All i ever think about is Bush...

Originally uploaded by irregulargirl.

It seems like the only thing i ever blog about these days is Bush, Bush and more bush. I know i should just get over it and go about my business but it really bugs me how He and the neo-cons (with the help of certain segments the american press) put one over on the american public. WMDs? Nope, none. Evidence of an Iraq/Saddam connection to Al-Queda and by extension to 9/11? Thus far, none whatsoever. And yet here we are, thousands of American troops and countless more Iraqi civilians have been killed, and the situation keeps getting worse.

And now the Downing Street Memo, which reveals that Bush was planning on invading Iraq, all the while knowing full well that there were no WMDs and that Saddam was a threat to no one (except the people of Iraq, which is a whole other story..), and continually lying to the world about his intentions...

And this brings me to, guess what, more about Bush. Paul Krugman in the NYTimes asks a few good questions in his op-ed today, Staying What Course?

And finally, as if this wasn't enough in one day, lots of good stuff over on Juan Cole today. Most interesting to me is his discussion of the Newsday story on the desecration of the Koran at our torture camp in Guantanamo Bay, especially the info from a former military officer who recounts his training sessions at a mock POW camp, or "SERE school--Search, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape" which included the following:

"He brought out the bible and started going off on it verbally--how it was worthless, we were forsaken by this God, etc. Then he threw it on the ground and kicked it around."

It's not such a big stretch to get from there to US military interrogators flushing a Koran down the toilet, is it? And tell me again, why are these guys all being held in Cuba and not in the US?

And (finally finally) the outraged denials from the White House and the Pentagon would make me laugh if they weren't so absurd as to make me want to cry. Again in The NYTimes, the following quote:

"It's appalling, really, that an article that was unfounded to begin with has caused so much harm, including loss of life," the State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said at a briefing in Washington."

The nerve of these people! This same statement applies equally well to the cooking of the books, the falsification of intelligence, that got us into Iraq in the first place. These guys are outrageous and I can't believe we haven't booted them out of office already. (okay i'll go back to sleep now)

more great election results...

direct
Originally uploaded by 7-how-7.

Juan Cole has a short mention today about whether the elections made the Iraq situation better or worse, and a link to an interesting Hannah Allam article on the same topic...

viva botero...

botero096
Originally uploaded by Casual Chin.

Juan Forero in the Sunday New York Times has a story about the latest works by Colombian artist Fernando Botero. Botero, best known for his depictions of rubenesque nuns and policmen, has shifted his focus to the US torture of Iraqis that took place in Abu Ghraib prison. The Times article includes a few of the new paintings, and there is a link to an audio-visual slide show as well. I was never that interested in Botero's previous work and I was startled to see such a dramatic change of subject matter for this artist so late in life.

According to the article:

"He said he read about Abu Ghraib in The New Yorker, then followed European news accounts. Calling himself an admirer of the United States - one of his sons lives in Miami - Mr. Botero said he became incensed because he expected better of the American government."

If you get a message telling you to register to read the article, it is free to register and doesn't take long...

desert storm

desert storm
Originally uploaded by 7-how-7.

this photo was taken yesterday in hollywood on sunset boulevard. this continues to be the rainiest year in LA on record since some time in the late 1800s.

and speaking of desert storms, juan cole has an interesting piece today about when the Bush administration actually decided to invade Iraq, and how the Brits helped in the false justification process...

more stormy weather:



and a good piece over at Daily K-Os by Ajai Raj, the student arrested for disrupting a Q&A session by Ann Coulter at the University of Texas in Austin.

a few bad apples putting the "high" in high school...

angry soldier...
Originally uploaded by 7-how-7.

More news recently about the military's problems with recruiting soldiers for the ever sustaining quagmire in Iraq. Just read a great story about how David McSwane, a high school student (who is also the editor of his school newspaper) approached army recruiters telling them he was a high school drop-out with a drug problem. Rather than turn him away, the recruiters helped him buy a fake diploma and drove him to buy a substance designed to dupe drug testers. The lid was blown off of "recruitergate" in McSwane's school newspaper, The Westwind, and later picked up by a local CBS affiliate. Good to see young people taking action, especially since they are the ones dying over there...