Flat Daddies

Truly, this is beyond bizarre.
The Maine National Guard hands out life size cardboard photos of deployed service members to their families.

"He goes everywhere with me. Every day he comes to work with me," said Judkins, who works in a dentist's office. ``I just bought a new table from the Amish community, and he sits at the head of the table. Yes, he does."



Here's a thought - end the corporate conflicts, bring the guard home so you don't have to come up with tacky nonsense like this.

Cluster Fuck

from Billmon

Hypocrisy, thy name is Uncle Sam:

The US is investigating whether Israel's use of American-made cluster bombs in Lebanon violated an agreement that the weapons not be used in populated areas, officials said yesterday . . . "We've heard the allegations that these munitions were used in Lebanon and we're looking into it," a State Department spokesman said yesterday.
Another official confirmed that the sale of cluster bombs was conditional on Israel using them only against military targets in the open, away from civilian areas.
The Guardian US investigates whether Israel violated deal on cluster bombs August 26, 2006
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On March 31, 2003, a United States cluster munition attack on al-Hilla in central Iraq killed at least thirty-three civilians and injured 109. While an egregious incident, this was not an anomaly in the conflict in Iraq, or in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, or in Yugoslavia in 1999. In all of these recent conflicts, and others as well, cluster munition strikes caused significant civilian casualties — casualties that could have been avoided had greater care been taken. Worse still, the vast number of explosive “duds” these weapons left behind have continued to kill and maim civilians long after the attacks, and the conflicts, have ended.
Human Rights Watch Cluster Munitions: Toward a Global Solution January 2004

The little canisters dropped onto the city, white ribbons trailing behind. They clattered into streets, landed in lemon trees, rattled around on roofs, settled onto lawns . . . The deadly objects were cluster bomblets, small explosives packed by the dozens or hundreds into bombs, rockets or artillery shells known as cluster weapons. When these weapons were fired on Baghdad on April 7, many of the bomblets failed to explode on impact. They were picked up or stumbled on by their victims..
USA Today Cluster bombs kill in Iraq, even after shooting ends December 16, 2003

Having the U.S. government investigate Israel's use of cluster bombs is like having the Unibomber investigate the London subway bombings.

The Lost Dixie Chick Apology

Just discovered - The Complete Text of the Dixie Chick's Apology.

As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I now realize that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect.
I hope everyone understands, I'm just a young girl who grew up in Texas. As far back as I can remember, I heard people say they were ashamed of President Clinton. I saw bumper stickers calling him everything from a pothead to a murderer. I heard people on the radio and TV like Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott bad mouthing the President and ridiculing his wife and daughter at every opportunity. I heard LOTS of people disrespecting the President. So I guess I just assumed it was acceptable behavior.
But now, thanks to the thousands of angry people who want radio stations to boycott our music because criticizing the President is unpatriotic, I realize it's wrong to have a liberal opinion if you're a country music artist. I guess I should have thought about that before deciding to play music that attracts hypocritical red necks. I also realize now that I'm supposed to just sing and look cute so our fans won't have anything to upset them while they're cheating on their wives or getting in drunken bar fights or driving around in their pickup trucks and shooting up highway signs.
And most important of all, I realize that it's wrong for a celebrity to voice a political opinion, unless they're Charlie Daniels, Clint Black, Merle Haggard, Barbara Mandrell, Loretta Lynn, Ricky Skaggs, Travis Tritt, Hank Williams Jr, Amy Grant, Larry Gatlin, Crystal Gayle, Reba McEntire, Lee Greenwood, Lorrie Morgan, Anita Bryant, Mike Oldfield, Ted Nugent, Wayne Newton, Dick Clark, Jay Leno, Drew Carey, Dixie Carter, Victoria Jackson, Charleton Heston, Fred Thompson, Ben Stein, Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Bo Derek, Rick Schroeder, George Will, Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly, Joe Rogan, Delta Burke, Robert Conrad or Jesse Ventura.
God Bless America, Natalie

That Earpiece Thing Again

.

Sockpuppet's handlers better do some maintenance on his communication device, the boy is stammering and gargling his instructions a bit much. Notice how the execrable Faux© staff pretends that he just said something noteworthy.

Also, as Gameboy walks away from the mike, look how he pushes at his ear, like the earpiece was falling out or something.

The New Normal

Mrs Contendere and I were going to get our passports and do some traveling this winter. With this latest phony fear injecting contrivance, I'm reassessing that decision. It's probably safe to assume that restrictions won't ease much and with each new incident it'll only get worse.

Plus I'd hate to be abroad when some crap happens and my bags go missing.

When The Levees Broke

Spike Lee is going to present a four hour, four part documentary on HBO about Katrina and the aftermath later this month.From the HBO site:
"On August 29, 2006, the city of New Orleans was forever changed when Hurricane Katrina made landfall, breaching levees, flooding neighborhoods, and killing more than a thousand residents. One year later, acclaimed director Spike Lee presents this four-hour, four-part HBO documentary event that recounts one of the United States' most profound natural disasters through words and images. In addition to revisiting the hours leading up to the devastating Category 5 storm, the film tells the personal stories of those who lived to tell about it while also exploring the underbelly of a nation where the divide along race and class lines has never been more pronounced."
"This page has the schedule.

President Pretends to Read a Book

We're supposed to believe that Gameboy is reading Camus' "The Stranger" while on vacation at his pretend ranch in Texas.
Quite apropos, actually. It's an absurdist tale about a guy, his innate disconnection with reality and his total lack of moral fiber or sense of remorse. Who kills an arab.

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When taking time out from using his finger and mouthing the words, Sockpuppet gets his jollies from forcing staffers to run in 100 degree heat. If you survive you get a t shirt and a photo.

Jon Snow confronts Israeli Ambassador on Israeli 'terror'


Why don't US "journalists" have the balls to confront Israeli propagandists like this?

Hezbollah Rockets Can't Be Fired From Houses (Like The One In Qana)

But the IDF would prefer that you didn't know it.

"The type of missiles being fired by Hizbullah at Israeli cities cannot be fired from within houses, mosques, hospitals or even UN facilities as has been suggested by the IDF. Due to the massive "back-blast" caused by the rocket launchers of these missiles, they can only be fired from open ground. To fire them from within a building would result in the instant death of the missile crew and probable destruction of the missile before launch. Most of the missiles are truck-mounted and are fired - on open ground - from the backs of flat-bedded trucks or larger four-wheel-drive vehicles."

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Israel Turns Southern Lebanon Into Rubble.

Israeli artillery sits on the border and has fired 50,000 shells into Lebanon's villages.

What The Fools Believe

In my existence I've rarely seen the levels of sheer outright idiocy than the reaction of the determined ignorati to the carnage in the middle east. It's like the insistant stupidity of the Bush Cargo Cult, which looks at a moronic failure and sees a heroic war savior, only it's worse. With Sockpuppet there's Rove, slick propaganda efforts and a prostrate media. In Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon there's only blood and naked suffering. With a million displaced people, an entire country being destroyed and possibly thousands killed and more on the way, this poses a real problem for the fascist apologencia.

I decided to hold my nose and do a scatological survey of how the little brown shirts try to fit the square pegs of reality into the round holes of ideology.Sorry, I'll go look at it but I refuse to link to idiocy.

Outrages are coming fast and furious but the latest is the Qana massacre. Scenes of over 50 dead women and children pulled from an targetted house tend to sour most people to what Israel is doing. Most people.

Malkin and her ilk try desperately to paint the Hezbollah resistance as cowards who hide amongst the general population. Since it was only women and children who died at Qana, they have to turn 180 degrees and say the men were all terrorists and out trying to kill Israelis. Bonus - the men are really wimps for leaving their women in danger.

Ynet claims the Lebanese brought invalid kids into the building and killed them for propaganda value.

Atlas Shrugs has pictures of Hezbollah rocket! shrapnel! Claiming little pieces of metal that fly from exploding bombs are proof that Arabs are subhuman beasts. By the way, Pammy at Atlas and Grouchy Old Cripple stress that jewish women soldiers are real babes compared to those mooslims.

At NRO Rich Lowry says Hezbollah is celebrating Qana, while Michael Ledeen can't wait for the fireworks in Syria and Iran, as if Lebanon isn't enough slaughter.

The American Thinker opines that the bodies at Qana that were dug out from pulverised concrete were gray colored, thereby meaning that they had really died several days earlier.

The Bullwinkle blog maintains the fiction that Israel is pure as the driven snow and would never ever target civilians. So take that anti semetism elsewhere, Adolph.

LGF and Limbaugh maintain the photos taken at the destroyed building were staged and rescue workers hauled the same dead little girl around for hours, in and out of the rubble.
Really.
Actually this looks like a typical case of a bullshit contention that reverberates around the idiot echo chamber so much it becomes an established fact to the kool aid crowd. It's also a fine example of projection syndrome, where you paint your supposed enemies with your own disorders. Only truly sick people would look at grieving emergency relief workers and think the dead children were props.

It's no wonder we tout a reality based community, I need a shower.