Breaking News: At Least, I Think It Is. Somewhere.

Riddle me this... when is an actual and legitimate news story not a news story? Answer... when said news story might cast this Administration and their dirty little war in a negative light, when said news story doesn't paint a glowing and rosy picture of life in Iraq, touting all of our "successes." So please, for those of you out there who still buy into the myth of the "liberal media," I think we can go ahead and finally lay that to rest once and for all.

Because the Administration is going to such great effort to talk up the successes and show just how wonderfully well the war in Iraq is going, a story that hit the wires at 5:04 EST today has simply gone by the boards. It seems that yet another Republican trying to have gay sex in a public bathroom is bigger news than 4 members of Congress nearly being killed in Iraq. Certainly you'd think it would warrant at the very least, a breaking news blurb somewhere on the networks. Yet, it's been strangely silent. And that silence, as they say, has been deafening.

Since our media has declined to cover the story, allow me to do their job for them.

4 members of Congress, Senators Richard Shelby (R-AL), Mel Martinez (R-FL), James Inhofe (R-OK) and Congressman Bud Cramer (D-AL) were nearly killed in the skies over Iraq. After viewing the conditions on the ground in Iraq, they boarded a plane in Baghdad bound for Amman, Jordan. Shortly after takeoff, 3 rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the C-130 cargo plane. In a telephone interview, Senator Shelby said the rockets were "near misses."

Said Shelby:

"I was looking out the window, a little small window, and I saw a shell or something. And then I see a flare. Our plane started maneuvering and changing directions and shaking all around."

The pilot made defensive maneuvers, successfully avoiding the rockets and safely ferried the members of Congress and their staffs to Amman, Jordan.

Congressman Cramer issued this statement:

"Our plane leaving Iraq was fired upon and it was a close call, but this is something that our men and women in combat face every day. The flight crew was outstanding and I credit them for the way they handled the situation. This should not take away from the purpose of this trip, which was to see first hand the operations in Iraq and thank our troops, many of them from North Alabama."

Amazing, isn't it? We're getting every sordid scrap of detail about Senator Larry Craig's (R-ID) sexual solicitation in an airport men's room and yet, a story like this one that pretty definitively shows that the surge has failed, that Iraq is far from stable and the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly isn't even a blip on the nightly news radar. Interesting coincidence, wouldn't you agree?

I personally would think that this story would be leading off every newscast all night long. Predictably though, because our media refuses to do their job and cowardice is rampant among our news outlets and journalists, those not owned by right-wing ideologues anyway, actual news items like this fail to make the cut. It's beyond ridiculous.

~Kevin S.

Let Them Eat Cake

2 years ago today, the fiercest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States came ashore, devastating the Gulf Coast. 2 years ago today, countless thousands of people lost their homes and their businesses to driving winds, relentless rains and the ever-rising floodwaters. 2 years ago today, people lost their neighborhoods, their towns and their cities to Katrina's fury. 2 years ago today, two-thousand people lost their lives.

And 2 years ago today, while American citizens died in the streets of American cities, George W. Bush was too busy doing this to be bothered:
Recovery along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has been slow, to say the least. Entire neighborhoods still lay in ruins, people's lives remain shattered. People continue to reside in cities other than their own because they still have no place to come home to. And the Federal government continues to fail the people of the Gulf Coast today as they did the day Katrina hit.

Bush dutifully trotted himself down to New Orleans today for what's becoming his annual Gulf Coast photo-op and said the usual and expected things, expressed his feigned sorrow at the tragedy and loss Katrina inflicted, but when he gets back on Air Force 1 and goes back to Washington, not a damn thing will have changed. That this Administration has given no-bid contracts to Halliburton to rebuild New Orleans and that Halliburton is only rebuilding in areas where large casinos and other corporate entities can set up shop should tell you all you need to know about where their priorities are at. Neither this Administration nor Halliburton are helping the regular and real people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to rebuild their lives and their homes.

That the devastation along the Gulf Coast is as bad in most areas today as it was 2 years ago is unconscionable. That we're spending countless billions in Iraq and doing nothing to help those living in those ravaged areas along the Gulf Coast is a testament to the callous and uncaring attitude of this Administration. This government... this nation... should be deeply ashamed. Above anything and everything else, we should be taking care of our own.

Word has come down that next month, Bush will be asking (demanding) another $50 BILLION from Congress to continue funding the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. $50 billion. Don't you think that money would be better spent rebuilding the Gulf Coast and putting shattered lives back together again? Don't you think that money would be better spent rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of this country? Don't you think $50 billion could be better spent in this country rather than handing it over to Halliburton and the other corporate entities operating in Iraq?

I am urging everybody to sign this petition. The petition is to show our support for a bill sponsored by Senators Dodd, Kerry, Boxer, Brown, Durbin, Obama and Landrieu, the Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007 (S.1668). It will help provide affordable housing to those who lost everything to Katrina. And if you're so moved, I'm urging everybody to contact their Senators and their Congresscritters and demand that they support the Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007.

It's 2 years after Katrina. It's well beyond time we help our fellow citizens rebuild and move on with their lives. It's well beyond time that we force the government to take action.

If you feel so moved, please feel free to forward this along or repost it. The further we spread our message, the louder our collective voices will be. It's time we're heard.

And now, I'll leave you with this video, produced by Robert Greenwald...

~Kevin S.

The Failure to Convert Jill Carroll to Islam

January 7, 2006 was just another day in Baghdad. Insurgents attacked busy streets. People were murdered. Others were taken hostage. The US would not have paid attention, except that on this day an American was one of the kidnapped.


And not just any American. Jill Carroll, a young, innocent-looking freelance reporter. Her smiling photo in the news tugged at our hearts just as much as the video her captors released, twenty-three days into her ordeal, of her weeping.

Recently I read her 11-page piece on the Christian Science Monitor detailing the kidnapping and the hostage situation and was stuck by one thread.

Her captors repeatedly tried to convert her to Islam. On her second day she writes,

I tried to listen to Abu Ali's lesson attentively as he translated complicated Koranic Arabic into more basic Arabic he thought I could understand. He was very pleased that I showed interest in learning. He kept saying there was no pressure, no pressure in Islam, that they were forbidden from forcing people to convert. True acceptance must come from a free will.

They'd kidnapped me, and they all had guns ready to kill me, but, oh no, no pressure there. I falsely assured him that I felt no pressure. I have always been interested in learning about Islam.

This idea of forced conversion is laughable. Carroll may have found the path to Islam on her own if she had not been kidnapped. Or not. But if she had converted as a hostage, or even now, the circumstances would call into doubt the legitimacy of her faith. As she said, "no pressure" and "free will" are ridiculous labels to attach to a person being held at gunpoint.

Yet, this is exactly what we’ve done to Iraq. Jill Carroll is the personification of the failure of the practice of Gunpoint Democracy. You cannot go in, hold a country hostage, install a fundamental change and think it’s valid and acceptable. It was not chosen freely by the people, it was forced on them.

It is odd to think that my freedoms and civil liberties have been set loose to rape the people living in another country. I guess it doesn’t matter how much liberty the US sends over, it cannot be accepted in the condition it was presented. The fact that it has been approved by the government doesn’t imply that it is a valid conversion.

Eighty-two days after the kidnapping Jill Carroll was released. Her public perception of the people in Iraq has not changed. And she has not converted. And neither has Iraq.

~Lila Schow
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/

I Can Haz A Do Ofver? Plez?

Go bak in time? Re-do elektions?

Look! I made this one:

Is you needz more the funnyz?

~Lila Schow

Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government

http://goodusgov.org/