I totally agree with Ted Turner.

My only objection to Turner is with his optimism. On the subject of Global Warming he said that:

Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state -- like Somalia or Sudan -- and living conditions will be intolerable.

"[T]he rest of us will be cannibals." -- Ted Turner, the eternal optimist, believes he's going to be an eater rather than the eated. Crops are already not unable to meet world wide food demand as of today there are 6,666,666,666 people on the planet and there are food riots breaking out as the price of rice has tripled. I don't think you can buy yourself out of a hole Ted. Your money will be worthless and your flesh will be tasty. Why aren't you part of the "most of the people" who will die.

He also says that people in Iraq are attacking the occupation troops because they are occupying the country, when the interviewer notes that they have roadside bombs... that's completely on topic and proves their motives have nothing to do with being taken over by a foreign country.

$2.9 million in against Phelps. What crap!

I find Phelps entertaining, and I understand the theology pretty well. I think they are one of the most biblical Christian groups around, and obviously one of the most hated. Protesting funerals of dead soldiers with signs saying "Thank God for IEDs" or any number of rather disturbing signs. They believe that the War in Iraq is a punishment from God for homosexuality. Which frankly doesn't differ that much from those religious people who claimed that Katrina was punishment from God for homosexuality (though it missed the French Quarter), or Jerry Falwell claiming that 9/11 was because of homosexuality (the California wildfires have been attributed a couple times to gays). Really the only thing the Phelps have which these other groups lack is consistent faith that they are right. Other religious groups back-down at the first sign of hate... the Phelps double-down.

Well, one of the father's of a soldier killed in Iraq sued and won $2.9 million dollars from the Phelps family. This is bullshit. The Phelps broke no law in their protests, the father didn't see them at the event only later on the news, you shouldn't get money for sullied memories. Hopefully the Phelps (who are mostly lawyers) will get this overturned as the nonsense "I hate Phelps so much lets punish him for like three million dollars" crap it is.

Ofcourse nobody likes them they are immoral swine who follow the immoral actions suggested in the Bible. Anybody who does that needs to be shunned by a civilized society.

Spirituality and the 95% withdrawal.

There seems to be a certain idea that for everything there is a Golden Mean. If there's two sides which are categorically opposed, the truth lies somewhere in the center. In reality one side can, in fact, be completely wrong. With fundamentalists and atheists we have the moderate theists who agree with atheists in spirit when they address the problems of fundamentalism but refuse rather to accept atheism is the answer rather the truth lies in the middle, not no God or too much God but the Just Enough God of spiritualism.

How can you be a rational individual while not being a crazy fundamentalists and don't want to be called an atheist? You can just take some extremely wishy-washy middle ground either it's claiming to be agnostic (not in the proper sense but in the weak atheist sense) because you don't disbelieve in God as you claim atheists do (you just don't have any evidence that he doesn't exist either), or the higher power claim laced with large amounts of special pleading. There simply MUST be something more! THERE MUST! THIS CAN'T BE EVERYTHING! Note that when they say "this", they are referring to everything. And then there's spirituality, where they believe in something vague and spiritual. Who could argue with that? Or the liberal Christianity side where you pay occasional lip service to Jesus without having read any part of the Bible or going to church.

The idea that the truth lies somewhere in the middle and that going all the way to one side opens you up to criticism. Which is pretty well the reason why the Democratic primary front runners all support this plan for a 95% withdrawal. Oh, we'll remove everybody from the Iraq except one brigade who we will have in this one bunker. You're surrendering! You're going to lose this war! "No see because I have a bunch of guys in a bunker somewhere during this civil war, that's why I don't really lose. I'm spiritual. None of this, it was a bad idea from the start and I'll completely wash my hands of it, I'll just wash my hands of as much as I can without being called a coward. I have just enough God... and just enough stupidity."

We really need to make the middle less solid ground, politically, religiously, and practically. Collaborators shouldn't be tolerated.

Goebbels would be proud!

WASHINGTON - President Bush, cheered on by Iraq war veterans and their families on the White House's South Lawn, urged lawmakers Tuesday to back his plan to withdraw some troops from Iraq...

President Bush asks congress to back his plan to withdraw troops. Hey jackass it doesn't count as withdrawing troops if those are just the 5700 kids you aren't allowed to keep there forever and have to rotate them a bit. My goodness, this latest push is pure propaganda and it seems to be tossed around like candy. That entire line there seems to give the distinct impression that:

Bush wants to withdraw troops.
Congress is opposed.

What kind of sick joke is this? Bush isn't at all drawing down any troops at all. He might as well count those kids coming back in wooden coffins as troops he's withdrawn... they are the ones he can't force to stay there and this smug bastard wants to claim the high ground? Man, that is pathetic!

I'm impressed. This is a level of game the Bush administration hasn't been playing since the run up to the war. They are fighting tooth and nail to try and make the idea of a forever-war at least not political suicide.

Bush is an idiot and I hate PR.

Apparently some small withdrawals makes indefinite and untenable war tenable or so Bush would have us believe.

"The way forward I have described tonight makes it possible, for the first time in years, for people who have been on opposite sides of this difficult debate to come together," Bush said

Oh, yeah, what a way to come together. Slightly fewer troops, that's really going to make the fact that we spend billions every month and have lost thousands of lives totally worth it. Now, I can support this unsupportable war... than you Mr. President.

I now see, that when I said we had no business in this civil war, were stupid for going in, act as a lightning rod for violence, and are accomplishing less than nothing by leading to more terrorism and thus should get out right now... what I really meant was 130k people stuck in a worthless war is totally my magic number. Because, I only worry about the number of enlisted men and women and not about our presence in general and the billions of dollars it cost to keep a really crappy foothold in a war zone.

"The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home," Bush said in remarks prepared for a prime-time Oval Office address to the nation.

That's what qualifies as supporting the troops? Keeping them hostage. "Now look, I'm not the ones keeping them there, they just aren't doing very well in a zone of escalating violence and civil war. Don't blame me... blame my war!"

Fuck Bush. -- Seriously, I'm actually really mellow and nuanced, and that's my mellow and nuanced position on the issue: FUCK BUSH!

I can tolerate war, needless genocide, murder and all the little things that makes life end so cheaply... but to be insulted, belittled, and talked down to by the worst president in history and the end all and be all of governmental failure, I won't stand for it.

WMD wasn't nothing. Suddenly it's all worthless again.

On August 31st I noted that the UN found WMD. Somewhat jokingly because of the pathetic nature, well now it's even more pathetic. Stupid ass Bush.

WMD found! Suddenly it's all worth it.

Finally after a number of years we've discovered their stockpile. The deaths finally add up. The administration is vindicated! Democrats disgraced!

Well, at least it's a vial of something.

*sigh*

How can religions be wrong? I mean there's so many people who believe them.

Remember back when Saddam had vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction? Everybody believed it? The news was on and on about how reliable it was? How this was an absolute truth? Skepticism was condemned as evil and wanting us to be killed? Then this brought us to war. We invaded Iraq to disarm them of their weapons of mass destruction only to find out that there weren't any. This is pretty much religion.

You have a large number of people talking about something, without evidence, in the most absolute of terms. This is religion. Not believing this will lead to eternal hellfire and damnation. This is religion. This unsubstantiated belief lead to war and death and killing on no real grounds. This is religion. The media, the government, the apologists all happened to be lock step though without discussing it. This is religion. The bad intelligence summed up to be group think. This is religion. Once proven wrong the apologists start making silly excuses such as 'God needs faith', or 'the WMDs were taken to Syria'. This is religion.

Really, if you want evidence that you can get vast number of people to believe a lie on no evidence and get that evidence to lead to war... look no further than the cradle of civilization. The source and destination for that kind of nonsense.

As a funny little side, somebody on some TV show made the comment that everybody believed that Iraq had WMD, while my sister was visiting from Washington. We both sort of raised our hands to signify our exemption to that statement. Though that was mostly because I had read Alternet at the time and came across some great arguments that it was all poppycock prior to the war, and she was the one who highly recommended Alternet to the rest of the family.

And as a side objection to this looking back and blaming people for believing what they were told. It's not as blame worthy to tell somebody something and have them believe it, than it is blameworthy to tell somebody something which is false.

The need for a detailed plan.

Those tricky bastards!

As every conspiracy theorist in the world knows the United States government was actively involved in the planning and execution of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (MIHOP). But, think for a moment, how tricky those bastards are... in order to start an unjustified war in Iraq they directly and clearly implicated Saudi Arabia rather than Iraq. That takes balls.