Saturday, February 04, 2006

Rumsfeld gets called out & news flash Bully Boy lied us into war

Good morning, early morning. I'd intended to post early but things got messy with my brother freaking out. Big to do with the family of his wife to be and we all had to attend. He shows up after calling to ask if I'll help him pick out a tie. How bad was it? He brought four shirts. All white. Wasn't a difference between them but just convincing him of the shirt took forever. Then when he's got it and the tie, he pulls on the jacket and decides the suit's all wrong. This is the first time meeting her extended family and he was nervous.

So I get home and have Blogger problems. Can't get in. Call Rebecca and she says, "Oh, I'm not blogging for Friday because I had the same problem. Did you get an e-mail from Betty?" Nope. But Betty's written a post she's pretty pleased with and, if you know how hard Betty can be on herself, you know that's a big, big deal.

She gets it done and it won't post. "She lost it?" I ask. Nope, Rebecca called her. It's saved. She got a message telling her "Blogger is updating . . . Your post has been saved. Please publish in ten minutes." She gets that message everytime she tries to publish. For three hours straight before she gave up. If you know Betty, you know this must have been some post for her to like it because she hates everything she writes. Now she's got something she loves but she can't get it to post. Ain't it that way?

While I'm checking the e-mails, I see Elaine wrote to say she was giving up and going out. Had blogger problems too. Then I see Wally's written and I'm pretty excited because the whole Alito thing and other stuff had him pretty down and C.I. said, "Give him space and nobody pressure him about posting." So I've sent him some joke e-mails that you get, laugh and then pass around to everyone you know. Other than that, I've just been backing off, hoping he's fine and getting some rest and all.

Is he fine? Nope. He's on his way to DC. He should be there by now. In fact, by many hours ago. He wrote me before he left. I am so bummed! Wally, you bastard! :D

Kat was going for the World Can't Wait rally. And no one else was going. C.I. was all "No, don't ask me. I'm tired. I want a weekend to myself." Well that lasted until Friday morning. Wally calls C.I. to see how things are going and C.I. says, "I'm going to DC." Wally was in the mood to start back up the site and thinking of a Friday evening post (good thing he didn't try for that with all the problems) and C.I. goes, "Well, if you're rested, want to go to DC?" So Wally and Kat and C.I. are in DC. I'm so bummed! :D

I mention that to Rebecca and she says, "Holy *****, I don't ******** believe it!" Jim and Dona called her early this evening and said they were going to go and did she want to go? She said no because she was enjoying downtime. She thinks Dona, Jim, Ty, Ava and Jess are in DC too. I e-mailed Cedric but haven't heard from him yet. I wonder if he's gone too?

Rebecca goes, "Well Betty, you, Elaine and I didn't go." Yeah, but you know they are having fun!
Seriously, I hope Wally has a good time. He didn't get to go in September so this will be wild for him. And he needs something because the Alito vote really bothered him. More than any of us in some ways. It bummed him out like crazy.

So that's what's going on. Now let's do Democracy Now! and I'm pretty tired so don't know how much I can offer. Elaine and I picked out the items together but with all her problems trying to blog tonight before she just headed out and said screw it, she may not pick up these items. But you never know, so check her site Like Maria Said Paz. (After I told people to look for someone's review of Brokeback Mountain that, though promised, never posted after 17 plus days and got e-mails saying, "Mike, you said he was going to write about it!" I don't want any more crud from anyone. I thought he was going to write about it because he said he would write about it the next day. I have no idea why he hasn't posted on it or anything else for 17 days, take it up with him. But if you go to the site, you'll still see that old post saying 'I'm posting on the movie tomorrow' from 17 plus days ago.

World Can't Wait Activist Interrupts Rumsfeld Speech
And at the same press event where Rumsfeld spoke, an anti-war activist interrupted his speech. World Can’t Wait's Heather Hurwitz: "You have committed crimes against humanity and BushCommission.org and thousands are coming this weekend to drive you out of office, You and you whole administration. Step down Mr. Rumsfeld, Bush administration step down and take these programs with you. You are torturing people signing off on torture. It's happening. This world needs to wake up, stop this war, this criminal war."
Hurwitz is a member of the group World Can’t Wait. The group is convening a protest in Washington Saturday calling on the Bush administration to step down. Thousands of people are expected to attend.

Get him, Heather! Way to go! Past time he was seriously called out. I was listening to it and you can hear this guy going "shut up" to her and she didn't. And we won't. The summer of protest woke up the country and there's no going back, get used to it. Criminals will be called out. That's the way it's going to be. We're not going to be quiet and wait for Bully Boy to bring the troops home. We're going to demand it. Our numbers have grown and will keep growing and they're going to have to face the fact that they can't shut us up. Way to go, Heather!


Bush Mulled Using Spyplane Painted In UN Colors To Provoke Iraq
In other news, a newly disclosed pre-war memo shows President Bush considered painting a US spyplane in the colors of the UN and flying it into Iraqi territory to provoke Saddam Hussein into war. The idea was discussed at a meeting held with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House on January 31st 2003 -- well over a month before the US and Britain invaded Iraq. The memo also adds further credence to accusations the President was set on war regardless of UN authorization and weapons inspections. According to the memo, Bush said "the US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would: 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'." The memo continues: “But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway.'' The memo says Tony Blair agreed, but argued that "a second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected, and international cover, including with the Arabs." The memo was first revealed in the book "Lawless World", written by leading British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands.

Yeah, he lied us into war. Only an ostrich with its head buried in the sand could continue to deny it. The question now is when can we impeach? "War criminal!" Holler it with Heather!

Tony reminded me to throw in some Zirin this week, so here's Dave Zirin's "Super Bowl City on the Brink:"

That's what Washington Post sportswriter Tony Kornheiser called the National Football League's two-week long pre-Super Bowl party binge. Every Super Bowl Sunday, corporate executives and politicians exchange besotted, sodden backslaps, amidst an atmosphere that would shame Jack Abramoff. Only this year the bacchanalia -- complete with ice sculptures peeing Grey Goose vodka and two tons of frozen lobster flown directly to the stadium -- is happening in the United States' most impoverished, ravaged city: Detroit. Detroit's power elites in government and the auto industry are rolling out the red carpet while many of its people shiver in fraying rags. This contrast between the party atmosphere and abject urban suffering has been so stark, so shocking and so utterly revealing that news coverage on the city's plight has appeared in the sports pages of the New York Times and Detroit Free Press, among others.
Only a Bush speechwriter couldn't notice the gritty backdrop while limos clog the streets and escort services are flying in female reinforcements like so much shellfish. Detroit -- and there is no soft way to put this -- is a city on the edge of the abyss. Its 2005 unemployment rate was 14.1 percent, more than two and a half times the national level. Its population
has plummeted since the 1950s from over two million to fewer than 900,000, and more than one-third of its residents live under the poverty line, the highest rate in the nation. In addition, the city has in the past year axed hundreds of municipal employees, cut bus and garbage services, and boarded up nine recreation centers. As the Associated Press wrote, "Much of the rest of Detroit is a landscape dotted with burned-out buildings, where liquor stores abound but supermarkets are hard to come by, and where drugs, violence and unemployment are everyday realities."

That's the Bully Boy economy. The poor get poorer and the rich get tax cuts.

Now go read C.I.'s "On the Dangers of an Unchecked Bully Boy" (it's the thing that motivated Wally). (It'll motivate you too in a non-Tony Robinson way. :D.)










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