As far as the shrub smearing BHO at the wailing wall, 1000 words:

We send oil to Israel from Iraq and then buy it back from Israel.

"One of Israel's largest oil marketing firms has won a multi-million dollar tender to supply fuel to US troops in Iraq. According to a IsraelNationalNews.com report, the tender awarded to Sonol gasoline company, along with its foreign partner Morgantown International, is valued at $70-80 million. The company is expected to supply the US forces with 25 million litres of fuel each month. The tender was issued by the US-based KDR Company, a subsidiary of Halliburton, which has been entrusted with the majority of US military contracts in Iraq."
www.reachingtruth.com/themic.html

Colin Powell's Role: From Iran-Contra to September 11

Both Colin Powell and his Deputy Richard Armitage, who casually accuse Baghdad and other foreign governments of "harboring" Al Qaeda, played a direct role, at different points in their careers, in supporting terrorist organizations.

Both men were implicated --operating behind the scenes-- in the Irangate Contra scandal during the Reagan Administration, which involved the illegal sale of weapons to Iran to finance the Nicaraguan Contra paramilitary army.

[Coronel Oliver] North set up a team including [Richard] Secord; Noel Koch [Armitage's deputy] , then assistant secretary at the Pentagon responsible for special operations; George Cave, a former CIA station chief in Tehran, and Colin Powell, military assistant to U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger...(The Guardian, December 10, 1986)

www.spectrezine.org/war/Chossudovsky3.htm

February 25, 2008

The Honorable Mike McConnell
Director of National Intelligence
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Washington, DC 20511

Dear Director McConnell,

Each of us has worked professionally with you in the past. We are writing you today to express our concerns over the recent debate on terrorist surveillance. We appreciate your willingness to engage Congress and the Executive Branch in an active conversation about the tools needed by the intelligence community to protect America from foreign enemies. We are concerned, however, that recent comments have distorted rather than enhanced this conversation. ...

Both the House and Senate have legislatively revisited FISA whenever requested by the Executive Branch and have diligently engaged in oversight of the process. In fact, FISA has been modernized nearly a dozen times since 9/11. The Administration has made it clear it believes this entire debate hinges on liability protection. As previously stated, it is unclear that liability protection would significantly improve our surveillance capabilities. It is wrong to make this one issue an immovable impediment to Congress passing strong legislation to protect the American people.

Then as now, what remains paramount is that differences in any legislation be amicably and methodically reconciled in order to ensure our intelligence community has the tools it needs to monitor those who seek to harm us without upending civil liberties. It is the duty of the Executive Branch to inform this process. America's security cannot be captive to partisan bickering and distortions.

It is our hope that as this debate moves forward, your comments and clarity on this issue will best represent the men and women who employ these tools every day to keep America safe.

We appreciate your leadership and your consideration of our views.

Sincerely,

RAND BEERS
RICHARD A. CLARKE
DON KERRICK
SUZANNE SPAULDING

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/national_security_expe...

I, Lieutenant Worf, Endorse Barack Obama For President in Your Year 2008

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/05/i-lieutenant-worf-endo...

With Barack Obama's recent victory in North Carolina, and his virtual tie in Indiana's primary, it is time for me to get off the fence. Having traveled back in time to the era in which the Star Trek television set of series aired, which is a remarkably frequent occurrence given the impracticality of time travel, I, Lieutenant Worf, from television's Star Trek-The Next Generation and Star Trek-Deep Space Nine, am now ready to declare who I support in the 2008 Presidential Campaign. I announce today my endorsement for Senator Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) and urge you to vote for him in the fall.

You may ask what about Senator Obama speaks to me, and causes me to endorse at this time. Is it biography? Surely, I am moved by the story of his humble origins, his absent Kenyan father, his mother working to make ends meet, and growing up without his father in an environment where his racial identity was unclear. After all, I, Lieutenant Worf, am a Klingon by birth, but raised by Caucasian humans, the Rozhenkos, on the farm world of Gault. So I know a little bit about absent fathers, and being a dark-skinned man, looked upon as an alien in a white world.

It was clear when Obama became the first African-American President of the Harvard Law Review that he might be someone special. This is much as it was for me. While undergoing the Rite of MajQua in the lava caves of No'Mat, the vision of the original Klingon warrior Kahless appeared to me, prophesying that I would do what no other Klingon had done. Obama's time at Harvard showed his potential for leadership and bridge building, not unlike mine at Starfleet Academy. People trash the graduates of such "elite" programs, but my time at Starfleet has served me well, and taught me about other species and their cultures. I believe that a President Obama would capably lead an increasingly diverse America, though you will not have need for his innate ability to connect with alien species, since your world will not know warpdrive until the late 21st Century.

Speaking of diversity, you may have noticed that in Starfleet, Caucasian humans are still in charge of most spaceships, for no evident reason. Yet just as twenty-fourth century humans began to move beyond that narrowness by placing Captain Benjamin Sisko in charge of Deep Space Nine, and Captain Elizabeth Janeway in command of Voyager, so are you finally learning in your primitive century that women and nonCaucasians can rule your societies. Good for you.

People have attacked the depth of Obama's grasp of economics, and also his religiosity as a Christian. I've heard that tune before. People said I didn't understand the Ferengi rules of acquisition, but I proved time and again that I do. And while my friends have thought me secular, well, I have a healthy respect for Bajoran beliefs concerning their prophets. Given our deep personal connections, I think the critiques of him hold no more water.

But there is more that I see in him. Just as the transcendental challenge of your time is Moslem extremism, so in my future it was the Borg. The Borg are as alien to us as bin Laden is to you. And if I, a Klingon by birth raised by Russian farmers, can command the Defiant in Admiral Hayes' fleet against the Second Borg invasion and fight off the Borg's would-be temporal sabotage, then I think Obama, with whom I have so much in common, can lead the fight against Islamofascism to a successful conclusion.

In conclusion, I urge you to vote for Senator Barack Obama. And since I'm from the future, and know the outcome, I'll be putting fifty thousand of your dollars on his winning, and taking "the over" at Vegas on the proposition that he will this year attain 51% of the popular vote in the American election. So please remember, g'hay'cha ("Damn it"!), vote for President Obama. I mean, Senator Obama, forgot the Stardate, sorry.

I'm trying to listen live and the steam just went dead.
I then switched to Ktlk 1150 am the LA radio station

The steam there is all sketchy and poppy.

Whats going?
Are others having problems.

Yesterday I got nothing.

Phish

The "appeasement" Bush refers to, revolved around Nazi Germany invading Poland using a faked a incident. The sick irony of Bush bringing up this period of history is so disingenuous, it can only be called typically Bush. The US attacking Iraq under false pretenses, upon which the rise Ahmadinejad and his rhetoric can arguably be linked, won't be called "appeasement", it will be called stupid, stupid, stupid--and the whole world knows it.

Whaddaya know? Chris Matthews calls a Con on a ridiculous Godwinism.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YK0d8ENS__c

Kevin "Not the King of Queens" James insists that Dubya was RIGHT to call Obama an Appeaser just like Neville Chamberlain. When Matthews asks HOW Obama is an appeaser, he just recites his same talking point for five freaking minutes while Matthews keeps asking him, "What did Chamberlain DO?" over and over. Until James was forced to admit that he had no freaking knowledge whatsoever of HOW Chamberlain was an appeaser. He was only parroting crap he was told.

Matthews INFORMS James, "Chamberlain GAVE Hitler half of Czechoslovakia in return of only vague promises of Peace. THAT'S Appeasement. TALKING to people isn't Appeasement. THAT was."

For one, brief shining moment it was almost like Chris Matthews was an actual Journalist and not a political CHEERLEADER.

Last I heard, America already *has* welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly in Iraq and Afghanistan -- welcomed them home two and three and four and even more times!

By 2013 we'll have welcomed them home eight or nine times apiece.

who teach large lecture classes don't care about their students' grades don't see me agonizing over them right now.

:long:

I just heard the new show spot for Laura Dern, and I want to shake the hand of whoever put that together.

Taking one of John Williams most perfect musical moments (the climax of the 'Welcome to Jurassic Park' theme) and marrying it with "Hi, I'm Laura Dern, and whether I'm running away from dinosaurs or portraying Katherine Harris, I'm always listening to the Rachel Maddow show" is absolutely perfect.

Bravo!!