 |  |  |  |  |
- *permanent headline* More die in Iraq
- Bush passes buck on Iraq
- 67% of America thinks Bush is an
idiot the other 33% are even dumber
than Bush
- Turkmenistan's president is loony
- Pat Boone knows all, like where the
WMDs went
- Protests continue in Belarus
- Drink your fluoride water, 9/11
conspiracy theorists, negligence and
active participation are two different
things
- Ancient coffin with epic of homer
found
- Some final World Baseball Classic
stuff
- Bush steps up rhetoric against Iran
- Prison break in Iraq by 100 masked
gunmen
on Wednesday. Such is life. Send me some email or something. I like feedback
whether it be flattering, critical, mean or sexually gratifying.
gone
Here.
Excerpt:
Struggling to turn the tide of rising public opposition to the war in Iraq and burnish his own
tarnished credibility, President Bush sought Tuesday to ease the "sense of uncertainty" he
acknowledged lingers in the country but offered no end-game timetable for withdrawing U.S.
forces.
"I'm optimistic we'll succeed," he said during a White House news conference, his second foray
in as many days into a field of pointed questions. "If not, I'd pull our troops out."
That prospect, he said, would undoubtedly fall to a future administration - suggesting that at
least some troops will remain in Iraq through 2008.
For the president, who acknowledged being bombarded with a steady stream of unsolicited
advice these days, Tuesday's news conference was the latest forum in which to try to quell
critics with what he called an optimistic but realistic assessment of the war.
Bush said withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq "of course, is an objective, and that'll be decided
by future presidents and the future governments of Iraq." But he carefully avoided setting any
deadlines, which he has declared would only help the enemy.
"I'm going to say it again," Bush repeated. "If I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be
there. I wouldn't put those kids there."
"I meet with too many families who's lost a loved one to not be able to look them in the eye and
say we're doing the right thing," he said.
So what Bush is basically saying is that because he has looked families in the eye and seen their pain he
can't bring himself to tell them the truth? That their loved ones died in vain for a pointless war designed to
line his buddies pockets?
Great, our president lies because he doesn't possess the testicular fortitude necessary to the truth to
people who deserve to hear it.
Also, his, "If I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there. I wouldn't put those kids there"-thing, is
sounds like it is straight out of Vietnam. "If we pull out we lose--but if we leave them in... There is a the
teensiest chance we just might win. Either way we can't lose. Or can we? Wait? Karl, what was that line
you wanted me to say?"
This one too:
comes to the war in Iraq (hence, the buck-passing); Also, Pew has his
approval rating at a whopping 33%
Excerpt:
A large majority - 70 percent of those surveyed - believe that Bush lacks a clear plan for ending
the war successfully, according to the latest survey of the Washington-based Pew Research
Center. Even 40 percent of Republicans surveyed said that Bush lacks a plan for success.
"People are drawing their own inferences and conclusions based on what they see on
television," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "The reports of 85
people killed one day and 55 people killed the next day and mosques blown up, it's hard for
people not to think that this does not represent instability and a lack of progress."
People have responded more positively to Bush's argument that the United States is making
progress in training Iraqi forces and rebuilding the nation. But, in the Pew survey of 1,405
adults conducted March 8-12, people expressed pessimism about prospects for averting a civil
war, with 66 percent saying the United States is losing ground in preventing a civil war, an 18
percentage-point increase in that opinion since January.
"Rebuilding power stations doesn't offset people's concerns about so much violence and the
possibility for civil war as time goes by," said Kohut, returning to the televised images. "The
slaughter of one Iraqi by another Iraqi is just head-turning."
In this survey, as in other national polls, the president's overall job approval has reached an
all-time low - 33 percent in Pew's poll.
Bush sits at 33%. That means that there is still 3% of the population that think he's an idiot and yet still
support him.
I wonder how many people in this country that voted for Bush are just kicking themselves right now? If I
had spent my entire life following and believing everything Rush Limbaugh said, defending the Republican
right at every turn and championing this president whenever possible and all of a sudden had a wake-up
call and came to my senses I think I would vomit and cry and pull my hair out for being so naive for so long.
I can't imagine what kind of transformation that is. It must be a sobering moment in one's life.
and yet we support this guy...
guaranteed a place in heaven; it's that simple
Excerpt:
Turkmenistan's president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov announced on state television that
anyone reading his philosophical work three times would be assured a place in heaven.
"Anyone who reads the Rukhnama three times will find spiritual wealth, will become more
intelligent, will recognise the divine being and will go straight to heaven," Niyazov said Monday.
The Turkmen leader said he had "called on Allah" while working on the two-volume book to
ensure that enthusiastic readers would be given quicker access to heaven.
Who am I to say if he is right? This is how most mainstream religions started anyway, the leader says
believe or I kill you and 100 generations later the people are still believing.
Boone that's your cue.
Excerpt:
I'm neither prophet nor genius on this stuff, and if I was catching on long before the current
news cycles, so were lots of people. The driftwood is finally washing ashore, and soon
everybody will be able to see... What happened? How could our side have believed so wrongly
that Saddam's Iraq possessed WMD?
We do have enough evidence and detail coming in now to declare "mystery solved." The new
mystery is why the politicians and the news media have been taking scant notice.
If what's being learned (evident in NewsMax postings and even elsewhere increasingly over
the past three full weeks!) isn't news, well, what is? Even rumors about this should have gotten
more notice than these facts got.
For the mainstream media, has the definition of news become 'only the bits that fit the
ideological agenda'? Are raw facts off the menu?
By now, of course, you've heard of the verified audio tapes revealing Saddam Hussein in his
palace meetings discussing his WMD and ways to hide evidence and smuggle them over the
Syrian border in the period before the U.S. military came calling in earnest.
That's right, folks, Pat Boone, the self proclaimed "neither prophet nor genius," says that
Saddam smuggled his WMDs into Syria before the war.
Thanks for solving that mystery, Pat, the world thanks you.
Seriously, why would Saddam go to all that trouble to produce banned weapons that could and did lead to
war and his humiliating removal from power only to never use said weapons and give them to a neighbor
state that he wasn't even friendly with? That's because he didn't. The sarin gas that Saddam bought from
the US in the 1980s had long since expired and he had no resources to generate new supplies of that
particular nerve agent or anything else.
Republicans like Pat Boone just aren't willing to admit that the UN embargo and enforcement of the no-fly
zones worked. The contained a despot ruler and maintained a level of peace in that particular region of
the Middle East for 12 years.
Also, something to think about: don't you think that we would have seen the several thousand tons of
nerve agents pass through the desert and into Syria with our satellites and spy planes? We could see
everything else.
police presence grows, opposition calls for massive rally on the 25th
Excerpt:
The mood is festive inside the tent camp that has sprung up on October Square.
Protected by a human chain that forms a circle around their camp, more than two dozen youth
activists sing songs, play guitar and share black tea and biscuits. They stomp their feet and
dance to keep warm.
But outside the barrier of supporters, the atmosphere is ominous.
Black-clad agents of the Belarussian secret police — still known by their Soviet-era name of
KGB — face the crowd with steely eyes. They scan the youths with video cameras, recording
the faces of those who dare to protest against another five years under authoritarian President
Alexander Lukashenko.
Three days after protests began against a weekend election that saw Lukashenko win a
landslide third term with 83 per cent of the vote, there is still no sign his regime will bow to
opposition and international pressure for another election.
Fears are rising over what will happen to the tent dwellers and other protestors if their
demonstrations go nowhere.
"Everybody will suffer. They will be arrested and jailed, kicked out of universities and schools,
and they won't be able to find jobs," said Alexander Astrochenko, a spokesman for the
opposition youth group that has members inside the tent camp. On Sunday, more than 10,000
protestors rallied against the election results, which gave lead opposition candidate Alexander
Milinkevich about 6 per cent of the vote.
About 6,000 protestors showed up for a rally on Monday night and fewer than 5,000 turned up
last night. Only about 300 diehard activists remained in the square yesterday.
There is a fantastic Pulitzer Prize winning book called The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg about events
right before and the periods after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A very sobering read. I know
there are a lot of people in Europe who know exactly what these youths in Belarus are going through and
what will happen to them after all of this.
harsh reality of the fact that our government was
incompetent/negligent in the events that led up to that tragic day is
just far more likely than our government being competent in the
planning and execution of a massive conspiracy against the American
people in order to usher in a new era of international war.
Excerpt:
An FBI agent testified yesterday that he warned his bosses about Zacarias Moussaoui 70 times
before the Sept. 11 attacks and raised fears he may have planned to hijack an airliner.
Agent Harry Samit testified at Mr. Moussaoui's sentencing trial that his superiors in FBI
anti-terrorism units had declined his request for permission to apply for a criminal search
warrant.
They also declined his request to a special intelligence court for permission to search Mr.
Moussaoui's belongings.
He finally got a warrant on Sept. 11, 2001, hours after attacks earlier that day killed nearly 3,000
people
I am so sick of people spamming the Internet with that stupid "Loose Change" video as if it were the
gospel. I have wasted many hours debating with these tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists over the physics of
the situation. Two planes loaded with fuel had more than enough energy contained with in them to bring
down the WTCs and a Boeing jet, not a cruise missile, hit the Pentagon.
Do you want me to be more specific? Just fire one of the conspiracy theories you believe at me and I will
blow your mind with how much math I can spit out to prove me point.
Occam's razor, baby, "The simplest answer is usually the correct answer."
Why do people even bother to believe the conspiracy theories when al Qaeda already claims responsibility
for the events of 9/11?
in Cypress, includes a depiction of when he jumped the Springfield
gorge on a skateboard
Excerpt:
A 2,500-year-old stone coffin with well-preserved color illustrations from Homer's epics has
been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday.
"It is a very important find," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of the island's antiquities
department. "The style of the decoration is unique, not so much from an artistic point of view,
but for the subject and the colors used."
Only two other similar sarcophagi have ever been discovered in Cyprus before. One is housed
in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the other in the British Museum in London, but
their color decoration is more faded, Flourentzos said.
Groovy.
corruption?
Excerpt:
As many as 1,000 Philippine police deployed around a court where former President Joseph
Estrada is testifying in his corruption trial, Manila police Chief Vidal Querol said in a phone
interview.
Police brought Estrada, who turns 69 next month, to the Philippine anti-graft court in the
northern part of the capital at about 9 a.m. Manila time today from the vacation home where he
has spent most of his detention.
Estrada, who was detained in April 2001, faces charges involving 4 billion pesos ($78 million) in
kickbacks and other illegal gains. He was ousted in a military-civilian revolt in January that year.
How much do you want to bet that in 10 years Arroyo is going to be sitting in a court room facing the exact
same charges?
you can't buy publicity like this
impersonated... Poorly."
Excerpt:
On Wednesday's ninth-season debut, Hayes' character, Chef, pops up in an episode which
creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are devoting to his mysterious return to "South Park."
They are expected to poke fun at his religion, Scientology.
While details are scarce, Comedy Central officials say the duo are putting the finishing touches
on the episode (Wednesday, 10 p.m.) -- which, like many others, is being written and animated
in less than a week.
Last fall, the show -- which, in nearly a decade on the air, has managed to poke fun at almost
every religion -- ripped Scientology. In the episode, one of the space-based faith's biggest
proponents -- Tom Cruise -- was skewered.
Hayes was allegedly insulted by the show and quit, according to reports.
Last week, the network had planned on re-airing the episode, but it was pulled at the last
minute, after Cruise allegedly threatened not to promote his new movie, "Mission: Impossible
3," which is produced by Paramount, a division of Viacom, which owns Comedy Central.
Man, Matt and Trey are the luckiest lampooners in the world. I bet that it is the highest rated South Park
ever.
support HoustonWade.com at the
same time. Thank you.
except the American team, it was smart to include Cuba in the end
Excerpt:
If it had been up to the State Department, Cuba never would have participated in the WBC or
had the chance to show its mettle against the best baseball players in the world.
Thanks to the diligent lobbying effort of Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and
players association head Don Fehr and the Puerto Rican Federation's promise to bail out as a
first- and second-round host if Cuba wasn't included in the WBC, Cuba ultimately was allowed to
participate.
Baseball, not politics, won out. Selig and Fehr deserve tremendous credit for their vision and
commitment to expand baseball throughout the world. Even while losing to Japan in the finals
on Monday, Cuba showed it definitely belongs among the world's elite baseball teams.
Selig's WBC had folks talking about baseball at a time when March Madness has the supreme
hold on America's attention. The ratings in America weren't off the chart, but check out the
ratings in Japan and Latin America.
You should have tried searching for a hat, jersey or T-shirt with a Cuban logo on Monday at
Petco Park. If you didn't pick one up by the first inning, you were out of luck.
The Miami mafia — as Castro's opponents in Miami are sometimes called — has bullied America
into believing there is no support for Castro's island in the United States. The WBC proved
otherwise. We refuse to lift our embargo against Cuba yet don't mind doing business with
communist China, which, by the way, the State Department never complained about playing in
the WBC.
I really don't see how Castro is different from any other dictator in the world. It's true that if he could have
hit a curve the history of the world may be a vastly different, but that doesn't mean that what he does is
any worse that the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Belarus, and half a dozen African
nations. Why does he get an embargo and the others don't?
The very fact that we never embargoed China has made that country into the purest system of capitalism
in the world. Why not try something else with Cuba for once?
As for the baseball itself I was pissed at MLB for blocking my Internet broadcast of the game. I paid good
money to get ALL the games on the Internet and when the championship game is finally here it is blocked
because it is "nationally televised." Yeah, if you have cable.
The other games of the tournament were the best baseball I had ever seen. It was remarkable. I loved it
and can't for three years from now.
I think the American team learned that you have to want it. All the millions in the world don't mean shit if
you aren't playing with pride. It seemed like Clemens, Griffey and Lee may have been the only ones that
wanted it bad enough.
Excerpt:
SAN DIEGO -- In the end, we will remember it as the tournament that gave new meaning to
''Yankees suck."
The rest of the baseball-playing world loved the inaugural World Baseball Classic. We ignored it.
Difficult as it is for us to comprehend, this time it wasn't about us. It wasn't about mom, apple
pie, or the xenophobic owner of the New York Yankees who was born on the Fourth of July. It
wasn't about muscle-bound sluggers who swallowed barbells and God knows what else. It
wasn't about multimillion-dollar contracts, Nike deals, or Wheaties boxes.
It was about pure baseball -- an old-timey game played with intensity by proud men who execute
fundamentals and emphasize team above self. It was about pitching and catching and hitting
singles and moving the runner over and putting pressure on the defense and getting the man
in from third with one out. It was about the boring old stuff that first made the game our national
pastime.
America's lads were mercifully sent home after losing to Mexico, 2-1, last Thursday night. We
failed to make the final four. And so the final three games in San Diego might as well have been
a World Cup soccer match featuring Nigeria and the Netherlands. American sports fans watched
the first rounds of the NCAA Tournament largely unaware that teams from Korea, Japan, Cuba,
and the Dominican Republic still were playing for the World Baseball Classic championship at
Petco Park.
What did ESPN think of the World Baseball Classic? The self-promotion specialists promoted
the championship game throughout the day Monday, then made its audience wait 21 minutes
while an NIT college basketball game played to its double-overtime conclusion. Nice. The WBC
takes a back seat to the NIT. The eventual champs from Japan already led, 1-0, when ESPN
finally joined the action.
Clearly, the WBC did not cater to an American audience. Had the American team advanced to
the semifinal round, the US would have played a game that ended after 1:30 a.m. Sunday on the
East Coast. Japan's championship win over Cuba ended at three minutes before 1 a.m. on the
East Coast. This was not designed to guarantee a ratings bonanza in the New York market.
It might not have mattered much even if the Americans had made it to the final round, but
certainly the shocking departure of the Yanquis did little to promote the greater good of the
WBC on our shores. New York Times columnist William Rhoden already has suggested that we
change the name of the World Series, and it's going to be difficult to argue that Americans are
still the best at the sport we invented.
Our team was hastily assembled, did not include all of our best players (one of America's
pitchers, Al Leiter, retired Sunday), and entered the tournament in midwinter form while many of
the other squads were in midseason shape. Our hitters were just beginning spring training
when they went about the task of trying to beat Korean pitchers who were at the top of their
game.
Japan outscored us, 44-33, through the first six games. If you take away America's rout against
South Africa, the US scored only 3.2 runs per game in its other five games. The long ball
produced 10 of our 16 runs in those five games. Cuba, on the other hand, beat the mighty
Dominican Republic, 3-1, hitting 12 singles Saturday.
We did not put our best team on the field (Jeff Francoeur, Michael Barrett, Brian Schneider?).
Because the tournament was held in March, we sent players into games before they were
ready. And we were embarrassed -- losing to Canada, Korea, and Mexico.
In the end, there were only two major league players in the dugouts for the championship final
Monday night. Bud Selig, the inventor of the tournament, said, ''I'm thrilled, I really am," but as
commissioner of Major League Baseball, he has to be a little embarrassed.
Ichiro, the lone major league star to play in the final (Akinori Otsuka does not count as a star)
said, ''I sense that MLB is hurting a little bit."
Selig added, ''I said I thought that history would know this was a watershed moment and that the
ramifications of it would be immediate as well as mid-term and long-term, and I don't think
there's any question in my mind now. It's exceeded in intensity, in interest, in just every way
that you can."
''Baseball Spoken Here," was the catchy theme of the three-week, 39-game tournament, which
spanned two continents and drew 737,112 fans. In the end, the WBC infuriated Steinbrenner,
diluted spring training games for fans in Florida and Arizona, and gave Americans a lot of
explaining to do when they are challenged by friends from foreign lands. Baseball is still
spoken in America, but now there's proof that the game belongs to the world.
That is a great piece of writing on the condition of baseball in America. I got as much of a thrill watching
South Africa playing that it must have been what watching the 1980 US hokey team was like. Those kids
were having the time of their life out there.
Korea was exciting to watch. The Latin fans were rowdy and fun with salsa dancing on the dugouts and
trumpets in the stands. We need to liven baseball up in America. Americans think soccer is the most
boring thing in the world to watch--they just need to get drunk and sing songs like all the soccer hooligans
around the world do and they understand what it's all about.
A couple of years ago the Mariners removes a fan from the stands for being to loud in the box seat area
behind home plate. The man had paid $40,000 for season tickets and had been a season ticket holder
since the inaugural 1977 season. The Mariners said that people purchased those seats so that they could
"network." Fuck that. If you want to network do it on the golf course or go join the Masons, or the
racketball club.
Go to the baseball game, get plowed and enjoy the sport men are getting paid millions to play. MLB needs
to understand this to keep baseball America's sport.
never did that with North Korea and instead ignored them
Excerpt:
President George W Bush said a nuclear-armed Iran could 'blackmail' the world and that he
could see signs of progress in Iraq as he scrambled to defend his record at a White House
press conference.
Confronting record low opinion poll ratings, Bush said it would be 'unacceptable' for Iran to
'spread sectarian violence' in Iraq or provide parts that could be used for bomb attacks in Iraq,
Agence France-Presse reported.
He also reaffirmed US warnings about Iran's nuclear program, which Washington says hides an
effort to build an atomic bomb.
'If the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon, they could blackmail the world. If the Iranians
were to have a nuclear weapon, they could proliferate,' Bush said.
Wow, Iran could be doing in the very near future what North Korea is doing now. If only we knew who was
responsible for pulling the US out of its nuclear agreement with N Korea... If only....
the process in Iraqi border town
me."
Excerpt:
About 100 masked gunmen stormed a prison near the Iranian border Tuesday, cutting phone
wires, freeing all the inmates and leaving behind a scene of devastation and carnage — 20
dead policemen, burned-out cars and a smoldering jailhouse.
At least 10 attackers were killed in the dawn assault on the Muqdadiyah lockup on the eastern
fringe of the Sunni Triangle, police said. The raid showed the mostly Sunni militants can still
assemble a large force, capable of operating in the region virtually at will — even though U.S.
and Iraqi military officials said last year that the area was no longer an insurgent stronghold.
Yup, no longer an "insurgent stronghold." Our intelligence on the ground is sure unsurpassed. Read that
second paragraph again and tell me that Iraq isn't screwed.
Williams
Excerpt:
A 19-year-old waitress has accused Hank Williams Jr. of harassing her in a hotel bar.
Holly Hornbeak alleged that around midnight Saturday the country superstar swore at her, tried
to kiss her and lifted her in a chokehold, according to a police report.
Last week it was David Hasselhoff, the week before it was Yanni, who is going to get busted for hittin'
women-folk next week? Dirk Benedict?
photograph ever taken. You must click
or you will lose your soul to the depths
of hell.
her the butt of jokes
were over 300,000 crackers
Excerpt:
Workers inspecting the structural foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge have uncovered a Cold
War-era trove of basic provisions that were stockpiled amid fears of a nuclear attack.
Water drums, medical supplies, paper blankets, drugs and canisters holding calorie-packed
crackers were visible as city officials led a tour of the vault Monday, days after the stash was
discovered under the main entrance ramp to the bridge.
The estimated 352,000 Civil Defense All-Purpose Survival Crackers are apparently still intact,
said Joseph Vaccaro, a supervisor at the city Transportation Department. The metal water
drums, each labeled ``reuse as a commode,'' did not fare as well, and they are now empty.
Such fallout shelters were common around the country during the 1950's, but finds like last
week's are rare, said John Lewis Gaddis, a historian at Yale and a scholar of the Cold War.
``Most of those have been dismantled; the crackers got moldy a very long time ago,'' he said.
``It's kind of unusual to find one fully intact _ one that is rediscovered, almost in an
archaeological sense. I don't know of a recent example of that.''
Many of the cardboard boxes in the room were ink-stamped with two especially significant
years in cold-war history: 1957, when the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite, and 1962, when
the Cuban missile crisis seemed to bring the world to the precipice of nuclear destruction.
Cool.
Excerpt:
Asked in an interview with the Guardian if he was comfortable with the teaching of creationism
in schools, Dr Rowan Williams said: "Ah, not very."
How come more Christians in America can't be like Christians in Europe?
Excerpt:
Remember the story of Archimedes lolling in his bathtub? To an observer, he'd have seemed to
be wasting time. While ostensibly doing nothing, however, he discovered the principle of
displacement, a cornerstone of physics. Would he have reached the same insight in a quick
shower?
Unlikely. And while you might say that's ancient history, don't be too sure.
Consider that for most industries, the U.S. can't hope to be the low-cost producer in a global
economy. With innovation now our main competitive strength, creativity is crucial for anyone
who wants to move up.
But it's really, really hard, if not impossible, for the human brain to come up with fresh new
ideas when its owner is overworked, overtired, and stressed out. And in today's wonderful
world of nonstop work, 40% of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep on
weeknights.
"The physiological effects of tiredness are well-known. You can turn a smart person into an
idiot just by overworking him," notes Peter Capelli, a professor of management at Wharton.
Still, putting in more than 50 hours a week at the office has become routine -- and that doesn't
count time spent doing paperwork at home, answering e-mail at the airport, or talking on the
phone in the car.
Sooner or later, companies' performance has to reflect that, Capelli says. "On the organizational
level, what you get is, everyone is so focused on running flat-out to meet current goals that the
whole company is unable to step back and think."
And people wonder how I got so smart. I'm lazy. You can't be successful and lazy if you're not smart too.
