps making decisions without regard to the preceden! ts set by the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals comes to mind, then that court could and should be abolished by Congress.

The fact that Congress has these powers at it's disposal is not new, or hidden. It was used to stop the supreme court from reviewing Ex parte McCardle, in 1869 and several times before and since. It is routinely used to protect pet legislation. In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used it on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

It is time for our representatives in Congress to, take a deep breathe, step up to the plate, take the bull by the horns, and exercise the Constitutionlly granted right to put the Courts back in their place.

gowain

It's Their Nature

James S. Robbins writes in NRO that the Jihadis do what they do more out of the desire for violence than any high minded conviction. A point that I've tried to make many times. Robbins conclusion about Mohammed Atta;

He was a sociopath who found a compelling vehicle in radical Islam to legitimize and externalize his need to destroy.

It is useless to wonder why, or to cavil with these guys. They must be met with force and neutralized one way or another.

Gowain

Ronnie Earl, moralizing hypocrite and Nut.

I think most people would agree that Ronnie Earl, District Attorney of Travis County, Texas, is kinda nuts. He once indicted, pleaded guilty, and fined HIMSELF $200 for untimely reporting of campaign finances. A fine, by the way, that is the lowest assessed to any public official "convicted" by Earl in his career. I also think that he sometimes uses his office to accomplish political goals. He once indicted then State Treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison then dropped the charges in the middle of the trial. Nearly all of his "convictitions" are the result of plea bargaining. And the total jailtime served by ALL officials he has prosecuted is 60 DAYS! When an indicted official goes to trial, eg, Hutchison, Mattox, they are acquitted, or the charges are dropped. Earl, the DA in the only blue county in Texas, Travis County, has written an opinion piece for the New York Times. My responses are in [brackets].

WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD

By Ronnie Earle, Special to the New York Times

AUSTIN - It is a rare day when members of the U.S. Congress try to read the minds of the members of a grand jury in Travis County. Apparently Tom DeLay's colleagues expect him to be indicted. [ With Earl's past record of using his office for political hatchet jobs, can they be blamed??]

Last week, congressional Republicans voted to change their rule that required an indicted leader to relinquish his post.[ After a review by a committee, to determine if the indictment actually has merit and was not POLITICALLY motivated. He forgot to add that little detail.] They were responding to an investigation by the Travis County grand jury into political contributions by corporations that has already resulted in the indictments of three associates of DeLay, the House majority leader.

Yet no member of Congress has been indicted in the investigation, and none is a target unless he or she has committed a crime. [I suspect that now, they will not be indicted. Since Ronnie can't accomplish his goal of knocking out Tom delay from the leadership position.]

The grand jury [Composed of partisan Travis County Democrats, just like the DA.] will continue its work, abiding by the rule of law. That law requires a grand jury of citizens, not the prosecutor, to determine whether probable cause exists to hold an accused person to answer for the accusation against him or her. Politicians in Congress are responsible for the leaders they choose. Their choices reflect their moral values. [ It certainly does! And I don't think Earl can stand it because Tom Delay did the same thing for the Republican's in 2001 that Martin Frost did for the Democrats in 1990.]

Every law enforcement officer depends on the moral values and integrity of society for backup; they are like body armor. The cynical destruction of moral values at the top makes it hard for law enforcement to do its job. [He wraps himself in the mantle of a law enforcement officer. What a disgusting load of cynical, self serving CRAP!!]

In terms of moral values, this is where the rubber meets the road. The rules you apply to yourself are the true test of your moral values. [Hmmm. Would that you would apply the same to yourself.]

The thinly veiled personal attacks on me by DeLay's supporters in this case are no different from those in the cases of any of the 15 elected officials whom this office has prosecuted in my 27-year tenure. Most of these officials -- 12 Democrats and three Republicans -- have accused me of having political motives. What else are they going to say? [If they said anything else, it would not be the truth.]

For most of my tenure, the Democrats held the power in state government. Now Republicans do. Most crimes by elected officials involve the abuse of power; you have to have power before you can abuse it. [He should know. He has the power, and he abuses it.]

There is no limit to what you can do if you have the power to change the rules.[ Or apply them selectively. Eh, Ronnie?] Congress may make its own rules, but the public makes the rule of law and depends for its peace on the enforcement of the law. Hypocrisy at the highest levels of government is toxic to the moral fiber that holds our communities together. [ This statement is simply jaw-dropping in it's hypocricy!]

The open contempt for moral values by our elected officials has a corrosive effect. It is a sad day for law enforcement when Congress offers such poor leadership on moral values and ethical behavior. We are a moral people, and the first lesson of democracy is not to hold the public in contempt. [ Thus concludes the lesson in morals from a person who does not possess a single strand. He would not know a moral if it jumped out and bit him in the ass!!]

Gowain

I Am Thankful...

I am thankful. I believe that I, and all Americans, have won the Lottery of the Human Race. To have the phenomenal luck to be born in this country, at this point in history defies all the odds.

Consider:
At no other time, and in in no other nation, has the standard of living for the average person been higher than it is in America now.

Food. In my lifetime, and I am nearly 60 years old, no one, in America, has starved to death because food was not available. In the entire history of the USA no one has died in America because of famine. The biggest health problem faced by our "poor" is obesity.

Home Ownership. More people own their homes in America than there are people who rent places to live.

Automobiles. There are more cars in America than people. The gasoline to propel them is cheaper than in any other industrialized country. And we have the finest, longest, widest road system in the world and in the history of the world to drive them on. We can travel distances in a day that takes weeks in other parts of the world.

Longevity. At no other time and no other place on Earth have ordinary people had the prospect of living as long and healthily as in the USA. Conditions and diseases that would have been a death sentence 40 years ago are routinely dealt with and the patient sent home, cured.

Freedom. In America, we have the right to say almost anything we want, do almost anything we want to do, and go almost anywhere we want to go. The civil rights of the average person is protected and looked after more closely than in any other country at any time in history.

Choice of rulers. We have the right to select the people who govern us, and if they don't please us, we can throw them out and choose someone else. It is called voting.

We are blessed with more material wealth,long life, and freedom than any other group of people in the history of Mankind.

Thank you GOD!

Gowain

Female Genital Mutilation in Egypt, Its a big deal!

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has an interesting article on the controversy raging in Egypt about Female Genital Mutilation.

Here's a discription of FGM from the article "The practice involves the excision of the external genitalia, most often the clitoris."

And this little tidbit: "According to demographic surveys conducted in Egypt in 1995 and 2001, 97 percent of married women of childbearing age had been circumcised."

And this: "The Prophet [Muhammad] commanded women to perform circumcision using the expression, 'Perform circumcision for girls.'" This phrase, he says, includes a clear endorsement of circumcision under specific circumstances, while understanding the difficulty and complexity of the issue regarding girls: "Removing the entire organ that causes the woman pleasure clearly contradicts the pure Sunna [tradition of the Prophet], because this is likely to cause disease and emotional complications to girls, and thus prevent them from realizing their natural rights. Conversely, not performing the circumcision is likely [to] cause girls infections and sometimes even diseases."

Apparently there is quite a to and fro about it. Here are some paragraph headers:

"First Lady Suzanne Mubarak: 'Women's Humanity Must No Longer be Forfeit'"

"Former Al-Azhar Sheikh: 'Nothing Religious, Moral, or Medical Requires Circumcising Girls'"

"Possible Actions Against the Practice of Circumcising Girls"

"The Islamists – Proponents of Circumcising Girls: 'Circumcision is the Merit of Girls'"

"Dr. Ahmad Suleiman of Cairo University: 'Circumcising a Girl Brings Modesty, Honor, and Emotional Balance'"

"Circumcising Girls Prevents AIDS and Prostitution"

"The Attempt to Prevent Circumcising Girls is a Western Conspiracy"

"Circumcising Girls Prevents Unnatural Sexual Pleasure"

"The Religious Establishment – No Definitive Stand"

Read the whole thing: MEMRI.org

Why We are in Iraq.

While the reasons we went into Iraq were, first and foremost, to assure our own safety, (and that is also the reason we are not in Sudan's Darfur region, in Mynamar, North Korea, China, Congo, etc,) saving the Iraqis from the murderous tyranny of Saddam, and giving them the opportunity to determine their own destiny has turned out to be a good and noble thing all by itself.

It is on par with rescuing a person from a mob, or from a burning building at great personal risk to yourself. That is why people admire and respect firefighters and cops. And for that same reason firefighters and cops are accorded higher respect when they are killed in the line of duty.


Our soldiers are doing a grand and noble thing in Iraq. We should not forget that. We also should accord them the respect and reverence they are due instead of using them for propaganda purposes, like some people.

Remember, they are drawing in and fighting the terrorists over there so we won't have to fight them over here.

gowain

The 500th Day of Iraqi Freedom

September 3, 2004

On the 500th day of Iraqi freedom:

The total number of Iraqis who are alive, and have not been murdered, or killed by Saddam's criminal neglegience, since the invasion is 103,200.

The number of new mass graves have been dug, then filled with Iraqi victims since we toppled Saddam is zero.

As of midnight September 3, 2004 the deaths attributable to Saddam had been stopped for 500 days and no new mass graves have been dug.

Only two of the many things our soldiers gave their lives to accomplish!

*****************************************************

Background:

Saddam Hussien became "President" of Iraq in 1979. The Coalition invaded Iraq March 22, 2003.

This makes his total time in power equal 23 years , 2 months, 22 days. Or 8,477 days.
The conservative estimate of the number of Iraqis murdered by Saddam's regime and placed in mass graves is 400,000.

The number of Iraqi civilians who starved to death, or died from lack of proper medical care while Saddam spent Oil-for-Food money, and sold medical supplies to get money for palaces and weapons adds another 1,350,000 for a total of 1,750,000.

Assuming that the murders and deaths attributable to Saddam stopped when the invasion started that would make Saddam's average number of Iraqis killed per day to be 206.4

gowain

A Question About Saddam's Mass Graves

Question: How many mass graves have been dug and filled with Iraqi victims since the Coalition invaded Iraq?

Hint: The answer rhymes with Hero.

102,168 Iraqis Alive!

Iraqis look for relatives among the bodies found in a mass grave.

August 29, 2004

102,168 Iraqis alive due to US intervention!

The total number of Iraqis who are alive, and have NOT been murdered, or killed by Saddam's criminal neglegience, since the invasion is now 102,168.

As of midnight August 29, 2004 the deaths attributable to Saddam had been stopped for 495 days. This is only one of the things our soldiers made their sacrifice for!

*****************************************************

Background:

Saddam Hussien became "President" of Iraq in 1979. The Coalition invaded Iraq March 22, 2003.

This makes his total time in power equal 23 years , 2 months, 22 days. Or 8,477 days.

The conservative estimate of the number of Iraqis murdered by Saddam's regime and placed in mass graves is 400,000.

The number of Iraqi civilians who starved to death, or died from lack of proper medical care while Saddam spent Oil-for-Food money, and sold medical supplies to get money for palaces and weapons adds another 1,350,000 for a total of 1,750,000.

Assuming that the murders and deaths attributable to Saddam stopped when the invasion started that would make Saddam's average number of Iraqis killed per day to be 206.4

gowain

New York Observer on the legalization of Drugs.

An opinion piece appeared in the New York Observer. Obviously the author in the Left end of the political spectrum. I am not! The following comments [in brackets and italics] are my thought as I was reading it. I was struck by the overall fuzzyness of the facts in the piece. I come to the conclusion that Hoffman is a drug user because of the fuzzyness and his obvious support for the legalization of drugs.

A Police State of Mind: Don’t You Feel Safer?
by Nicholas von Hoffman [comments by gowain]

The city is full of cops and empty of tourists. [Why is that? Because of the anarchist protesters, perhaps?] Presumably, after the Republican politicians [and the protesters] leave, the tourists will return. The cops will never leave. There will be ever more of them as the months turn into years. Cops, private and public, are probably[?] already the largest single occupational group in New York, outnumbering even lawyers, stockbrokers and advertising hucksters.[ And that is bad?]

There can’t be less than a couple of hundred thousand cops, [How do you know? Clairvoyance?] security guards and special agents, not a few of whom are so evidently out of physical condition that it’s preposterous to imagine them subduing a resisting adult without resort to a weapon. [So they are supposed to subdue "restisting adults" without resorting to weapons? These "adults" are not little children, to be handled with gentleness and not ever, ever hurt. They are adults with adult responsibilities. Including the responsibility of suffering the consequences of their actions. In every situation, the lawbreakers outnumber the cops. Why not use a weapon? If an adult makes trouble, break his head!]

Overweight, undersized and out of shape (from the looks of them, at least), a hefty percentage of these guardians of public safety are not a force to be reckoned with if you’re a terrorist, [Again, how do you know?] although if you’re an ordinary person [Who breaks the law.] , you may find your protectors—many of whom are short on manners and brains—a nuisance at best and an expensive impediment at worst.

Whether they have made life in New York safer is a matter of conjecture. Every so often, a low-level functionary does recognize and capture a baddie. [Clairvoyance? Again?] Assuming what we’ve been told is true—and that often turns out to be a false assumption—the Y2K plot to blow up LAX was frustrated by a civil-service foot soldier. Nevertheless, not one of them or all of them together, with their guns, their radios, their war rooms and their officiousness, could have saved the World Trade Center from destruction, which makes for poor odds that these untested and indifferently disciplined people will successfully protect us often enough when and if the Arabs hit us again. [ It has not happened since 9-11. I wonder why?]

Let’s hope that they’re more effective than they seem to be. [No successful terrorist attacks since 9-11. I wonder why?] But as we cower and wait, watching the terror-alert color levels flicker from code orange to code lime to code mango to code lemon, we might ask ourselves: What price security? Anthony Williams, the mayor of Washington, D.C., has been posing that question and having something close to a fit at what the closing of streets, the erection of barriers and the institution of checkpoints at traffic intersections are doing to the movement of people and commerce in his city. Walls are going up faster in the nation’s capital than they are in Israel. [No successful terrorist attacks since 9-11.]

Do these armies of cops make us safer, or do they merely make us feel safer? [No successful terrorist attacks since 9-11.] And if they only make us feel safer, what’s wrong with that? Especially since, in the murk of hysteria, misinformation, announcements, explanations, retractions, contradictions, amplifications, emendations, press conferences, silences, assurances and official utterances of defiance against malefactors, it’s difficult for anyone—the officials included—to make an accurate appraisal of the degree of real danger we may or may not be living in. [ No successful terrorist attacks since 9-11.]

Evidently nobody knows how large the threat is or even what the threat may be. We don’t know if it comes by land, by sea, by air, whether it explodes, infects, poisons, radiates or chokes. The only established fact is that we are scared out of our wits and don’t know what to do about it, except to demand picture ID’s and make new rules—which may or may not fool terrorists, but which certainly baffle the non-terrorist. Why, will you please explain, is the public allowed halfway up the Statue of Liberty, but barred for "security reasons" from climbing up to the torch to have a look at the harbor from that vantage point? As the police are ceded increasing power, daily life is increasingly regulated by the incomprehensible, the contradictory and the arbitrary. All questions will be answered by a command to step to the left—and this is the last time you will be told to do so.[ No successful terrorist attacks since 9-11.]

The spread of the police presence and police power is blamed on 9/11. We are repeatedly told by cabinet officials and TV noodleheads that 9/11 "changed everything." Without a doubt, 9/11 did change some things, but the swelling ubiquity of the police antedates 9/11. Bill Clinton was putting 100,000 new cops on the streets of the nation before 9/11, and Presidents before him were pouring money into local, state and federal police organizations. The failures of home, school and community were met by cops in the corridors and magnetometers at the entrances years and years before 9/11. The F.B.I. was armed years before 9/11. (It will come as a surprise to younger people to learn that well into the 1960’s, F.B.I. agents didn’t carry firearms except when permission was given—and that rarely occurred.)

What may have changed everything was not 9/11, but drugs. [Finally, we begin to see the point of all this ranting. Hoffman is a pothead! Or a druggie!] You can date the explosion in police numbers and budgets from the wholesale introduction of drugs and drug-taking into all classes of American society. Right off the bat, I cannot name another government program which has cost as much and failed as grandly as the attempt to suppress drug use. After spending a couple hundred billion at a minimum over the past 30 years, we end up with drugs everywhere, including in your children’s schools, admit it or not, and gigantically enlarged police power in daily life. [Drugs are good, drugs are our friend.]

The people who defend what was done in fighting the drug war will ask how much worse things would be without the police. Maybe they’re right, but it makes you think about the degree of safety we enjoy vis-à-vis terrorism if the cops are as successful at suppressing it as they have been at suppressing drugs. [ No successful terrorist attacks since 9-11.]

However, the two are not the same. Our knowledge of the terrorists is so poor that we can’t say how many of them there may be, or how well organized they are, or anything else which would make it possible to accurately assess the degree of danger we are in. We are in a better position, however, to consider the damage done by ceding so much power to the police, whatever the protection they afford us.

First off, who are the police? They and the television dramas tell us that they’re heroes, first responders, and also separate and different from the rest of us. They carry responsibilities we ordinary ones cannot imagine; they live under stress we cannot begin to understand. They are special, they are set apart, and by their very nobility, you might say, they are aliens—persons from a society closed to us. As such, most of us have learned that what a police authority says, goes. Obey the cop and shut up, unless you are some kind of truculent, ACLU-type nut. [ This is cops from the pothead/druggie's point of view.]

Once upon a time, we were brought up to believe that the police officer was our friend. Now we’re brought up to understand that he is our boss. Do as he tells you, because if you protest, you will immediately be handcuffed, stuck in a cage in the back of an automobile and taken off to a world of trouble and expense. The routine police procedures have the cumulative effect of teaching us docility. As we repeatedly hear of police maltreatment of self-evidently harmless 70-year-old grandmothers, cuffed and led off to be strip-searched, we learn to do exactly as instructed and not to make the mistake of asking questions. We are becoming a highly biddable people. [Pothead's point of view.]

The way the various police forces and security agents dress and behave also makes us a more compliant people. We have long since learned, when on any kind of police or security line, that you make a joke at your own peril. We all have our own pet stories of people who wisecracked their way into the hoosegow. [So the practical jokers, the one who would yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre, got called to account.] We are learning that when government agents are present, we must mind our words and try not to attract attention. Mind you, this is just daily life, not political protest. We have learned that the cop or the government agent is an enemy to the terrorist but also no friend to us. We know that our police are unpredictable and often unfriendly. The reason the memory of Rodney King doesn’t fade away is that, black person or white, the police have instilled the belief in most of us that but for the grace of God, there go I. [Druggie's point of view.]

Increasingly, the police dress to intimidate. From relatively innocuous-looking sidearms, more of them are carrying what looks to this amateur like machine guns. These days, they frequently wear boots in preference to shoes. They show up in teams wearing black. They are frightening. [Pothead's point of view.]

Apparently, when a person is accepted into one of our multitudes of police forces—who can count how many?—they are instructed never to say "please" or "thank you" again, never to smile and never, ever to explain a police order or a police procedure. Giving people badges and guns does not bring out the best in them—but how does it shape the rest of us, who are being taught to take orders without question? Are these the habits of mind, personality and behavior best suited to citizens of a democracy? [Cops are taught how to control a situation. This is not accomplished among "resisting adults" with "please' and 'thanks you".]

J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the F.B.I. from 1924 until his death in 1972 and the bugbear of civil libertarians, famously resisted the idea of a federal police force and did all in his power to prevent the F.B.I. from becoming one. To Hoover, law enforcement was primarily a local obligation in conformity with the federal idea, but in the generation since his death such considerations have been forgotten. Congress has made every misdemeanor, from spitting on the sidewalk to driving under the influence, a federal crime. Where once you had to be some kind of special criminal to bump into federal law enforcement, now local law enforcement has become subsidiary to a Washington-based national network of cops, police agents, security workers, government spies and federal investigators.

And aren’t we happier and humbler for it? [Certainly not if you are a pothead/druggie!]

Another parody of an Etta Hulme cartoon

She drew another cartoon I could not resist.

We Sez:


Etta Sez:

Kerry's "The New Soldier" in .pdf format

Someone has placed Kerry's book online in Adobe format.



Find it here: johnkerrythenewsoldier.blogspot.com/

Be sure to save it to your computer in case it is taken off.

A Parody of a parody, Etta Hulme's Cartoons

Etta Hulme is a political cartoonist for the Fort Worth Star Telegram. This is what I thought when I saw her work today.

We Sez,


Etta Sez,

Molly's Folly's #1

Molly Ivins has written a column that contains some flat out untruths, as is her usual style. The title of the piece is "Thucydides had it right" and the whole thing can be read here: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/9460281.htm . I am just going to point out one thing she got wrong.


Molly Sez : "I bring this up only because it doesn't look as if anyone else is gonna. John Kerry is running such a cautious campaign that George W. Bush can get away with falsely claiming that Kerry would have supported the war even if he had known then what he knows today."

Reuters Sez: "GRAND CANYON, Ariz. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said on Monday he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found. " Read the whole thing here: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml

This is typical of Ivins writings. Just plain sloppy.

Thoughts on Bob Kerrey's Endorsement of Kerry for Prez

Why Kerry Is Fit to Be President, By Bob Kerrey, Saturday, August 14, 2004
The former Navy personnel who are attempting to discredit Sen. John Kerry's record of service in Vietnam are doing so to argue that he is unqualified to be commander in chief. Most appear to be angry with him on account of his opposition to the Vietnam War, not his service in it. They have done a better job of damaging the reputation of the U.S. Navy than they have of damaging John Kerry.

How did you make that determination, Senator? Seems to me, the Navy's rep is still as intact as it was when this thing started. It is John Kerry's rep that is starting to shred.

Moreover, they ignore what I consider to be the most important qualities any commander in chief must possess. If elected in November, John Kerry will make an exceptionally good commander in chief.

Again, how did you make that determination? From Kerry's tepid record as a legislator in the Senate? Didn't he write nine bills in twenty years and none of them passed?

Citizens may disagree with every other position he has taken in this campaign or they may dislike the legislation he enacted during his nearly two decades of service in the U.S. Senate. But they should have no doubt about his capacity to perform the duties of commander in chief.

What legislation? I would think that his Senate record would be cause to doubt his capacity to lead. Oh well, maybe as a leading dove!

For the record, I do not include the fact that Kerry commanded a Swift boat among the main reasons that he will be a good commander in chief.

That's wise. Seeing as he only served four months as a boat commander and the men who served with him mosly think he was not very good at it.

I don't even include the fact that he chose to serve in the military and to go to Vietnam.

After he was turned down when he asked to go to Paris to "study".

I am impressed by his service and by the loyalty of the band of brothers who served under his command. And as a Vietnam veteran myself, I do hope that one of our own will make it all the way to the White House before I die.

A majority, 254/7, of his "band of brothers" say he is unfit to command.

But at the top of my list of reasons for believing Kerry can and will do this most difficult of jobs is that he has the requisite sympathy for the men and women who give up many of their rights as citizens in order to defend ours.

Kerry has sympathy for the little people? That would be news to the "little people" he has dealt with over the years.

My confidence also comes from knowing that he knows what it's like to have served under leaders who lacked the moral clarity or the political backbone to sustain an effort from beginning to end.

Let's talk about moral clarity. First he fought for his country, for a while, then he came home and fought against it. Where is the political backbone in that? More like political opportunism.

He also understands from personal experience and practice that strong and determined diplomacy can enable the United States to avoid having to send our sons and daughters into harm's way in the first place.

At what diplomatic or ambassadorial posts has he served?

Evidence backs up my claim in each of these three areas. Kerry demonstrated time and again the sympathy I speak of by fighting for veterans' health and educational benefits. Can his opponents cite one instance in which he failed to put his political career on the line for those who have already served?

Why doesn't Kerry educate us to these wonderful accomplishments? Cite one example of Kerry putting his carreer on the line.

Long before it became cool to do so, Kerry was arguing that we must take care of our veterans if we are going to be able to enlist the volunteers we need in our military. In the post-Selective Service era, in which fewer and fewer members of Congress or their children have worn the uniform, Kerry's actions on behalf of veterans speak for themselves.

Why doesn't Kerry educate us to these wonderful accomplishments? Is it because the veterans of North Vietnam endorse him?

Nothing teaches you how to be a good leader better than having the opportunity to follow. In the military and out, Kerry has had this experience. He knows from personal experience how dependent you are on the person in charge and how essential it is for that person to speak clearly, forcefully and with moral conviction.

With all due respect, Kerry started out as "the person in charge". He was the Commander of the swift boat. He was never at the bottom of the command chain.

He knows how terrible it is to follow someone who is lost --morally and politically as well as geographically. He knows how vital it is that we sustain whatever it is we begin, and that we support our troops all the way to the end.

Seems he was lost on Christmas Eve 1968. Where was it? Inside Cambodia? Outside Cambodia? Which location is "seared, seared!" into his memory this week?

He also knows that the troops count on their leader to be a visionary capable of planning for each and every possibility.

He has a plan? Is the one where all the troops are brought home in six months? The one where we abandon the Iraqis to their fate? Like we did the Vietnamese?

No soldier, sailor, airman or Marine wants to follow someone who substitutes rosy scenarios for hard-headed calculation of risk. No one wants to follow someone who believes political jargon is more important than detailed planning and execution.

Then how come the soldiers support Bush almost to a man, or woman?

Almost every person in uniform will tell you that the best war is the one we deter because our enemies know we have the capability and will to strike back with relentless and deadly force. It is also the one we prevent because we used our diplomatic and economic muscle to reduce threats before they grew into the real thing.

This is 9-10 thinking. We cannot afford to wait until we are hit. It is too costly. Remember the WTC? The Pentagon? Flight 93?

Again, John Kerry has a tremendous amount of experience working with Republican and Democratic presidents to negotiate and prepare for the peaceful world most of us prefer. In Southeast and Southwest Asia, in the Middle East and in LatinAmerica, Kerry has been involved in some of the most difficult and successful of our bipartisan foreign policy efforts. No one will have to remind him as president that partisan politics should be kept at the water's edge to respect and honor those who continue to serve us.

Again, why doesn't Kerry educate us to these wonderful accomplishments? Why is he so reticent in touting this wonderful record of his?

Tellingly, the attacks on Kerry's war record have been orchestrated in large part by the same Texas publicity firm involved withnotorious television advertisements meant to derail the last veteran of the Vietnam War who ran for president, John McCain. Kerry's service in Vietnam was extensively documented by the U.S. Navy, especially in connection with his awards, and has been reviewed numerous times by historians and news organizations.

Smear and destroy the messenger! Ignore the message! Don't even ask if it is true!

I was going to end this by calling on President Bush to join McCain in calling for the cessation of this misguided effort to discredit Kerry's service in Vietnam. But fair is fair. There are just as many misguided ads running against President Bush today by these "527" organizations. Unless our campaign finance laws are changed again, U.S. voters are just going to have to figure this one out on their own.

Please! Please! Stop the Swift Boat Vets!!

Some Thoughts on David Broders Aug. 15 Editorial

The following are my thoughts as I read David Broder's column of August 15,2004. Broder shows a tendency to slip into 9-10 thinking at several points in this op-ed. 9-10 thinking is defined as the mindset Americans had before 9-11-2001. Perhaps a majority of Americans have started thinking this way. If so, Kerry will win the Whitehouse. In the long term, though, we will all lose. Kerry will not have the political will to do what needs to be done at home, nor will he have the backbone to do what is needed abroad to prevent attacks and win The War On Terror. America will pay for this mistake. First with the betrayal of its friends. Then with the lives of its citizens. Broder's words are italicized.

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Bush's Two Albatrosses, By David S. Broder, Sunday, August 15, 2004

"The factors that make President Bush a vulnerable incumbent have almost nothing to do with his opponent, John F. Kerry. They stem directly from two closely linked, high-stakes policy gambles that Bush chose on his own. Neither has worked out as he hoped. The first gamble was the decision to attack Iraq; the second, to avoid paying for the war. The rationale for the first decision was to remove the threat of a hostile dictator armed with weapons of mass destruction. The weapons were never found."

Could he afford to take the chance? Wouldn't he have been severely derelict in his duty if he had not gone into Iraq and looked? Saddam wouldn't tell us. What if Saddam had given an atomic bomb to Osama and it had been set off in downtown Cincinnati? The decision to go into Iraq was not a gamble, it was an imperative.

"The rationale for the second decision -- the determination to keep cutting taxes in the face of far higher spending for Iraq and the war on terrorism -- was to stimulate the American economy and end the drought of jobs. The deficits have accumulated, but the jobs have still not come back. "

Not true. The jobs haven't come back as fast as we would like but they are coming back. They would not be back, for sure if not for the tax cuts.

"If Bush can win reelection despite the failure of his two most consequential -- and truly radical -- decisions, he will truly be a political miracle man. But as his own nominating convention approaches, the odds are against him. Why call these decisions radical? From World War I right through the Persian Gulf War, the United States had never initiated hostilities or invaded a major country without the provocation of an attack from that country on this nation or its allies. "

The US has never been attacked on its own ground on such a scale. Broder, you are straying off into 9-10 thinking.

"Bush changed that by announcing a new doctrine of "preemptive war" and applying it first to Iraq. Iraq was a military dictatorship with a horrible record of human rights abuse and a well-earned reputation as an international malefactor that had attacked its neighbors.

But the urgency that Bush cited for moving against Saddam Hussein was the threat he posed by his possession of chemical and biological weapons and his pursuit of nuclear arms. "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant," Bush said in his major domestic speech justifying the war. "If we know that Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?"

Long after Hussein was defeated and captured, the American forces occupying Iraq have found no evidence of the supposed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. The rationale for a war that has taken nearly 1,000 American lives, caused several thousand American casualties and cost well over $100 billion does not exist. "

It still exists. The reason we went in was because we needed to know. the jury is still out on whether Saddam sent them to other countries. But the reality is still there that we couldn't know before we actually looked. Saddam kept up a good front. Lying, making false reports, kicking the UN inspectors out. He made us all think he had, or was on the verge of having WMDs.

"Linked to the decision to go to war was the decision not to do what every other wartime American president has done -- raise taxes to pay for the cost of hostilities. Instead, in the face of growing annual deficits, Bush continued to press a compliant Republican Congress for more and bigger tax cuts. In 2003, when he asked Congress for $87 billion for Iraq, Bush said, "I heard somebody say, 'Well, what we need to do is have a tax increase to pay for this.' That's an absurd notion. You don't raise taxes when an economy is recovering. Matter of fact, lower taxes will help enhance economic recovery. We want our people going back to work."

Despite the triple dose of stimulus -- tax cuts on top of historically low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve Board on top of a huge increase in federal defense and domestic spending -- the recovery from a not-very-severe recession during the first year of Bush's term has been painfully weak. Especially when it comes to his No. 1 goal of producing jobs. "

Another example of 9-10 thinking. Broder does not give any weight to the psychological impact of 9-11 on the business climate

"As a result, Bush finds himself defending the loss of more than 1 million jobs during his tenure -- the first president, as Democrats love to point out, since Herbert Hoover to suffer an actual job loss in office. The 32,000 jobs added to the economy in July were the smallest number this year, raising fears that the recovery proclaimed last spring may be losing steam. "

Every once in a while your bias shines through, Broder. Note the hopeful qualifier "may be losing steam"

"Just before the new numbers came out, the president was bragging to campaign audiences, "When it comes to creating jobs for America's workers, we've turned the corner, and we're not turning back." Democrats are making that phrase as famous -- or infamous -- as the "Mission Accomplished" sign on the aircraft carrier Bush visited in a premature celebration of the end of major fighting in Iraq.

The president has suffered other blows to his credibility -- a survey of seniors earlier this month showed major doubts about his touted Medicare prescription drug plan. But they pale in importance compared with Iraq and the economy. In The Post's polls every month since January, more voters have voiced disapproval of his performance on those two issues than approval.

Time is short for changing people's minds. Bush is dragging two huge weights -- and he has no one to blame but himself. "

There! You......Cowboy! You........ Texan! You........Philistine!