Wednesday, August 31, 2005

George Bush on August 30, 2005

the day after Hurricane Katrina ravaged and demolished the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans:


Caption: President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day.

Katrina Update

We are doing fine. The power's out, and we're under a boil water notice, but we have a generator and enough gas for another night or 2. We can't drive anywhere because a big tree is blocking our way out, but we've got another car.

This is just a terrible tragedy. I can't bear to watch the footage from New Orleans and the coast.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Rebel Roundup - August 25, 2005


News and Notes About Ole Miss Rebel Football

Kelvin Robinson regaining form (subscription)

Daily Journal OM beat writer Parrish Alford Q&A

Frosh DL Jada Brown will not rejoin Rebels

Defense performs well in scrimmage

Profile of DB Travis Johnson

DBs comfortable with 4-3 defense

Special Teams Analysis

No Roundup tomorrow. Next Roundup Monday, maybe Sunday. If I've omitted a big story from today, please feel free to link or paste it in the comments.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

The chickenhawk right wing smear machine

Limbaugh is just filth. He just is. If you listen to him, you're probably a piece of trash, too. Despicable.

Limbaugh's comments about Cindy Sheehan (which he's since denied making because he's a spineless puke):

"I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents, there's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming onto it, it's not real."

"They [mainstream media] are going to try to claim that Cindy Sheehan is responsible for the Bush poll numbers on Iraq being down, but those numbers were falling before Cindy Sheehan did this."

"What's she got? A hundred stragglers have showed up down there, a hundred peaceniks, a hundred long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking FM types, essentially, are down there joining her."

"Now, I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the woman. I think she's taken the grieving process here to lengths that most people don't, and she's being fueled by all of this attention."

"But the longer the Sheehan thing goes on and the longer she's treated as some sort of super-celebrity by the press and the more outrageous things she says, trust me on this, the more people are going to get fed up with it. She's going to become the next Natalee Holloway before it's all said and done."

Cindy Sheehan is a Gold Star mother. Her son died in a war that Limbaugh supported. A war for "freedom" apparently. Fatass has the right to say whatever he wants. So do I. And he's a chickenshit coward (did not go to Vietnam because of a boil on his large ass).

And then there's another right wing blowhard (who I had not heard about until now), Mark Williams. He's on the "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy" tour. Whatever. He's on a whole tour dedicated to refuting a greiving mother who lost a son in the war HE supports (and I'm assuming he's not lost any loved ones in the war, not that that would give him the right to badmouth someone who did). This isn't a "pro-America" rally, it's an "anti-american" rally. It's anti-Cindy Sheehan. Same thing happened with Dixie Chicks, etc. These wingnuts just cannot accept ANY criticism or debate. They have to make it personal. Sickening.

Anyway, here's what this pukefaced hatemonger had to say on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews (the softballer, Norah O'Donnel, was substituting, not that Matthews is any better, really, but I digress):

Williams: "I just got back from Iraq, talking with the troops, talking with the Iraqis and I see the damage that's done by pathetic creatures like the woman I'm talking to and Cindy Sheehan. When they get up there and they present this country as divided and still arguing issues that were decided, debated and voted on three years ago, that both demoralizes our troops and invigorates the insurgency. "And it's no mistake that the lion's share of violence is in and around Baghdad. That's where there are more Western news cameras per capita than probably any other city on the planet earth. When they see this kind of division they use it as a fundraiser and a recruiting tool."

O'Donnell: "Mark, if you don't mind, you're making the case that Cindy Sheehan is hurting the morale of our troops?"

Williams: "She is aiding and abetting the enemies of this country and the people who killed her son. And right now Casey Sheehan is spinning in his grave!"

This guy and those like him (Michelle Malkin, etc.) and those on the right who do not unequivocally condemn this kind of personal attack are just slime. They should go straight to hell.

Let's remember, this anti-war, anti-Bush sentiment is now the MAJORITY sentiment. So if Sheehan is harming the troops, so am I, so are you, so is anyone who disagrees with King, um, I mean, President Bush. According to this loser, the majority of the American people are aiding and abetting the enemies of this country. Really. Work on that one in your individual lesson plans.

Why can't these folks just say they disagree with Sheehan and move on? Why does she have to be personally attacked? She's not personally attacking the president, after all. She's protesting his war policy that resulted in the death of her son. If anyone has a right to attack someone personally, it's Cindy Sheehan.

I could quote more from the Michelle Malkins and her ilk, but it's tiring.

We were right about Bush. We were right about this unnecessary pointless murderous war. We were right.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Lane Closing the Gap


This is the best news I've heard in a long time re: Ole Miss Football. Possibly the best news since Cutcliffe was terminated. From the Clarion Ledger:




Lane closing the gap

A slow start to preseason practice and struggles coping with the heat had placed sophomore quarterback Robert Lane a few steps behind senior Micheal Spurlock in the race for the starting job.

But Lane is quietly closing the gap.Lane has put together his best stretch of practice over the past few days, consistently completing passes and driving the offense to scores in scrimmage situations. Lane completed 6 of 8 passes during Wednesday morning's practice and had another solid effort in the afternoon scrimmage by completing all three of his attempts and rushing for a 13-yard touchdown.

"I'm going out as a quarterback trying to get better each and every day," said Lane, who is trying to beat out Spurlock and also hold off junior Ethan Flatt. "We're also trying to get better as a team. We want to win games and we want the best guy out there."Lane had succumbed to dehydration and cramping during the first week of practice and once had to be treated at a hospital.Orgeron said he's noticed Lane's progress. But Spurlock and Flatt aren't exactly letting up, either. Spurlock was 10-of-11 for 102 yards with two touchdowns Wednesday afternoon and Flatt went 6-of-10 for 114 yards, including a 54-yard TD pass.

"It's really on now," Orgeron said. "The competition is heating up as we get closer and closer to having to make a decision. It's a really tight race."

Thursday, August 11, 2005

The right will stop at nothing

Nothing is too low, not even badmouthing the grieving mother of a war hero. Geez. They will really stop at nothing. Shameful.

"Cindy Sheehan evidently thinks little of her deceased son." — Jimmy Hall, Guest Columnist, Atlanta Journal Constitution

Here is what this @#@hole thinks: "My suggestion to her, however, is that she think about the lives of those still in Iraq. Undermining public support for our efforts in Iraq helps the enemy, her son's murderers. They love people like her, but hate those like her heroic son.
We all can feel bad for the loss Sheehan has experienced. But it is unthinkable that anyone with a child or relative in Iraq should make statements such as she has. Sheehan has said, "I want to ask the president, 'Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?'"

So her son died for the freedom for her to say anything she likes, just not that, not a political statement to the President? riiiiight

What an asshole. The AJC should be ashamed. I bet the Clarion Ledger wouldn't put smear tactics like this in their letters to the editor, much less give this kind of weakling a guest column. Pitiful.

A good column by Mark Shields

can be found here. It's called the Moral Logic of Common Sacrifice.

"The current war in Iraq is the first since the war with Mexico in 1846 that the United States has waged without a draft or tax increases."

...


"[Former Secretary of Navy and Vietnam Veteran Jim] Webb once [commented]: "You don't use 'force,' you send people. You send young people who have dreams, who want a future." The people who make the fateful decision for the nation to go to war are, themselves, subject to no personal consequences. Their children and the children of their friends are not at risk. Without apparent embarrassment, they champion a policy of military escalation with no personal participation. As of this writing, 1,827 Americans have been killed in Iraq -- 1,686 of those deaths have occurred since President George W. Bush landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner proclaiming, "Mission Accomplished.""

...

""Only when the privileged classes perform military service, only when elite youth are on the firing line, does the country define the cause as worth young peoples' blood and do war losses become acceptable," observes Moskos, adding that "the answer to what constitutes vital national interests is found not so much on the cause, itself, but in who is willing to die for that cause.""

Ask yourself what sacrifices you've made in the "War" on terror (or the Global Struggle against Islamic Extremists or whatever the PR gurus in the highest levels of our government are calling it) then ask yourself whether you'd be as gung-ho about this war if it was your son, your spouse, your father, your best friend, who was one of the 1,827. It's worth it to those who made the decision, because they've borne no sacrifice for it.

And I guess "freedom" is what we're fighting for, or at least what we've been told we're fighting for. But what kind of "freedom" is this? The kind of freedom championed and celebrated by a "Freedom Walk" sponsored by your Department of Defense that commemorates the barbaric attacks of 9/11?

In this "Freedom Walk" you actually have to REGISTER to walk for freedom in our country's capital, on public streets in between public momuments. You MUST register, with the government, before enjoying your "freedom" to walk along public streets. That doesn't sound like freedom to me......

Amendment I - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Shame about Palmeiro

you know, to go in front of Congress and LIE like that. He should be charged with perjury. And on such an important issue, too.....it's not like.......well.......

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." Dick Cheney Speech to VFW National Convention, Aug. 26, 2002.[i]

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." George W. Bush Speech to U.N. General Assembly, Sept. 12, 2002.[ii]

"We know they have weapons of mass destruction … There isn't any debate about it." [It is] beyond anyone's imagination" that U.N. inspectors would fail to find such weapons if they were given the opportunity. Donald Rumsfeld, September 2002.[iii]

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." Ari Fleischer Press Briefing, Dec. 2, 2002.[iv]

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there." Ari Fleischer Press Briefing, Jan. 9, 2003.[v]

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." Colin Powell Remarks to U.N. Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003.[vi]

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." George W. Bush Radio Address, Feb. 8, 2003.[vii]

"So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad?... I think our judgment has to be clearly not." Colin Powell Remarks to U.N. Security Council, March 7, 2003.[viii]

“Does Saddam now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure he does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons. . . Defense Policy Board Chair, Richard Perle, speaking to a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing, March, 2003. [ix]

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." George W. Bush Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003. [x]

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly... all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." Ari Fleisher Press Briefing, March 21, 2003[xi]

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction." Gen. Tommy Franks Press Conference, March 22, 2003. [xii]

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Donald Rumsfeld ABC Interview, March 30, 2003. [xiii]

"I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there " Colin Powell Remarks to Reporters, May 4, 2003. [xiv]