Robert Knight, a homophobe with the religious right, is freaking out because the Oxford English Dictionary reportedly has updated their definition of "marriage" to correlate with the current status of legal marriage in the world (marriage for same-gender couples was already legal in Canada, Belgium, and elsewhere even before May 17 in Massachusetts). The religious right bigots are now saying that Oxford English caved to "political correctness." Of course, that's absurd - they simply updated a definition that now has changed.
But the bigots got me thinking. And they raise a good point. The definition of marriage has now changed. It is no longer legally defined as the union of a man and a woman in the US, Canada, Belgium, and at least one more country (I think Holland). If you folks want to do a bit of research, check out various dictionaries, online and off, and see how they define marriage. And if they define it incorrectly, either send the definition to me or post it as a reply to this post - then post some good contact info for the dictionary, and we can start a campaign to get the definition changed.
Thanks Mr. Knight for giving us such a great idea. Had you not said a word, we'd have never thought of this. :-)
President Bush is using Air Force One for re-election travel more heavily than any predecessor, wringing maximum political mileage from a perk of office paid for by taxpayers.
The Wash Post reports that Bush's anti-Kerry ads are not just all wrong, but their negativity is unprecedented. But hey, cut him a break. I mean, imagine how pissed you'd be if you lied to the nation to get us into a war, got 800 soldiers killed as a result, and then got caught.Washington Post:
It was a typical week in the life of the Bush reelection machine.
Last Monday in Little Rock, Vice President Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all" and said the senator from Massachusetts "promised to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office."
On Tuesday, President Bush's campaign began airing an ad saying Kerry would scrap wiretaps that are needed to hunt terrorists.
The same day, the Bush campaign charged in a memo sent to reporters and through surrogates that Kerry wants to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents.
On Wednesday and Thursday, as Kerry campaigned in Seattle, he was greeted by another Bush ad alleging that Kerry now opposes education changes that he supported in 2001.
The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.
Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising....
If the Catholic Church is going to continue denying Communion to gays and using their institution to speak out on political issues, shouldn't they lose their special tax status? Why should we tolerate them taking on issues such as marriage, when in fact, marriage is a purely legal issue. Religion has nothing to do with marriage in the US and it's time the knuckle-draggers in the Church found a more religious subject to discuss such as peace and love. For you legal folks out there, is a legal challenge possible? I don't see why the Church should be treated differently from any other political institution.
"Though it was widely reported at the time that the pistol was loaded when they grabbed Saddam, Bush has told visitors that the gun was empty..."
Does anything happen during this administration that is not completely orchestrated? Are any of these stories actually based on the truth or does the truth just get in the way of people like Bush or his apparent mentor, Nixon.
DC's premiere gay newspaper, the Washington Blade, did a big front-page story on Friday about how there are reportedly gays at the "top level of the operation" of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. (The paper did not name any names.) The Blade did, however, devote a good deal of space to Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman, who according to the paper is single, 37 years old, has few hobbies outside of politics, and would not directly answer a question as to whether he or any others in the president’s campaign organization were openly gay. The Blade also printed a large picture of Mehlman (left) on its front page.
Was the Blade trying to get readers wondering if Mehlman was possibly gay? I have no idea, but the article definitely got me and a few friends wondering.
In a busy month of newly reported lies by the Administration, Time magazine is reporting what many already suspected.
"The March 5, 2003 e-mail, from an Army Corps of Engineers official, said that top Pentagon official Douglas Feith got the job of shepherding the contract, according to the newsweekly Time that hits newsstands Monday.
Feith had approved the multi-billion-dollar deal "contingent on informing WH (the White House) tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w(ith) VP's (vice president's) office," said the e-mail obtained by Time.
The newsweekly said it was three days later that Halliburton won the contract, although no other bids had been submitted.
"As vice president, I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government," Cheney told NBC's "Meet the Press" in September, Time said." - AFP
JOHN'S ADDITIONAL NOTE:
So yet another lie from the White House - this one about Cheney's ethics. One can only hope that since Cheney actually lied to Russert, perhaps this will give Russert the incentive to finally take Bush and Cheney on for all of their lies, rather than give them the journalistic equivalent or raspberries on their little bellies every time Bush or Cheney go on his show.
1. It appears we were lied to about Jessica Lynch - big surprise there. This soldier appears to be the hero who shot all his bullets trying to defend everyone.
2. The Pentagon apparently refused to investigate this soldier's death until mom get involved and forced them to. If DOD had its druthers, the parents would have been left with a phony story about what happened to their now-deceased son. Lovely.
A soldier in the same ambush as former POW Jessica Lynch was not killed in action but captured by Iraqi fighters and then executed, officials said.
The family of Sgt. Donald Walters, 33, of Salem -- which had pressed officials for an investigation of his death -- learned the new information from the Oregon National Guard. Guard officials released the details to the public Thursday, more than a year after the March 23, 2003, ambush....
The Pentagon investigated Walters's death after his mother, Arlene, filed Freedom of Information requests. She believed the Army had not given her son credit for actions first attributed to Lynch, such as fighting until his ammunition ran out....
Walters's fate drew attention because the details of his actions remarkably resemble a story circulated in The Washington Post and other news accounts media, based on anonymous sources, describing how Lynch had fought until her ammunition ran out.
After her rescue, Lynch, of Palestine, W.Va., said she did not fire a shot. Her injuries resulted from a Humvee crash during the firefight in the Iraqi town of Nasiriyah, just days into the war.
Like Lynch, Donald Walters had blond hair. His family and others have said that early reports depicting a blond soldier bravely fighting off Iraqis may have been mistakenly attributed to Lynch, possibly because of an erroneous translation of Iraqi radio transmissions.
Interesting to see that they are now interested in using the "man on the street" and intellectuals to help turn the tide of terrorism in Saudi Arabia. Hmm, they used that policy so well over the years to deflect internal criticism and direct it at the US and the West, let's see how it works this time. It's also very interesting to see that the terrorists were specifically searching for westerners and trying to avoid Muslims so they could avoid the negative reactions from earlier attacks. I wonder what the reaction over there would have been if the victims were only foreigners.
Interesting that it appears many of the swing voters have already decided. I love the one woman's description of Bush's war in Iraq as "a huge, horrible mess." Perhaps that, along with "incompetent," should be the buzzwords of this campaign.
Suspected al Qaeda militants wearing military uniforms killed at least nine Saudis and seven foreigners in the Saudi oil city of Khobar on Saturday before holing up with hostages in a housing compound.
The U.S. Embassy reiterated a call to its citizens to leave the kingdom after the attack.
Two points:
1) Poetic justice for the Saudis. Yes, no one wishes harm to anyone, but... they've been screwing around on the terrorism issue for years and now their little Frankenstein is biting them in the ass.
2) Poetic justice for the Bush administration. They've been screwing around on the energy issue for years, and now their determination to keep our country dependent on oil is biting them in the ass. Unfortunately on this last one, it's also biting all of us in the ass too. So is losing Saudi Arabia to Islamic fundamentalists, and losing their oil supply to the world, going to be the legacy of the Bush administration? Stay tuned.
Is this incredible or what? Has anyone in Washington learned anything over the past few years? If the subject wasn't so serious this would be funny.
"A law enforcement official at another city, who insisted that he and the city not be named, said authorities there had received a call late in the day from the Federal Bureau of Investigation alerting them to the possibility of an "imminent" attack there. Later, however, the FBI called to withdraw the warning.
The official, citing recent questions about the credibility of the terrorist intelligence from the bureau, said, "It's getting harder and harder to defend them." - NY Times
OK President MBA, what kind of executive decision are you going to make on this one? Are you running the country like a CEO or are you leaving it to incompetent directors? Sounds like just another failed business venture by Bush. November can not come soon enough.
In case you missed it, this column by Paul Krugman is spot on about Bush and the press. Not living in the US, I used to wonder why the US press had become such a bunch of cowards, giving Bush an awfully long leash. Being both an insider (an American) but also an outsider (an ex-pat) it seemed impossible to me that Bush was treated so delicately, considering his lack of results and twisted logic. During my visits to the US my criticisms were often met with surprised stares and some people questioned my patriotism. They looked at me like I was part of the looney left, so far out that I was beyond reason. Thank god that era is now over and the press is finally rediscovering it has a backbone. The Bush administration smear & fear tactics just are not giving the same results anymore. America has woken up and is doing the patriotic thing of asking questions and demanding answers.
It sounds like all three at the moment. Putting aside the legal issue of Geneva not applying in Guantanamo and Afghanistan for a moment, the Bush administration publicly is telling the world that Geneva does apply in Iraq. However, it is increasingly clear that it was policy to transfer non-Geneva interrogation tactics to Iraq which was supposed to be covered by Geneva. Remember the denials that Abu Ghraib was "Gitmo-ized"? What kind of professionals are running this effort and what kind of professionals are running the country? Don't we deserve some honesty here?
"The teams were sent to Iraq for 90-day tours at the urging of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then the head of detention operations at Guantánamo. General Miller was sent to Iraq last summer to recommend improvements in the intelligence gathering and detention operations there, a defense official said.
But one member of the 377th Company said the fact that prisoners in Afghanistan had been labeled as "enemy combatants" not subject to the Geneva Conventions had contributed to an unhealthy attitude in the detention center.
"We were pretty much told that they were nobodies, that they were just enemy combatants," he said. "I think that giving them the distinction of soldier would have changed our attitudes toward them. A lot of it was based on racism, really. We called them hajis, and that psychology was really important." - NY Times
After months of demonizing Iraq, how surprised should we be that racism has played a role in this mess?
And I thought that the whole Ashcroft-Ridge fight was a mess but this one is another real winner. While some of the press is reporting that the decision to promote Alawi to the position of Premier of Iraq as an independent decision made by the Iraqi Governing Council, the New York Times is saying otherwise. Contrary to the hyped "surprise and confusion" that someone is suggesting is coming out of Washington, this was clearly a US decision.
"...Iyad Alawi, is the secretary general of the Iraqi National Accord, an exile group that has received funds from the Central Intelligence Agency. His ties with the C.I.A., and his closeness to the United States could become an issue in a country where public opinion has grown almost universally hostile to the Americans.
"When we first heard the news today, we thought that the Iraqi Governing Council had hijacked the process," said a senior United Nations official...
United Nations officials said any misgivings that Mr. Brahimi had about Dr. Alawi were not about the man himself but about his past associations and how they might play with the Iraqi public, because of Dr. Alawi's ties with the C.I.A." - NY Times
Being under such a microscope, does Bush really think that he can trick Iraq and the world into accepting another US lackey?
My blood is really boiling now with the campaign of fear spokesman Ashcroft. It becomes clearer and clearer every day how this guy lost an election to a dead man because he is such a completely incompetent clown. His new source for the terror threat is the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which is known for its own propaganda. In a crowded field of liars and fear mongers, this guy really is taking it to a new level.
“This particular group is not really taken seriously by Western intelligence,” said terrorism expert M.J. Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, an international policy assessment group. “It does not appear to have any real field operational capability.
The group has claimed responsibility for the power blackout in the Northeast last year, a power outage in London and the Madrid bombing. None of the claims was found to be credible.
"The only thing they haven't claimed credit for recently is the cicada invasion of Washington,” said expert Roger Cressey, former chief of staff of the critical infrastructure protection board at the White House...
A senior U.S. intelligence official previously told NBC News that this group has no known operational capability and may be no more than one man with a fax machine.Friday, Ashcroft's spokesman blamed the FBI..." - NBC News
Meanwhile, CNN leads with the story, Out of sync on warning. Out of sync on warning? They must be joking! CNN is out of sync on picking up a political scam.
Today's editorial about Abu Ghraib in the Washington Post is beyond shocking. The Post outright accused the president and his administration of willfully lying about the mistreating of prisoners across Iraq and Afghanistan, including charges that US soldiers actually murdered people and then the administration tried to cover it up!
I can't even believe this is my country. I have never felt this betrayed by my government, never distrusted my president to such a degree (be he Democrat or Republican). I simply can't take any more of this. This guy has to leave. And I'm talking impeachment. If Bush has now lied to us about ongoing homicides being committed by people on his payroll, I mean, Jesus Christ.
Read this entire editorial and email it to every person you know:
PRESIDENT BUSH'S persistence in describing the abuse of foreign prisoners as an isolated problem at one Iraqi prison is blatantly at odds with the facts seeping out from his administration. These include mounting reports of crimes at detention facilities across Iraq and Afghanistan and evidence that detention policies the president approved helped set the stage for torture and homicide. Yes, homicide: The most glaring omission from the president's account is that at least 37 people have died in U custody in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and that at least 10 of these cases are suspected criminal killings of detainees by U interrogators or soldiers.
The deaths reveal much about the true nature of the still-emerging prisoner scandal. First, only a minority of them occurred at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad; nine of the 10 homicides acknowledged by the Pentagon occurred elsewhere. Second, the administration has done its best to cover up the killings: They have been reported only after news of them leaked to the media, and details about most of them are still undisclosed.
No one has been criminally charged in any of the cases, even though some date to December 2002. Investigations have been shoddy and secretive. And no senior officer or administration official has accepted responsibility or been held accountable for allowing unlawful killings to take place under his or her command. Had it not been for the leak of the photographs from Abu Ghraib, which record less serious crimes, it is probable that none of the deaths in Iraq would have become public knowledge....
It is horrifying to contemplate that U interrogators have tortured and killed foreign prisoners and that their superiors have ignored or covered up their crimes -- and yet that is where the available facts point. Pentagon officials say they will pursue investigations vigorously and that those guilty of crimes will be brought to justice. It is essential to the preservation of this country's fundamental values that they do so. It is essential also to examine the consequences in the field of policy decisions made by the most senior officials in Washington. But the sorry record of the Bush administration -- and the president's own refusal to speak the truth about it -- suggests that justice will require vigorous and sustained intervention by outside parties, beginning with Congress.
Samuel Mac, manager of the Denny's in Avon, isn't happy with the response he got from the FBI when he reported that two of [the suspected terrorists] ate at his restaurant Wednesday.
When he called the FBI in Washington, D.C., Mac said the man who answered the telephone said he had to call the Denver office and declined to take down any of the information.
When he called the Denver office, he was shuttled to voice mail because the agents were busy, Mac said. It was five hours before a seemingly uninterested agent called back.
But perhaps my favorite line from the story was:
[Monique Kelso, spokeswoman for the Denver office, said] the FBI has no reason to believe any of the seven are in Colorado or traveling through.
Really? So if you know where they are, why did you go on TV and scare the shit out of us?
Craig's List via Wonkette. This totally cracked me up, as I had one cicada take a ride-along on my right shoulder until I noticed it while I freaked out in the middle of a busy street, and the second cicada dive-bombed into my hair while walking on the sidewalk (in front of an amused woman) yesterday. We hates them...
Anyway, this is from Craig's List:
Fucking Cicadas
Tue May 25 21:24:14 2004
To the little fucker who dive bombed me on my way to lunch. You retarded, blind, little shit. You flew into the back of my ear while I was crossing the street! People laughed and pointed while I had, what looked like, an epileptic seizure. Bitch.
To the sneaky bastard who tried to smuggle himself into my office after lunch. My boss spotted you on my shoulder. I looked like a fucking sailor with his bug-parrot. I hope you liked the smack down I gave you.
To the beltway hitchhiker(s). For stupid bugs, you guys sure have good aim. Who would've thunk that two little shits like you could fly INTO a moving car! The first one landed on my passenger seat near Georgia Ave. You are more retarded than most of your friends (which is impressive). All you could do was fall over yourself and get stuck in the seams of my car seats. I didn't even have to fuck with you. Your friend though.... oh that muthafucka.... He flew into my driver's side window and smacked me in the throat! At 60mph!! That shit hurt. I almost rear-ended the Saturn in front of me because of you! But I had the last laugh... After you kamikazied my throat, your dumb ass got scared and flew to that back of my car, right at the base of the rear windshield. As soon as I saw your ass camped on my speakers, I cranked up the stereo. I hope you enjoyed 110dB of Dandy Warhols from half an inch away!!!
DC's premiere gay newspaper, the Washington Blade, did a