Seriously, how do you lose a hundreds of thousands of weapons in a war zone? Could this war and reconstruction be managed any worse? Between the complete failure of the US implementing the most basic of needs (healthcare, electricity), billion dollar no-bid contracts, and the increase in violence, how could anyone say things are improving.

This is been a fiasco since the git-go, I just hope we can get things figured out before an all-out civil war breaks out (or has it already?)

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I guess we can just all this one a tie. The ACLU has been fighting the provisions of the Patriot Act since its inception, and have had some luck against the power grab of the Bush administration. Good job and good luck fighting the MCA.

“The ACLU announced on Friday that they were dropping their case against the US Government over the highly contested section 215 of the Patriot Act. ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson stated: ‘While the reauthorized Patriot Act is far from perfect, we succeeded in stemming the damage from some of the Bush administration’s most reckless policies. The ACLU will continue to monitor how the government applies the broad Section 215 power and we will challenge unconstitutional demands on a case-by-case basis.’”

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So another state passed another ambiguous law stating that gay couples can marry.  Actually, it is up to the legislature in that state to actually determine if it will be allowed.  The judges merely said that it wasn’t illegal to pass such a bill.  So of course Mr. Bush has added that little tidbit to his campaign stump speech.  I mean really, why does it matter, and doesn’t Mr. Bush have more important things to worry about that gay marriage?  Iran just announced they began enriching uranium again, and have “harvested product” from their centrifuge.  Iran is not a threat to the US though, only gay people getting married is a threat. 

My take on this is that there really isn’t anything the government should have to say about gay marriage.  From the perspective of the government it is simply a legal contract, with no moral implications around it.  It is about rights, privileges and opportunities afforded to those that have finalized a “binding” commitment to another person.  If the Church doesn’t want to recognize it, fine, that is where that debate should be. 

This is just another case of people trying to mask prejudice with morality.  If Mr. Bush wants to truly protect marriage, then make divorce illegal.  I mean really put your money where your mouth is.  If this debate is truly about protecting the sanctity of marriage, then make it binding, make it harder to actually get divorced, make people actually work on their marriage rather than running when things get tough.

Until then you are simply trying to legalize your own prejudice, not “protecting marriage”. 

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Looks like Hans Blix is in the news again.  He is quoted in comments published in the Danish newspaper Politiken. 

“Iraq is a pure failure,” Blix was quoted as saying

“If the Americans pull out, there is a risk that they will leave a country in civil war. At the same time it doesn’t seem that the United States can help to stabilize the situation by staying there.”

A lot of people have been saying this for a while, although I tend to agree that Saddam was an evil man, it might have taken a personality like that to keep a country like Iraq togather.

Here is the rest of the article

CBCNews

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Here is the official transcript of a Baghdad press conference on the “Iraq Situation”. I really wouldn’t belittle it into a “situation”, maybe “nightmare”?

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I’m going to have to say Keith is winning in the showdown with the GOP.  His words are carefully chosen to the point where the right has no rebuttal (they have a rebuttal, but it is incoherant ramblings and stutters).  If you don’t have cable, get it, and turn it to MSNBC at 7:00pm Central.

Video and Transcript over at crooksandliars.com

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/23/olbermanns-special-comment-on-gop-fearmongering/#more-11268

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Not quite, but it looks like the Democrats have a real shot at capturing both the House and Senate. 

Here are the state-by-state results for the latest MSNBC/McClatchy polls.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15390260/

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So much for freedom of the press, and the US of course looks great losing 9 places, while Haiti gains.

“The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of ‘national security’ to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his ‘war on terrorism.’ The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.”

Reporters without Borders

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The administration is already downplaying the words of a US diplomat that “there was arrogance and stupidity� in the US handling of Iraq. This could be fun to downplay. I wonder if he is in Gitmo yet?

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At least the mainstream media is finally starting say that our friends over at blackboxvoting.org have been saying for years.

Does anyone remember the president of Diebold saying Bush was guaranteed a victory in the 2004 election? I wonder why he was so confident.

Link to ABC News: Electronic Voting Machines Could Skew Elections

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