Why has 'Downing Street memo' story been a 'dud' in US?

CSM posted May 17, 2005

"In a piece published on the Political Gateway, a website which "tries to bring input from all sides of the political arena to allow free and open discourse on a range of subjects," columnist Bud Beck writes that the British memo story "isn’t news by any stretch of the imagination.."

This is not the Watergate burglary and it is not a fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident. It is nothing new, just a new version of something that is old - so old it has become all but too boring.

The critics of the war, all of them Democrats, have accused Bush and his top aides of misusing what has since been shown as limited intelligence in the prewar period. The notes of the meeting between Dearlove and Blair now prove it. So what? The same critics have been unsuccessful in getting an investigation into the misuse of the intelligence and as long as they are in the minority they never will. What are they expecting to happen here that didn't happen in Britain?”

There’s lots more in this article in the Christian Science Monitor.

News

Deep Throat comes forward.

Bush lies again: "It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

The Big Brass Alliance is Formed

Please spread the word and take action.
You may see this plea on hundreds of blogs today.

AfterDowningStreet.org is a Coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups, which launched on May 26, 2005, a campaign to urge the U.S. Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The campaign focuses on evidence that recently emerged in a British memo containing minutes of a secret July 2002 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials.

The name is a reference to the Downing Street Memo, a British memo recently made public in the London Times, which contained the minutes of a secret July 2002 meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials.

The recent release of the Downing Street Memo provides new and compelling evidence that the President of the United States has been actively engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for going to war against Iraq. If true, such conduct constitutes a High Crime under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution.’"

Congressman Conyers is now seeking 100,000 signatures to sign a letter on the Downing Street Inquiry. Please sign it now, if you haven't already. Write to your Congresspeople here.

Another important piece of information that has been overlooked in this story, as reported in a recent Salon article by Juan Cole, is that Tony Blair had to convince George Bush to go after al-Qaida in Afghanistan, and Bush would only do so in exchange for Britain’s support of the Iraq invasion:

“Astonishingly, the Bush administration almost took the United States to war against Iraq in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. We know about this episode from the public account of Sir Christopher Meyer, then the U.K. ambassador in Washington. Meyer reported that in the two weeks after Sept. 11, the Bush national security team argued back and forth over whether to attack Iraq or Afghanistan. It appears from his account that Bush was leaning toward the Iraq option.

Meyer spoke again about the matter to Vanity Fair for its May 2004 report, "The Path to War." Soon after Sept. 11, Meyer went to a dinner at the White House, "attended also by Colin Powell, [and] Condi Rice," where "Bush made clear that he was determined to topple Saddam. 'Rumors were already flying that Bush would use 9/11 as a pretext to attack Iraq,' Meyer remembers." When British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Washington on Sept. 20, 2001, he was alarmed. If Blair had consulted MI6 about the relative merits of the Afghanistan and Iraq options, we can only imagine what well-informed British intelligence officers in Pakistan were cabling London about the dangers of leaving bin Laden and al-Qaida in place while plunging into a potential quagmire in Iraq. Fears that London was a major al-Qaida target would have underlined the risks to the United Kingdom of an "Iraq first" policy in Washington.

Meyer told Vanity Fair, "Blair came with a very strong message -- don't get distracted; the priorities were al-Qaida, Afghanistan, the Taliban." He must have been terrified that the Bush administration would abandon London to al-Qaida while pursuing the great white whale of Iraq. But he managed to help persuade Bush. Meyer reports, "Bush said, 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.'" Meyer also said, in spring 2004, that it was clear "that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions." In short, Meyer strongly implies that Blair persuaded Bush to make war on al-Qaida in Afghanistan first by promising him British support for a later Iraq campaign.”

We must inquire if this underreported outrage is true.

-----------------------


BIG BRASS ALLIANCE ASKS FOR YOUR ACTIVISM

Be A Political Activist From Your Computer Chair!

• Write your Representative Now!
• Sign Rep. Conyers' Letter to Bush
• Contact Your Local Media
• Email Everyone You Know
• Print, Copy, Hand Out Flyers

Other information that may be useful:

Memorial Day/Praise bravery, seek forgiveness, By the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Smoking Bullet in the Smoking Gun?
Bloggers Support Call for Resolution of Inquiry
A plea from Military Families Against the War in Britain to friends in America
$1000 Reward for Getting Bush to Answer Question
.
Thanks to Shakespeare's Sister for her dedication to this cause.

Love Makes You Crazy

Or vice versa. Or both.
But it's perfectly natural and we are wired that way. So don't commit suicide yet.

Scientists can actually watch, via brainscans, the mechanics of new love. "It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection," according to an article in the NY Times called Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain.

Scientists suggest that the desire to love can be more powerful than the reason to live. People need love as much as they need food and shelter! It's no wonder that people can act so crazy when they are falling in love and even become suicidal when the love isn't returned. Thankfully, new love progresses to a more sane state where affection, companionship and possibly a long term commitment take the place of the blind desire to fall in love. There is a long term commitment part of the brain. Who knew? The part of the brain that registers passionate love is distinct from the part of the brain that registers sexual arousal and attractiveness.

I've read in this article and others, that being dumped heightens romantic love. If you have come to the place where you have internalized some of your beloved's character traits/flaws and it is suddenly removed, it plays havoc, according to scientific findings, with one's "emotional, cognitive and deeper reward-driven areas of the brain." Most of us can relate to that. With time and hopefully without having to see the object of your affection after being dumped, we can recover from this and our passion center in the brain will allow us to find someone new. It's rare for love relationship to go from that to a mutual platonic friendship unless both people are involved with another love. So don't bet on being just friends with your former lover if you've found someone new and your former "other" feels dumped. It is scientifically and biologically not going to happen.

My thoughts after reading some of these articles (see below for links) and still not fully digesting these findings seem to prove that the old adage of "not shitting where you eat" is a good one. If a relationship should end and the object of your desire is still in your life, it will take much longer to heal and it can bring you to temporary (hopefully temporary) insanity. Conversely if you move on without the consent of your once beloved, be prepared to be stalked. Now they tell me. It's a chemical thing. They can't help it. When you haphazardly play with such a strong biological and chemical reaction, you ARE playing with fire.

When they say, Love is real. They aren't kidding.

More Reading
THE Biochemistry Of What You Feel
Brain in Love and Lust
The Chemistry of Love
Learning to See Things From Your Partner's Point of View
The Science Of Love
.

Satirical Bush Poster Banned After Complaint

Posters that depicted Presnut bush with a Groucho Marx-style mustache and cigar were ordered torn down at a high school after a student complained. Seems the theater students, who had created the posters to advertise a satirical play, countered with new posters with a First Amendment message.

The principal ordered 100 posters removed from the campus of El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills tow weeks ago on grounds that they promoted smoking and "endorsing one ideology over another." Gee, didn't Groucho Marx smoke cigars?

The school-funded posters were advertising the student's play, "The Complete History of America (Abridged), " which satirizes the U.S. history.

A senior who supports the presnut wrote a complaint letter to the administration, teachers. The principal asked the drama students to come up with new posters. The new designs all feature a silhouette of bush and a burning cigar, along with inscriptions such as "Free Expression for All (unless you are in high school)" and "What First Amendment?"

This story warmed my heart. Maybe the youth of America aren't as ready as our government thinks to live in a police state. [link to story]

Bush Joke Prompts Yearbook Recall

From the Associated Press

"Winfield, Colo.---High school yearbooks were recalled so that administrators could black out a joke caption under one student's picture: "Most likely to assassinate President Bush."

Mesa Ridge High School officials recalled about 100 yearbooks earlier this month and had staffers use markers to obscure the words in them and in the still-un-distributed copies. The Secret Service even launched an investigation.

"They kind of ruined our yearbook," said Christina Tredway, who just graduated from the school just south of Colorado Springs. Most Students thought the blacking-out was a bad idea because the caption obviously was a joke, she said.

Widefield School District officials called the caption a prank that wasn't caught before the yearbooks were printed, district spokesman James Drew said.

Lon Garner, special agent in charge of Secret Service's Denver District, said that all threats against the president must be investigated."

Give me a break! Do you really consider this a serious threat to the presnut?

There were several other joke captions in he book, including "most likely to forget his gown at graduation." Am I crazy or what? Wait, don't answer that. But seriously, dose this make ya kinda wonder if the secret service doesn't have to much time on their hands?

Memorial Day

I have been really angry lately. May be it is all the pressure on me to study and retake the Bar in July. May be it is the war, President Bush, the Senate. May be it is every time I look at television someone else says something incredibly stupid. (Note to Tom Cruise. Leave Brooke Shields alone.) I am so pissed that I am pissed!

Anne Lamott's new book Plan B is a must. No, it won't help you with your anger, but at least you won't be alone with your anger. She is really angry, too.

____

Memorial Day. When my dad went to work for himself and couldn't afford health insurance, I had a come to Jesus with him about his service to his country. Dad was eligible for V.A. benefits.

When he was in his early twenties, he had a friend at the draft board who told him he was going to be drafted and sent to either Korea or Southeast Asia and that he should join the National Guard. So he did. President Kennedy then called my dad's unit to active duty for the Berlin Wall Crisis and then the Cuban Missile Crisis. My parents had just bought a new house and new furniture and found that they were going to have me. My dad lost his job, they lost the house and furniture but the Army paid for me.

So, I convinced my dad to get to the V.A. for his health care because, while he considered it charity, I told him I thought it was pay back for his sacrifice. Our sacrifice.

It is difficult for me to remember my dad's status as a veteran. I can't really sympathize with it. He never really talked about his experiences, except to tell me that even though I had two college degrees in political science and foreign service, I didn't know anything about war. Even though I had studied the Cold War in the Soviet Union in 1983, that I was just ignorant about war. Once because my dad was angry with me over my voiced opposition to our conflict of the month in Panama, before my husband could stop him, he beat me in my own home, after he kicked in my locked bedroom door. That wasn't the first time, but it was the last and I remember it more vividly than the other incidents. And there were more than I can recall. My marriage, my college degrees, my integrity as another human being were no match for his military training and his untreated rage at his horrific childhood.

When the police got to my and my husband's home, my father told them that I had been seeing a psychiatrist and was on medication. The cop told him, "I don't care if she is certifiable, you have no right to hit her. Ever."

Somehow the fact that I was trying to cope with his rage gave him, in his mind, the ability to beat me with no shame. He confessed to the police that he was beating me because I was getting treated for depression?

His parents stole money from him when he was a boy that he raised selling seeds for a school project and allowed the school to tell him he would go to jail. They abandoned him and his younger brothers in a house until an older brother defied his father and went back for them. The floors in his childhood homes were dirt and he washed and ironed and rotated his two shirts so he would have clean clothes for school.

He told me about those things, but not how he felt about them. He beat me regularly and never once apologized for the rage or how I triggered it.

I didn't want for anything material as a child. Just safety from the fear of him threatening me in front of my friends, beating me for not picking up my toys when I was eighteen months old, the migraines I had at five because I was so afraid. Afraid that I would get in trouble at school and he would beat me when I got home. Afraid of going to school because he beat me the night before. Afraid of my mother going to work because I told her he had choked me when she left me with him.

This Memorial Day, I wish I could talk to my father about how the V.A. could help him with his anger. When he got cancer, he went to therapy groups, and he even makes public speeches about his survival. But he never sought help for his cancerous rage. We kept it a secret and told no one.

I now wonder how I survived him. I never thought about surviving him then. I just never knew when it was going to happen. May be I sneezed and the mucus through my fingers before I could grab a tissue would set him off. May be I didn't sweep the grass off the sidewalk right. There are times now, even when I know that he is eight hours by car away from me, I think I see him when I am out and about living my life. He haunts me. I see him. And then I realize that it isn't him, just a man that looks like him. And sometimes it doesn't even really look like him.

A few days ago, when the local paper reported that a man was sentenced to prison for beating his daughter to death with his belt, I disassociated for several hours. My psychologist once asked me if I was aware that my dad could have killed me. I said no. I didn't know that he could. I really wasn't present for the beatings. I told my doctor of how when I was small I was playing with some children and I imagined that I was a dog. I took my dad's belt off the door nob on his bedroom door and bit it and shook it. I was two and I was trying to kill that evil snake.

He took one of my dogs away one day. I don't know what triggered that episode, but the dog was so afraid of him, he urinated every time my dad touched him. I can't let a stray animal alone now. I can't go in pet stores without wanting to bring them all home with me.

Today, on this Memorial Day, I am thinking of my mother's brother's wife's brother. My mother's brother in law. His body was found in a parked car on a construction site in California a few weeks ago. We are still awaiting the tox report, we don't know what killed him. He was a Viet Nam vet. He wasn't ever comfortable after the war. I wish I was one of those people who could say that he is comfortable now. But I am not. He is just dead. He died alone.

Outrageous

'What would happen in this country if the young women would say no [to sex] until they're 20?' he asked. 'Disease would go down, the pregnancy rate for unwed mothers would go down, the social costs for the next two generations would go down.'
-Sen. Tom Coburn in a slide show shown to Capitol Hill staffers about the ravages of STDs. Washington Times

Early starts, late nights and endless meetings may be good for the bank balance, but professional women beware. You could be making your husband sick.

Research will this week say that the more committed and successful a woman is at work, the worse her partner feels. The findings blame a syndrome called "unfulfilled husband hypothesis" for making men feel inadequate when women stray too far beyond their traditional roles. The man of the house, it seems, is still not cut out for domesticity.
- A New Report via Feministing

They [Muslim women] are there for hymenoplasties, or the repair of hymens, which, when intact, are widely recognized as evidence of virginity. The surgeries could save their lives, noted the physicians who perform them, because, according to some interpretations of Islamic law, if a male relative suspects them of having premarital sex, the woman is a criminal. In some countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, the penalty could be death.
- From: Restoring Virginity Becomes Risky Business

Fascism Anyone? A Reminder

The 14 characteristics of Fascism
by Dr. Lawrence Britt
Free Inquiry magazine, Spring 2003

Dr. Britt, a political scientist, studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14 things in common, and he calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. ]

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -- Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -- Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to 'look the other way' or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -- The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military -- Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism -- The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and antigay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media -- Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or through sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in wartime, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security -- Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -- Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected -- The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed -- Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -- Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -- Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses, and even forego civil liberties, in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -- Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions, and who use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections -- Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against (or even the assassination of) opposition candidates, the use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and the manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

In Memoriam

Break out those white shoes, baby. It's Memorial Day. It's time to remember those who died on behalf of their country. To commemorate the occasion, Jones Beach State Park will charge $8 admission for the next 3 months. Payless is having a sale on white shoes. The boyscouts are marching with the few vets left from WWII.

Yesterday, Jones Beach presented the Thunderbirds, an aerial demonstration of millions of dollars of flying war machines to dazzle the youngsters and old alike. I did not attend as the planes flew over my house for most of the morning anyway whereby I could contemplate the speed of sound, the Doppler effect and sonic booms... not to mention how much fuel these babies were burning. I was busy with my pre-cookout preparations and icing the beer. Boom!

I read in Newsday this morning that military recruiting booths were also set up at the beach yesterday. I'm now sorry I missed that as harassing recruiters is one of my favorite pastimes. I'd pay $8 for that. I can picture the used car salesmen of the military telling the children that flying planes in loop the loops is but the least of the magnificent opportunities available to those willing to sign up to fight in America's undeclared wars and kill the terr'rists from Iraq (heh) who changed our view to the west. "See that nothingness over yonder? You used to be able to see the WTC's from the beaches back in the day. Now you can kill those who removed our symbols of freedom."

Last evening as our friends got drunker in my backyard, we spent several moments remembering 'dubya dubya too' as was recounted by our parents. That was a time of sacrifice in our country. Everyone did their part, unlike today when we are told to go shopping.

My dad "fought" the great war from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands watching out for submarines from under a lime tree wearing binoculars around his neck. Don't ask. He told me about his discovery of "Cuba Libres" (rum and coke with lime) which eventually became my favorite cocktail. I recalled how my dad brought the family to St Thomas years later to show us the 'battle grounds'. Daddy, let's see if we can find the lime tree that prevented you from getting scurvy.

My father in law stormed the beaches at Normandy but lost track of his platoon because his jeep was AWOL. He was in charge of arranging food and artillery for the troops. He, uh, was the only one to survive from his platoon.

My mother in law was an Army nurse in London. She saw more devastation and death than any of our fathers. I once asked her if she ever wanted to visit Europe again and she said, "No, everything is so old there. Too much rubble."

My dad married a woman he met on St Thomas (she later died in childbirth). My father in law met my mother in law at a USO dance in London. He was a hep cat and digging the band. She was a country girl from Massachusetts and thought he was a pompous New Yorker, but oh could he dance. My mom was doing her patriotic duty by dancing with the GI's who came to Manhattan during the war. She was engaged to a man who never returned.

That was a different war. No one wants to talk about the Vietnam war though. It's funny though, how in retrospect, Nixon doesn't seem like such a bad guy afterall. He didn't hide from the protesters like some people. A lot of men and women never returned from wars. After Vietnam, many of us believed that something like that would never happen again.

There's a good editorial at the Mn Star Tribune today. An excerpt:

In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.

What're They Trying To Sneak Past Us This Weekend?

Rant, rave, inform.
Here's an interesting thought I came across somewhere:
It's not a war about oil.
It's not a war about money.
It's not a war about empire.
Or, maybe it's a war about all of the above.
It's a war of genocide.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
One entry found for genocide.
Main Entry: geno·cide
Pronunciation: 'je-n&-"sId
Function: noun
: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

Quote for the Day--Memorial Day, 2005

"Only among men is Nature's Law of 'Survival of the Fittest' thwarted
and indeed, reversed; for in almost every generation the fittest are sent forth to be
slaughtered by orders of the stunted, the twisted, and the senile". -- Sidney J. Harris

The Fascists Try to Take Over the Weather

Santorum tries to privatize the freaking weather in order to help the private weather companies in his state. So now the whole senate has to be involved in this nonsense while the middle class is being systematically eradicated before our eyes.

President said Another Darnedest Thing

“Asked if the Iraqi insurgency was getting more difficult to defeat militarily, Bush answered with a classic Dubya-ism.

"No, I don't think so," he said, "I think they're being defeated. And that's why they continue to fight."

It's the sort of answer that makes you pause and scratch your head for just long enough to give him a chance to change the subject. He's quite masterful at doing this, which made me wonder if he hadn't taken Karzai aside before the press conference and whispered in his ear, "Listen, Hammie, these reporters are tricky. You better let me handle 'em. I've got 'em wrapped around my finger with this whole newspeak war-is-peace idea Karl found in some book from the 1980s."

Sun Times There’s some great stuff in this article

Under the heading of, read it and weep, today.

Analysts Behind Iraq Intelligence Were Rewarded

“Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq -- the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets -- have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.”

The film US TV networks dare not show

If you don’t know about this film you absolutely must read the entire article. This ought to get you going.

“The Power of Nightmares” by Adam Curtis

“But the film is even more incendiary for its analysis of what Curtis controversially insists is the largely illusory fear of terrorism in the west since 9/11. Curtis argues that politicians such as Bush and Blair have stumbled on a new force that can restore their power and authority - the fear of a hidden and organised web of evil from which they can protect their people. In a still-traumatised US, those with the darkest nightmares have become the most powerful and Curtis's film castigates the media, security forces and the Bush administration for extending their power in this way. "It has really touched a nerve with people who realise something is not quite right with the way terrorism has been reported."

For these reasons, one might well think that The Power of Nightmares would provide a usefully chastening corrective to the prevailing orthodoxy if it were shown on US television. But it seems extremely unlikely that it will be. While a two-and-a-half -hour film version is to be given a prime-time Cannes screening, and while the original three-hour series will be shown tonight on al-Jazeera along with a live interview with the director, US telly has run scared from showing it. "Something extraordinary has happened to American TV since September 11," says Curtis.”

Childless Couples Need To Try Having Sex If They Want To Start A Family

From Ananova:

Childless couple told to try sex
A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.

The University Clinic of Lubek said they had never heard of a case like it after examining the couple who went to see them last month for fertility tests.

Doctors subjected them to a series of examinations and found they were both apparently fertile, and should have had no trouble conceiving.

A clinic spokesman said: "When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: "What do you mean?".

"We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate."

The 30-year-old wife and her 36-year-old husband are now being given sex therapy lessons while the university clinic undertakes a study to try to find out if there are more couples with a similar lack of sex education.

Thanks to astute reader Paul A. for the heads up on this most interesting story. I find it especially puzzling because this couple knew about fertility clinics but didn't know about sex? C'mon. Really now.

Should I Talk Into It?

Most Media Activists Are Over 40

Interesting article in alternet.org on this subject. It claims "Getting young people to give up their school breaks for a policy conference is not an easy task, though Free Press should be commended for attracting as broad a range as it did. The Youth Caucus that gathered about 40 partakers, revealed a broad cross-section from different sides of the map. There were 14-year-old high school students who in some cases heard about media reform for the first time, as well as 30-year-old veteran student organizers."

Getting young people together for a policy conference? yawn. Progressives suck at marketing compared to the Rovian genius that sucks millions of Americans into its yaw. Progressive parents can do a lot to get their kids involved in the movement but to get most kids involved you need to have a marketing strategy and stage a multimedia event with today's top politically active bands and musicians. Keep the message short... keep it simple... keep it free. It can be done. A movement can be started on campuses across America when the marketing majors over 40 put their heads together.

DeLay angry at Law & Order, but not Boston Legal

"WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is upset that a popular NBC crime drama used his name as part of its show.DeLay wrote NBC to complain that one of the characters on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" invoked his name in a story line about the shooting death of a federal judge.

"Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt," the fictional [female] police officer [sic, detective] said.

DeLay, in a letter to NBC Universal Television chief Jeff Zucker, called that reference a "slur."

"This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse," he said.DeLay, R-Texas, criticized the federal judiciary after the courts refused to stop the death of Terri Schiavo. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," he said in a statement on March 31, hours after Schiavo died."

--snip--

It was not a trivialization of judicial security, DeLay's remarks were the insensitive remarks which appeared to open season on judges that follow the law and not DeLay.

Notice, however, when William Shatner's character, the eccentric if not unbalanced Denny Crane, said in an ABC episode, "Boston Legal": "Tom DeLay always told me to keep a gun in my office," DeLay didn't fire off a letter. While, arguably ABC's shot at DeLay was, while made by a male character, more sarcastic because Shatner's character is considered the "Boston Legal"'s less than stable legal eagle.

Message. DeLay has no sense of humor. Kathryn Erbe's character said what millions of Americans are thinking. He also doesn't understand a subversive attack on how idiotic he is. He wasn't upset that William Shatner's character said that his character, a loose cannon, takes security advice from DeLay who is a dare I say it, a loose pop gun. He also doesn't understand that he has a negative impact on the culture he so desperately wants to dictate. He has become a household word for "out of control" and an associate of "the lunatic fringe."

Of course the "Law and Order" episode ran this week when yet another DeLay associate finds himself in trouble with the law. Seems a treasurer of one of DeLay's tentacle like political action committees didn't report hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. DeLay gets that off the front page by fighting with a fictional television show.

Ask Dan Quayle how successful it was for him to fight fictional television character, Murphy Brown. You can catch Candice Bergen on "Boston Legal". There is a whole generation of young people who wouldn't know Dan Quayle if he appeared as a guest villain on "Law and Order".

Letter to Pres Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"

In addition to other statements, the letter which can be signed and e-mailed by those who so choose, contains these questions:

"As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1) Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain’’s commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to “fix” the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?"

Access the entire letter HERE.

"Love Is Blind" for real this time:

Some Viagra users report blindness-Pfizer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators said on Friday they have received more than 40 reports of a type of blindness in men taking impotence drugs, mostly involving Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra, but have not determined if the medicines were responsible.

Here's the rest of the article for those of us who can still see.

Presidents Say the Darnedest Things

May 25, 2001

“Another 3,800 sailors and Marines stand guard nearby with the Boxer amphibious ready group, deterring and mischief Saddam might contemplate. The USS Enterprise is in the Mediterranean, along with the Kearsarge amphibious ready group. They're supporting NATO efforts to maintain peace in the Balkans and deterring those who would break the peace. And in the Pacific, the USS Kitty Hawk is on call, ready, if needed, to defend America's interests.”

--George W. Bush—

Commencement Speech to Naval Academy Whitehousenewsreleases

(Note this was months before 9-11-01 but he was already talking about Saddam’s “mischief”)


Today

The Commencement Speech to Naval Academy Foxnewslink

“The U.S. military is on the offensive in the War on Terror to prevent terrorists from reaching America's shores, President Bush said Friday, adding that 20 years from now, historians will look back on the Iraq war as "America's golden moment."

(Someone please define “America’s golden moment”. Is it like the moment when we are pissing on the world?)


May 26, 2005

Rose Garden with President Abbas Whitehousereleases:

“And so I'm -- I think there's something healing about asking people to vote. And hopefully, as more people participate and more people see progress on the ground, in terms of real tangible benefits when it comes to democracy -- like being able to make a living, or being able to send your child to a school that works, or being able to get good quality health care -- that more and more people will reject the notion that the only state based upon violence is a positive state.”

--George W. Bush--

(Okay, I just tossed this one in because it’s so bush-like)

Clinton Finance Director Acquitted of Fundraising Charges

From Foxnews:

Another Clinton Hunting Trip comes back empty. How many have there been?

All those hunting trips and all they have found is a lie about a sexual encounter. Either they aren’t good hunters or there is nothing for them to find.

Friday Goddess Blogging

Some bitchy repressed scientist lady says:

"...female orgasms are simply artifacts -- a byproduct of the parallel development of male and female embryos in the first eight or nine weeks of life. ...In boys, the penis develops, along with the potential to have orgasms and ejaculate, while "females get the nerve pathways for orgasm by initially having the same body plan."

Mark Morford says:

"Woman's orgasm has no evolutionary purpose? Bull. Woman's orgasm is proof of evolution, baby. Spiritual, karmic, celestial evolution. It is what propels us forward, brings us light and awareness and deep laughing cosmic moan and makes much of life worth living. And if we lose our grip on that notion and insist on devolving at our current rate, we will be in deep trouble indeed."

Mark's got it going on.

Friday Florida Cat Blogging

Fred the Cat, Listens for the Sound of the Ocean

What do you hear when you read this sentence?

“The problem was signaled when the 9/11 attack on America did not generate the enlistments expected.”

I lifted the sentence from a piece by Robert Novak (Chicago Sun-Times).

He’s writing about recruitment being down. It’s worth reading the entire article.

I'LL BE REMEMBERING THIS STORY ON MEMORIAL DAY:

TITLE: The FBI, the Torture and Murder of Kenneth Trentadue and Advanced Knowledge of the Oklahoma City Bombing

SUBTITLE: Uncovering a DOJ Coverup

AUTHOR: Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration

OPENING PARAGRAPHS: "In 1995 Kenneth Trentadue was murdered by federal agents in a federal prison in Oklahoma City. A coverup immediately went into effect. Federal authorities claimed Trentadue, who was being held in a suicide-proof cell, had committed suicide by hanging himself, but the state coroner would not buy the story.

"Prison authorities tried to get family consent to cremate the body. But Trentadue had been picked up on a minor parole violation, and the story of suicide by a happily married man delighted with his two-month old son raised red flags to the family.

"When the Trentadue family received Kenneth's body and heavy makeup was scraped away, the evidence (available in photos on the Internet--GRAPHIC!) clearly shows a person who had been tortured and beaten. His throat was slashed and he may have been garroted. There are bruises, burns and cuts from the soles of Trentadue's feet to his head, wounds that obviously were not self-inflicted".

REST OF STORY: In Counterpunch

Slain Soldier's Mom Rejected by Gold Star

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- Everyone agrees that Ligaya Lagman is a Gold Star mother, part of the long line of mournful women whose sons or daughters gave their lives for their country. Her 27-year-old son, Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Lagman, was killed last year in Afghanistan, but American Gold Star Mothers Inc., has rejected Lagman, a Filipino, for membership because - though a permanent resident and a taxpayer - she is not a U.S. citizen. Rest of AP article:


And how do we treat our own citizens?: (From Tom Feeley at ICH)
Charge Him or Release Him
Jose Padilla : U.S. Citizen Imprisoned Without Trial or Charges
for 3 Years and 18 Days

Play Nice

What’s wrong with us? Why can’t our side ever win? I’ll tell you why. Everything that makes us liberal also makes us just too damned honest and nice. We don’t aspire to confrontations. We try to play by the rules. We aren’t comfortable telling lies. That, my dears, is why we are getting our liberal asses kicked daily. We are lying and cheating challenged.

The game is no longer played by a set of rules, but we continue to obey the rules of the old game. We all cringed when President Clinton went on TV and told us he had in fact gotten a bj. We didn’t give a good damn about what he had done, it was his lying that made us angry or sad or both. None of us saw it as the unforgivable transgression the Repubs did, but rather, damn it, he told a story, a fib, a lie. So we tried to rationalize why he did it and so forth. At least I did. I always felt his punishment was the morning he confessed to his wife. I would think that would be one of the most difficult situations any man could have to face. But see, it wasn’t enough for the Republicans. They made it the transgression of all evil transgressions, and ergo an impeachable offense. I swear that if bush had not totally screwed our country and had been even a half decent human being, and if he were to be caught lying about a bj, there is no way in hell I would think he should be impeached.

Now we are in a disastrous war that was entered into based upon, shall we say lies. We aren’t raising hell because we aren’t by nature hell raisers. Sure we spout and spurt our unhappiness about the insanity, but that’s all we do. Everything inside us knows that bush should be impeached because he has ventured out way beyond lying about sex. He lied about life and death issues. Sure he knew he was lying when he repeated information that Tenet had told him was wrong. That’s a lie. He lied. He did the very same thing that Clinton did except the stains left behind are blood stains on the sands of Iraq. That’s bush’s blue dress and the stains are only too visible.

They tell us to question the war is to tell the families of the fallen soldiers that their sons and daughters died in vain. No it’s not. To question the war is to tell the famil