I've been out of town and getting a new service-provider. It will be a week or so before I get back online.

 
I've been out of town and getting a new service-provider. It will be a week or so before I get back online.

 
NO-GUTS DEMS: As a 45% minority they never had the guts to filibuster; now they are blocked not by actual filibuster , but just by THREAT of filibuster. Abandon hope.

 
MORE INTO MEATGRINDER:
Bill Frist,GOP honcho,said bluntly that we can't beat Taliban militarily in Afgh.Yet Bush is sending in 3500 more GIs.

(Each GI in Afgh has about the same chance to be killed, maimed, or wounded, as a GI in Iraq ! )

3 TIMES IN 19TH CENT, Brits got driven out of Afgh. Once, NOT A SINGLE INVADER SURVIVED!

Afghans recently drove out mighty Soviets.

They don't seem to like invaders.

 
NEW CIVIL WAR OVER KIRKUK ? sitting on 8 billion barrels of oil. Before Saddam made his anti-kurd moves, Kurds clearly outnumbered Arabs, Turkomen, & Christians together. Then Saddam chased out Kurds, paid Arabs to go there. Now Kurds have swarmed back, 300k of them, now constituting a majority again
.http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq_Another_War.html
The constitution (forced on Iraq by US) calls for a referendum soon over whether Kirkuk region should belong to ArabIraq or to new Kurdland. Arabs warn that if Kurds win the vote, there will be war. (Kurds would smash them--but Turkey would side with Arabs & Turkomen-and Kurds have been fighting with Iranians.)

On the other hand, Israel has been training Kurds ( ! ), and US will arm its only friends in that region, perhaps bugging out of Arab Iraq, pulling into Kurdland.

It looks like Kurds will win Kirkuk--but US will lose enraged Turkey as a long-time ally.Arab insurgents have been able to sabotage pipelines to Turkey, the Kurds' only sea-outlet for their oil. Turkey could infiltrate thousands of Islamists to reinforce Iraq insurgents.
Perhaps there'll be a compromise, splitting the oil-lands.

 
SUPPOSE ALL ACTED LIKE YOU...
Ed Stein's cartoon (16Feb,RmtnNews) made a good point: if one family cut their emissions to zero,that would lower the world load by only 1/ 120k.

There are two kinds of moral rules about consequences: a) If you personally are harming people, stop it ! and (b) Suppose your individual actions make no difference--(for instance, your individual SUV doesn't add much to pollution)--but IF most people in your position feel free to act like you, great harms will result--then stop it. ! (Car pollution causes heart trouble in women.)

Most people find this latter type of rule too hard to obey. Indeed, the realistic test of sincere care for others is whether you back legislation to force EVERYONE in your position to quit driving alone in huge, poison-spewing vehicles.

 
STRIPPING OFF THE VENEER: We now sometimes wonder how we felt so sure back in the 50s that that the Roman Church, with all its defects (No contraception? C'mon!) was doing more good than harm in the world.

A very simple explanation: the dedication and generosity of the NUNS was the deceptive veneer over the crass greed and selfishness of so many priests and bishops. We thought of Mother Cabrini and later Mother Theresa and their like--also Dorothy Day. And the clergy endorsed labor unions.

Then came Viet days, and the clergy supported (perhaps triggered) the war. (So did the unions. I remember saying that the typical bishop was George Meany in a mitre). And now there are hardly any generous nuns left to camouflage the naked power-grabs of the bishops. (When the 3 Dominican nuns went to prison for protesting obsolete land ICBMS, not a voice was heard in their support from the clergy.)

And the abortion issue has put them in bed politically with the nuttiest fundamentalists, who think the Jews' taking over Palestine will force Jesus to come back sooner, who expect to be hoisted naked from their cars on Rapture Day.

And then of course, the bishops' shameless coverup for pederast priests shocked us out of any remaining respect for them. Even people who still believe the Catholic faith--such stalwart true believers may hold the US bishops generally in cold contempt.

 
OUTGOING TOP GENERAL says that things made i n Iran are being used vs. our troops in Iraq--but there's NO EVIDENCE that the TOP Iranian honchos are behind this. HOUSTON
===============
HOMELAND INSECURITY: FOR every dollar to Pentagon, only 6 cents for Homeland Security.

Pentagon's bombers are useless vs. INDIVIDUAL terrorists.

GOP doesn't give a DAMN about protecting us from terrorists!

 
SECOND-STRIKE DETERRENTS:NORTH KOREA WINS:
They've agreed to quit producing nukes,and even to dismantle their facilities. But they already have a few nukes; they have NOT AGREED TO DESTROY NUKES OR FISSILE MATERIAL ALREADY DEVELOPED.http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Koreas-Nuclear-Key-Points.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

All they wanted all along was a few nukes to serve as a SECOND-STRIKE DETERRENT vs. US bombing. (US wanted to be able to bomb them with impunity.) European experts say it's impossible now to stop Iran from getting enough fissile material to make a few bombs. Once the material is there, any college physics major can make bombs.

Putin has warned that Bushie growling is persuading more and more nations to develop nukes as 2d-strike deterrents. And of course this means more and more chance of an accidental exchange (say between India and Pakistan)--one more charge History will levy against Bush & his cronies.

Countries too primitive to develop nukes will develop new war-germs and notify Bushies that an attack on them will trigger a germ-war attack on us--vulnerable as we are with our skimpy public-health system for the poor. Quarantine requires quick diagnosis, and poor, sick Americans don't go to doctors or know enough to call ASK-A-NURSE.

Our bluster about our first-strike capacity gets hollower and hollower as the number of nations increases with 2d-strike deterrents. (Russia and China want to minimize the number of nations we can conscript on our side by nuke threats. Thus they might want to supply fissile material to countries like Iran ! (This fissile material, once obtained somehow, can be hidden under mountains.)

Now Russia might benefit from the spike in oil prices from our attacking Iran--but China would suffer from high prices just as US would ! So China is nation most likely to donate fissile material to nations vulnerable to our threats. And China has FORMIDABLE RETALIATORY POWER; there's nothing we can do about them !

 
"Bow To Force ? NEVER ! ! ! "

GATES SAYS TERRORISTS WILL BOW ONLY TO FORCE,NOT TO REASON OR NEGOTIATION. [ REUTERS ]

In fact, terrorists will very probably NOT 'bow' to force either. Undergoing force makes enraged humans too stubborn to yield,even when yielding is the only option.And we can't kill thousands of individual fanatic terrorists all over the world, each anonymous before he strikes.
We are in a ghastly situation.

We must give up the slogan 'The best defense is an attack.' That's simply not true in our situation. Our best (imperfect) defense would be to cut the Pentagon budget and devote all our attention and money to mitigating dangers from,say,
--thousands of huge ship-containers coming into our ports each DAY, UNINSPECTED.

--the critical shortage we already face of nurses, meaning that we can't make quick diagnoses of new war-germs (to set up quarantines)when they hit us. (Govt. won't subsidize nurse-training.)

--the radio-active waste-ponds of our 104 nuke electric plants, vulnerable to small planes
crashing into them loaded with explosives.

--our airliners, not protected-- as are Israeli planes--by decoy-sytems to ward off shoulder-borne anti-plane missiles.

--the corruption and incompetence so often noted in our Dept. of Homeland Security.

--And so on.. In fact our present government, strangely, doesn't seem to give a damn about realistic Homeland Defense.

 
TWO HUNDRED THIRTY IRAQI CASUALTIES TODAY. [BBC NEWS] Victims complained about slowness of new 'surge' tactic. Gates (secy of War) said, "Well, it's a rolling start !" Question: Is it rolling forwards or backwards?

GIs pour into EASTERN (Shia) region. But bombers are from Western SUNNI region.

 
OPEN TALK OF 'BUGOUT' ! Gates, new secy of 'defense' (war), says they're working for success, but if the new surge fails, they'll move GIs 'OUT OF HARM'S WAY' (probably into friendly Kurdistan). All Americans care about is the rate of GI casualties.londonTimes

And of course the Surge will fail, and insurgents are now motivated to work extra hard to make it fail! (All Gates cares about right now is to weaken support for anti-war resolutions in Congress.)
Once again why did savvy Petraeus take on this hopeless job? One guess: if Sadrites 'melt away' temporarily,then a few neighborhoods could PERHAPS be temporarily 'pacified', to show that his 'new' theory works [of small miniforts, friendly relations with natives] . (Although AirForce might insist on making up for fewer troops by more bombing !)

Then the theory could be applied later when they invade, say, Venezuela--and face a fierce insurgency there.

 
An amusing juxtposition: just below an article [rMtnNews,10Feb] describing the lies Pentagon told us about Saddam's 'link' with AlQaeda is an article telling how the Pentagon wants us to believe it has evidence of Iran's meddling in the Iraq war--which allegation would justify a 'hot pursuit' attack on Iran (like our stupid attack on Cambodia in Vietnam times).

This new claim is silly: in the first place, Pentagon NEEDS no excuse to bomb Iran--if they're willing to risk devastating retaliation; who would stop them?

In the second place,no excuse would work; only complete fools would trust Pentagon 'intelligence' this time

 
THREE WARS AT ONCE: The ongoing war (which we're of course losing) is the battle with Sunni insurgents. Then we're picking a fight with 60k to 100k armed Sadrites, who will fight us out-of-uniform, anonymously.


Then we're apparently getting ready to bomb the hell out of Iran, for whatever reason. The top commander in the region is now an ADMIRAL (!) with no experience at all in land war, but very skilled at launching bombers from the TWO aircraft-carriers now in the region. (Iran has anti-ship missiles it got from Russia--and of course IF bombed it will lead the Sadrites to slaughter GIs next door in Iraq!)

Too bad there is no way to impeach Cheney/Bush for sheer lunacy. Our craven Congress seems useless. Pentagon is already bombing Somalia, with no squeak from Congress.
UNITED PRESS,9FEB

 
FOUR GIs A DAY KILLED IN FEB. (At usual ratio, that's SIXTEEN A DAY seriously MAIMED or wounded.)

US copter kills five friendly Kurds, wounds more. Airpower doesn't work in a war like this--but Pentagon will keep on, since it's the only real card it has to play.
SeattlePI,9Feb

GATES TIES IRAN BOMBS IN WITH IRAQ INSURGENTS. Such claims are silly:
--they don't NEED any excuse to bomb Iran; who would stop them?

--NO EXCUSE WOULD WORK ! Who would trust US 'intelligence' today?
(It was just revealed that Pentagon 'fixed' intl about Saddam & alQaeda.)

 
TWO INCOME GAPS:
Bernanke, the right-wing Bush appointee, reassures us predictably that education of the bottom class is THE remedy for US 'income inquality'.USATODAY7Feb

But besides the small income gap between the bottom class and the skilled, educated workers, there is a HUGE income gap between middle-income workers and the class of INHERITING OWNERS. Education won't help here; OUTSOURCING threatens even COLLEGE-GRAD workers.Rt.Wing propagandists don't want us to think of this second, huge gap.

(Middle class people who think of themselves as among 'us winners' (vs, "those losers')are fooling themselves. The median annual household income here is less than $50k. (Median net worth--assets vs. debts--is far less.)How is that related to the net worth of people getting $1 billion? (One million thousands). If the median net worth were on a line, median people would be one inch from absolute destitution--while the poorest(inheriting) billionaire would be EIGHT HUNDRED FEET further up along this line !) Median people are, in fact, snugly among 'those losers' .

People who note this 2d income-gap this are accused of fomenting 'class war'-but that war is over. They won.
The only question now is will owners be so dumbly greedy
that they will drive desperate workers into a fascist revolution.
It looks as if they will.

 
FAKE SURGE: Bush didn't ask for money for his 'extra troops' for '08, a sure sign he intends to pull them out early. Of course the insurgents and Sadrites will hear that too; they'll know they need only go underground for a few months (effortlessly keeping US casualties high) until the 'surge' ends.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-defense6feb06,0,4988022.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Why in the world? This must be signal to Congress that Bushies know the 'surge' is poinltless--it's the closest they can come to backing down on this issue, to weaken support for the antiwar resolution in the Senate.

The costs of this fake are trivial : billions for the time they're over there, plus thousands of extra GI casualties.

 
BLAME AMERICA !
'HOW DID WE CAUSE IRAQ CIVIL WAR ? BY NOT PREVENTING IT?' sarcastically asks hawk Krauthammer (rMtnNews,5Feb).

Very simple; if someone had ousted Tito, they'd be responsible for resulting Yugoslav anarchy. By ousting Saddam we're responsible for this bloody anarchy (Over 400 casualties Saturday!)

And we should have known !

 
PENT. WANT $1700 MILLIONS EACH DAY ! Less than 1/3d of this for their 2 ongoing wars. The rest is 'miscellaneous."
UnitedPress

We should NOT refer to a FEDERAL deficit, but to PENTAGON deficit. Other departments are living within their means.

 
"We're losing, it's the 4th quarter--but we've got the ball, ready for the long drive to Victory!' says army spokesman in Iraq.

Block that metaphor; the other team has BOMBS !

 
BUSH CALLS FOR $2.9 TRILLION budget ! [LATIMES]
He might have asked for $2.98 TRILLION...that's not quite $3 milions of millions.
Don't you just love it?

 
RULERS SIDE WITH WOMEN !

VOLVER ('revolution') a movie by Almodovar--a brilliant philosophical-anthropological study of the deepest, most pervasive, UNSTOPPABLE revolution in history (involving ultimately the greatest suffering) often called "Women's Liberation'.

Why 'deepest'? Because no previous revolution involved EVERY HUMAN, in their most intimate family and social relations. Before, no matter what a loser a man was, he could think that he still outranked almost half the human race, the women. (Of course they've always known--and resented the fact that--they are outranked by rich, elite women.. That's why, when Plato's shepherd Gyges gets the ring that makes him invisible, immune to guilt, fear and humiliation, his first thought is to run up and rape the Queen.)

And this revolution of course, was caused by male inventors who made devices which first made Male Muscles irrelevant. (In this movie, several women could use a simple but ingenious trolley to move a corpse-filled freezer. And of course a male invented freezers !)But resentful males don't think to blame these traitors to their sex.

What peculiarly female talents were involved in this movie?
--cleaning up messes (say, from a stabbing). Give women enough paper towel (invented by men) and they could clean up a battlefield.
--multitasking: running a restaurant while planning how to dispose of a corpse.
--the justified rage strengthening them (enabling the 14-yr-old to kill her incestuous 'father', and another woman to kill her incestuous husband.) When more and more black men began to be imprisoned, observers expected the rate of murdered black wives to drop; instead, the rate of black MEN murdered by wives dropped. Some of these men are safer in prison than in their homes !

--The ability to deceive and to keep a secret (talents found in all slaves and underdogs).

--the ability to cooperate (e.g. providing food for the restaurant). Men used to say that women couldn't run a corporation because of their incurable rivalry with other women (over men of course). Men knew they had a heterosexual 'bonding instinct' derived by natural selection from primitive hunting parties. But they ignored the primitive females cooperating to gather berries, to help in child-rearing etc. They ignored evidence from female herds of elephants, where the males just drop in to contribute sperm now and then, submitting then to the matriarch ruler if they wanted to stay with the herd. (Otherwise they wander off as crazy rogue elephants.)

--the ability to understand human weakness and to forgive, not always needing revenge.. One woman had to forgive her mother's murderess; another to forgive (ultimately) her mother for not catching on to an incestuous mate.
------------------------------
--Why do so many intelligent women marry brutes? Our inherited instincts are at least 6000 years old. At that time, Jack-Palance-type males were needed to protect wives and children (from other men). But Palance might not be as valuable in raising the children as in siring and protecting them. And evolution demands the children be not just conceived, but successfully raised over a very long childhood. That is, children raised under safe conditions outbreed their unlucky peers.

As in many 'monogamous' species, some females were made [by natural selection] 'clever' enough to get sperm from brutal males while they were 'married' to Leonard deCaprio types, happy to share in child-raising. (I believe that one DNA study showed that one human child in ten here and now is being raised by a male who didn't sire it.)One contemporary study showed that women far from their fertile period are more attracted to deCaprio types; but the closer they get to fertility, the more they find Palance-types attractive. (This trait is now counter-productive; children have police to protect them,not needing Palancic fathers--indeed such fathers may ATTACK the children --newsphotos of men who attack their families seem to show many Palancic faces.)
--------------------
SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS: Most obvious: the resentful rage of displaced male masters.(People talk about the resentment of Iraqis Sunnis at the uprising of oppressed Shias; but that's nothing compared to the stab-in-the back caused by one's intimate domestic slave rising up.)Where men just can't adjust, the women now simply refuse to marry them--as in Western Ireland, and Japan.

What's important is that MALE RULERS have finally realized what Plato tried to tell them: that the subjection of women WASTES some great talents and energies, not fully exploited by the role of wife/mother. (Catholic bishops have always entrusted huge responsibilities to smart nuns !The microcredit movement just acknowleges that women are best qualified to run small busineses, e.g, farms. (The male power of denial is shown in the fact that beginning with Aristotle, few subsequent philosophers have acknowledged that Plato meant this 'waste' claim seriously.Indeed, until quite recently, women were just excluded from the ranks of professional philosophers ! )

So the new alliance is between the top elite male leaders (aware of all this) and superior women, with ordinary males left out in the power-cold. Naturally they're enraged.

We hear that Muslim extremists are enraged by Western immorality--and this is true; even those Muslims succumbing to the temptation of video-pornography might understandably be enraged at their degrading foreign tempters.) Apparently the famous thinker who indirectly inspired binLaden--he was horrified by the slow-dancing he witnessed as a student in wicked Greeley, Colorado!
(Some foreigners were sentenced to the LASH in SaudiArabia for drinking & dancing.)

But besides all this righteous rage, there is simple, primitive rage of Islamists at Western female liberation !--the detemination not to let this destructive virus get loose among their burkhaed women. This rage might be part of the explanation of 9/11 !

Once we watched a female Lebanese scholar lecturing at Colo.StateU before an audience including many Arab men. They rose to object that the Koran forbade equality between men and women. She retorted, "Also forbidden is the consumption of alcohol. How many of you, over here in America, respect THAT rule?" Enraged silence was the response.

 
INHERITORS WON !
Economic journalists like to say that the big, growing income-gap is between skilled workers and unskilled, uneducated workers. But the move to outsourcing is shrinking that gap, threatening even educated workers. For instance, sonograms can now be read not by local MDs but by experts in India.

Any job that can be done on computer can theoretically be done cheaper, overseas.

No, the enduring, growing gap is between workers in general and owners; and owners generally got that status by inheriting wealth. (The top .5% is piling up wealth incredibly fast.) Inheritors were able to take advantage of surging stock prices and surging real-estate prices.

Now anyone who notes this fact is said to be promoting 'class-war'; but that war is over; they won--thanks to worker-stupidity.. The only question is whether the winner-owners will be so dumbly greedy that they drive the workers into fascist revolution. It looks as if they will.

 
A priest, a Texas preacher, and a rabbi wagered who could convert one ot the bears around in Minnesota.
The priest came back (Irish brogue) "Glory to God ! I told him about the Virgin Mary and the saints; a light shone down from heaven, and he turned as gentle as a lamb!"

The preacher: "I rassled him into the river, baptized him, and he turned as gentle as a lamb!"

The rabbi (in complete body-cast):"Thinking back on it, circumcision was maybe not the way to start."
-----------------------
Had to tell this G.Keilor tale before you heard it elsewhere.

 
Have you ever heard a more apt one-sentence metaphor for misused airpower?
-----------------------THE DUMB LEOPARD:
It should be clear now (but not to the Pentagon ! ) that 'airpower' (bombing) is counter-productive vs. INDIVIDUAL fanatics; it just recruits survivors into ranks of the terrorists. Yet this is the only real card available to Pentagon--its ground troops are literally used up--so the bombing-card is still played.

One is reminded of the dumb, doomed leopard who tried to ward off hordes of enraged hornets with his awesome teeth and claws. He thus improved the leopard gene-pool.
---
Probably the ONLY metaphor for making this crucial,bizarre situation clear. too bad.

==============

THE FUTURE: Far more is spent on implants & viagra than on alzheimer's research. By 2040 there will be an army of people with perky boobs, or huge erections--but no idea what to do with them.

 
REACTIONS TO NEW INTEL SUMMARY: [Assoc.Press]--
'Nothing in it showed that the new plan is a winning strategy protecting our interests' says Dem honcho;

--GATES (new SofD) says he knows 'nobody' on Capitol Hill who doubts that 'leaving Iraq in chaos' would have serious consequences for US...
----He doesn't note that Iraq is NOW in chaos--THREE HUNDRED Shia Casualties TODAY ( ! ), or that staying in will have serious consequences for US;
---Perhaps he should get out and meet more people on Cap.Hill !

--Gates admitted that the new Iraqi troops will NOT be enough; Casey said that arriving units were at only 60% of their intended strength
...in other words, they already know the Iraqis will NOT be 'doing their part' !

--And of course the report admitted that we now face CIVIL WAR PLUS !

 
GIs OVERSEAS: We all know how local residents & businesses scream when a US military base is threatened with closure; those bases bring in millions to locality.

7 in 8 of our total 1.5 million troops are NOT involved in our 2 wars!)

342k US troops are stationed overseas, bringing in all that money to FOREIGN localities, not ours. 112K are in Europe (!)--only 3000 or fewer are needed as Balkan peacekeepers. [rMtnNews,3Feb--no link] How come?

Surely NOT from military necessity ! We bombed the hell out of Afghanistan from bases in Kansas! And the 2 aircraft carriers now stationed near Iran could 'project our power' in MIdeast more than enough. (Pentagon denies that ADDING a new huge carrier-group of ships counts as 'provocation' to Iran.)

Pentagon thinks these overseas troops are SOMEHOW vitally important: rather than mobilize these rested (& idle) troops for Iraq, it recalls the same exhausted troops (including Natl.Guard troops needed at home )over and over again!
(A friend in Korea says the 34k IDLE GIs there are undisciplined and resented.)

Once again, how come? One guess is that the local $ benefits are being used as bribes by the money-stuffed Pentagon to buy foreign friends for its absurd policies.

Not only are all these extra $ adding to our federal deficit-- besides, since money spent overseas counts as IMPORTS (not balanced by our puny exports), this policy also contributes to our staggering TRADE deficit.

 
SUPPORT TROOPS: Bushies have been saying they're sending over only 21000 'troops'. But then it turns out these will need 18,000 extra 'support troops'--a total of 40k. Now support troops are in as much danger from road-bombs as are combat troops. So we can expect the US casualties to jump up.

Tonite on TV news programs, only one of the 3 networks mentioned those extra 'support troops'. Consistently, they hesitate to worry our pretty little heads more than they have to.
==============
'POTENTIAL NEW EVIDENCE...' [of Iran's intefering in Iraq]
ABC

Many people think 'potential' new evidence is one kind of new evidence !
Clever Bushie propaganda masquerading as objective reporting.

 
"DAUNTING' means hopeless. The D word was used in summary of the latest summary of intelligence reports.
But the details supporting that word suggest that 'hopeless' is more accurate.

They balk at using the word 'civil war'--but then in the details, they say that 'civil war' is an understatement--we face CIVIL WAR PLUS (e.g., plus continuing and effective insurgent attacks on our GIs.)
Yahoo
----------------
Fourth copter down in two weeks. Three admitted to be downed by enemy fire.
Our supply-lines by road are perilous. Now also our supply-lines by air.
And IF we insist on picking a war with Shia, their insurgents can easily cut off our basic supply lines from Kuwait !

 
WORTH MANY REPETITIONS:

PRIMITIVE NEGATIVE QUARANTINE THE ONLY REMEDY in a flu pandemic, say the feds. (the same strategy used by primitive tribes !)
USATODAY2Feb.
They don't explain why the wealthy pharmaceutical companies have not developed a vaccine for the deadly Hn51 version of the avianFlu virus, as long as it has been around.

Another primitive feature: we have no adequate public health programs for the poor. But a quarantine doesn't work quickly without a quick diagnosis of an unusual form of flu. The sick poor don't go to doctors. Already we face a lethal shortage of nurses; the government refuses to subsidize nurse-training programs adequately.

And the possibility is not even broached that weaknesses in our response program may encourage terrorists to launch the cheapest, most devastating form of attack, suiciders self-infected with war-germs.
Americans are paralyzed by the slogan "The best defense is an attack !'
So we think we need soldiers, when we actually need more nurses !

 
SEVENTEEN + GIs wounded each day in Jan. From past ratios, EIGHT WOUNDED SERIOUSLY EACH DAY. UNITED PRESS

Ameericans don't want the wounded counted. And the Media (EXCEPT FOR UPI.COM)
accomodate this wish!
==============
OVER 200 IRAQI CASUALTIES TODAY.
YahooNews

Media headline only number of those killed; but with awful medical facilities, a wounded Iraqi may be worse off than one dead.

 
AIR-POLLUTION (read AUTO POLLUTION) up 10 units (?) raises heart-attack risk for post-menopausal women by SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT ! / FoodConsumerOrg
No worry--this news will--amazingly-- have NO effect on US 'love-affair' with autos.

It's just as well--they don't spend so much time as widows!

 
GREAT EUPHEMISMS:
Referring to their staggering, obscene profits, the oil industry says "OUR SOLID ECONOMIC PERFOMANCE enables us to invest"...etc

 
Israelis dropped FOUR MILLION CLUSTER BOMBLETS (some of which don't explode immediately) on Lebanon ! 25 people have died SO FAR from these since the war ENDED !
US (supplying many of these demonic weapons) says this use was unauthorized--but observers do no expect this will weaken ties between US & Israel (nothing could !)SeattlePI

 
GOVT. LIES WORSE THAN MURDERS
If a government murdered someone and admitted it openly, that would be one thing; but when governments LIE either consciously, or lying to themselves, then passing misinformation on to the public--that undermines their ability to govern, paradoxically, more than would an admitted murder. The time may come when they need to be believed; but they won't be.

Right now, our government is spreading broad hints (every claim qualified by 'allegedly' ) that Iran and Syria are intefering with our Iraq project. Intelligent people know that the doctrine of
'hot pursuit' entitles a government to attack the interfering country--as we stupidly attacked Cambodia during the Vietnam war.

Informed people also know that the Bushies want to bomb Iran and Syria so bad they can taste it. So they find no reason to give credence to the 'allegedly' hints, and therefore no reason to approve of attacks on Iran or Syria.

It's not likely, but suppose these allegations were true. Then, after deceiving us about Iraq, the government will convince only fools about Iran.

Their allegations don't even work as bluffs. Iranian leaders must know the distrust with which informed Congressmen and citizens regard any important Bushie claims. So they must know that any attack on them would have to be in defiance of Congress and informed citizens. (A minority of dumb Americans may choose to believe Bushies because they want to believe them!) That lowers the likelihood of such an attack, and the potency of any bluffs.

Having given out false information so often, Bushies are now hoist by their own petard.