I'm Still Here
CRAP- it's been almost a month. Time to jump back on the soap box.

Happy Holidays!!!

Chinquapin

The Blues
Now Playing: The Beatles
Every year about this time(right after Thanksgiving), I get a little blue. I chalk it up to less sunshine, even when I'm in SoCal.

Thanks KCRW, for reminding me that it's just my usual cycle, and not any current mess in my life that's got me tearing up.

"... Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry
Because the sky is blue.......aaaaaaaahhhh

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh...."

And just in time for the 15th anniversary of Lennon's death. And what, 4 years for Harrison?

Chinquapin

Hurray For Hugo
Is it as a good neighbor, or to rub GWB's noise in it?

Who cares, looks like a 2 for 1 to me. GWB helps his own with tax cuts, doesn't he know that if he doesn't offer the rest of us a hand, we'll take the hand that reaches out to us?

The Nut House is reviving Movie Night for the Thanksgiving holiday. Since Syriana won't be available on DVD for at least 6 months, I thought I go for the 60s anti-Bond series.

Palmer, Michael Caine's Harry Palmer baby. The 3 original 1960s flicks: The Ipcress File (1965), Funeral in Berlin (1966), Billion Dollar Brain (1967).

We'll screen one a night over the Holiday period.

Chinquapin(check out the new "One Step At A Time" site link - Democracy Now)

A Man With A Plan
Check out Nick Clooney's column from Nov. 18, 2005. He says that Sen. John McCain is running a plan up the flagpole, a plan from Vietnam that was never implemented.

Let's see if the Ginko Biloba has kicked in, although I don't think GB helps with denial.

Chinquapin

So Was Bob Woodward On The "A- List"?
Come on, Woodward is a STAR in the jouro game, do you really think that he was on Scooter's "Leak To:" list?

Scootie got Novak & Russert, high level "B-listers".

Looks like the only way to clear Libby is to make it clear that some other gov'ment official was leaking as well, someone who's made him/herself known to the SP. Wonder if immunity's been granted for the testimony?

Let's see, who would have gotten the "A-list"?

Chinquapin

Phosphorous Is An Element, So It's OK
Got that? It's not a chemical, it's an element. You know, like lead bullets(or silver bullets) or depleted uranium. It's all OK as long as we aren't using chemical weapons.

Pentagon Used White Phosphorous in Iraq
- By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
Tuesday, November 15, 2005

(11-15) 16:43 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Pentagon officials acknowledged Tuesday that U.S. troops used white phosphorus as a weapon against insurgent strongholds during the battle of Falk last November. But they denied an Italian television news report that the spontaneously flammable material was used against civilians.

Lt. Col. Barry Enable, a Pentagon spokesman, said that while white phosphorus is most frequently used to mark targets or obscure a position, it was used at times in Falk as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants.

And to think, 7 1/2 years ago we were debating the definition of "sexual relations".

Chinking(sadly remembering her 7th grade general science phosphorous demonstration)

Deeper And Deeper
Now Playing: Barry White
Because my links to articles don't seem to be static, I'm cutting & pasting(note to AP, not reprinting- and I'd be happy to simply link to your stories if the link would not update itself)the article.

Some Apparently Tortured Detainees Found

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago(2:30pm pst)

Iraq's prime minister said Tuesday that 173 Iraqi detainees — malnourished and showing signs of torture — were found at an Interior Ministry basement lockup seized by U.S. forces in Baghdad. The discovery appeared to validate Sunni complaints of abuse by the Shiite-controlled ministry.

The revelation about the mostly Sunni Arab detainees by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was deeply embarrassing to the government as critics in the United States and Britain question the U.S. strategy for building democracy in a land wracked by insurgency, terrorism and sectarian tension.

"I was informed that there were 173 detainees held at an Interior Ministry prison and they appear to be malnourished," al-Jaafari said of Sunday's raid at a detention center in the fashionable Jadriyah district. "There is also some talk that they were subjected to some kind of torture."

One detainee had been crippled by polio and others suffered "different wounds," the deputy interior minister, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, said without elaboration.

Al-Jaafari, a Shiite, promised a full investigation and punishment for anyone found guilty of torture.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the Bush administration found the reports troubling.

"We don't practice torture, and we don't believe that others should practice torture," said the spokesman, Adam Ereli. "We think that there should be an investigation and those who are responsible should be held accountable."

But the head of Iraq's largest Sunni political party said he had spoken to al-Jaafari and other government officials about torture at Interior Ministry detention centers, including the one where the detainees were found.

Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said the government routinely dismissed his complaints, calling the prisoners "former regime elements," meaning Saddam Hussein loyalists.

U.S. Brig. Gen. Karl Horst, who commanded the troops in Sunday's raid, said American and Iraqi forces plan to carry out checks at every Interior Ministry detention facility in Baghdad, the Los Angeles Times reported. It was not immediately clear why U.S. forces chose to move in on Sunday.

"We're going to hit every single one of them, every single one of them," the Times quoted Horst as saying.

Sunni politicians have been complaining of torture, abuse and arbitrary arrest by special commandos of the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry since the current government took power last April.

Sunnis have also accused the ministry of being behind "death squads," rumored to be made up of former members of Shiite militias, which target Sunnis in reprisal for the killings of Shiites by Sunni Arab insurgents. Interior Minister Bayn Jabr has denied any role in such killings.

Kamal, the deputy interior minister, was quoted by CNN as saying the skin of some of the detainees in the Baghdad center had peeled off parts of their bodies. He later declined to confirm the allegation to The Associated Press.

Sunni Arab complaints have taken on new urgency because of American efforts to encourage a big Sunni turnout in the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections in hopes of undermining Sunni support for the insurgency. In recent days, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have all visited Iraq to promote Sunni participation.

U.S. officials have also been pressing the majority Shiites and their Kurdish allies to reach out to the minority community — which dominated the country during Saddam's regime.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, have expressed their "deep concern" over the condition of the detainees "at the highest level" of the Iraqi government, a U.S. Embassy statement said.

"We agree with Iraq's leaders that the mistreatment of detainees is a serious matter and totally unacceptable," the statement added.

But the case also raises troubling questions about the training and discipline of Iraqi security forces, which Washington hopes can assume a greater role in fighting the insurgents so that U.S. and other international troops can begin to go home.

Interior Ministry commandos, who are separate from the Iraqi army, spearhead the Iraqi government's campaign against the insurgency. Those commandos arrested more than 300 suspects last week in Diyala province after attacks on police checkpoints and a truck bomb that killed about 20 people in a Shiite village.

Many Sunnis fear that methods used by the Interior Ministry forces — known by fearsome names such as the Scorpions and the Wolf Brigade — are setting the stage for sectarian war.

"In order to search for one terrorist, they detain hundreds of innocent people and torture them brutally," Sunni politician Abdul-Hamid said.

Kamal, the deputy interior minister, said all detainees found at the center had been arrested under legal warrants issued by judges.

"They were mistreated and you know what happens in prison," Kamal told The Associated Press. "We will try to make sure that such acts are not repeated in the future."

He said the detainees were held in the basement of the building because the Justice Ministry lacked proper facilities and "there are no other places to hold those terrorists."

Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni politician, insisted that torture is widespread in Interior Ministry detention centers and that the force has been infiltrated by the Badr Brigade, the military wing of Iraq's largest Shiite party.

"Some Iraqis are having their heads opened with drills, then their bodies are thrown in the streets," al-Mutlaq said. "This shows that the United States should stop these acts since it is the force that occupies Iraq."

Amnesty International welcomed al-Jaafari's decision to order an investigation but urged him to expand the probe to include all allegations of torture. Amnesty also asked him to make the results public. In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was unaware of the detention center but wanted to learn more.

In a report Monday, the U.N. mission in Iraq warned about detention conditions in Iraq. The report said 23,394 people were in detention in Iraq, including 11,559 held by multinational forces.

"There is an urgent need to provide remedy to lengthy internment for reasons of security without adequate judicial oversight," the report said.


GWB's version(sorry Barry):
I'm gonna lie to you, lie to you, lie to you just a little more, baby
I'm gonna cheat you, cheat you, cheat you every day
I'm gonna screw you, screw you, screw you in every way

Now It's The Same Old Song
Now Playing: The Four Tops
GWB has rehearsed long enough, he should book some time in a recording studio.

Yes, I'm still in a funk over events from about 377 days ago.

Chinquapin
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

OK, see if this link sticks.
new link

The following is a truncated excerpt, not edited other than the Dems' response & Asia trip details left off the end.

Article published Nov 15, 2005
Bush slams Iraq war critics anew en route to Asian tour

ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska - President Bush hurled new arguments against Iraq war critics on Monday as he headed for Asia, accusing some Democrats of "sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy."

"That is irresponsible," Bush said. Bush addressed U.S. forces and their families during a refueling stop in Alaska. It was the initial leg of an eight-day journey to Japan, South Korea, China and Mongolia. Bush has hopes of improving his image on the world stage.

"Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war, but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people," Bush said. "Only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world - and that person was Saddam Hussein."

Bush, who wore a flight jacket, was cheered and applauded by the receptive audience.

The president tried to defend himself against criticism by Democrats that he manipulated intelligence and misled the American people about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction as he sought grounds to go to war against Saddam's regime in 2003.

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters aboard the presidential aircraft that two agenda items on Bush's Asia trip were the huge Chinese trade surplus with the United States and a U.S.-Japanese dispute over U.S. beef imports.

Neither dispute was expected to be resolved on the president's trip, Hadley said.

"I don't think you're going to see headline-breakers" from the president's trip, Hadley said.

On Sunday, Hadley acknowledged "we were wrong" about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but he insisted in a CNN interview that the president did not manipulate intelligence or mislead the American people.

Iraq and other problems - from the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina to the indictment of a senior White House official in the CIA leak investigation - have taken a heavy toll on the president's standing. Nearing the end of his fifth year in office, Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency and a majority of Americans say Bush is not honest and they disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the war on terrorism.

In his Alaska remarks, Bush noted that some elected Democrats in Congress "have opposed this war all along.

"I disagree with them, but I respect their willingness to take a consistent stand," he said. "Yet some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past. They are playing politics with this issue and sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy."

With A Whimper?
Is anyone else becoming really annoyed with the Bird Flu mantra?

It's not like we can really do anything to stop it. Once it crosses into human to human transmission, we'll all just have to wait for the mutated virus to be made into a vaccine.

I wonder if there's a segment of the population with a natural immunity, like the theory that some descendants of survivors of the Black Death have an immunity to HIV? And that gets me thinking about conspiracies, which evolves into paranoia & general pissed-off-ness.

I could let it go, and I usually do, except that the blasted media keeps bringing up the subject on a daily basis at this point.

Oh, and don't get me started on that polio outbreak in Wisconsin. And the "mad cow"(maybe mad deer?)outbreak in Idaho.

It's time to choose, do we spend our money on WAR, or CARE? We don't have enough to do both. Of course isn't Plague one of the four horsemen? Maybe that's what they want, they want pestilence.

Yes, it is the season of The Hollow Men. I'm swapping The Return Of The Native(I can never get through that book)for The Big Sleep, and I'm gonna eat, drink and be merry d@mnit!

See what an early rainy season does to me?

Chinquapin(wash your hands well & often)

Mid-October And The Rain Is Back
Just when I beginning to think I'd wasted money on my new rain boots. I wonder if there's a history of back to back El Ninos?

No climate change my a$$.

Time for Toddies!

Chinquapin(Finally starting to read The Big Sleep, just in time)