Saturday, February 24, 2007

Eva Cassidy 1963 - 1996



i thank fire pups Spiderpaws, Alicia and Jacqrat for introducing me to Ms Cassidy.
i only tolerate Mr. Gordon Sumner, in contrast to my true love's unbridled admiration of all things Sting.
and i never liked this song.
until now.

now i love it.
as long as Eva's singing it.


Oo oo oo

You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Among the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold

So she took her love for to gaze a while
Among the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
And you can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold

I never made promises lightly
There have been some that I’ve broken
But I swear in the days still left
We’ll walk in fields of gold
We’ll walk in fields of gold

I never made promises lightly
There have been some that I’ve broken
But I swear in the days still left
We’ll walk in fields of gold
We’ll walk in fields of gold

Oo ooo ooo

Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
As you lie in fields of gold

You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Among the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold

Oo oo oo

i didn't know.


...

Gore/Obama '08

i miss Molly.

Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary.

AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) -- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls?

Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008."

This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad new from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.

Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.


thanks.
i needed that.
(a tip o' the yellowdog sombrero to Independent Bloggers' Alliance.)

her spirit lives.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Dennis Johnson


gone.
at 52.

Toros spokeswoman Perri Travillion said she was speaking with Johnson on the sidewalk outside the Convention Center when he collapsed. Johnson was joking about getting a parking ticket.

''We were laughing,'' said Travillion. ''He just collapsed.''

Travillion called 911, but Johnson never regained consciousness. According to Travillion, Johnson did not appear to overexert himself at practice and did not complain of any discomfort before collapsing.


"DJ"
Where are Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish (Chief!) tonight?

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/blotter/entries/2007/02/22/austin_toros_coach_dennis_john.html

Glory Days
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zviu1C7TJzY>

Friday, February 16, 2007

assassination

glenn greenwald has moved to Salon.com

As Canestaro notes, it was the U.S. which was the first country to formulate a legal code of military conduct for use by soldiers in wartime, and the first Order on assassinations was issued by Abraham Lincoln (General Order 100) in the midst of the Civil War. It provided:

The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such international outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.
Consistent with American tradition, international treaties, with virtual unanimity, deplore extra-judicial assassinations as the tools of savages and barbarians.
there's this qualia in this that quenches something in me.
greenwald's expression america's values is incandescent.
warms my heart.
thanks.

any reservations i was imagining about salon are now gone.
thanks, glenn for showing us the way.

they even have pandagon's amanda there.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

363 tons of cash in $100 bills

Ineptitude or malice?
Fucking madness!
You decide:

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did," the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.

On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially "the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history," according to an e-mail cited by committee members.

It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 28.


.. $1.5 Billion
+ $2.4 Billion
+ $1.6 Billion
= $5.5 BILLION DOLLARS of
TAXPAYERS' Money CASH!
i think it was illinois senator everett dirksen who said,
"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."


if we had just contacted a decent real estate agent, we could have bought the whole country outright for that kind of money.
we could have bought their army, for sure.
We could have bought out Saddam himself for a LOT less.

AND SAVED MORE THAN 3,100 u.s. service folks' lives!!


not to mention a 100 or so thousand iraqis.
pobrecitos.


Saturday, February 10, 2007

Tom Tomorrow


(click to enlarge)



...

Friday, February 9, 2007

me: What Scarecrow said at Firedoglake

many are the times that Firedoglake flashes the brilliance of the truth revealed so well that it dazzles.
They have done it again:

Dick Cheney And The Dog That Didn’t Bark

cheney libby.jpg

(It is frightening to consider that these desperate, treacherous cowards are still running our country.)

The media are now keenly aware that it is not just Scooter Libby on trial; he is also the proxy for a Vice President whose credibility and reputation, already damaged, are being destroyed by one revelation after another. Last night, the major networks/cable channels covered this as a lead story, and PBS' News Hour devoted a large segment to it.

With ironic justice Chris Matthews devoted an entire hour to discussing the Libby trial and its implications for Vice President Cheney. After all, it was Matthews' July 2003 Hardball segment questioning Mr. Cheney's role in the Bush Administration’s WMD deception that provoked an angry phone call from the VP's Chief of Staff to NBC’s Tim Russert. Cheney was angry at any suggestion that he may have known about Joe Wilson's Africa trip, and it was Scooter’s job to express the Vice President's displeasure to Russert and NBC. But it was this phone call that may now determine whether Libby goes free or to jail, and if the latter, whether we head down a path that could lead inexorably to Dick Cheney’s resignation. We are almost there, but not quite.

In Tuesday's op-ed, NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof challenged Dick Cheney to "Tear Down This Wall" (Times Select), laying out a set of questions involving Cheney’s involvement in the Plame outing that now demand answers from the Vice President. The questions and the emerging facts behind them are damning:

Mr. Vice President, did you push Mr. Libby to dig into Joe Wilson’s background and discredit him?

What did you mean when you wrote, in a note to Scott McClellan that has been entered into evidence, "not going to protect one staffer PLUS sacrifice the guy the Pres. that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others."

When you discussed Joe Wilson with Mr. Libby on Air Force Two on July 12, 2003, what instructions did you give him?

Mr. Cheney, on that plane, did you specifically tell Mr. Libby to leak to reporters the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A.?

During the leak investigation, were you aware that Mr. Libby was telling the F.B.I. apparently false information? You rode to work with him nearly every day in your limousine, and the issue never came up? Or did you ask Mr. Libby to protect you because you didn’t want it known that in fact you were the one who had told him about Ms. Wilson? Was there some other information you wanted kept secret?

Were you trying to cover up your own reliance on misinformation about Iraqi W.M.D. by blaming the C.I.A. and anybody else within range, like Mr. Wilson?

So when are you going to come clean?

Of course, we have only heard half the trial. The jury, not we, will determine whether Fitzgerald has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Scooter Libby is guilty of the crimes with which he is charged. But I am certain of one thing: we already know that Dick Cheney and his WH helpers are responsible for a serious breach of national security, and it is only a matter of time before the media begins to couple reporting of the "smoking guns" revealed in the Libby trial with the obvious and damning evidence that has been staring them in the face the whole time.

After three years of investigations, two weeks of testimony, dozens of exhibits, hours of Grand Jury testimony and innumerable news articles fed and spun by the White House, Karl Rove’s attorneys and the President's and Vice President's press agents, we now have mountains of evidence that Dick Cheney and his White House allies worked as hard as they could to discredit Joe Wilson for suggesting that the Administration had knowingly misled the country into war. But that is not the most damning evidence.

Like the case of the dog that didn't bark, there has always been an important piece of evidence that went directly to the Vice President's integrity and fitness for office. Dick Cheney didn't care about the dedicated intelligence people who help protect our national security. In fact, he had these loyal Americans confused with the enemy.

The evidence is compelling that the OVP learned early on about Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA official involved with the most sensitve issues of WMD proliferation, but they then did nothing to protect her. Upon realizing her position it was their sworn duty to shield her from disclosure, but instead the Vice President and other members of the Bush Administration, including the National Security Adviser, repeatedly invited reporters to uncover her role in collecting national security intelligence. Whatever their specific intents regarding the nation's criminal statutes, it is irrefutable that they wanted her role in Wilson's efforts to collect intelligence exposed to public view. It is irrefutable that in the process of discrediting Joe Wilson, they outed Valerie, ending her career and exposing and shutting down her cover operation. Whether or not Libby lied, the Vice President and every member of the Administration who played any role in the effort to discredit Wilson and haul Valerie Plame into the public eye are responsible for that result.

It is also seems virtually certain that her public outing disrupted and adversely affected her Counter-Proliferation Division's classified and highly sensitive efforts to acquire critical intelligence on the status of WMD development in Iraq and Iran. It is hard to imagine any intelligence issues more sensitive and vital to US security. Whether through carelessness, recklessness or design, that intelligence capability was harmed, not only by Plame’s outing but perhaps more so by the intimidating message her outing sent to every other person working in the US intelligence community.

We have had to listen repeatedly to the most dubious and pernicious claims by this Administration that mere debate about the President's failed war policies is "helping the enemy." But can there be any doubt that serious harm was done to the national security of the United States through the reckless outing of a CIA agent? At a time when the quality and credibility of foreign intelligence are vital to US security, can there be any doubt that the resulting intimidation of every US intelligence official who might dare speak the truth to this Administration has and continues to cause serious harm to our national security? Is there any doubt that those who are asked to risk their lives to gather intelligence for the US will think twice about reporting information that they know might undermine some fantasy of the people who occupy the White House? Every member of the intelligence community knows that this Administration has not held a single person accountable for the damage they have done.

Throughout this sordid history, the Vice President has remained defiant, arrogant, and seemingly unconcerned about the mess he’s made of US security interests, never mind the plight of a CIA agent and her operations. Like Karl Rove, who once told Chris Matthews that a CIA agent was "fair game," the Vice President still holds security clearances and openly bragged of his authority to declassify the nation’s secrets (and its agents?) at will. But except for Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby, none of the senior WH officials who urged the media to seek out and expose Valerie Plame has been removed from positions that affect vital national security interests. No sane government would tolerate such an indifference to its own security.

Even if we ignore all the accumulated evidence of calculated intent, and simply take the best excuse the Administration has offered — that Valerie Plame's outing was an inadvertent consequence of an Administration's clumsy attempt to get the truth out — we must face this fact: As the chief architect of the nation’s security plans, Dick Cheney should have been the first to bark when Valerie was outed and her team compromised. But there was nothing but silence. Why? How can we possibly trust this man, and those who helped him in his scheme, with our national security?

Whether Scooter Libby is convicted or acquitted, the Vice President and those who helped carry out his vindictive and reckless scheme remain proven security risks. It is time to hold Dick Cheney and everyone who pointed a finger in the direction of Valerie Plame to cover up their duplicity accountable for the damage they have done to this country.

From Kristof:

I’m not accusing you of committing a crime. But there are serious questions here, and you owe the nation not legalisms, but that "stiff dose of truth." If you continue to stonewall, then you don’t belong in office and you should resign.

We're proud to bring together leading bloggers from all over the blogosphere to stay at "Plame House" and cover the Scooter Libby trial, and we thank our readers whose contributions are making this possible. If you would like to contribute to support this citizen journalism in action, please click the links below or send your contribution to our snail mail address.
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Snail Mail

The Fire Dog Lake Company
8033 Sunset Blvd. #966
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(please kick some scratch to our Plamic Heroes: We are indebted to them.)

"So When are you going to come clean?"

i feel better now.
thank you thank you thank you, Scarecrow!

Friday, February 2, 2007

Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby

perhaps we could deduce from the links we display on the left there, that we like to follow the Valerie Plame Wilson CIA Leak case.

a lot.

there are accumulating reasons to believe that the Chimperor, while masquerading as the President of the United States, had the secret identity of an undercover CIA blown in political retribution against Iraq war critic, Joe Wilson.

Three Words:
Fire.
Dog.
Lake.


also Emptywheel at The Next Hurrah
ROCKS!


ever notice that Scooter's initials spell "ILL"?



Thursday, February 1, 2007

Molly Ivins 1944 - 2007



i am sad she has left us.
at least,
now she suffers no more.

molly ivins.
ann richards.

we need more texas firecats.

it was just a year ago i posted this.
this blog had just started.
people still left comments here!

i'll miss molly.






http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020101909.html
[...]

Years ago there was a fundraising gala for People for the American Way in New York, and Molly Ivins was keynote speaker. I was a loyal collector and serious Ivins reader, but I had not met the author. Another famous journalist, who was to have introduced her, had his flight canceled in a Southern city. Norman Lear, founder of the organization, asked me to introduce her. I did not hesitate. I spoke glowingly about Ms. Ivins for a few minutes, then, suddenly, a six-foot-tall, red-haired woman sprang from the wings. She strode onto the stage and over to the microphone. She gave me an enveloping hug and said, in that languorous Texas accent, "Maya Angelou and I are identical twins, we were separated at birth."

I am also six feet tall, but I am not white. She was under 50 when she made the statement, and I was in my middle 60s, but our hearts do beat in the same rhythm. Whoever separated us at birth must know it did not work. We have been in the struggle for equal rights for all people since we met on that Waldorf Astoria stage. We have laughed together without apology and we have wept when weeping was necessary.

I shall be weeping a little more these days but I shall never forget the charge. Joshua commanded the people to shout and the walls came tumbling down.

Molly,
I am shouting,
With two voices,
Walls come down!
Walls come down!
Walls come down!

Poet Maya Angelou is the author of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."