My traumatic experience with RedState.com

If you'll indulge me for just a minute or three, I have a little story to tell. A couple days ago I visited the site RedState.com just to see, for once, what they were saying on the other side of the blogosphere. It was basically what you would expect. The usual right-wing talking points, ranting and raving (not that we do that or anything, of course). But at the same time, I'll admit, it was a mite intriguing. Here I was cavorting with the enemy, so to speak.

So, for the fun of it I decided to enter the fray and join the discussion. I commented. I blogged with abandon. I danced and weaved my arguments with great passion, and parried when attacked, which was often. It was just what I was in the mood for. All was going so well, I almost forgot about the potential pitfalls...

And then, it happened. Quite abruptly and without warning (despite the fact that their rules state they will give notice first) I was banned. Upon trying to login at one point, I was informed that my username was blocked or deactivated. My heart sank. I couldn't believe it. Surely this was a mistake. They weren't actually THAT petty and cowardly, were they? But sadly, apparently it was so.

And yet, I had experienced such heights of joy, I couldn't surrender so easily....I quickly created a new email address and lickity-split I was back in action, blogging merrily away amongst the hordes of Fox-defenders and Bush-lovers, defying their simplistic arguments with actual evidence and critical thinking.

This was where I wanted to be! This was my calling! Maybe, just maybe, I could manage to turn one or two away from the ravages of Darth Cheney, and give them a glimpse of the light! Yes, I would show them the truth, and they would love me for it!!

But no, it was not meant to be. Tragically, it happened again. After successfully sending through a particularly witty comment, I went on to write yet another response, satisfying those deep primal urges like only blogging can. And then, I was denied. My comment failed to post this time. I was informed, once again, that my username was no longer recognized, barely an hour after it had been created.

But it was even worse than that, my friends--much, much worse. I can barely even speak (errr...blog..) the words. So, I'll just shout it out loud, for all to hear. I then tried to reload their homepage, to see if at least my previous comments still remained on the site, only to encounter......stark whiteness. Nothing. A mysterious, unrelenting vaccuum staring out at me from my dusty pc. THEY BLOCKED MY COMPUTER!!!!!!!! The horror!!

Seriously, they blocked my computer from entering their site whatsoever. (Luddite that I am, I didn't even know this was possible.) And no, folks, I was not using loads of four-letter words, threatening people with metaphorical uzis or suggesting (like, for example, Bill O'Reilly once did on the air) that terrorists attacking a certain American city would be just fine. No, I was simply blogging away as bloggers do, opinionated and quite possibly annoying, but not much worse than that. But apparently, if you don't follow in single-file lockstep behind their right-wing credo, then you are not allowed to exist in their corner of the blogosphere. Some democratic, free speech forum they have over there.

So, my fellow progressives, liberals, dems, rebels-with-a-cause, I'm calling for action. If you feel the call, (or rather hear it, I guess, smell it, whatever) go to RedState.com. And......blog! Comment! Opine! Because, apparently, that is what they fear most.

And by the way, if you happen to be curious who this offending liberal is (because my comments might still be up there, they were from my first username) it's gabejedmo (or else gabejedmo1, my second ill-fated username). Look around and you may find the faded shadow of my ghost lurking in the corners of that website, somewhat dejected, but certainly not down for the count. I'm simply keeping my profile low, I tell you; awaiting the most auspicious time to come forth again and make my presence known. Because, god willing, I shall not cower in vain. I will not be pushed around by people in suits and ties, with perfectly-cropped side-burns and glaringly-white teeth, and expensive watches, and fancy, silken underwear and large belt buckles and....well, whatever right-wingers wear. I will be back...I WILL BE BACK!!! But if not, maybe you will redeem me, stand up for freedom all across this great nation of bloggers and help fight against the voices of tyranny and insanity (seriously) and blog a little for me. RedState.com. Check it out. And let them feel the wrath (but in a generally polite sorta way) of the liberal.

Don't trust Gen. Petraeus' September report

The Bush administration has made it clear that September is a critical point in the war in Iraq, when General David Petraeus will go before Congress and give a (supposedly) unvarnished account of how well the troop surge is going. But those who think that Petraeus is an unbiased and objective individual, a straight-shooter who has no political motivations or allegiance to President Bush, should be alarmed by the following revelation in a story by ABC News:

"The senior U.S. commanders in Iraq -- Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. David Petraeus -- want the surge to continue until at least December and expect to report enough progress in Iraq by September to justify it, officials told ABC News' Martha Raddatz."
(here's the link to that story: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/IraqCoverage/Story?id=3236822&page=1)

So, how exactly can you call yourself an objective observer, if you're stating beforehand that you expect to be able to report progress about what hasn't yet happened, namely events in Iraq between now and September?...Especially, when the report so far is that violence in Iraq has not decreased at all over the past 3 months of implementing the troop surge? This news report is simply further proof that the plan all along was for the surge simply to act as a stalling option, a punt to kick withdrawal from Iraq further down the field, ultimately to some point past January, 2009, when President Bush leaves office.

This is President Bush's plan for Iraq. It's simple and straightforward: leave it to the next President. Avoid taking responsibility for defeat in Iraq at all costs. It doesn't matter how many more people die. It doesn't matter how much it breaks the Army. It doesn't matter how much taxpayers' money is spent. It doesn't matter what the generals say; it doesn't matter what the Iraq Study Group says; it doesn't even matter what Republican members of Congress say, or will say soon enough, as they start to feel the political heat.

The plan is, come September, for General Petraeus to go before Congress and, regardless of what is actually happening on the ground, report that although it's a "mixed picture", there are "signs of progress", "it's not all bad news" in Iraq, and we need to "give it more time", not "cut and run", because then the terrorists will "follow us home". They will say precisely what they have been saying for the past four years, with a few meaningless variations; which is that they have no intention of pulling American troops out of Iraq anytime soon, no matter what. It's about time that the press, the Congress and the American people see through these lies, and demand some real accountability for the fiasco that is Iraq.

the desperate state of Iraq

President Bush, John McCain, Joe Lieberman and other fervent Iraq war supporters are attempting to paint the recent "troop surge", aka escalation, and the war in general as an improving situation, that is showing positive signs of progress. John McCain lambasted reporter Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday, for not accepting the prognosis that one could now walk freely and safely through various neighborhoods of Baghdad, in contrast to a few months ago. Unfortunately, and regrettably, McCain and Bush are flat wrong in their rosy optimism, according to someone who has truly assessed the situation on the ground, retired General Barry McCaffrey, who just visited Iraq:

"The population is in despair," McCaffrey wrote in an eight-page document compiled in his capacity as a professor at West Point. "Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate."

Iraq is “ripped by a low grade civil war which has worsened to catastrophic levels.” He added, “the U.S. Armed forces are in a position of strategic peril.”

"There is no function of government that operates effectively across the nation … There is no province in the country in which the government has dominance. … No Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO, nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi — without heavily armed protection.

"In total, enemy insurgents or armed sectarian militias…probably exceed 100,000 armed fighters. These non-government armed bands are in some ways more capable of independent operations than the regularly constituted ISF [Iraqi Army]."

When, oh when, will the Bush administration tell us the truth??



source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032701923.html

9/11 was an inside job

I had never seriously considered the 9/11 conspiracy theory, that the Twin Towers were brought down by explosives rather than the results of the planes hitting them, until seeing 3 online videos recently. The evidence is beyond compelling, maybe not quite conclusive, but damn close. Only further investigation can determine that; but that investigation needs to happen. The more I look at those clips of the buildings falling, the more impossible it seems that they were a result of an internal fire that weakened the structures and then caused them to collapse.

A few key points to keep in mind: In the history of burning skyscrapers, there are only 3 instances of steel buildings collapsing as a result of fire: World Trade Center 1, World Trade Center 2, and World Trade Center 7, all on the same day, 9/11/01. Skyscrapers have burned for days and still stood, their basic structure still mostly intact. The Twin Towers were built specifically to be able to withstand hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, and yes, even jetliners flying into them. And yet they both crumbled to the ground after only an hour of internal fire that was confined to a few of the upper floors. And WTC 7 collapsed without having been hit by an airplane, and with even less internal fire damage than the Twin Towers.....anyway, I'll quit blabbering on the subject, but if you're interested in seeing a lot more detailed evidence that supports this theory and others, then check out these movies:


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4194796183168750014&q=genre%3Anews

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4026073566596731782

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501&q=loose+change

President Bush's crappy 9/11 speech

The Bush Administration went out of their way to state that President Bush's speech today, on the 5-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, would not be political in nature. But I was actually (somehow) surprised at how overtly political it was. It sounded much like any recent speech trying to bolster public support for the war in Iraq, and to justify the invasion of Iraq by tying it with the September 11th terrorist attacks.

This was shameful in one regard: that he should have stuck to the issue of the terrorist attacks, and simply honored the memory of those who died and the tragic events that occurred that day, rather than using it as an opportunity to justify his foreign policy decisions and kick off the mid-term campaign season.

But it was an even more egregious act in that just 3 days ago, on Friday, the Senate Intelligence Commitee, chaired by a Republican, approved and released a report stating officially that not only were there no known ties between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks, nor any real support by Saddam Hussein of Al Qaeda; but that this was all pretty well confirmed PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq, when we were being told that "there was no doubt" that there was an Iraq-9/11 connection.

In short (not that I didn't know it already), the President, Vice-President, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor and others deliberately manipulated the known facts in order to link Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the minds of the American people. And here, 5 years later, the President is still trying to do just that. I have one word for you, that it is time to seriously start considering: Impeachment. If lying our nation into war doesn't justify it, then what does?

Steve Irwin dies

I'm totally bummed about the death of Australian "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin. In one sense, maybe it shouldn't be a big surprise: he's been putting himself in the path of dangerous animals for years. It's a wonder that he didn't die from a snakebite to the crotch a long time ago. But seriously, it's tragic. He just seemed like such a good guy, obviously brimming with enthusiasm and vigor for life, and he did a lot to bring about awareness of all kinds of animals and nature in general. And unlike most wildlife TV personalities, like Marty Stouffer (sp?), who tend to be the quiet, boring types (although I liked his show as well), Steve had an electrifying personality that poured out of the screen at you. He could make a pile of dung exciting. Man, what a drag that he had to go. He'll definitely be missed; but at least he'll still be around for years on TV screens around the world...

George W. Bush way out of touch

President Bush has been doing a lot of interviews and press conferences lately, trying to put a positive light on the many scary and downright crazy things happening in the world these days; and to assure us all that he knows just what he's doing and it's all under control, everything's a-okay. In the process, he has displayed two notable attributes. One is that he manages to stay eternally upbeat and optimistic, no matter what madness is going on in the world around him. The other is that he seems to be totally out of touch with reality, and with the basic facts, when it comes to crucial issues involving our national security; a subject on which he obviously likes to preach and pontificate frequently.

I.e., when Larry King asked Bush about the current North Korean missile crisis, Bush asserted that if missiles were to head our way for real at some point, then we would be able to shoot them down. This claim is dubious at best. The last time we tested our missile defense system, it failed. And that was in a controlled environment. To state to the American people that our back-up plan in case North Korea fires multiple nukes at us is to shoot them down with a questionable defense system seems grossly irresponsible, to say the least.

When Larry King asked Bush about Osama bin Laden, he stated rather cavalierly, almost with a chuckle, "Oh, we'll get him eventually, it's only a matter of time". Five years have passed since 9/11. How much more time will it take? And how many more terrorist attacks and other mayhem will occur around the world in the meantime, because we invaded Iraq and pissed of the entire Middle East, instead of focusing on disbanding Al Qaeda and improving our Middle East alliances?

The bizarre reality is that just recently it was announced that the CIA had instead disbanded its unit that was devoted to hunting down bin Laden. When a reporter brought this up at his Chicago press conference, Bush flatly denied that this was even true; despite the fact that this has been reported by pretty much every news source everywhere for the past week or so. This guy isn't informed enough to be a competent blogger, not to mention the president.

Also in his press conference, Bush once again claimed that one of the reasons we had to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power was because he wouldn't allow inspectors in to see if he had WMD. This is flat-out false, and a deftly rewritten piece of Bush administration history. It's precisely the other way around. We had to tell the weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq in March of 2003 to hightail-it the heck out of there, because we were going to start bombing. An easily verifiable falsehood is one of our main justifications for going to war? The other obvious shame here is that the mainstream media lets him get away with this statement every time he makes it, which is often.

And when asked about low public support for the war in Iraq, Bush said that part of the problem is that the positive developments are being overshadowed by the ongoing violence. He cited "when the electricity is turned on" as one of the overlooked positive developments. His point might have been a good one, if when we attacked Iraq they had no electricity there, period. What Bush apparently doesn't know (and someone should inform him, so he'll know what he's talking about at his next news conference) is that in Baghdad they get about 4 hours of electricity per day right now, which is less electricity than they got under Saddam Hussein. And it's the same when it comes to most of the basic necessities in Iraq, such as accessibility to water, employment, and of course security: the Iraqis are living under worse conditions then they were under Saddam Hussein. Imagine that, we've made the country a worse place to be than it was when ruled by a fanatical dictator. And yet, the reason the American people are losing support for this war is that we're just not seeing all the good that's coming out of it, what with those car bombs and roaming assassins and torture chambers overshadowing the fact that sometimes, at certain hours, the Iraqi people actually have electricity and clean water, or at least water that's clean once they boil it.

I wonder if perhaps there's any connection between Bush's eternally sunny, hunky-dory mood, and his rather selective and tenuous relationship with that thing we call "reality"?