Fired!!!

That's right, folks, they fired me.

Who's hiring?

Ok, ok, here's the deal. I cannot pinpoint one exact reason they fired me, but here's the gist.

First off, I work very hard, and the guy I worked with doesn't. It was a bad mix because I always had the upper hand. Rather than work harder, he did the opposite, he complained more and more about me. Apparently there are people who think he has real talent. I am not one of them. He's a pretty vacant guy with a good voice he has no depth.

Second, the station was pissed at me for a bunch of drastic decisions that I made, and that falls on me. Would I not make them again? Can't say I wouldn't. I did what was right by me. I do wish, however, that I had tried to achieve the same ends but in a different way.

For those who have heard me talk about my situation, my boss Bruce Johnson went to bat for me countless times, and I imagine at the end of the day he could no longer. It's too bad. For those that know who he is as the voice of RU Hoops, etc., he's a great fucking dude. If I regret anything it's the times where I dicked him over, but still, those are choices I made.

Jay on the other hand, is a gutless, spineless, loser who will fall on his face, and I will chuckle. It's really too bad because I've known that station for years, and there are a lot of people there who I want to do well, but I don't see the brightest future for the station. Remember, it's local radio, and I was BORN THERE!

Anyone who knows the show can see why it worked. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they will do tremendous radio. Who knows? But at the end of the day I was the hardest worker, and didn't deserved to be blind-sided, and fired.

Third, the station asked me to compromise what I do; in essence taylor myself around Jay. Please. PLEASE! A bigoted, know nothing, chauvinist, that's where I should lower myself? Okay. I really did try to make it work, but every day I'd come in with a positive attitude, and then right from the get go this guy would bring me down with his complaints about the station, management, the callers, the content, his wife, his kids, his other jobs, his health, and on and on and on. LIKE I NEED TO DEAL WITH THAT? Sorry, I tried, but it was NOT possible. If people only knew.

Fourth, I'm really furious that they didn't even give me the option of moving to a different day part, even if not on-air, at least to keep my benefits. Like someone who works as hard as I do should be fired? It's totally insulting, and says a lot about the type of people that would do that. Plus, a lot of people rely on my Sunday show because it's something you get nowhere else. And yet, they even took that away, which is insane because I was paid on a per show basis like the other weekends hosts. There was a fear that I'd throw the station under the bus. As much as I'd like to do that it would make no sense since it was the only rope I had to get me across the river. It's another bad decision.

I am certainly responsible for part of what happened, but not even close compared to those who never saw my talent for what it is. There was never a movement to make me better, or give me tools to succeed. It was always about me being the pseudo-boss of me, and the show I was on, keeping it on message, etc. I understand why that is since the station has been hanging on financially forever, and we had few tools to work with. But at the end of the day I did what was right. I said the right things, I was honest, and can look myself in the mirror without questioning my actions.

I'm not worried at all. I appreciate all of you calling me, and writing me, but the overwhelming response from everyone is one that is positive, and that's why I'm just lucky, period. I have the best friends (and enemies) in the world, and your confidence in me will never allow me to get down. If I didn't have you people, I'd have nothing. Yeah, it's a bit sappy, but I mean every fucking word.

It just sucks that the election is so close and, well, it's just a shame...

Compassion

Overtime Pay:

The House voted 223-193 Thursday to block the Bush administration's sweeping new eligibility rules for overtime pay, giving Democrats a significant victory that they hope will boost the party's standing among middle-class voters in key states in the fall election.

Twenty-two pro-labor Republicans, most of them from the North and Midwest, joined a solid bloc of Democrats voting to prevent the Labor Department from enforcing the regulations, which took effect Aug. 23.

22 Pro Labor? AKA, 22 bullshit artist up for reelection, I'd bet. Lets talk about the 193 Republicans who want to take away the pay. Can we do that?

Mainstream Porn

How did this happen?:

Can there be any doubt that the middle of the road isn't where it used to be? The formerly outré, freaky and unthinkable now constitute business as usual in popular culture. And these have become outright selling points for books that eagerly capitalize on their kinks. Although the celebrity autobiography is a genre that might be deemed obscene by definition, it takes on a whole new meaning with Jenna Jameson perched high on the best-seller list.

Trust me, I don't mind.

What a Dick

How come Dick Cheney gets to lie over and over about Iraq yet the media doesn't talk about it, or call him a liar?:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday that Saddam Hussein had given "safe harbor" to members of Al-Qaida when he ruled Iraq, reviving a debate about the nature of the former Iraqi leader's contacts with the terror network.

Speaking to about 400 Republicans at a convention center in Cincinnati, Cheney defended the U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying Saddam had ignored U.N. Security Council resolutions and had used chemical weapons against his own people.

Cheney added that Saddam had "provided safe harbor and sanctuary to terrorists for years ... and had provided safe harbor and sanctuary as well for Al-Qaida."

Lets imagine if Al Gore did this...

C'mon, Stop It

The Washington Times is concerned that John Kerry isn't answering questions from the press:

Today marks the one-month point since Sen. John Kerry last answered questions from reporters traveling with him on the campaign trail.

The last time the Democratic presidential nominee took questions from them was Aug. 9 on the edge of the Grand Canyon, when the small traveling press pool accompanying him was allowed to ask eight questions.

And the last time Mr. Kerry held a full-fledged press conference where he faced questions from the entire corps of national reporters covering his campaign was Aug. 2 in Grand Rapids, Mich. He took two questions then.

That's funny. The article goes on to mention that Kerry plans to give a press conference a month since he has "nothing to hide."

I wonder where the Washington Times has been for 3 years as Bush avoided the media. And, when was the last time Bush spoke to the press?

bin Who?

USATODAY:

"We just don't know where Osama is," Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao says.

The noose is tightenining.

Opposite an Idiot

Amazing stuff. I get to watch first hand as a clueless conservative starts running with the Killian forgery story right from the get go.

I have a very hard time believing this wasn't a setup.

Throughout the day you'll hear Republicans making claims that Democrats, or worse, John Kerry is attached to this story. Find me the story wherein John Kerry is ranting about this issue beyond repeating a news story, if he even does that.

How does someone get into the personal files of another person, yet no one knows who that person is? It shouldn't be hard to get to the bottom of this, and I would suspect that the people at the bottom are the same people who have been lying for years.

Darfur

US declares situation in Sudan genocide:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell declared Thursday that the United States viewed the killings, rapes and destruction of homes in the Darfur region of western Sudan as genocide, and he called on the United Nations Security Council to recognize that the situation required urgent action.

While the declaration has no immediate effect on the role or obligations of the United Nations, said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for the Secretary General, Kofi Annan, it could be viewed as tantamount to invoking Article 8 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide - the first time that any nation had invoked that provision calling upon the United Nations to take action.

Good on the one hand since evoking genocide has never been an easy thing, but at the same time, politically timed. We fear the Arabs.

Nice

NYTIMES:

Army jailers in Iraq, acting at the Central Intelligence Agency's request, kept dozens of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities off official rosters to hide them from Red Cross inspectors, two senior Army generals said Thursday. The total is far more than had been previously reported.

An Army inquiry completed last month found eight documented cases of so-called ghost detainees, but two of the investigating generals said in testimony before two Congressional committees and in interviews on Thursday that depositions from military personnel who served at the prison indicated that the real total was many times higher.

Winning the peace.

Fact or Fiction?

There are swirling rumors that the Killian Memos are fabrications because the font used was not available in the 70s, and could not be manufactured via typewriter, etc. There are other questions as well. Of course, the Weekly Standard and other conservative outlets are running with this, hardcore.

True or false, I don't know. 60 Minutes and CBS, as per norm, keep their sources anonymous, as they have the right to do.

However, none of this exhonerates the President in any way.

Lets assume they're false. Does that explain the President's complete inability to tell us where he was during his missing days, why he didn't take his physical exam, and that being so, how he received an honorable discharge? In addition, he still lies about how he got his space in the TEXANG by continually saying there was an "available space for a pilot."

So whatever happens, I expect the conservatives to run with the bullshit, and ignore the fact that Bush "chose to better himself" and not "shoot his ear off" instead of serving his country in war, of fulfilling his responsibilites.

He's no more responsible today than he was then.

Ayman

makes a tape:

In a videotape made public ahead of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's chief deputy claimed Thursday the United States was on the brink of defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With an assault rifle leaning on the wall behind him, Ayman al-Zawahri said, ``The defeat of America in Iraq and Afghanistan has become a matter of time, with God's help. ...The Americans in both countries are between two fires, if they continue they bleed to death and if they withdrew they loose everything.''

Okay, Osama, alive or dead? Between the kidney problems, weather, travel, etc., I think he's long gone.

Free Music

Jambase.com has added a Jukebox. It's in the early stages, but don't let that stop you from checking it out. Tis on the right side of the page. All one needs to do is click.

Besides, we're approaching the weekend, so make plans/go see live music.

60 Minutes

Last night's 60 minutes with Ben Barnes wasn't anything new. TNR's Ryan Lizza points out what was new, and important:

The second part of CBS's story is where there was actual news. CBS obtained four documents from the personal papers of Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, Bush's Texas National Guard squadron commander. These memos tell a fascinating story about the struggle of a by-the-book commander caught between a self-important young pilot trying to cut corners and wriggle out of the rest of his Guard commitment, and superiors who seem all too willing to let the privileged son of a Texas VIP bend the rules.

In the first memo, Bush is ordered to report for his annual physical within ten days. He doesn't show up, and a few days after the deadline passes Bush calls Killian. According to Killian's notes, they "[d]iscussed options of how Bush can get out of coming to drill from now through November." They discussed the possibility of Bush transferring to Alabama. And what about taking that physical? Maybe Bush will get to it after he transfers. "He has this campaign to do," Killian writes, "and other things that will follow and may not have the time."

To me, the most overlooked and most important new detail in these memos comes next. Killian writes, "I advised him of our investment in him and his commitment." It's often forgotten that even if Bush had gone off to Alabama and served honorably by showing up for all his drills, he was still walking out on a sworn commitment he made to the Guard. The government spent a vast sum of money training Bush to become a Texas Air National Guard pilot, a highly coveted position in 1968 that saved Bush from Vietnam, and in return Bush promised he would fly for the Guard for as long as possible. Don't believe it? Here's the sworn statement Bush signed when he started his service:


**I, George Walker Bush, upon successful completion of pilot training plan to return to my unit and fulfill my obligation to the utmost of my ability. I have applied for pilot training with the goal of making flying a lifetime pursuit and I believe I can best accomplish this to my own satisfaction by serving as a member of the Air National Guard for as long as possible.**

That's what Killian meant when he advised Bush of "our investment and his commitment." But Killian, the memos show, starts to realize that his moral suasion is useless. Bush has already started maneuvering around him and Killian knows he's getting rolled. "I told him I had to have written acceptance before he would be transferred," he writes, "but think he's also talking to someone upstairs."

In the next memo Bush is "suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet annual physical examination (flight) as ordered." This is the first time any official document has reported that Bush was suspended for any reason other than simply missing his physical. It's also clear in this memo that Bush has completely abandoned the idea of ever flying again. "Officer has made no attempt to meet his training certification or flight physical," the memo says. Bush even asked for a non-flying assignment. Incredibly, Killian recommends that the Texas spot abandoned by Bush--the one that with Barnes's help Bush had won by leapfrogging ahead of hundreds of other applicants--be filled by a pilot returning from combat in Vietnam. Not only did someone else get shipped off to Vietnam when Bush landed his Guard duty, but once Bush was bored with flying and abandoned his spot, a pilot returning from Vietnam was forced to replace him.

In the final Killian memo, the one with the subject line "CYA" (cover your ass), the commander makes cryptic references to a struggle with his superiors over how much slack to cut Bush, who hadn't been observed in Texas for a year. "Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job," Killian writes. According to the Associated Press, Staudt and Hodges are Waleter B. Staudt, the commander of the Texas National Guard at the time, and Lieutenant Cololnel Bobby Hodges, one of Bush's superiors. Staudt, Killian wrote, was "pushing to sugar coat" the evaluation. Killian complains that Bush wasn't around and there's no word from Alabama about what he's been doing. He makes a small concession to the pressure he's feeling from his bosses but refuses a full cover up for Bush. "I'll backdate," he writes, "but won't rate."

I'd love to know what happened to the pilot who replaced him, for shits and giggles.

I think going to Canada, or Mexico, was a braver act than what Bush did. At least those people broke the law and displayed civil disobedience. They were willing to be arrested! Bush wouldn't have to deal with such things. He just took favors, and didn't even care to honor a position many men were willing to maim themselves for. What a huge asshole.

RU Rah Rah

Vote for Rutgers. :)

Now

Live for today, bitches!:

US central bank chief Alan Greenspan has said the economy is emerging from a summer lull despite soaring oil prices.
Mr Greenspan told a Congressional panel that economic growth had "regained some traction" in recent weeks.

He said that business investment and manufacturing output were on the rise, while the pace of new job creation had picked up in August.

but then:

However, he warned that the US public finances were set to "deteriorate substantially" in the years ahead unless current spending policies changed.

So if you're soon to be a corpse, or not concerned with the future, Bush is your guy, for sure, as is Greenspan.

What's It Costing You?

Cost of the War.

Coincidence

John Kerry said yesterday that the rest of the world has a stake in what's going on, and that we need to act with them. He's so dumb and wrong.:

A powerful car bomb exploded outside the gates of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday, killing seven people and wounding nearly 100 in an attack police blamed on al-Qaida-linked terrorists.

The blast flattened the embassy's gate, mangled cars on the busy commercial street and shattered the windows of nearby high-rise buildings. Dazed survivors desperately tried to locate colleagues and relatives.

"I can't find my family," said Suharti, who had eight relatives working in the mission. "I am terrified. I don't know where they are."

See! It's just us.

My Fantasy

Had my draft last night. 8 teams, auction style. Starters:

Michael Vick
Kevin Jones
Quentin Griffin/Chris Brown
Marvin Harrison
Terrell Owens
Santana Moss/Jerry Porter
Alge Crumpler
Jay Feely
Cowboys D

Wanted to go with a new idea: WRs over RBs, and Scooper fucked me on Fred Taylor.

The World

Polled:

A poll of 34,330 adults in 35 countries released yesterday confirmed the global unpopularity of U.S. President George W. Bush, with respondents in only three of the countries saying they would prefer to see him re-elected to a second term on Nov. 2.

In 30 countries, including Canada, Kerry was the runaway choice and in two other countries the verdict was split, according to a study for the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.

I think it's obvious that all these countries would choose to be attacked by terrorists.

Hmmm

Slowly hurting him:

Colonel Killian wrote in another report, dated Aug. 1, 1972, that he ordered Lieutenant Bush "suspended from flight status" because he failed to perform to standards of the Air Force and Texas Air National Guard and "failure to meet annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."

Colonel Killian also wrote in a memo that his superiors were forcing him to give Lieutenant Bush a favorable review, but that he refused.

Ask yourself, why does someone avoid taking a physical. If you guessed "coke using, heavy drinking, pill popping and lazy" well, you'd probably be right. However, if you used the Cheney line, "I had other priorities" well that too would be right.

Compassion

NYTIMES:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - Despite widespread popular support, the federal law banning the sale of 19 kinds of semiautomatic assault weapons is almost certain to expire on Monday, the result of intense lobbying by the National Rifle Association and the complicated election-year politics of Washington.

While President Bush has expressed support for legislation extending the ban and has said he would sign it into law, he has not pressured lawmakers to act, leading critics to accuse him of trying to have it both ways.

Efforts to renew the ban, which polls show is supported by at least two-thirds of Americans, have faltered this year on Capitol Hill. Democrats are well aware that they lost control of the House of Representatives in 1994, the year President Bill Clinton signed the original legislation, and have shied away from the issue of gun control, while Republican leaders have opposed the ban.

"I think the will of the American people is consistent with letting it expire, so it will expire," Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said on Wednesday.

The House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, dismissed the ban as "a feel-good piece of legislation" and said flatly that it would expire Monday, even if Mr. Bush made an effort to renew it.

Nice.

1 for 600

I mean, afterall, he was an "A-Rab" or a "Pak" which is pretty much a crime, unless you're a Saudi A-Rab, then it's a free ticket into the oval office:

The Pentagon has determined for the first time that one of the nearly 600 Guántanamo Bay prisoners was improperly held by the United States as an "enemy combatant" and will be released to his home country, the U.S. Navy said Wednesday. Navy Secretary Gordon England refused to identify the prisoner or his nationality, but said a military panel at the U.S. naval base at Guántanamo Bay, Cuba, had determined the man was not an enemy combatant, the status under which the Pentagon has held foreign terrorism suspects at the remote base. England, in charge of the process, said the Pentagon has asked the State Department to arrange for the man's return to his home country within days or weeks. A Pentagon spokeswoman said the man was captured in May 2002 in Afghanistan.

Jokes aside, I'm sure there's at least 10-12 terrorists in this crew, but seriously, why does it take YEARS to figure this out? Is this not hurting us in the "war on terror?" Another thing, what % of these men are opium farmers who aid the drug war? Remember, the "War on Drugs?"

It is said the Afghan illegal economy is now 1/2 the size of the legitimate economy over there. Do you think the drug question ever comes up?

Tell ya little secret about the "War on Terror": it's a war against us. The Patriot Act is like the size of the Old Testament, yet it was produced in like 4 minutes. Coincidence? The people conducting this war to not care for our system of government at all. They started with courts before 9/11, and now it's just a little piece of paper called THE CONSTITUTION. Geneva Accords, please, Ashcroft reads them daily from his other office. He then takes pieces off, wipes his ass, and flushes.

First No, Now...

Yes, of course:

Under election-year pressure, President Bush agreed on Wednesday to give a new national intelligence director what he called full budgetary authority over much of the intelligence community despite initial objections.

The White House, which had balked at transferring sweeping budget authority as recommended by the Sept. 11 commission, said Bush would now support giving the new director control over funding for the National Foreign Intelligence Program, which includes at least half of the $40 billion intelligence budget.

But the White House stopped short of agreeing to grant the new intelligence director the sweeping powers to hire and fire top intelligence officials. The White House said the director would play a role in the selection process and that agencies would need the director's "concurrence" for key appointments.

So right! He makes a decision and never strays!!!

Crash

My computer is practically done, so posting light.

Nuancer

RNC Spokeman Cliff May was on CNN with Bill "Hummer" this morning and he said, "The issue is whether or not we are at war with the world, or whether it's a law enforcement matter."

Goose-steppers and parrots alike have been repeating this for ages. As if there's an actual quote of John Kerry ever calling a law enforcement matter. But why would I assume they'd be honest.

Why isn't it both? I guess for Republicans has to be the "world war" option since they can't seem to prosecute anyone.

I think most Americans would agree that when people commit crimes our justice system is strong enough to prosecute them. If not, then not only have the "terrorists won" but they've helped us recognize our system of governance isn't good enough!

Fucking morons run this country today.

Hmmm

I wonder who their parents will vote for, and their wives, and their sisters, and their friends...

It's disgusting.

No He Dih'n't!

Yes, he did:

``It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States,'' Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.

If he died right now I'd be sooooooo happy.

Nice

Conservative columnist Charley Reese sees the forest, the trees, and the moron.

Send this on to all the goose-steppers you know:

Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war – Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.

I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press conference recently.

John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.

But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be.

People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he won't fool me twice.

It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.

It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that either you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?

This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration. Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.

I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with it. Go to Kerry's Web site and read some of the magazine profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.

Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey, windsurfs, ride motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and speaks French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and dispels all illusions about war.

May 17, 2004

Charley Reese [send him mail] has been a journalist for 49 years, reporting on everything from sports to politics. From 1969–71, he worked as a campaign staffer for gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional races in several states. He was an editor, assistant to the publisher, and columnist for the Orlando Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. He now writes a syndicated column which is carried on LewRockwell.com. Reese served two years active duty in the U.S. Army as a tank gunner. Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802.

It's You, Stupid

and the Economy:

The U.S. budget deficit will balloon to a cumulative $2.29 trillion over the next decade, congressional analysts said on Tuesday, a worse outlook than previously forecast and one likely to stir election-year debate about President George W. Bush's economic policies.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office also confirmed a preliminary forecast made in August for a $422 billion deficit for the 2004 fiscal year. That number was better than earlier expectations but still sets a new record.

"The outlook in terms of the deficits in 2004 and 2005 has improved, but the projection of the cumulative deficit over the 2005-2014 period has worsened," the CBO said in a summer update to its budget outlook.

CBO is expecting the deficit to decline to $348 billion in 2005, if current laws and policies do not change.

Earlier this year, CBO was looking for a cumulative deficit of $20.1 trillion for 2005-1014 and a shortfall of $477 billion this year.

The White House's latest deficit outlook is for $445 billion this year. It no longer provides a 10-year forecast.

Can you name the first president to stop providing a 10-year forecast? I bet you can if you think REALLY, REALLY hard!!!

Crazy

Russia:

The Interfax agency cited official police figures as saying 130,000 people turned out for the rally, which took place to the accompaniment of stirring Russian traditional music.

'Terror Is Worse Than Plague', 'The Enemy Will Be Defeated', 'The Victory Will Be Ours', read some of the slogans on banners carried by the demonstrators, who braved the same driving rain that marked funerals in Beslan the day earlier.

"We are not weak we are strong, strong strong ... We will win," said Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, in an impassioned speech, shaking his fist in the air, and echoing the patriotic atmosphere at the gathering.

"How can you kill children and shoot them? I came because Russia was slapped in the face and we will not take it," said Valery, a pensioner with a row of medals proudly strapped to his lapel.

It's so sad that Russians don't even know what they're government does to Chechens. If they read these reports they'd feel a lot differently.

What's on display is just how backwards Russia still is after years of Americans thinking that Putin and Co. were coming along. Because remember, Bush "looked into his soul."

How and Why

E.J. Dionne on how and why Kerry wins:

Kerry's use of his Vietnam experience to prove that he is tough enough to be president has not been enough to counter those attacks. But the Republicans' tactics have presented Kerry with a timely opportunity to show his steel. Voters are about to learn whether he is strong enough to stand up to President Bush and his slash-and-burn surrogates. If Kerry can face down Bush's withering attacks, the very act of campaigning becomes a way of passing the toughness test that Bush has put before him.

Read it. Makes you feel good.

I've already noticed a change in they way Kerry is speaking against Bush. Today Bush fell back on "my opponent woke up today with a new position..." I mean c'mon already! A week of that wasn't enough? Months of that wasn't enough?

If Dumbya thinks that is going to work, aside from pulling out of debates, for the next few weeks, he's wrong.

Kerry will win.

Dickhead

Star Ledger:

But why quibble about whether Bush flip-flopped when there's the example of U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, champion flip-flopper? Miller gave the Republican keynote speech even though he is a Georgia Democrat. Surely that's a 10 on anyone's flip-flop scale.

Of course, after Miller's angry and at times unseemly ranting -- including a televised wish to challenge an interviewer to a duel -- a lot of Republicans are now wishing they could flop him overboard.

Basic realization of how dumb the flip-flop label is, but in reality "how dumb Americans who buy into are" is the issue.

TPM

Josh Marshall covers Neo-Con problems.

No Biggie

I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!!:

GEORGE W Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David, a new book claims.

His wife Laura also allegedly tried cannabis in her youth.

Author Kitty Kelley says in her biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that the US President first used coke at university in the mid-1960s.

She quotes his former sister-in-law Sharon Bush who claims: "Bush did coke at Camp David when his father was President, and not just once either."

Other acquaintances allege that as a 26-year-old National Guard, Bush "liked to sneak out back for a joint or into the bathroom for a line of cocaine".

So he failed the Pepsi Challenge, no biggie.

Too Funny

Did you hear about the young GOPer who kicked a female protestor when she was on the ground? Well that's not the funny part.

Chechnya

Absurd but typical:

President Vladimir Putin attacked the West for calling on Russia to seek political dialogue with Chechen separatists in the wake of last week's school hostage siege in which at least 335 died - half of them children.

Putin also ruled out holding a public inquiry into the storming of the Beslan school after a three-day stand-off with rebels who demanded Chechnya's independence.

"Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?" Putin was quoted as saying by Britain's Guardian newspaper today.

I wonder how long the Bush White House and American Government will allow Putin to conduc this war, and equate their terror battle with ours?

If you missed this NYTIMES Editorial, take a look. Good summation of the problems.

Uhh-Raq

Thank god sovereignty was transfered. Now we have nothing to worry about...:

BAGHDAD: A suicide attacker sped up to a US military convoy outside Fallujah and detonated an explosives-packed vehicle on Monday, killing seven Marines and three Iraqi soldiers, US military officials said.

It was the deadliest day for American forces in four months of fighting.

The force of the blast on a dusty stretch of wasteland 15km north of Fallujah, a hotbed of Sunni insurgents, wrecked two Humvee vehicles and hurled the suicide car's engine from the site, witnesses and military officials said.

The President BELIEVES he made the right call. That's enough for me. You?

Team Bubba

Looking back:

Last week before the 9/11 panel, Condoleezza Rice diminished the role the Clinton administration's efforts played in stopping attacks at the millennium. Catching Ahmed Ressam, a would-be millennium attacker who plotted to blow up Los Angeles International Airport, was just a "lucky break" caught when a Customs agent at the Canadian border "sniffed something about Ressam." The Customs agent was alert, but not because she had been placed on alert. This is true. (The Seattle Times today also reported that Clarke's book "Against All Enemies" overstated how the Clinton team "shook out" Ressam.)

But this argument misses the point. As James Steinberg, another Clinton counterterrorism official, explained in this Frontline special, the administration was already on a state of high alert and took the opportunity of Ressam's arrest to shake the trees as hard as it could -- and got results. Clarke made this point on ABCNEWS' Nightline hours after Rice's testimony: "The incident that she cites where Diana Dean, a great customs officer found one of the terrorists entering the United States, was a lucky break. Dr. Rice is absolutely right. But that was just the beginning of the process. We then were able to get the FBI to uncover cells in Brooklyn and in Boston, Los Angeles. Ties to cells in Jordan where the CIA got involved. Ties to cells in Pakistan. The process only began where Dr. Rice described it as ending," Clarke told Ted Koppel.

Bush team had the successes of these operations to work with. Had they been marginally interested there's a chance we may have foiled 9/11, or parts of it. I think I'm done with the "no one could have expected this" line of reasoning. It's not MY JOB to suspect it, but theirs.

Will SOMEONE in the media start rasing some doubts about their self-ascribed terror credentials?

Chechnya

Pretty much the only way to see it:

A staggering series of recent terrorist attacks rooted in the Chechen conflict have been both horrific and remote to most Americans. It's hard to imagine what the public reaction would have been here if terrorists had seized a school full of children, blown up two passenger planes and set off a deadly suicide bomb outside a subway station in Western Europe or Canada. But the Chechen conflict has always seemed to be an internal problem in a rather remote part of Russia that has little impact on the rest of the world. The Russian government, which is both suspicious of external interference and proud, has encouraged that attitude. Unfortunately, it's wrong.

Terrorism in the 21st century flows across national borders. Chechen extremists learn the techniques of suicide bombing from experts in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and groups like Al Qaeda have been using the suffering of Chechen Muslims as a rallying cry to win new recruits for a global terrorist jihad.

Money and explosives are transferred across the middle of the great Eurasian land mass in ways that Islamist terrorists see as a riposte to the medieval Crusades. It is only a matter of time until the killing itself leaches out of Russia and into the rest of the world.

Chechen hostility to Russia goes back centuries, to the days of tsarist conquest and subjugation. The quarrel turned even more venomous after Stalin deported the entire Chechen population at gunpoint to Central Asia in 1944. Hundreds of thousands of deportees died of cold and hunger. Those who tried to stay behind were executed.

History is no excuse for today's terrorists to now treat other innocents as inhumanely as Stalin treated that earlier generation of Chechens. What is more understandable and negotiable is the desire of many Chechens to loosen the yoke of Russian rule.

But the terrorists' tactics harden the feelings of the Russian public, diminish international sympathy for them and make innocent Chechens the target of suspicion and fear.

Yesterday's botched rescue attempt by Russian forces at the Beslan middle school left at least 200 hostages dead and raised serious questions about President Vladimir Putin's handling of the crisis.

Moscow has responded to the Chechen issue mainly with force and intransigence. That has been politically popular among a majority of Russians, and it has undoubtedly been satisfying for Mr. Putin to present himself as a resolute, tough leader. The practical consequence, however, has been that an already dreadful problem is now very much worse.

Ten years have passed and thousands on both sides have died since Boris Yeltsin invaded the restive republic, which is largely Muslim, to force it to remain within the Russian Federation. Mr. Putin resumed the war and made it his own. Moscow was sure that its larger armed forces would deliver a quick and decisive victory. Instead, the contest has evolved into a military and political stalemate without any obvious resolution. A bold Russian reach for compromise is now the least bad option, but it is the one Mr. Putin is least likely to employ.

Mr. Putin has successfully routed mainstream Chechen separatists under the republic's last freely elected president, Aslan Maskhadov, on the conventional battlefield. But that just created an opening for the murderous extremists who have been slaughtering innocent bystanders in recent days.

President Putin has never been strong on diplomatic nuance. But unless he now opens a serious negotiating channel with legitimate Chechen leaders outside the Moscow-backed puppet government, things can only get worse. And if they do, Russia will not be the only nation that pays the price.