The Rational Radical's Weblog

Saturday, September 11, 2004

Halliburton Weighs Options as Iraq Work Changes

In recent months, the company's presence in Iraq has rapidly expanded. Halliburton has about 36,000 employees and contractors in Iraq, 8,000 more than it had six months ago.

36,000 employees there?! What a complete boondoggle.

Jack Clark 9:23 PM [+]   
Post #109496300017552607

In Cheney's Words: The Risk of 'the Wrong Choice'

[I]t's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again. That we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us

Many people justifiably went crazy at the sheer gall of Cheney's remark. His speech had another doozy as well:

The ultimate solution here is to make certain that we change the circumstances on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan so they never again become breeding grounds for the terrorists that launched those deadly attacks not only against the United States, but obviously, for the kinds of terrorist attacks that we've seen around the world.

Here, for the umpteenth time, Cheney is equating Iraq with 9/11. He knows damn well that Iraq has not been the breeding grounds for anyone connected with 9/11, nor for anyone associated with any attacks on the U.S.

Jack Clark 9:16 PM [+]   
Post #109496256899379968

Bogota Says Army Killed Union Chiefs

The attorney general's office said late Monday that Colombian soldiers assassinated three union leaders last month, an account that contrasts sharply with the army's earlier contention that the three men were Marxist rebels killed in a firefight.

...Since 2002, American military trainers have been instructing Colombian soldiers there in counterguerrilla techniques, though it is unclear if the Americans trained the unit accused of killing the union leaders.

Yeah, I'm sure we had nothing to do with it. Just like in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Chile etc etc etc.

Colombia is by far the world's most dangerous country for union members, with 94 killed last year and 47 slain by Aug. 25 this year, according to the National Union School, a research and educational center in Medellin. Most of those killings were by right-wing paramilitary leaders linked to rogue army units.

Not rouge, Mr. Reporter. SOP.

Jack Clark 9:09 PM [+]   
Post #109496219909003644

Maybe Kerry has polling or focus groups that disprove what I'm about to say, but absent that, the people running his campaign must be a bunch of morons to have him say that the money being spent in Iraq could have been used for domestic programs. That just opens him up to the dual charge of first, being a typical tax-and-spend liberal, and (even worse) second, that he doesn't understand that the war on terrorism needs to be fought vigorously and that effort will cost money. Instead of framing it like he did, Kerry should have said that the Iraq war has made us less safe, because the troops and money unnecessarily wasted in Iraq should have been used to go after bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan -- even if caught now in an October surprise, bin Laden has had three years to plan after 9/11 -- and, to increase homeland security at nuclear and chemical plants, and at our ports by inspecting all containers.

Jack Clark 8:55 PM [+]   
Post #109496160286960928

In Tight Race, Big Donors Sagely Bet on Both Horses

Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry have a disclosed worth of as much as 747 million dollars, but the most that Kerry can personally lay claim to is 14.8 million dollars of those assets. The bulk of the fortune belongs to Heinz Kerry, though the two do hold some assets jointly, says the report.

The next wealthiest household belongs to Richard and Lynn Cheney, whose personal assets together amount to as much as 111.2 million dollars.

Kerry's running mate John Edwards discloses the upper-end of his family's wealth at 44.6 million dollars, and Bush rounds out the field with some 18.9 million dollars in assets.

Even third Party Candidate Ralph Nader has as much as 4.9 million dollars, and reportedly earned more than half a million dollars last year alone through speeches and other activities.

Paupers all!

Jack Clark 9:31 PM [+]   
Post #109487710090560742

The Numbers Game: Another Iraq Distraction

Then the defense secretary, perhaps hoping to soften the impact of all those dead Americans, gave a very rare body count estimate of between 1,500 and 2,500 enemy killed in Iraq last month. By offering a body count for August, Rumsfeld violated the unwritten rule of every administration and a generation of military leaders to avoid giving such counts.

...Take the new Iraq numbers. If, as Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, has said, the total insurgent strength in Iraq is now only 5,000, and if Rumsfeld's high-end number is correct and 2,500 of the enemy were killed in August, then just one more month and the enemy will all be dead and we can go home. Right?

Would that it were so. When you fight in urban terrain, in the streets and alleyways of cities teeming with people, the killing you do today breeds new enemies tomorrow. Galloway's rule of thumb is that for every enemy you kill in a guerrilla war, you create two new ones.

You can believe the Bushian body count numbers the same way you can believe everything else they say.

Jack Clark 9:23 PM [+]   
Post #109487662452181325

Who The Hell Is "Undecided"? And Why do so Many Election Polls leave you Angry and Stupefied and Drunk?

So then, who are the people so openly duped by the gluttonous TV coverage of either of the conventions that they watch the Dems and says, wow, that Kerry fellow sure is smart and articulate and, gosh, he's even a decorated 'Nam vet, I'm voting for him.

And who then spins right around and watched Dubya cry and wave the flag and never once mention WMD or Osama and openly ignore the 1,000-plus dead American soldiers in Iraq, and who then says, oh wait, gosh, that Dubya fellow, he sure is nice and simple and plain-faced and none-too-bright and he loves war like a schoolgirl loves bubblegum. He's my man. Now turn it to 'Everybody Loves Raymond!'

The brain-dead, 5-hour-a-day-TV-watching undecideds do exist, I think, the type of feeble-minded masses who can be easily persuaded to believe whatever they heard last.

Jack Clark 9:11 PM [+]   
Post #109487589243422022

There is No Such Thing as a War on Terrorism

Here in Spain, we don't feel as if we are at war because we aren't. And neither are the inhabitants of the United States, however vociferously many Americans may insist that they are.

War is something else entirely. No semi-normal life can be led while a war is going on. The residents of Madrid who lived through the siege of their city between 1936 and 1939 know that very well. The survivors of the daily bombardments of London during World War II know it, too. And those Americans who participated in that war know it, also.

There is no war against terrorism. There can be no such thing against an enemy that remains dormant most of the time and is almost never visible. It's simply another of life's inevitable troubles, and all we can do as we continue to combat it is repeat Cervantes's famous phrase 'Paciencia y barajar': 'Have patience, and keep shuffling the cards.'

If you walk down the streets of virtually any American city or town, and ask random people if they have done anything differently today than they otherwise would have because of the "war on terrorism," the vast, vast majority would have to say "no."

Jack Clark 9:00 PM [+]   
Post #109487524369774017

As War Toll Climbs, Bush Still Deceives

Thirteen months ago, a Washington Post poll found that 69 percent of Americans believed that Saddam was 'personally involved' in Sept. 11 and 82 percent thought Saddam 'provided assistance to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network.' This overwhelming agreement was a natural result of an overwhelming public relations assault by the White House.

...The assault is still working. Despite the findings of the 9/11 Commission and a general decline in support for the war, the percentage of Americans who still believe that Saddam was involved in Sept. 11 or provided aid to Al Qaeda remains significant. In a Newsweek poll last week, 42 percent of Americans still think Saddam was "directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks." Only 44 percent say he was not directly involved, and 14 percent remain unsure. That is virtually unchanged from a June New York Times/CBS poll that found 41 percent of Americans still thought Saddam was tied to 9/11.

People in other countries of the world are not so misinformed. It's truly frightening and dangerous that the most militarily powerful nation in the world has such an ignorant citizenry.

Jack Clark 8:57 PM [+]   
Post #109487505148771524

Despair in Iraq Over the Forgotten Victims of US Invasion

Iraqi officials demanded to know yesterday why so little international attention was being given to their numerous dead as the US mourned the death of 1,000 soldiers since the invasion of Iraq.

'When I heard on television that the Americans had lost 1,000 military killed in Iraq, I asked myself, what about our side? What is the number of Iraqis who have died?' said Dr Amer al-Khuzaie, an Iraqi deputy health minister.

The Brave Posturing of Armchair Warriors

The White House has tried to distract the news media from dwelling on the milestone of 1,000 American deaths in Iraq. Meanwhile, the lethal toll among Iraqi civilians is a media abstraction. In the U.S. press, those victims -- far more numerous and no less precious to their loved ones -- go uncounted and unnamed.

And each one of those Iraqi civilians killed or maimed has 5-10-20 relatives who will then take up arms against us.

Jack Clark 8:51 PM [+]   
Post #109487469598458935

The Next Shock: Not Oil, but Debt

From 1988 to 2000, the ratio of nonfinancial debt to gross domestic product held steady at about 1.8 to 1...

From the beginning of 2001 to the end of 2003, the economy added $1.317 trillion in gross domestic product and $4.2 trillion in debt.

That means that each new dollar of economic output was accompanied by $3.19 in new debt. So now, for the first time, the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio stands at more than two to one.

I don't usually pay too much attention to these kind of stats, but these latest numbers made even me sit up and take notice. This is self-destructive economic lunacy, isn't it?

Jack Clark 5:52 PM [+]   
Post #109486396071511399

The Hidden History of CIA Torture: America's Road to Abu Ghraib

The CIA's torture experimentation of the 1950s and early 1960s was codified in 1963 in a succinct, secret instructional booklet on torture -- the 'KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation' manual, which would become the basis for a new method of torture disseminated globally over the next three decades. These techniques were first spread through the U.S. Agency for International Development's Public Safety program to train police forces in Asia and Latin America as the front line of defense against communists and other revolutionaries. After an angry Congress abolished the Public Safety program in 1975, the CIA worked through U.S. Army Mobile Training Teams to instruct military interrogators, mainly in Central America.

...[T]he sensory deprivation techniques, stress positions, and cultural shock of dogs and nudity that we saw in those photos from Abu Ghraib were plucked from the pages of past CIA torture manuals.

Unlike most Americans, people all over the world know these things and that is one of the reasons why the Bush administration has become so despised all over the world. If we don't kick him out of office, that hatred will soon attach to us all, as a nation.

Jack Clark 5:42 PM [+]   
Post #109486332803652971

Dick Cheney: Vice President of the Apocalypse

Cheney's Cold War obsessions have frequently placed him on the wrong side of history, causing him to misread the geopolitical realities of regions around the world -- and of the key players within them. This is the man who was so certain that the African National Congress was a dangerous group that he regularly voted, as a member of Congress in the 1980s, against House resolutions calling for the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners in South Africa. While leading conservative Republicans such as Jack Kemp were hailing Mandela as an iconic fighter for freedom and racial justice, Cheney continued to decry the ANC as 'a terrorist organization' and to dismiss its leaders as threatening radicals.

...[W]hy would anyone else treat Cheney seriously? Why would the press repeat his over-the-top charges without noting that Dick Cheney has a track record of reading the world wrong, imagining threats where they do not exist and neglecting real dangers? Why would it go unmentioned that the man who is questioning John Kerry's judgement thought Nelson Mandela was a terrorist?

Cheney is a true piece of work.

Jack Clark 5:32 PM [+]   
Post #109486274414912978

Apocalypse Bush! Why Care for the Planet When the End Times are Almost Here? Vote Bush and Hop On the Salvation Train!  There may well be more than a grain of truth here.

Jack Clark 9:34 PM [+]   
Post #109479085923986037

Last night O'Reilly had a segment in which the topic was whether the U.S. should have universal health care. O'Reilly, in his typical (faux?) selfish, cruel fashion, went on and on about how if someone eats too much and gets fat, or drinks, or uses drugs, O'Reilly doesn't want to pay for his medical care. Eventually he sort of agreed that children should be guaranteed medical care, and maybe everyone else as a safety net if they can't afford private insurance. Well, at least he allowed the subject to be discussed, for what I think was the first time ever as a full segment topic on his show. If it has been discussed other times, it's few and far between, compared to how much attention he gives to other topics certainly more important to the well-being of average Americans, like Jesse Jackson's tax returns or a porn film being shot on a state college campus.

Jack Clark 3:54 PM [+]   
Post #109477050530212227

Iraq War Heating Up

An American military official said Monday that American soldiers and their allies were attacked an average of 87 times each day in August, the highest such figure since American and British forces deposed Saddam Hussein and his government 17 months ago.

Does the American public know this, or even care? What's the big deal, after all? It's only our own sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who are being killed and maimed. Why should we pay any attention, or throw out of office on his head the cruel, evil figurehead named W who created this situation?

Jack Clark 3:43 PM [+]   
Post #109476979546808243

In an Old Coal Town, the Old Party Labels Are Faded

Sharon Alfman, the cook at the little County Seat Diner here, might seem to be a likely John Kerry supporter. She has voted Democratic most of her life. She has no health insurance through the diner, and her husband's insurance ran out after he was on disability for more than a year. But she already knows that she is going to vote for President Bush.

..."Kerry doesn't know what the working-class people do; he hasn't done any physical labor all his life," said Mrs. Alfman, who gets up at 4 a.m. to start her job. "Bush's values are middle-class family values."

Yes, Bush has a solid working-class background, and has certainly done physical labor all his life. Bush's values are definitely middle-class. God help us all!! I hope this brain-damaged, pathetic moron and the rest of those who think like her get hit with the full brunt of Bushian policies if he's re-elected. It will serve her and the other f****ing imbeciles right to get what they wish for.

Jack Clark 3:40 PM [+]   
Post #109476960014565930

Kerry Wants Broader Effort by Bush on Crisis in Sudan

Senator John Kerry called on President Bush on Thursday to take the lead in stopping the killing of civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan by declaring it a genocide, pushing for tough United Nations sanctions on the government, backing the deployment of an international force and raising money for relief aid.

Thank God someone's calling for these immediate measures, instead of that idiotic investigation into whether it's "genocide" or not.

Jack Clark 3:32 PM [+]   
Post #109476920923202443

Plan to Tame Journalists Just Stirs Them Up in Brazil

A plan by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to create a national journalists' council to regulate Brazil's boisterous press has prompted mounting criticism here. News organizations that would be affected by the bill call it the most serious threat to freedom of expression here since a right-wing military dictatorship was toppled two decades ago.

What's wrong with Lula?

Jack Clark 3:23 PM [+]   
Post #109476860835933576

Estrich Talking Sense for a Change

You can't just answer the charges. You can't just say it ain't so.

You have to fight fire with fire, mud with mud, dirt with dirt.

The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we're not mean enough. Dukakis wasn't. I wasn't. I don't particularly like destroying people. I got into politics because of issues, not anger. But too much is at stake to play by Dukakis rules, and lose again.

That is the conclusion Democrats have reached. So watch out. Millions of dollars will be on the table. And there are plenty of choices for what to spend it on.

And she lists some of them. Maybe now she won't feel inclined to tell Sean Hannity, one of the prime spreaders of the vicious lies about Kerry, how much she loves him.

Jack Clark 9:11 PM [+]   
Post #109470308932581575

More advice for Kerry:

• Call the war "Bush's Folly"
• Stop repeating the phrase "this president" because it unnecessarily elevates Bush each time. Just say George Bush.
• Advertisement: Bush on the aircraft carrier deck grinning in his spiffy flight suit/shot of "Mission Accomplished" sign/fade to black/show lettering: "1002 Dead American Soldiers"/taps play/fade again/show lettering: Bush. Wrong Then. Wrong Now. Wrong for America.
  
  

Jack Clark 8:45 PM [+]   
Post #109470171553854241

Kerry Is Back in the Race, Latest Poll Says  Whew!

Jack Clark 1:24 PM [+]   
Post #109467507720159187

Advice for Kerry:

• Call them "Swift Boat Liars for Bush"
• Regarding Kerry's 1971 testimony: spokespeople need to make clear that there were two types of war crimes Kerry was speaking about in Vietnam: first, one-on-one atrocities like torture, mutilation, killing, etc. The second type is official army policies at the time which violated the Geneva Convention: search and destroy missions, free-fire zones. This second type is the one where he painted with the broadest brush, and deservedly so.
• Iraq vote: how to succinctly sum up his pro-authorization vote: "I authorized George Bush to go to war if we had to, not just because he wanted to." (maybe Kerry has already been saying this)
• Iraq: when Kerry says the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place, he needs to also connect the dots, and make explicit: imagine how much better off, how much safer we would be now, if instead of sending 130,000 troops and $200 billion to Iraq, we had used even half those resources to track down and capture bin Laden and destroy the rest of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Not to mention secure our ports, chemical plants and nuclear facilities. Instead, George Bush diverted and wasted these resources for an unnecessary war in Iraq, which has made us less, not more safe: bin Laden is still at large, the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al Qaeda has regrouped all over the world.
• bin Laden capture: if bin Laden is captured, Kerry should say that because of the Bush's diversion of resources to Iraq, bin Laden has had three full years to plan attacks upon us that he shouldn't have had.

Jack Clark 9:31 PM [+]   
Post #109461810760738632

'Snarlin' Marlin' urges Democrats: Don't be 'me-too' Republicans

'I want to remind you,' he said, 'that it was Democrats who gave us Social Security and Medicare. It was liberals and labor unions who gave us the eight-hour day, five-day week, employer-paid health care, improvements in worker's compensation and unemployment insurance. It was liberals and Democrats who provided auto safety, drug safety, consumer protection, Earth Day and clean air and water, and it was Democrats who gave veterans the first mortgage home loan program and increases in student grants and loans in our universities.'

Exactly the reason the commie dems should be defeated, before the US turns totally commie.

Jack Clark 9:13 PM [+]   
Post #109461683024457128

Iraq and the Crisis of Empire  One of the best short pieces I've seen summarizing the US history of empire-building and the horrendous results for the subjects of said empire.

Jack Clark 9:09 PM [+]   
Post #109461657734393647

The Unwinnable War

Citizens of the United States are a decent, fair-minded people. The only reason we tolerate what is being done in our name in Iraq is that...[t]hinking of ourselves as only motivated by good intentions, we cannot fathom the possibility that... what we are doing is murder on a vast scale.

Gee, poor unable-to-fathom Americans. Puh-leeze!

Jack Clark 9:00 PM [+]   
Post #109461604510797219

Oil slides as Saudis cut prices  Looks like payback from the Saudi royal family to the Bush royal family.

Jack Clark 8:50 PM [+]   
Post #109461544634885459

All the talk of Kerry being such a great come-from-behind artist, misses a big point: when he came from behind against Weld, that was in Massachusetts which has a largely liberal population, and when he came from behind against Dean in Ohio, again, that was among decidedly liberal Democratic primary voters. To get liberals to come back to him is one thing; to get "middle America" swing voters to come back to him may be quite another.

Jack Clark 8:02 PM [+]   
Post #109461265230098729

Saravia GUILTY

Audience members hugged and others shed tears after a federal judge in Fresno ruled Friday that a man thought to have lived in Modesto was responsible for the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.

Judge Oliver W. Wanger found Alvaro Rafael Saravia liable in a civil lawsuit for crimes against humanity and for an extrajudicial killing or killings not authorized by law in a civilized society.

One down, thousands to go, including Ronald Reagon posthumously, Oliver North, Elliott Abrams, the whole gang of those mass-murdering thugs.

Jack Clark 9:40 PM [+]   
Post #109453202570698928

Sick of Work: Always on the Job, Employees Pay With Health

American workers are stressed out, and in an unforgiving economy, they are becoming more so every day.

Sixty-two percent say their workload has increased over the last six months; 53 percent say work leaves them 'overtired and overwhelmed.'

...Workplace stress costs the nation more than $300 billion each year in health care, missed work and the stress-reduction industry that has grown up to soothe workers and keep production high, according to estimates by the American Institute of Stress in New York.

... American workers are not the only ones grappling with escalating stress and ever greater job demands. European companies are changing once-generous vacation policies, and stress-related illnesses cost England 13 million working days each year, one British health official said.

"It's an issue everywhere you go in the world," said Dr. Guy Standing, the lead author of "Economic Security for a Better World," a new report from the International Labor Office, an agency of the United Nations.

The powers that be are putting the screws on everyone else all over the world. Isn't it disgusting that as technology advances, so that theoretically people could work less but still have better lives, materially and otherwise, that the opposite is occuring? The reason: the greed of those at the top, which has ever-easier global reach in which to effect its evil.

Jack Clark 9:35 PM [+]   
Post #109453173421851467

Would it be wrong of me to maintain that GOP in reality stands for Greedy Old Pricks? Yes it would. Because not all of those greedy pieces of shit are men.

Jack Clark 9:29 PM [+]   
Post #109453143688353099

St. Louis Cleric Softens Stand on Voting by Catholics

The archbishop of St. Louis, who has said he would deny the sacrament of Communion to Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, because he supports abortion rights, now says Roman Catholics may vote for such candidates under certain circumstances.

Archbishop Raymond Burke said Catholic voters must believe that the candidate's position on other moral issues outweighs the abortion-rights stance, but said it would be a grave sin to vote for an abortion-rights candidate because of that position.

How nice of the Archbishop to elucidate us all further on his twisted thinking. Perhaps he would even dare to reveal what are the "other moral issues" he had in mind? Perhaps those contained in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats?

Jack Clark 9:29 PM [+]   
Post #109453134439965664

Missile Defense to Tie US to Iraq, Afghanistan, Caspian, Experts Warn

A key component of national missile defense, whose development is receiving priority this year, is likely to strategically tie the United States to Iraq , Afghanistan and some of the authoritarian former Soviet republics, requiring permanent US military bases there, according to officials and scientists involved in the project.

The attractiveness of boost phase interceptors lies in their ability to shoot down ascending missiles, whose massive heat signature makes them easier targets, before they release their multiple warheads.

Another undisclosed reason for the the Iraq war and our cozying up to the brutal dictatorships running the former Soviet republics.

Jack Clark 9:19 PM [+]   
Post #109453075134168257

Iraq Extends al-Jazeera Ban and Raids Offices  Ah, the democratic wonders of a U.S.-installed puppet government.

Jack Clark 9:17 PM [+]   
Post #109453065813090126

White House Blocked Probe of Sept. 11-Saudi Link: Top US Senator

Florida Senator Bob Graham, the Democrat who co-chaired Congress's probe into the September 11 attacks, wrote that Saudi government agents were part of a support network in the United States for two hijackers who took part in the devastating strikes, the Miami Herald reported Sunday.

Let's just hope that some of the filthy, rotten stink from the Bush family-Saudi royal family connection is convincingly revealed to the public before Nov. 2, even far beyond the exposure of Farenheit 911.

Jack Clark 9:15 PM [+]   
Post #109453053290683544

How Clinton Could Still Campaign

Ex-president Bill Clinton's Labor Day quadruple heart bypass surgery is expected to take just four or five hours, but Democrats fear a lengthy recuperation period could leave the party's top campaigner and fund-raiser sidelined until the election is over.

Even if Clinton can't go around in person, it would still be a big draw, and maybe touchingly effective, for Clinton to campaign from his recuperative site on a big screen at Kerry rallies.

Jack Clark 9:13 PM [+]   
Post #109453039323318151

Heads in the Sand

When asked this week on CNN how long the U.S. military is likely to remain in Iraq, Senator John McCain replied 'probably' 10 or 20 years. 'That's not so bad,' he said, adding, 'We've been in Korea for 50 years. We've been in West Germany for 50 years.'

Reporters have come to expect candor from Senator McCain, and in this case he didn't disappoint.

...If Senator McCain is correct (and the belief in official Washington is that he is), then boys and girls who are 5 or 10 years old now will get their chance in 2015 or 2020 to strap on the Kevlar and engage the Iraqi 'insurgents' who, like the indigenous forces we fought in Vietnam, will never accept the occupation of their country by America.

If you've got kids, this must be a comforting thought. Be sure to go vote for Bush.

Jack Clark 10:55 PM [+]   
Post #109445012980881561

SAUDI ARABIA: 3 KILLED IN STAMPEDE AT IKEA OPENING Three people died and 17 were injured in a stampede on the opening day of an Ikea store in Jidda, security officials said. The opening and a promotional discount offered to the first 250 people in line drew more than 8,000 people to the doors of the home furnishings store, a company executive said. Some shoppers had arrived the night before and camped out. Once the doors opened, the crowd surged forward, causing the stampede. (AP)

Saudi Arabia is one screwed up country.

Jack Clark 10:50 PM [+]   
Post #109444982291444709

In Western Sudan, Fear Is the Ever-Growing Enemy

The United Nations has issued the Arab-led government of Sudan a stark ultimatum: show evidence of improved security for the black African tribes of the vast western region called Darfur, or face the consequences - among them, possibly economic sanctions.

Wow, after all these thousands of deaths, we threaten the government with possible economic sanctions. Pretty tough. As this eminently sensible ad asks, where is Bush on this?

Jack Clark 10:48 PM [+]   
Post #109444972368600472

McCain Calls Swiftboat Ads Garbage

'If they question Kerry's medals,' he said, 'they question everybody's medals. All those men who found it so hard to come home, who found so little gratitude for their sacrifices when they got here, are going to feel mistreated again. The families of the people whose names are on the monument in Washington will feel wronged, too. The painful wounds we all worked so hard to close will all be reopened.

'We've got to get that garbage off the air as soon as we can.'

Even McCain has now turned Commie.

Jack Clark 10:43 PM [+]   
Post #109444942506979727

Bush's National Guard File Missing Records

Documents that should have been written to explain gaps in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service are missing from the military records released about his service in 1972 and 1973, according to regulations and outside experts.

Why the heck has it taken until now for this info to surface? Will the true story get out in time to influence the election? Stay tuned...

Jack Clark 10:16 PM [+]   
Post #109444777026567674

Medicare Premiums to Rise 17 Percent

Medicare premiums for doctor visits will rise 17 percent next year, the Bush administration said Friday. The $11.60-a-month increase

So what? Let the damn old people pay for their own health care.

Jack Clark 10:09 PM [+]   
Post #109444738347755942

U.S. Troops in Iraq See Highest Injury Toll Yet

About 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas.

You certainly saw this fact prominently reported on the news, right?

Jack Clark 1:29 PM [+]   
Post #109441614829581980