Hold someone accountable today!

A new meme for the future! Please pass it on.

Video Shows Iraqi Parliament Bombing

As Dick Cheney said two years ago, “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” [Larry King Live, 6/20/05]

Wolfowitz... isn't he the guy who said this?

He's under charges of cronyism for ordering the World Bank to pay his girl friend an exorbitant sum. Isn't he the same guy who said this?
The U.S. would be greeted as liberators in Iraq, that Iraqi oil money for pay for the reconstruction, and that Gen. Eric Shinseki’s estimate that several hundred thousand troops would be needed was “wildly off the mark.” [Washington Post, 12/8/05]

Testimony keeps Gonzales on the defensive

Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales on Friday defended his role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys following damaging testimony from his former chief of staff that Gonzales gave inaccurate accounts of his involvement in the matter.
In Boston to attend an event on preventing sexual exploitation of children, the attorney general told reporters that he wasn't involved in talks over which individual prosecutors to dismiss. "There obviously remains some confusion about my involvement in this," Gonzales said. "At the end of the day, I know what I did. And I know that the motivations for the decisions I made were not based on improper reasons.
"I believe in truth and accountability, and every step that I've taken is consistent with that principle," he said. "I am fighting for the truth as well."
His credibility already smarting from weeks of shifting explanations and surprising, late-night document disclosures, Gonzales took a major hit Thursday when D. Kyle Sampson told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the attorney general had been long and deeply involved in an action that Gonzales has said he knew little about.
LINK

Boxer Slams Down Inhofe’s Global Warming Filibuster: ‘You Don’t Make The Rules Anymore’

I think Gore is setting Inhofe up for the kill.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has said Al Gore is “full of crap” and compared people who believe in global warming to “the Third Reich.” During today’s Senate hearing, Inhofe used a considerable amount of time to attack Gore’s use of carbon offsets and try to convince him to sign a sham “energy ethics pledge.” (Find the real facts on Gore’s energy usage HERE and HERE.)
Inhofe asked Gore for his reaction, but then quickly cut him off saying Gore had taken up too much time. When Gore tried to go on, Inhofe repeatedly interrupted, adding, “I don’t want to be rude, but from now on, I’m going to ask you to respond…in writing.” Inhofe said Gore could respond verbally only if it was a “very brief response.”
Committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) finally intervened. “Would you agree to let the Vice President answer your questions?” Inhofe said Gore could respond when he was done talking, but Boxer wouldn’t have it: “No, that isn’t the rule. You’re not making the rules. You used to when you did this. Elections have consequences. So I make the rules.” The hearing audience applauded loudly. Watch it:
Think Progress

Gore warns of 'planetary emergency'

What is your opinion?
Former Vice President Al Gore, rejecting complaints by Republican lawmakers that he was waging an alarmist war on coal and oil use, insisted before Congressional panels today that human-caused global warming constitutes a "planetary emergency" requiring an aggressive federal response.
Mr. Gore told Congress that humans are artificially warming the world, that the risks of inaction are great, and that meaningful global action to cut emissions linked to warming will only happen if the United States takes the lead. He delivered that message to a joint meeting of two House subcommittees dealing with energy, science and technology this morning and in written testimony prepared for a hearing of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works this afternoon.
Evoking the hit movie "300," about the ancient Spartans' stand at Thermopylae, Mr. Gore called on Congress to put aside partisan differences, accept the scientific consensus on global warming as unambiguous and become "the 535," a reference to the total number of members of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
LINK

Gonzales's Hold on Job Slips Amid Furor Over Prosecutor Firings

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's hold on his job is slipping after President George W. Bush, his chief benefactor, said he has some explaining to do and others, including a Republican senator, called for him to step down.
The political uproar over the Justice Department's handling of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys continued yesterday as Bush ordered Gonzales to Capitol Hill to patch up relations with lawmakers. Members of Congress say they were misled by Gonzales, who termed the dismissals non-political before administration e- mails released this week showed the White House was behind the ousters.
Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire became the first Republican in Congress to call on the president to fire Gonzales, saying yesterday the controversy harmed his ability to run the Justice Department. While Bush said he supported his attorney general, Gonzales found few defenders among other Republicans.
LINK

Pace clarifies comments on gays in uniform

The U.S. military’s top officer came just short of issuing an apology Tuesday for calling homosexuality “immoral,” saying he regretted offering his own moral views during a news interview and should have limited his remarks to the military’s current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
“In expressing my support for the current policy, I also offered some personal opinions about moral conduct,” said Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a statement posted in mid-afternoon on the Defense Department’s Web site.
“I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views.”
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Army Medical Chief Quits as Walter Reed Fallout Grows

"Kiley received his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington and specializes in obstetrics and gynecology, according to his biography posted on an Army Web site."

Now THAT qualified him to run an Army Trauma Center during wartime!


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Gingrich tells Christian group of affair

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.
"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."
LINK

Mr. Libby --- he was the fall guy

``I will say there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury. It was said a number of times, what are we doing with this guy here? Where's Rove? Where are these other guys? I'm not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy.'' - Juror Denis Collins, a former Washington Post reporter.
LINK

Libby Found Guilty

Lewis I. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was found guilty today on four counts of obstructing justice and lying to a grand jury and the FBI. He was not convicted of a fifth count of lying to the FBI. Libby could be sentenced to a maximum of about 30 years in prison and fined up to $1.25 million.
The case was built around five felony charges that Libby lied to FBI agents and a grand jury when he denied leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to reporters. Plame is married to Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador who wrote an op-ed piece in 2003 debunking the WMD justifications for the Iraq war. Libby supposedly leaked Plame's name as part of a White House campaign to discredit Wilson.
Though outing a CIA agent can be illegal, no one was charged with doing that to Plame. Instead, federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald went after Libby for lying. Though seemingly a side issue, Fitzgerald told reporters it was like "throwing sand in the umpire's face," a serious transgression that stops investigators from doing their jobs.
LINK

Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet

This is reported in the Army Times!

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.
“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.
Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.
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The Rape of Sabrine... (Baghdad Burning)

The Rape of Sabrine...
It takes a lot to get the energy and resolution to blog lately. I guess it’s mainly because just thinking about the state of Iraq leaves me drained and depressed. But I had to write tonight.
As I write this, Oprah is on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can’t talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.
She might just be the bravest Iraqi woman ever. Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing her tell her story physically makes my heart ache. Some people will call her a liar. Others (including pro-war Iraqis) will call her a prostitute- shame on you in advance.

Muir Glacier (Alarming photos)

On the left is a photograph of Muir Glacier taken on August 13, 1941, by glaciologist William O. Field; on the right, a photograph taken from the same vantage on August 31, 2004, by geologist Bruce F. Molnia of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
According to Molnia, between 1941 and 2004 the glacier retreated more than twelve kilometers (seven miles) and thinned by more than 800 meters (875 yards).
Ocean water has filled the valley, replacing the ice of Muir Glacier; the end of the glacier has retreated out of the field of view. The glacier’s absence reveals scars where glacier ice once scraped high up against the hillside. In 2004, trees and shrubs grow thickly in the foreground, where in 1941 there was only bare rock.
LINK

The Twelve Commandments of Flaming

1 Make things up about your opponent: It's important to make your lies sound true. Preface your argument with the word "clearly."
"Clearly, Brian Hillis is a racist, and a dirtball to boot."
2 Be an armchair psychologist: You're a smart person. You've heard of Freud. You took a psychology course in college. Clearly, you're qualified to psychoanalyze your opponent. "Peach Pshawski, by using the word 'zucchini' in her posting, shows she has a bad case of ... "
3 Cross-post your flames: Everyone on the net is just waiting for the next literary masterpiece to leave your terminal. From OPINION to EZ-READER to PETS to CHIT-CHAT, they're all holding their breaths until your next flame. Therefore, post everywhere.
4 Conspiracies abound: If everyone's against you, the reason can't possibly be that you're a ******. There's obviously a conspiracy against you, and you will be doing the entire net a favor by exposing it.
5 Lawsuit threats: This is the reverse of Commandment #4 (sort of like the Yin & Yang of flaming). Threatening a lawsuit is always considered to be in good form. "By saying that I've posted to the wrong group, Didley has libelled me, slandered me, and sodomized me. See you in court, Didley."
6 Force them to document their claims: Even if Ralph Gagliano states outright that he likes tomato sauce on his pasta, you should demand documentation. If Newsweek hasn't written an article on Ralph's pasta preferences, then Ralph's obviously lying.
7 Use foreign phrases: French is good, but Latin is the lingua franca of flaming. You should use the words "ad hominem" at least three times per article. Other favorite Latin phrases are "ad nauseum," "vini, vidi, vici," "fetuccini alfredo,"...
8 Tell 'em how smart you are: Why use intelligent arguments to convince them you're smart when all you have to do is tell them? State that you're a member of Mensa or Mega or Dorks of America. Tell them the scores you received on every exam since high school. "I got an 800 on my SATs, LSATs, GREs, MCATs, and I can also spell the word 'premeiotic.'"
9 Accuse your opponent of censorship. It is your inalienable right to post whatever the hell you want to the net. Anyone who tries to limit your cross-posting or move a flame war to alt.fan.karl-malden.nose is either a communist, a fascist, or both.
10 Doubt their existence: You've never actually seen your opponent, have you? And since you're the center of the universe, you should have seen them by now, shouldn't you? Therefore, they do not exist! This is the beauty of flamers' logic.
11 Lie, cheat, steal, leave the toilet seat up.
12 When in doubt, insult: If you forget the other 11 rules, remember this one. At some point during your wonderful career as a flamer, you will undoubtedly end up in a flame war with someone who is better than you. This person will expose your lies, tear apart your arguments, make you look generally like a bozo. At this point, there's only one thing to do: insult the dirtbag!!! "Oh yeah? Well, your mother does strange things with ... "

esoteric

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
es·o·ter·ic /ˌɛsəˈtɛrɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[es-uh-ter-ik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective 1. understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite: poetry full of esoteric allusions.
2. belonging to the select few.
3. private; secret; confidential.
4. (of a philosophical doctrine or the like) intended to be revealed only to the initiates of a group: the esoteric doctrines of Pythagoras.
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[Origin: 1645–55; < Gk esōterikós inner, equiv. to ester(os) inner + -ikos -ic]

—Related forms
es·o·ter·i·cal·ly, adverb
—Synonyms 1. abstruse, arcane, cryptic, enigmatic.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

by Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen is considered by some to be the greatest poet of the First World War. His realistic, often horrifying depictions of gas and trench warfare stand in dark contrast to the patriotic perceptions of others who wrote about war at the time...

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds..