101 soldiers killed in October 2006 and the month isn't over.

Their names have not been released yet, but my heart is with their families.

Why are we still in Iraq?

It can't be because the society has broken down into sectarian violence, or that at one news conference, US military commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, said Iraqi security forces could assume responsibility for the whole country within 18 months, or the fact that, at another news conference, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki said that no one had the right to impose a timetable on his government. See the BBC article here for more information.

Saddam Hussein is in his cell, probably having a good laugh at the absolute fools who "liberated" Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction were never there to begin with, that we all know.

I think it boils down to is this: you break it, you bought it. Colin Powell said something similar to GWB.

Now, why are we there? What about Afganistan and the growing Taliban presence that was supposed destroyed?

If you'd like to see the total death toll for all the coalition forces and civilian deaths, the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, is a good place to start. It does not include those who died as a result of lack of decent medical car because either they couldn't get it for some reason because of this conflict. It also has pertinent news.

Who Supports Our Troops: Republicans or Democrats

Bob Geiger has the answer, and he's put it in a great table, listing grades by party. The information was garnered by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). I think they'd know who does it best, having actually served in a war theater, unlike Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld...

As a matter of fact, check out AWOLBush.com to see which prominent Democrats and Republicans actually did serve in our Armed Forces. It's an eye opener.

Hank has a job! And a Rant.

Woo hoo! Full-time, great benefits and a good schedule, so we actually see each other!

It will take a while for us to catch up on our bills (mostly my medical bills), because he still doesn't make what he used to, but at least he has a steady, fairly well paying job.

Good economy? Please. I could give a Rattus norvegicuses posterier about what the Bush Spin Machine says: unless you are already rich, the economy sucks, especially for those stuck at the minimum wage and have to work two or three jobs to barely make ends meet.

Herein begins the Rant:

There are those who have no health care, or poor health coverage.

There are those whose children are recieving poor education because No Child Left Behind.

Our natural resources are being ravaged.

We are at war because of lies, and our men and women go to combat with poor resources.

We are more at risk of terrorist attack because the "GWOT" is a political concept, not a reality.

Katrina, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina

And Darfur. Genocide.

And the list goes on.

Don't take my word. Seek out the truth for yourself. Go the the International Version of CNN, to the BBC, to other foreign papers. Watch Keith Olbermann (on MSNBC), a voice of reason in a sea of drek.

VOTE ON NOVEMBER 7TH to return

America to the ideals of our Founders!

More Republican Crap, or Bigot and Liars Show Their True Colors

I hate this. Dirty ads being tossed around by Republicans. Lies, bigotry and innuendo. For your perusal, here are some you can check out .

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker (Consistantly attacking Harold Ford, Jr. in a dispicable way, but I'm biased, I'm in Tennessee.)

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Many thanks to Jon'>Chris Bowers for compiling this list!

And for America's sake,

Vote on November 7th! It's your right to have a direct say in our democracy!

Pssst...hey Prez..don't believe everything they read to you.

I got up the sunny Saturday morning, got my Tigger mug full of diet Dr. Pepper as saw this:

Pentagon report on rise in Iraq violence undermines Bush PR campaign
Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News ServicePublished:
Saturday, September 02, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon on Friday delivered a stark assessmen of deteriorating security conditions in Iraq, describing a cesspool of sectarian violence that has skyrocketed since the formation of the country's unity government.

Warning of an "acute and disturbing" trend toward execution-style killings by Sunni and Shi'a death squads, the Pentagon reported a 51 per cent surge in the number of Iraqi civilian deaths in the last three months.

See, it's not just us "war appeasers" who want to help the Nazis who are saying the war is a gigantic mess. Go read the Canada.com article.

And yeah, I'm not surprised this headline didn't pop us in a US paper first.

Oh, and one more thing:

RUMSFELD RESIGN!

Been a long time since I've wandered into my own blog.

Familial joint hypermobility syndrome will do that to you.

Lots has happened since I've been gone. Discovery came home safe, Mel Gibson gave comedians camera fodder for months, Fidel Castro handed power over to his brother and had abdominal surgery, Lebanon got the stuffin' bombed out of it, a man was apprehended in Thailand and escorted back to the US in connection with JonBenet Ramsey's murder ten years ago, and 2500 Marines subject to the Individual Ready Reserve clause have been involuntarily recalled, some of them in their sixties.

Oh, and George Allen, in front of a slew of supporters and cameras, singled out a young man of Indian descent (an American citizen by the way) and called him a macaca. Nothing like using a racial slur at your own campaign rally. And yes, Associated Press, it is a slur, not just a macaque, which is a type of monkey.

So where do I start? I think I'll start at the upcoming anniversary of hurricane Katrina. If you have HBO, be sure to catch Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke: a Requiem in Four Acts". Unfortunately I don't have HBO but from everything I've heard it's a wonderful documentary and one that shouldn't have had to be made. There's fault go around, both before and especially after the hurricane hit. Katrina is an ongoing disaster. If it had hit a predominately white, wealthy, Republican area, I think the recovery effort would be much different.

That being said, I'll be back tomorrow. (Time to put the femur back where it belongs.)

Peace Train Slowly Chugs Ahead

(Yeah, the back problem is still a major pain, so posting is going to be infrequent...)

And now for a pop quiz:

Who said the following: "We must agree on a timed schedule to pull out the troops from Iraq, while at the same time building up the Iraqi forces that will guarantee Iraqi security and this must be supported by a United Nations Security Council decision."

A) Another Democrat, speaking out for Kerry/Feingold resolution?
B) A renegade Republican?
C) Someone seeking to embolden the terrorists and piss off Dick Cheney?
D) None of the above

You'd be wrong if you chose A or B, but I'll give you partial credit for C because I'm sure this is making Cheney stew in his own juices.

It's D, and the quote comes from a draft of the peace package arrived at by "secret talks involving Jalal al-Talabani, the Iraqi President, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador, and seven Sunni insurgent groups". This was just so interesting when I read it in the Times Online this morning.

Mr Khalilzad recently told The Times that reconciliation required "a
comprehensive strategy that has political elements, that has security elements,
and that has reintegration elements in it: decommissioning, demobilisation, and
reintegration of these forces."

The draft marks the first time the Iraqi Government has endorsed a fixed timeline for the withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq, a key demand of the Sunni insurgency. the document reads.

That certainly doesn't agree with the Administration view of how things should be done does it? This is what Dick Cheney said during his interview with John King of CNN:

KING: Let me jump in -- that one of these points here is, is it wrong -- you say it's wrong to publicly set a timetable. And I understand the argument for that. You'd cue off -- cue the terrorists to what you're going to do. Has the Iraqi government been told, privately, you need to meet certain benchmarks, training your troops, improving security, by a date certain, because the American people are not going to pay for this forever?

CHENEY: No, I think they know full well that we're expecting them to take on more and more responsibility. It's one of the reasons the president went to Baghdad recently. And all of our conversations with them, they know what we're trying to do and they've stepped up to that task and that responsibility. Fact of the matter is that obviously we've lost a lot of people. Wish we hadn't lost anybody. But the heavy casualties are being taken by the Iraqis. There are a lot more Iraqis being -- becoming casualties in this conflict at present, because they are now in a fight.

Again, I come back to the basic proposition. What happens, in the global war on terror, if United Statesates bails out on Iraq? And that's exactly what withdrawal is. You know, you're going to take your troops before the conflict is over with.

You're not going to complete the mission if we follow the Democrats' advice. And, in fact, we will have set up the situation in which the al Qaeda types can win. They have a plan to establish a caliphate that stretches from Spain all the way around to Indonesia, to kick the Americans out of the Middle East, to destroy Israel, to take down most of those regimes in that part of the world. And they will do anything they can to achieve that objective.

But ultimately, what they're betting on is that we don't have the stomach for the fight, and we can not afford to validate that strategy. We can win -- we are winning -- but we've got to stay at it.

The transcript is posted here.

The administration wanted Iraq to be a democratic government; they got what they wanted. The moral is: be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

So just how will Bush/Cheney handle this? Stay tuned.

Update: I finally checked Daily Kos and there are a couple of diaries here and here, and I'm sure John Kerry and Russ Feingold are smiling snugly, because this sure does sound like their plan, which you can check out here on Feingold's site. Republicans Lewin and probably are somewhat satisfied too; here's Lewin's site, which links to a PDF , which was really slow to load.