I find that the Bushies penchant for picking crowds to cheer him on whenever Smirk has a speech, campaign rally or any other event distinguishes him very little from other world tyrants. It's all a calculated ploy to signify how loved he is as a leader. Didn't Saddam do the same thing? The Soviets in their heyday? Disturbing. Don't get me wrong here. I think he has a right to have fundraising events where he limits the participation to those who pay. However, his administration also controls access to "public events" where one must have a ticket to attend. You can only get a ticket if you're a Bush supporter. So is he the president of all of us or only 40% of the country who are registered Repubs? I know that I wouldn't be able to get a ticket, even though I'm a good person, a solid citizen, a government employee, a middle-income American, a regular voter and not a terrorist or evildoer. This is because I'm a registered Democrat. Might as well hang a sign saying "Irish need not apply."

from the article:
At his first visit, in Dubuque, the front end of his bus pulled inside the Grand River Center, and he bounded out of it to blaring rock music and the waving of small flags by the cheering, hand-selected audience.

- B 12:47 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A very interesting commentary from the editor of Editor and Publisher. It will be interesting indeed to see whether editors of newspapers call for pulling out of Iraq.

From that commentary:
But what really got me to thinking the unthinkable -- a phased U.S. pullout from Iraq -- was a letter that Bill Mitchell (no relation) of Atascadero, Calif. wrote to his son's former commanding officer in Iraq. His son, Army SSG Mike Mitchell, was killed in Iraq in early April, as I documented in a news story last week.

In that letter, Bill wrote about the "irony" that his son "was killed by the very people that he was liberating. This is insanity!!!" He added: "I am having a major problem with being OK with his death under these circumstances and I really do not believe that Iraq, the world, or the lives of his family and friends are better due to his death." Imagine the pain behind those lines.


Much as though the Bushies would like us to believe that the world is a better place due to the sacrifice of these 750+ persons, it is clear from comments like that, that the families of those killed don't share that view.

- B 6:47 PM - [PermaLink] -

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This century sucks so much, that we can't even have a decent ending to the longest running TV shows. While the "finale of the century" was watched by 52 million people, that number was a far cry from the numbers who watched MASH end it's run 20 years ago. Perhaps an indication that the viewing public clamors for TV that offers something serious sometimes rather than shows offering little more than self-absorbed characters existing in a make-believe world of all white people (Other than the writing. That ooops-Newark-not-JFK gag gets me every time!). I was left thinking today that the whole show would have been much funnier if Bob Newhart had woken up in a bed with Suzanne Pleshette at the end.

Personally, I blame Bush.

- B 5:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Republican Leadership - Leading This Country Into The Third World

Nuclear waste changes sought at Hanford and other sites
New proposal would allow Energy Dept. to skip cleanup of the most lethal material

WASHINGTON -- A South Carolina senator, working in concert with senior Energy Department officials, has quietly proposed changing federal law to allow lethal waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and other nuclear weapons plants to remain in underground tanks rather than being removed and sent to a more secure disposal site.

The proposal from Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., is included in the defense authorization bill. It was heavily shaped -- if not written -- by the Energy Department. Jill Lea Sigal, a deputy assistant energy secretary, is listed as "author" on the document Graham's office submitted with the legislative language.

The Energy Department did not return several phone calls seeking comment on the policy and Sigal's involvement. The department has actively been pursuing the change since 2002, saying that it needs the power to reclassify waste to accelerate cleanup and direct money to deal with the most dangerous waste. Each time, however, either Congress or the courts have blocked the department, including a federal court ruling last year that prohibited the Energy Department from reclassifying waste.
...

"It is an enormous change. It turns the Nuclear Waste Policy Act on its head," said attorney Geoffrey Fettus, referring to the 1982 law that dictates how nuclear materials are handled and disposed. Fettus, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, successfully sued the department last year to block the policy.

"It totally subverts the nuclear waste policy act by essentially allowing DOE to exempt itself ... DOE is essentially rewriting the law that they had broken. If that is a minor change then it would be a minor change to split the state of Washington into two states," he said.

Graham's approach would potentially allow millions of gallons of sludge-like radioactive waste to be reclassified as less dangerous low-level waste.

Well if Bush is now allowed, willy nilly, to declare anyone in the world, including a US citizen an "enemy compatent," then why can't the department of energy to reclassify dangerous radioactive waste. Soon the Pentagon announces its new policy where it is allowed to reclassify any foreign state as an American territiory.

- rob 11:27 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Today's Feel Good Story

This is the new gulag
Bush has created a global network of extra-legal and secret US prisons with thousands of inmates

It was "unacceptable" and "un-American", but was it torture? "My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture," said Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence on Tuesday. "I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word."
He confessed he had still not read the March 9 report by Major General Antonio Taguba on "abuse" at the Abu Ghraib prison. Some highlights: " ... pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape ... sodomising a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick ... "

The same day that Rumsfeld added his contribution to the history of Orwellian statements by high officials, the Senate armed services committee was briefed behind closed doors for the first time not only about Abu Ghraib, but about military and CIA prisons in Afghanistan. It learned of the deaths of 25 prisoners and two murders in Iraq; that private contractors were at the centre of these lethal incidents; and that no one had been charged. The senators were given no details about the private contractors. They might as well have been fitted with hoods.

- rob 11:11 AM - [PermaLink] -

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A post at: Hullabaloo
Relative Indignance

Now, I'm hearing James Inhofe, a very religious man, making the moral argument on Hardball that nobody dropped anyone into acid like Saddam did in that very same prison, so let's not get carried away with our condemnation of Americans. "Compared to what they do to us, it's a picnic." (Any ideas about what they're doing to us?) He did go out of his way to say that he "didn't approve" of the behavior of those bad apples before he waved around an Ahmad Chalabi special report from 1992 that says bin Laden was good friends with Saddam.

I'm once again struck by the moral surety of these religious Republicans who don't seem to be upset by the deviant behavior graphically shown in these pictures and who don't seem worried in the least about how they are going to explain it to their children. It seems like only yesterday that every other word from their mouths was "deplorable," "reprehensible," "despicable," "disgusting," and " "revolting," as they relayed their shock and horror at the stunning news of a 50 year old man having an affair with a young woman in his office. If I recall correctly, this was considered to be an act of such depravity that they didn't know how the nation could survive if the perpetrator wasn't removed from office.

But, somehow, pictures of a young soldier pointing gleefully to a naked, hooded prisoner forced to masturbate on camera only elicits a mild "disapproval." Anyone have some clues where I might find an explnation of this in Senator Inhofe's Baptist Bible or Freddie Barnes's Episcopal prayerbook, because I'm finding it awfully difficult to understand?

- rob 11:09 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Teresa Heinz Kerry Nearly Had Abortion

During her first marriage, Heinz Kerry said she wanted a fourth child after the birth of her son Christopher in March 1973. She said she had a "severe reaction to something," was taking heavy cortisone medicine and did not realize she was pregnant.

"I told my doctor I think I'm pregnant and ... he said well then if you're pregnant, you have to abort that baby ... and I was very upset ... I didn't want to have an abortion, but they gave me 15 days because it was early and the night before I was due to go in, I miscarried it. So God was very kind," she said.

If this becomes an issue, and it may as it's already been up on the Drudgereport, then there is another story that becomes fair game:

ABORTION CLAIM HITS PRESIDENT

PORNOGRAPHER Larry Flynt says he has "nailed down" his claims George Bush, a pro-life campaigner, arranged for a girlfriend to have an abortion in the 1970s.

Flynt, 61, a failed California governor candidate said: "I've talked to the woman's friends. I've tracked down the doctor who did the abortion, and the Bush people who arranged for the it. I've got the story nailed."

He said he would publish his claims in a book at the height of the election season.

As much as it is easy to be disgusted by Flynt, when it comes to nasty scoops like that, he has an amazing track recort, one the Washington Post and New York Times should be envious.

Flynt been working on this story for a long time. Here's some of the story he was pushing in summer 2000, before he finally got it "nailed."

Desperate Measures: George W. Bush & Abortion

In the winter of 1971 George W. Bush was dating a woman named Robin Lowman (now Robin Garner). Miss Lowman became pregnant by Bush and he arranged for her to have an abortion - which in the great state of Texas in 1971 was very illegal! Not to mention that George W. is running as a pro-life candidate for the presidency

- rob 11:08 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Freaked out yet?

F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements

WASHINGTON, May 6 — At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that same day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said in a report today.

The taping began before noon on Sept. 11 at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, in Ronkonkoma, on Long Island, where about 16 people met in a basement conference room known as "the Bat Cave" and passed around a microphone, each recalling his or her version of the events a few hours earlier.

But officials at the center never told higher-ups of the tape's existence, and it was later destroyed by an F.A.A. official described in the report as a quality-assurance manager there. That manager crushed the cassette in his hand, shredded the tape and dropped the pieces into different trash cans around the building, according to a report made public today by the inspector general of the Transportation Department.

Yes, I know, this can be easily explained:

The quality-assurance manager destroyed the tape between December 2001 and February, 2002. By that time, he and the center manager had received an e-mail message sent by the F.A.A. instructing officials to safeguard all records and adding, "If a question arises whether or not you should retain data, RETAIN IT."

The inspector general attributed the tape's destruction to "poor judgment."

More fodder though for honest questions. And there are so many questions.

Again, if you haven't read it, please read The Theory of Luck, The Statement of Mindy Kleinberg to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: March 31, 2003.

- rob 10:48 AM - [PermaLink] -

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It breeds contempt

At a certain point -- and we're way past it -- you have to ask yourself, Who're the enemy combatants threatening the world right now with mass destruction? The answer depends on your point of view, on a sliding scale of morality. So how do you decide who's right and who's wrong? That's what international courts of justice and the rule of law is for, right? By suspending those laws and courts indefinitely, and declaring the head of the executive branch sole arbiter of a person's fate by his decision alone, you never really get an answer, do you? That's because the question is already settled, and you're not supposed to ask. You better take it on faith. Be warned.

Inside the United States, the most radical departure from law as we have known it is President Bush's claim that he can designate any American citizen an "enemy combatant" — and thereupon detain that person in solitary confinement indefinitely, without charges, without a trial, without a right to counsel. Again, the president's lawyers have argued determinedly that he must have the last word, with little or no scrutiny from lawyers and judges.

There was a stunning moment in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address when he said that more than 3,000 suspected terrorists "have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem for the United States."

In all these matters, there is a pervasive attitude: that to follow the law is to be weak in the face of terrorism. But commitment to law is not a weakness. It has been the great strength of the United States from the beginning. Our leaders depart from that commitment at their peril, and ours, for a reason that Justice Louis D. Brandeis memorably expressed 75 years ago.

"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher," he wrote. "For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself."

Be an Army of One.

- Michael 8:05 AM - [PermaLink] -

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About the American soldiers and civilians torturing Iraqi's the Bush apolgist helpfully and happily point out: "What a good nation we are, as soon as we heard about this, we acted about it." Except it isn't true.

Red Cross Says Repeatedly Warned U.S. on Iraq Jail

GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had repeatedly urged the United States to take "corrective action" at a Baghdad jail at the center of a scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

The Geneva-based humanitarian agency, mandated under international treaties to visit detainees, has had regular access to Abu Ghraib prison since U.S.-led forces began using it last year, according to chief spokeswoman Antonella Notari.

"The ICRC, aware of the situation, and based on its findings, has repeatedly asked the U.S. authorities to take corrective action," she told Reuters.

Don't get me wrong, I do think our nation is much much better than this, but, and I'm really devestated to say this, our government isn't. This is what the US government has become. They represent us, and we need to throw them out, as they have sullied all our names.

of course Limbaugh thinks torture is just a way to "blow off steam."

- rob 3:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush, Wife to Skip Daughters' Graduations

Putting aside the post below, Bush often doesn't seem like much of a family man, though maybe you can take his excuse of not wanting to disrupte the proceedings at face value.

But these things seem to happen to the Bush's, like Jeb Bush not bothering to attend his daughter's sentencing in Florida, and the time when Bush decided that he'd rather fish with his dad and Jeb than stick around and stay by Jenna's side when she had to have surgery for appendicitis.

- rob 3:23 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush proves that when acting on his own, spontaniously, he can be momentarily human.

(a rare, bush isn't the devil incarnate post)

Bush pauses to comfort teen

In a moment largely unnoticed by the throngs of people in Lebanon waiting for autographs from the president of the United States, George W. Bush stopped to hold a teenager's head close to his heart.

Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president's hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke:

"This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11."

Bush stopped and turned back.

"He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man," Faulkner said. "He looked right at her and said, 'How are you doing?' He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest."

Of course, if this happened with Cheney he'd just turn and yell at the young girl: "At least you had a mother! They found me under a rock!"

That said about Bush, I have to say this photo creeps me out a little:




I'd probably feel even better about his unscripted moment if Bush hadn't used this young woman's tragedy as a marketing ploy to start an unnecessary war that has weakened our nation's security and damaged our reputation for decades to come. But that's for other posts.

- rob 2:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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a post from Michael:

They said it, not me


"History, we don't know. We'll all be dead."


"It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you never had it taken from you."


"You may think it's something I ought to know, but I happen not to. That's life."


"This is bullshit!"

- rob 2:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The republicans loved to make much hay over Clinton's famous "is" discussion. In the administration in the past few days, if it was possible to take it lower, I think we've hit new lows. Witness Rumsfeld's prevarication on the use of the word "torture." (see below)

So, in his mind, physical and mental abuse, involving beatings, rape, possible electrical shocks, etc etc, for the purpose of coercing information from the abused, can be separated from torture which my dictionary defines as "the act of inflicting pain as a means of coercion." I guess I don't understand. But then again, I'm a lawyer and not as certified smart as the good secretary must be.

Or maybe, what he's saying is that *if* he *was* a lawyer, like me, he'd understand the difference. But for him, he doesn't yet know that what has happened is torture. He's not really sure. 'Cause he's only a cabinent secretary....

New banner concept: "Torture Happens"

- B 7:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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George and his ilk like to talk about running government like a business. If the federal government is the world's largest business then George is its CEO:

"George Bush is, fundamentally, a mediocre CEO, the kind of insulated leader who's convinced that his instincts are all he needs. Unfortunately, like many failed CEOs before him, he's about to learn that being sure you're right isn't the same thing as actually being right."

From the Washington Monthly

- B 7:00 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Terrorist Mercenaries on U.S. Payroll in Iraq War

When a suicide bomber parked a van disguised as an ambulance in front of the Shaheen Hotel in the Karadah neighborhood of Baghdad on January 28 and blew himself up, he killed four people and wounded scores of others.
He also blew the lid off a dirty little secret of the Coalition Provisional Authority: due to its “outsourcing” of privatized security services, the CPA has put terrorists, mercenaries and war criminals on the payrolls of companies contracted by the Pentagon.

After the Shaheen Hotel blast, departmental spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa at South Africa’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of the Westerners killed was South African Frans Strydom. Four of the wounded were also South African nationals, including Deon Gouws, who sustained serious injuries.
...

Strydom was a member in the Koevoet, Afrikaner for “Crowbar,” an outlaw group that paid bounty for the bodies of blacks seeking independence during the 1980s. The Koevoet terrorized blacks in Namibia and northern South Africa for more than a decade. Hundreds of deaths are attributed to its members.

More notorious is Gouws’ past. A former police officer, Gouws was a member of the infamous Vlakplaas death squad that terrorized blacks under apartheid. Only after South Africa established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Col. Eugene de Kock, a former death-squad leader who supervised Gouws, applied for amnesty, did the activities of the Vlakplaas come to light. Gouws faced a choice: repent by confessing, or be charged with crimes. He applied for amnesty, confessing on his application for absolution to killing 15 blacks and firebombing the homes of “between 40 and 60 anti-apartheid activists.”

There are an estimated 1,500 South Africans employed by security contractors in Iraq, according to the South African foreign ministry. Many used their backgrounds as mercenaries during Apartheid to bolster their credentials.

After being pardoned but ostracized in South Africa, “Where are these men expected to go?” asked Judge Goldstone.

Unfortunately the answer seems to that is these men could then go to work for the US government (via a 'security firm') and help "liberate" Iraq. Tragic.

This is our nation being tarnished be these bastards (I include Bush in this list)!

- rob 4:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Back during the buildup to the Iraq war in early 2003, I tried, without success, to get the Oregon Legislature to pass a resolution that suggested to Bush that he should get more international support before invading. The resolution would, of course, have been nonbinding on the president, but would have been an expression of Oregon's lawmakers regarding the due and proper course of action for such a watershed geopolitical event. I was not the brainchild behind this concept, Maine had passed such a resolution and, if memory serves, the Alaska house had adopted something similar. Cities and counties all over the country were doing something similar. But I could get very little traction on the issue because the conservatives in the legislature were unwilling to say anything negative about the president and were also unwilling to have any language in the resolution that suggested that we were in any way subordinate to the UN. But when I structured the language in that manner, I lost the liberals because they felt that it either didn't go far enough for their constituents, or that they would be painted as being soft on terrorism. Therefore, it died. In fact, it never even got introduced because my pansy legislator refused to even introduce it (! How about that for service from your legislator! And I work in the damn building! Hate to see what kind of service Joe Public gets from her!)

Yesterday, I saw a person who works for the House Speaker. During my attempts to get this resolution introduced, he served as the point person with the conservatives and gave me an idea of the type of language that they would and would not support. I chatted amicably with him, but left wondering: If I were to ask him now whether he was glad that the Speaker didn't support a resolution counseling a go slow approach on Iraq, I wonder what the answer would be.....

- B 3:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I can't claim credit for it, but it's a good line:
Turns out that we didn't so much close the torture and rape rooms in Iraq as much as redecorate them.

- B 2:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Expert: E-voting vulnerability 'terrible'

WASHINGTON -- A computer science expert criticized electronic voting systems planned for the November election as highly vulnerable and flawed, saying on Wednesday a backup paper system is the only short-term solution to avoid another disputed presidential election.

"On a spectrum of terrible to very good, we are sitting at terrible," Aviel D. Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. "Not only have the vendors not implemented security safeguards that are possible, they have not even correctly implemented the ones that are easy."

Other experts said electronic voting offers advantages over paper balloting, including increasing access to the blind and people who do not speak English. They contended that backing up electronic systems with paper ballots could be costly.

Having an election with disputed results with so much on the line could be really costly too. Don't you think?

- rob 1:52 PM - [PermaLink] -

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U.S. jeopardizes global terror probes

Spanish investigators say they may be forced to release more than a dozen men charged with aiding the Sept. 11 attacks because of a breakdown in international cooperation in fighting terrorism. Guess who's the least cooperative with the Spanish prosecutors? That's right, U.S. authorities. The Wall Street Journal (Sub. only) has an interesting piece showing how Spain's 10-year pursuit of al-Qaida cells there is being compromised and jeopardized by the American authorities' failure to turn over information needed to prosecute.

Here's an excerpt from the Journal: "A breakdown in international cooperation on fighting terrorism threatens to further undermine years of investigation into radical Islamist cells in Europe, with Spanish investigators saying they may be forced to release more than a dozen men charged with aiding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."

"In the months after the attacks in the U.S., Spanish police rounded up more than a dozen suspected terrorists in Madrid with ties to al Qaeda operatives around the world. Last autumn they were indicted, along with al Qaeda terrorist group leader Osama bin Laden, on thousands of counts of murder for allegedly helping provide logistics to carry out the Sept. 11 attacks. The investigating magistrate handling the case, Baltasar Garzon, previously prosecuted former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet and terrorism by Basque separatists in Spain."

"Now people close to the prosecution say that after nearly 10 years of investigation into these cells, starting well before the Sept. 11 attacks, the case is in danger of falling apart. The reason: a lack of international cooperation, especially with U.S. authorities engaged in their own fight against terrorism."

- rob 1:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Straight from Talking Points Memo:

Don Rumsfeld: "I think that -- I'm not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture. I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word."

Taguba Report: "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

For more on the fallout from these abuses by American soldiers and mercenaries (ooops, I'm sorry 'civilian contractos'):

A Wretched New Picture Of America
Photos From Iraq Prison Show We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

The Pictures Seen 'Round the World

- rob 1:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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People at work with relatives back in Europe paint an ugly picture of America's image abroad. One tells of his grandmother who even as of last year defended America, still willing to give America the benefit of the doubt based on America's heroic behavior in World War II. Well, even she has turned against us.

The damage to America's economy, budget, and environment may take up to a decade to fix, but the damage to America's good name may take the rest of this sucky century.

In an honor of that we've updated the TCS Store with new or updated products:


Visiting friends in a foreign land and don't want to be lynched? Make sure everyone understands that America is better than this, America is better than Bush, America is NOT Bush!


An American made this shirt and it is made for Americans that miss the nation of ideals, the nation of freedom, and miss America (you know, pre-Bush). Now with Bush is NOT America on the back.

Okay, this next one is off topic, but I couldn't resist:

I really don't know why you'd put a shirt on a dog, but if you would than why not this dog shirt. Is it a Terrorism Orange Alert, or is the dog just in a High state of "about to poop"?

- rob 1:06 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Land of The Free

Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush

WASHINGTON, May 4 — The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax division from distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that harshly criticizes President Bush, executives at both Disney and Miramax said Tuesday.

The film, "Fahrenheit 911," links Mr. Bush and prominent Saudis — including the family of Osama bin Laden — and criticizes Mr. Bush's actions before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
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Mr. Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel, said Michael D. Eisner, Disney's chief executive, asked him last spring to pull out of the deal with Miramax. Mr. Emanuel said Mr. Eisner expressed particular concern that it would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor.

"Michael Eisner asked me not to sell this movie to Harvey Weinstein; that doesn't mean I listened to him," Mr. Emanuel said. "He definitely indicated there were tax incentives he was getting for the Disney corporation and that's why he didn't want me to sell it to Miramax. He didn't want a Disney company involved."

I don't know why Eisner would think that, except that it has been established that the Bush family is extremely vindictive and will use the powers of their offices to strike back.

Mr. Moore said the film describes financial connections between the Bush family and its associates and prominent Saudi Arabian families that go back three decades. He said it closely explores the government's role in the evacuation of relatives of Mr. bin Laden from the United States immediately after the 2001 attacks. The film includes comments from American soldiers on the ground in Iraq expressing disillusionment with the war, he said.

Basically it seems the film is about things the Bush family doesn't want Americans to know. Even though they are the truth.

Go to michaelmoore.com for more information from the big guy himself.

- rob 9:53 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Challenge Yourself

True hero athlete

A very very good read.

- rob 3:23 PM - [PermaLink] -

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If A Raving Loon Like George Will Turns Against Bush, we really must be nearing the end of this sad dark chapter of our nation's history

Time for Bush to See The Realities of Iraq

This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit" (Tony Blair).
...

Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice.
...

Ron Chernow's magnificent new biography of Alexander Hamilton begins with these of his subject's words: "I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be." That is the core of conservatism.

Traditional conservatism. Nothing "neo" about it. This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the prefix.

- rob 3:05 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A Great Post from Talking Points Memo

Ahmed Chalabi and The Neo-cons

In the popular political imagination we're familiar with the neocons as conniving militarists, masters of intrigue and cabals, graspers for the oil supplies of the world, and all the rest. But here we have them in what I suspect is the truest light: as college kid rubes who head out for a weekend in Vegas, get scammed out of their money by a two-bit hustler on the first night and then get played for fools by a couple hookers who leave them naked and handcuffed to their hotel beds.

And just think, it's on your dime and with your nation's honor -- what an added benefit.

I don't mean to accuse the whole group that is sometimes classed under that label. Some are serious wrestlers with our nation's dilemmas and challenges. But for the most venal and gullible of them, which, truth be told, makes up the larger part, it's an apt description.

- rob 3:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Krugman: Battlefield of Dreams:

Last November the top economist at the Heritage Foundation was very optimistic about Iraq, saying Paul Bremer had just replaced 'Saddam's soak-the-rich tax system' with a flat tax. 'Few Americans would want to trade places with the people of Iraq,' wrote the economist, Daniel Mitchell. 'But come tax time next April, they may begin to wonder who's better off.' Even when he wrote that, the insurgency in Iraq was visibly boiling over; by 'tax time' last month, the situation was truly desperate.

Much has been written about the damage done by foreign policy ideologues who ignored the realities of Iraq, imagining that they could use the country to prove the truth of their military and political doctrines. Less has been said about how dreams of making Iraq a showpiece for free trade, supply-side tax policy and privatization — dreams that were equally oblivious to the country's realities — undermined the chances for a successful transition to democracy.

A number of people, including Jay Garner, the first U.S. administrator of Iraq, think that the Bush administration shunned early elections, which might have given legitimacy to a transitional government, so it could impose economic policies that no elected Iraqi government would have approved. Indeed, over the past year the Coalition Provisional Authority has slashed tariffs, flattened taxes and thrown Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors — reinforcing the sense of many Iraqis that we came as occupiers, not liberators.

But it's the reliance on private contractors to carry out tasks usually performed by government workers that has really come back to haunt us.
...

According to reports in a number of newspapers, employees from two private contractors, CACI International and Titan, act as interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to Sewell Chan of The Washington Post, these contractors are "at the center of the probe" into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. And that abuse, according to the senior defense analyst at Jane's, has "almost certainly destroyed much of what support the coalition had among the more moderate section of the Iraqi population."

- rob 2:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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An Open Letter to Neo-Cons

Though you may debate this, both our political views come from our love of America, and the freedom it represents. For some reason though your definition of freedom is different than mine in that your definition includes the want to arrest protestors for sedition. Here’s the funny thing there, if you listened to the protestors, 700 plus Americans would still be alive, 1,000 plus Americans would have their eyes, legs… their health back, and al Queada wouldn’t be having the recruitment boom it is now enjoying. Let’s not even get into the $100 billion plus missing of our money (you do pay taxes don’t you?). So who was practicing sedition here, the ones that wanted to save this damage befalling our country or the ones who wanted to destroy American good will internationally?

Let’s put this aside for now.

You love America, and you believe that your political philosophy will benefit America. Your chosen “leader” in this cause is George Bush. Unfortunately at this point it has become glaringly obvious to anyone that this "leader" and his advisors are incompetent. To put it the way your “leader” would say it: Bush is incompetent and when I say incompetent, I mean…. incompetent. For a while now I’ve assumed that your hope was that somehow if he was re-elected he’d bring a new team of advisors in and all would work out, and your political philosophy would become mainstream, and your next “leader” would bring the neo-con “American Empire” to fruition. Unfortunately with four more years of Bush, America may not be an international power at all, much less a country ready to stage a “new American Century.”

Though I don’t believe in the concept of an “American Empire,” as to me an empire is against everything America stands for, I do want to give some good advice to neo-cons. Don’t vote for Bush in 2004. Neo-cons are going to be as ridiculed, marginalized, and mocked a decade from now as hippies were in the eighties if you don’t stop Bush now. Re-read some of the articles posted above and you’ll realize this is already happening. Bush is not only destroying America, a country I do love, and showing a generosity you will not show me will grant that you love, but he is also destroying any future a neo-con political philosophy has. So for the sake of your political leanings, don’t vote for Bush. I realize you could never vote for Kerry, so vote Libertarian, I’m sure that would let you sleep at night.

All of the above is assuming some intelligence on the part of your average neo-con, but seeing as your “thinkers” are people like Elliot Abrams, William Bennett, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Gary Bauer, Dick Cheney, and Dan Quayle (hahaha), I realize that I’ve just wasted valuable space on TCS that could have been used for something useful like another Get Your War On strip, or something.

- rob 2:54 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Under Bush the War on Terror is as effective as the War on Drugs

Heroin boom in Afghanistan overwhelms border nations

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Heroin producers in Afghanistan, some of the principal financiers of al-Qaida and other terrorists, have never before been so brazen or so wealthy.

With a bumper crop of opium poppies under cultivation, Afghan narco-barons have begun stamping their brand names on the 2.2-pound bags of heroin they smuggle out of Central Asia to buyers in Moscow, Amsterdam, London and New York.

Sacks of high-quality Afghan heroin seized last week in Tajikistan carried the trademarks "Super Power" and "555." Some of the sacks, which were hidden inside foil-lined containers of instant cappuccino mix, even included the addresses of the labs in Afghanistan where the heroin had been refined.


A very very early Get Your War On (number 2, in fact)

- rob 1:24 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Operation Winning Hearts and Minds Continued

Former human rights minister told Bremer about Iraq detainee abuse

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Former Iraqi human rights minister Abdel Basset Turki said US overseer Paul Bremer knew in November that Iraqi prisoners were being abused in US detention centres.

"In November I talked to Mr Bremer about human rights violations in general and in jails in particular. He listened but there was no answer. At the first meeting, I asked to be allowed to visit the security prisoners, but I failed," Turki told AFP on Monday.

"I told him the news. He didn't take care about the information I gave him." The coalition had no immediate comment about Turki's meeting with Bremer.

Operation Iraqi Liberation doesn't seem as liberating these days, does it.

- rob 1:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Regarding the salmon issue:
Judge Hogan, of the Federal District Court of Oregon, the judge who ruled against the government and for the resource users in the case that overturned the federal determination to list multiple salmon stocks as endangered, is a fairly right-wing conservative. This is not meant as a criticism or to say that he can't be impartial, but a look at his jurisprudence shows that he tends to allow his decisions to be influenced by his personal beliefs. Such influence is natural for all humans. We all like to think that our world view is the correct world view. In this case, the plaintiffs "shopped" for the right judge, the judge whose personal beliefs were most in line with their own. Possibly because of this political kinship, in Judge Hogan, they obtained a judge who would develop a novel legal concept: a species is not endangered if we can produce as many of the species as we want in concrete pools and dump them into the environment. Judge Hogan bought the argument that hatchery salmon are the same as wild salmon, notwithstanding the fact that most hatchery brood stocks were chosen for their size--to maximize catch weight--rather than their suitability for the particular stream in which they are released (natural salmon have many different attributes suited specifically to the stream in which they are reared that improve survivability such as size at the beginning of the ocean run, timing for the return to the brood stream, etc.). He bought the argument that hatchery operations are a sustainable practice and that hatcheries will always be operated. He bought the argument, against decades of ESA rulings, that a species that lacks quality habitat is not endangered if there continue to be significant numbers of the species--in his view then, habitat is irrelevant to species survival. No, in Judge Hogan's world, species survivability is tied *only* to the numbers of the animal in the world. So let's hear it for zoos.

The administration compounded the inanity of this decision by not appealing the case. Instead, the administration directed the National Marine Fisheries Service to throw out years of work that it spent in studying the salmon in the NW and the careful work that it performed in listing the salmon and start the rulemaking process all over again.

- B 1:04 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Kerry's new commercials

:: JohnKerry.com - Heart & Lifetime ::

Okay, their sappy, no real talk about issues, blah blah (everything wrong about commercials promoting emotions but not facts can be inserted here), but all that aside, I look at these and am hopeful. I think these ads will be effective.

- rob 4:21 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush rule may drop salmon from endangered list

SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) -- A Bush administration plan to revise protections for endangered Northwest U.S. salmon drew praise from farmers and industry groups, but environmentalists and fishing advocates said future salmon runs would be gutted.

But don't worry, everything will go okay, because Bush has some great minds working on this:

"I applaud the people that are trying to save species that are endangered," said Gretchen Borck, a lobbyist with the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. "But it might be good that we don't have dinosaurs now. We've gotten oil from the dinosaurs. If we had preserved the dinosaur, we wouldn't have that oil."

Gretchen Brock probably spent a week coming up with that insanely stupid statement. The only way preservation of the dinosaurs would have prevented the development of oil would be if we somehow stopped each individual dinosaur from dying. The environmentalists are trying to prevent the species from dying off, they are not trying to make each salmon immortal which using Gretchen's logic they are trying to do.

Thanks phunkster "A" for showing me that quote.

- rob 2:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Contradicting Bill
Before the 9/11 Commission, questions about how much warning Clinton gave Bush about bin Laden

How much of a warning did Bill Clinton give incoming President George W. Bush that Osama bin Laden posed a grave danger? It depends on which President you ask. In his interview with the 9/11 commission last week, sources tell Time, Bush testified that Clinton appeared far more passionate about the dangers of North Korea's nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to sources, Bush said Clinton "probably mentioned" terrorism as a national-security threat "but did not make it a point of emphasis." Clinton earlier told the panel that he had ranked bin Laden as the No. 1 problem the new Administration would face; he made the same point in a speech in New York City last October.

- rob 2:00 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Command Errors Aided Iraq Abuse, Army Has Found

Rumsfeld wanted the defense department run more like a major corporation. Unfortunately he got what he wanted: A huge bureaucracy that moves on its own inertia with top management (Rummy included) being completely unconnected to the day to day realities.

An internal Army investigation has found a virtual collapse of the command structure in a prison outside Baghdad where American enlisted personnel are accused of committing acts of abuse and humiliation against Iraqi detainees.

A report on the investigation said midlevel military intelligence officers were allowed to skirt the normal chain of command to issue questionable orders to enlisted personnel from the reserve military police unit handling guard duty there.
...

Appearing on three Sunday talk shows, Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave conflicting answers when asked if the problems at Abu Ghraib were systemic throughout detention centers in Iraq.

At first, General Myers insisted that the instances of mistreatment were not widespread and were the actions of "just a handful" of soldiers who had unfairly tainted all American forces in Iraq. But when pressed, he acknowledged that he had not yet read a classified, 53-page Army report completed in February by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, first reported in the May 10 issue of The New Yorker, that chronicled the worst of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. General Myers left open the possibility the abuses could be broader, saying, "We don't know that yet."

A spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that the secretary had not been briefed on General Taguba's report either, but had been kept abreast of the investigative process. Emphasis Mine.

Meanwhile Rumsfeld and Bush's move to "privatizing" the military has encountered yet another ugly truth: Private security can't violate military law with impunity.

Bush has lead us to the following situation: a private "contractor" (they used to use the term "mercenary" back in 20th century) was involved in some of the abuses (including a rape of a young Iraqi man), but he can not be arrested by the military because he is a civilian. He also cannot be arrested by the Iraqi authority because Bush has given all American civilian contractors (such as all the Halliburton and Bechtel employees) complete immunity inside Iraq.

Bush once said he wanted to show the world American Justice, I hope this is not what he meant.

I say the World Court should try the "contractor" under the concept of "crimes against humanity."

- rob 1:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Latest Move in Bloody Fallujah Reeks

A Post at The Daily Kos that really works as a great followup to B's post of a few days back.

Well before Winston Churchill made his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in Missouri after World War II, men at the CIA’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, decided to recruit General Reinhard Gehlen to help them in the war on communism. They persuaded themselves that Gehlen wasn’t a Nazi, or even if he had been, he wasn’t one of the bad ones. After all, Gehlen had conspired with Claus von Stauffenburg in the 1944 plot to assassinate Herr Hitler.

On the other hand, maybe they knew the truth: Gehlen joined the conspiracy because he wanted Germany to win. He felt the skills of generals who could make it happen were being ignored while the soldiers they commanded were being sacrificed on the altar of Der Führer’s megalomania. You might call Gehlen a no-nonsense Nazi.

He had something the OSS men very much wanted … a network of spies on the Soviet side of the Yalta line - and 53 drums of microfilmed files about the spy apparatus he had put together in the USSR. The general had been the chief of Army Intelligence for the entire Eastern Front. Who cared if he had participated in some of the worst atrocities against Jews, Slavs and Russian prisoners, who were systematically starved in order to extract information?
...

I couldn’t help but think of General Gehlen when I read today’s news about Fallujah militia men cheering and honking and firing their weapons skyward upon learning of the pullback of the U.S. Marines assigned to the siege. It appears they’ll soon be fighting someone from the home turf whom they understand and may well have a grudge against. Cause for celebration by anyone eager not to forget the past.

Negotiations and force short of obliteration having failed to achieve their goal in Fallujah, the U.S. has chosen to deploy a version of the Gehlen model: fight the new war with a warrior from the old regime.

The new “Fallujah Brigade,” put together by Iraqi generals from Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime, likely will include some former army soldiers who fought American forces over the past month, Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway said.

He promised, however, that anyone who has “blood on their hands” would not be allowed to stay in the force.
Good to hear, General. But it seems you’ve been doing a rather poor job of looking under their nails.

Good to hear, General. But it seems you’ve been doing a rather poor job of looking under their nails.
...

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that a year after “Mission Accomplished,” our top military leaders ought to have access to some pretty good intelligence regarding every general and most of the colonels of the disbanded enemy army, particularly its elite units. No access? Surely in the tens of billions of our tax dollars being spent in Iraq, there’s a budget for running background checks on generals chosen to Iraqify the war.

Or maybe – like their who-cares-how-many-atrocities-he’s-committed OSS predecessors - General Kimmitt and his subordinates know but don’t care what’s on General Saleh’s résumé. Especially not when the White House goal is to keep the number of transfer tubes being sent home in May well below April’s potentially election-shifting total.

- rob 1:22 PM - [PermaLink] -

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From the "With Friends Like These Department"

Talking Points Memo has some excellent posts about Neo Con Fave: Ahmed Chalabi

Chalabi investigates UN Oil For Food Scandal

No doubt you've heard of the still-emerging scandal over the UN oil-for-food program for Iraq. The fact that the program was a hotbed of corruption is not news. What has only emerged quite recently is that the Iraqi regime was apparently using contracts from the program as bribes and pay-offs to various western politicians, journalists and other dignitaries.

You may not have heard a sidenote to this scandal -- the question of who will be in charge of the investigation and who controls the key documentary evidence upon which the investigation will be based.
...

The crux of the matter, however, is whether the investigation will be conducted through some transparent process or whether it will be conducted by a team under the control of ... well, can you guess? Ahmed Chalabi.

AND:

Chalabi: Betrayer of the US, Spy for Iran, and friend to terrorists

We'll be covering each of these matters in the coming hours and days. But first, a note about this article in Newsweek which discusses US suspicions that Ahmed Chalabi and his close aides have been feeding the Iranians highly sensitive information about US security operations within Iraq.

This should not come as a great surprise. Chalabi's ties to the Iranians are well-known and have long been awkwardly acquiesced in by his supporters in Washington. Moreover, there have been plenty of warning signs of his willingness to play both sides of the fence. Chalabi and his supporters regularly take credit for trying to warn the US that a planned coup attempt, run by the CIA from Jordan in 1996, had been compromised and would fail.

High-ranking CIA agents, however, believed it was Chalabi who had tipped off the Iraqis because he -- i.e., Chalabi -- was not part of it, and thus would have been left out in the cold had it succeeded.
....

Then there's the matter of the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad on August 7th, 2003. I'm told that the Jordanians have phone intercept intelligence, which they shared with the US government, showing that Chalabi had advance warning of the bombing, which he chose not to share with the Jordanians or the Americans.

Of course, we still fund Chalabi to the tune of some $340,000 a month. So don't think your tax dollars aren't being well-spent. And that does not include the various highly-lucrative contracts doled out to his family members, political associates and cronies.

- rob 1:16 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bremer Takes Back Statements About Bush

BAGHDAD, Iraq - L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said Sunday he regrets a statement he made more than six months before the Sept. 11 attacks that the Bush administration was "paying no attention" to terrorism.

Bremer said any implied criticism that President Bush was not acting against terrorism was "unfair."

Bremer: "see Rove I took it back, now will you please remove that horse's head from my bed?"

- rob 1:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Tortured Syntax

May 2, 2004, 9:37 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- Amid new reports that U.S. intelligence requested or encouraged the mistreatment and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners shown in photos revealed this week, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that American abuse of detainees was not widespread or systemic.

"I would say that categorically. There is no, no evidence of systematic abuse in this system at all," Myers said on ABC's "This Week." "Torture is not one of the methods that we're allowed to use and that we use."

Read this fucking statement. Read it carefully. (Emphasis mine.)

There is no evidence of systematic abuse in this system at all. There is no evidence? PHOTOS OF CHAINED, HOODED PEOPLE BEING SEXUALLY ABUSED ISN'T EVIDENCE? WHAT system IS BEING REFERRED TO?

"There is no evidence of systematic abuse in this system at all, ..."

"No evidence of systematic abuse at all" That's because the abuse wasn't systematic, it was systemic!!! Let's use a FUCKING WORD that can be misunderstood. Let's say recall and not remember. One can choose not to recall, one can't choose not to remember. Systematic and systemic are very different words. Basically, "systematic" (in this case) is the method. "Systemic" (in this case) is the proceedure. So what THIS BUTTHEAD is really saying is, "We didn't tell them 'how' (the method) to torture them, we just told them 'to' (the procedure) torture them."

Next sentence. This one is self-evident. I'm amazed at the truthfulness of this one: "Torture is not one of the methods that we're allowed to use and that we use." You're not allowed to use it but you use it? Thanks for the update!

I'm sick. I'm tired. I'm angry. When the elephants come to town I'm going to piss on their peanuts.

(Permission to post, courtesy of phunkster P)

More about this can be found at: TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

- Michael 11:53 AM - [PermaLink] -

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This weekend, I spent two lovely nights at a fire lookout tower on the east slopes of Mt. Hood. It was an amazing location, situated approximately on the line where the Doug fir starts to blend into more Ponderosa pine and the NW wet turns into the central Oregon high dry plain. What relevance you ask? The fire lookout is maintained by the USFS, an agency and interface with the federal government that I like to bash so much lately (Usually, with good reason). For $30 a night, we had accommodations and a view that couldn't be beat. Clear weather allowed a view north of Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker and some of the Olympics. The fire lookouts in the NW were abandoned some years ago. It's cheaper and faster to do the fire detection with satellite and spotter planes. But many of them remain and are rented out in a program that pays for itself. Going there reminded me that there are many great things about this country. The natural beauty and innovation being only two of them. Bashing the USFS for forestry practices is considered sport in the Pac NW. But you'll hear none from me today.

While there, I spent some time reading Kevin Phillips' new book, "American Dynasty." So far, not an earth shaking, revelatory book, for those who have been paying attention to the Bush family. But, as the Bush's National Guard service has been again in the news, one passage deserves repeating here:

"At Yale, both his grandfather and father were tapped by Skull and Bones, and so was George W. After graduating, he became a military pilot like his father, with some similar help from family influence. In early 1968, before his graduation, a friend of his father's [Sidney Adger] spoke to Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes. [Barns] in turn, contacted the commander of the Texas Air National Guard, Brig. Gen. James M. Rose, with the result that George W. jumped the several waiting lists involved. After taking five weeks of basic training, he was discharged as an enlisted man, recommended for a second lieutenancy the next day, and given pre-training permission to spend September to November working in the campaign of successful GOP Florida Senate candidate Edward J. Gurney. ... George W. did not qualify for either a direct commission or flight training. Tom Hail, the historian of the Texas National Guard, explained that direct commissions were 'for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons.' The air force flight-instruction program was also a favor, because such expensive training would not normally be given to a green candidate who had shown no professional commitment."

Which brings me to my thought on this. Why has the media chosen to focus, if at all, on the dust-up over the records--did he or did he not serve out his Guard commitment--rather than how Bush got into the Guard in the first place? Other than mentioning that Bush scored low on his test--25%--it is rare to hear a story about the strings that were pulled to get him in. Not only get him in, but get him into special programs, shorten his basic training, fast track him to officer status and then promote him quickly to 1st lieutenant. Clearly, there were privileges granted to the son of a Congressman and grandson of a friend of Nixon's that were not available to the rest of society.

Why does this matter? I think that it matters because it goes to the root of his basic claims--Bush has worn his Guard service on his sleeve. He has used it to defend his patriotism, courage and military gravitas. He has said that he was proud to have served. He has said that he would have gone to Vietnam if called. However, similar to the use of character witnesses in court (you can't use them to disparage a defendant unless the defendant has called character witnesses first), if Bush uses his Guard service in any manner to promote himself, then we are entitled to hear the whole truth about his service, warts and all, and then judge for ourselves whether he deserves the mantle of courageous patriot.

We should hear:
That many strings were pulled to get him in and to keep him in.
That he checked a box to specifically not volunteer for service in Vietnam.
That fewer than 1% of Guard units at the time were called to active duty.
That he was grounded for failing his physical.
That he probably didn't fulfill his obligation, even though he took an *oath* to do so.

- B 9:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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