1. About 20,000 GIs have been wounded and killed in the War on Iraq.
2. The U.S. military says there are about 20,000 insurgents in Iraq.
3. There are some 150,000 GIs in Iraq.
4. Assume that the GIs are about as effective as the insurgents.

Q: How many Iraqis have been wounded and killed by GIs?

Never without one …

50th Anniversary

The further down their noses the aristos look at the Hee Haw shenanigans in Austin, the more seethingly resentful the homespun conservatives will become, and the more likely they will be to dig in their heels and insist that Harriet Miers is every bit as good as some hoity toity Harvard Law grad who probably doesn’t even know how to tie his own shoes.

III. Powerball for the Lord, Part 2

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II. Notes? Oh, Those Notes

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I. Second Thoughts

When I was in my younger teens, my best friend’s parents had this book that really made me think about war. I sneaked into their library to look at it again and again. It was Ernst Friedrich’s ‘War against War!’. Ernst Friedrich was a pacifist who, in 1924, founded the Anti-War Museum in Berlin.

Part of Friedrich’s book is his strong call To Human Beings in all lands!, but what fascinated me more were these pictures from World War I and the sarcastic notes attached to them.

The most disturbing ones are of people who survived despite extreme head wounds. How must they have felt living like this?

Cont. reading: These Pictures

The notion that Fitzgerald is dreaming up "new" legal theories to take the espionage statute where it has never been before is just typical White House disinformation.

I Spy

Here is another huge loss for the international reputation of the United States. Be assured that all news pieces to be written about ElBaradei’s Nobel Prize will mention the unfounded hostility of the U.S. against him.

Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003 on Meet the Press:

I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong.

WaPo, January 22, 2005, U.S. Alone in Seeking Ouster

The U.S. effort, led by John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, included sifting through intercepts of ElBaradei’s phone calls in hopes of finding material to use against him.

Nobel Committee, October 7, 2005, The Nobel Peace Prize For 2005

At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which controls that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime.

Congratulations Mr. ElBaradei!

If this were October 2006 instead of October 2005, I’d say the Republicans could kiss their House and Senate majorities goodbye, gerrymander or no gerrymander. But of course it’s not, and it’s also hard to imagine that the next 12 months are going to be another uninterrupted chain of disasters.

III. Back to the Future

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II. Dick Does His Travis Bickle Imitation

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I. Karl’s Moment of Truth?

The Bible is quite clear on this point: Female lawyers are not be trusted with the disposition of funds contributed by conservative donors to endowed university lecture series. I’m only surprised the regents at SMU didn’t get it. If it had been Southern Baptist University, I’m sure none of this would have ever happened.

II. Feminist in the Woodpile

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I. Extremists

CNN Headline Nov 6, 2001:

"You’re either with us or against us in the fight"

AP Headline Oct 6, 2005:

Bush: Radicals Seek to Intimidate World

Cont. reading: Radical Speech

The Nazi Nine

News & views …

I have to admit, I never pegged Tom for a swinger, but he’s definitely gotten around — Scotland, Moscow, Guam. A donor in every port, as they say. Too bad he didn’t use protection. Social diseases can be such a drag.

Party Animal

In other words, it appears the nattering nabobs of negativity in the right-wing media and Right Blogostan are the ones who are out of touch with the conservative grassroots, not Bush and the party apparatus. The brown nosers like Hugh Hewitts and Assrocket are the ones who have read the politics correctly (although they’d probably lick Shrub’s you-know-what irregardless; that’s just their personality.)

Silent Minority

Masters of Understatement, Part II

Rush knows the absolute devotion and blind loyalty of the dittoheads is what keeps him at the top of the reactionary talk radio dog pile. And at the moment, I think he must sense he can’t afford to get too far out in front in the selling of Church Lady.

Rush Job

Merit System

Iraqi lawmakers said their intepretation of the law was based on U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in the case of Bush v. Gore, and includes a clause stipulating that the new rules cannot be used to challenge future Iraqi election results, unless it would benefit a candidate supported by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Unequal Protection Clause

But if Church Lady’s main pro-life credential is going to be that she belongs to an ideologically safe congregation, you’d think the wing nuts would want to kick the tires a bit and look at how, well, faithful she’s been to the doctrines of her religion in the past.

Powerball for the Lord

II. A Matter of Trust

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Once again, as after Hurricane Katrina, Rove has done what he’s always vowed never to do — he’s alienated the base. And boy, are they alienated.

I. Freakazoids