Soldier accused in Afghan killings was family man

By ADAM GELLER and RACHEL LA CORTE

March 17, 2012 3:22PM
Chicago Sun-Times

"...Browne said he did not know if his client had been drinking the night of the massacre.

Then, in the middle of the night last Sunday, shots rang out in a pair of villages within walking distance of the base. Soon after, a surveillance camera mounted to a blimp captured an image of a soldier the Army identifies as Bales returning in the dark. A traditional Afghan shawl was draped over the gun in his hands. As he reached the gates of the base, the man in uniform lay the weapon down. He raised his arms in surrender.

Browne said he did not know if his client had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but said it could be an issue at trial if experts believe it’s relevant. Experts on PTSD said witnessing the injury of a fellow soldier and the soldier’s own previous injuries put him at risk..."

This was totally predictable in my opinion. I been watching this my whole life, and that's a few wars.

BBQ was nice

Feeding picky eaters ain't so bad if you have prior notice and instructions. I loved seeing my friend and her daughter and I got to meet her daughter's boyfriend. Great kids and great company. Somebody let me know if I missed something really important, cause I an't hunting down any political bullshit today. It's just too nice of a day.

Me, up at 7AM?

Yep, my friend is coming in from out of state. Haven't seen her in two years. I'm soooooooooooo excited!!!!

How We All Got Stuck Paying the Medical Bills of the Woman Who Sued to Kill Obamacare

"It is people who have decided not to buy coverage -- but who nevertheless get sick or injured and seek medical care when they do, even if they don't have the money to pay for it -- that make health insurance so expensive for the rest of us"



Dude, that's only part of it. What about the people who have invested in all sectors of the "health care business" and expect to make a return? Shareholders in health insurance companies, medical equipment and supply companies and health care facilities don't jack up our costs? What about the fraud in Medicare? What about the miscalculation in Medicare costs when SS and Medicare was set up? Nobody during FDR's time expected to have THIS many old and sick people, THIS few jobs and fewer young people enteriing the workforce because women discovered they could do more than stay at home and squirt out brats once there was birth control available.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Questions linger in US on high-tech voting

GMA News
ROB LEVER, AFP March 11, 2012 4:08pm

Of course, the powers that be may not even have to cheat considering things like this:

SHOCK POLL: 52% OF MISSISSIPPI GOP VOTERS SAY OBAMA IS MUSLIM

Sort of boggles the mind. Is this some nonsense propaganda or did they only poll Fox Snooze watchers? Are people really that stupid? I know they polled Republicans, so that says something right there.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Righteous & The Wicked

Afghan Shooting: U.S. Officials Seek To Contain Damage

I don't know why people are so surprised, indignant and vengeful towards this soldier. Nobody in the service gets help when they start to lose it because they don't want "head case" stamped in their service jacket. I was born and raised in a county that is basically one big military base, I've been seeing the homeless vets on the streets my whole life. Dude was on his 4th deployment into a war zone in a foreign culture. Not everyone handles that well, but the attitudes of many service persons don't allow for any weakness and seeking mental health help is seen as a weakness.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Greenwald totally nails it on Kucinich

SATURDAY, MAR 10, 2012 2:40 AM PST
Dennis Kucinich and “wackiness”
BY GLENN GREENWALD

"...Establishment Democrats have long viewed Dennis Kucinich with a mixture of scorn, mockery and condescension...

But more important: Kucinich’s animating belief was that both political parties often embraced extremist, destructive policies due to a combination of cowardice and malignant views..."

I'm pooped

I cleaned my carpets today. There are some clean spots now.

My dilemma and my anger

I know, you're looking at the pictures and you're thinking, Bitch is fucking obsessed with her feet and these damn shoes. Yeah, kinda, but this is something a little bit different.

Here goes --

I've been wearing the wrong size for 14 years and it caused all kinds of problems with my back, knees and 1 very painful arch. Easy for a shoes salesperson to mistake since I'm almost perfectly in between sizes and with most shoes you need to go up a size if there is doubt. Based on my experience I don't recommend it with Birkenstocks. The arch supports need to be in the correct places for your frame.

So the picutures below are of new pairs that I can't wear. Well, I have this wonderful family next door and her mom has "wide feet little bit" and "problems with fitting shoes and with feet" and she sends shoes to mom in Iran through sister in another country because the sanctions and bad relations between Iran and the U.S. are making direct phone calls and the sending of packages of things like Motrin and wide shoes to mom difficult. I didn't know this when I asked if she could get a foot tracing to see if the Birks I can't wear might work for her mom. I asked my friend and neighbor if we could just send the shoes to her and she explained the problems.

I couldn't help but think "WTF?" and then "Oh, of course! The geniuses at Homeland Security will find some way to indicate that a couple pairs of secondhand Birkenstocks (gently and slightly used and not broken in!) will somehow help Iran with it's nuclear program."

It makes perfect sense to me now since I'm almost done reading this book. I told her that the problems that the U.S. has with Iran are made in Israel and we laughed. She and I have discussed how we love that the US has freedom of religion. Those two countries really don't if you look at the problems encountered by people of the less favored religion in them, but I would posit that Jews in Iran have less problems than Muslims in Israel do. Well, I think everybody in Iran is having a tougher time with survival.

This is disgusting

Chinese Businessmen Paying $80,000 to Hunt Polar Bears in Canada

Russsians arrested in St Petersburg protests

Russia election: Police arrest 550 at city protests
5 March 2012 Last updated at 15:34 ET

Ahhhh, a little waterboarding and they'll admit that Hillary made them do it.

AIPAC Works for the 1 Percent

Posted on Mar 4, 2012
By Chris Hedges
Truthdig

"...AIPAC does not drive Middle Eastern policy in the United States. I am afraid it is worse than that. AIPAC is one of an array of powerful and well-funded neoconservative institutions that worship force and drive our relations with the rest of the world. These neoconservatives choose an enemy and then our compliant class of journalists, specialists, military analysts, columnists and television commentators line up to serve as giddy cheerleaders for war. Moments like these always make me embarrassed to be a reporter. Our political elite, Republican and Democrat, finds in this ideology a simple, childish allure. This ideology does not require cultural, historical or linguistic literacy. It reduces the world to black and white, good and evil. The drumbeat for war with Iran sounded by AIPAC is part of this broad, sick, binary vision of a world that can be subjugated by force, a world where all will be made to kneel before these corporate and neoconservative elites, where none, including finally us, will be permitted to whisper dissent..."

yeah I know it's 3 pages long, read it anyway

I'm still trudging through the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt.

AIPAC 2012: Obama Defends Policies Toward Israel, Fends Off Partisan Critiques

AIPAC is so busy staring at it's own navel it doesn't even realize that what it is advocating might not be the best thing long term for the actual people in Israel and they surely don't care about the people inside the US.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Limbaugh Advertisers: We Still Won't Sponsor Rush Anymore

Why is it that you have to hit these idiots in the pocketbook in order to get their attention?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

wtf is the matter with Arizona?

I went looking for some more details on the shooting last night because my first thought after I saw a headline that mentioned 13 were shot,was "Mexican drugs gangs?' So I use the search terms "Arizona shooting." Then I have to weed through the results to find last night's shooting?

Like I said, wtf is the matter with Arizona?

(I don't even want to go into how fucked up the AZ rednecked Republican politicians and law enforcement are)...on second thought, wtf is the matter with the world?

Flashback: Drug Cartels Helped Save The Banks During Financial Meltdown
March 3, 2012
Print Version
Source: Guardian

Risking Peace at a Troubled School

How one struggling San Francisco school is using meditation to help at-risk children thrive.
Edutopia / By David Markus
at Alternet
March 2, 2012

"... Middle schoolers, sitting silently, hardly moving?

Seriously?..."

Andrew Breitbart Dead: Conservative Blogger Dies Suddenly At 43

My condolences to friends, family and followers. May he rest in PEACE.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Iran Air War: U.S. Plans For Possibility, But Goal Remains Unclear

"Remember the real reason why Moammar Gadhafi is dead. He dared to propose and started creating an alternative currency to the world reserve U.S. Dollar..."



http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article32874.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kansas Abortion Bill: Governor Sam Brownback Likely To Sign Sweeping Legislation

Didn't Brownback figure prominently in the book "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/0805073396
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Haven't read Clusterfuck Nation in a while

because ya gotta toughen up the emotional skin before diving into his pool.

I'm good today, you?

Let's go into

A Fog of Mendacity
By James Howard Kunstler
on February 27, 2012 9:43 AM

Omygodomygodomygod I love this guy:

" ...The US government is in on this propaganda offensive, especially the Department of Energy's Energy Information Agency (EIA), which routinely issues overly optimistic reports about future oil production. The political spin is a quixotic effort to promote another commonly touted lie about the future: that the US is approaching a point of "energy independence." You'll know we got there when you have to walk to your new job weeding the potato fields. The mendacity behind this propaganda is strictly the wish of politicians to avoid telling voters the truth, out of sheer cowardice for the consequences..."

A dozen bankers are destroying civilization- and governments don't care

OpEd News
Lila York
Feb 26, 2012

The Israel Lobby, reading now

I'm plugging away at this thing. It's depressing, but it is enlightening, sort of. I really have a hard time understanding the crazy things people do because they are brainwashed by some religious fanatics.

I appreciate the fact that I was born in a country that allows freedom of religion and by the same token allows me freedom from religion. We're supposed to have separation of church and state in this country, but by the looks of things lately, some of these whackos really dislike that. Hopefully ist's just the clown car circus rhetoric.

The Middle East is a weird place. I don't understand why the Taliban is bombing shit because some Korans were burned by mistake. That is not to say that I don't understand Afghan anger because of the war.

I'm not thrilled that AIPAC "influences" (read controls) so much foreign policy in the Middle East. Their agenda ain't working for the US or Israel very well right now.

Read a little about the book at wikipedia.

Purchase at Overstock.com

Once again, speculators behind sharply rising oil and gasoline prices

Once again, speculators behind sharply rising oil and gasoline prices
Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

"...Historically, financial speculators accounted for about 30 percent of oil trading in commodity markets, while producers and end users made up about 70 percent. Today it's almost the reverse..."

The other night my congressman had another one of those telephonic town hall meetings and for some reason I get called. This time I didn't hang up and kept a running commentary going. There is a warning that you might be recorded. Good. I hope they recorded me strongly requesting that he bring up speculation in the oil markets as he was babbling on about some pie in the sky algae crap and whining about ethanol mixes and the price of gasoline. I didn't place myself in the queue for questions because I'm not diplomatic in the least. Mostly it was a chance for him to spew RepugnanThuglican talking points and a chance for "his constituents" to bitch about Obama.

Sometimes I hate the fact that I can filter out the bullshit. *sigh*

What Real Class Warfare Looks Like

What Real Class Warfare Looks Like

The American Prospect

PAUL WALDMAN FEBRUARY 17, 2012
Republicans find a way to stick it to the poor.

"So it looks as though Republicans are going to cave on the extension of the payroll tax cut, pretty much the only tax cut they don't like, seeing as it doesn't do much for the wealthy. But on their way to that capitulation, they made sure they could exact a price: drug testing of people applying for unemployment compensation! After all, we need to send these people a message...."

"...Demanding drug tests from government contractors or people who take advantage of tax deductions would be crazy, of course. On the other hand, testing people on welfare or people who are unemployed makes perfect sense. Why? Because they're poor...."


Guillotines ladies and gents, guillotines. I've had it with these fucking fucks. I've never had a drug habit and I found it de-humanizing and humiliating to pee in a cup for a couple days work at minimum wage, and that's what the temp agencies did, even though they asked the companies to pay two or three times what they paid me. Especially so when I was treated like a dumb hamster in a cage to doing dirty work for a company so steeped in the fraudulent housing market that even someone like me who had never seen mortgage documents figured it out.

Do you think ANY of the idiots who propose these laws EVER went through that?

The Whistleblower

2010 R 112 minutes
Sent to Bosnia to train cops in the aftermath of that country's brutal civil war, American policewoman Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) uncovers evidence that U.N. peacekeepers are complicit in a flourishing sex-trafficking trade. But when she brings her allegations to light, she discovers that her foes are more powerful than the law. Based on a true story, this thriller from director Larysa Kondracki co-stars Monica Bellucci and David Strathairn.

Fucking DynCorp. My husband had a run in with those corrupt, arrogant, lazy fuckers when he was in the service, and he is next to impossible to piss off, and he was pissed when he got home from work. Anyway, I remember reading this article within a couple years of it being written. When the phrase "diplomatic immunity" showed up in the movie I had to take a break as I was picturing myself going after one of the characters in the movie with a baseball bat. "Immunize that, you fucker!" I thougt.

The DynCorp "See No Evil" Monkey
Posted: 02/10/2012 10:56 am
David Isenberg
Author, 'Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq'

Broken wings: both current and former employees of DynCorp, one of the federal government's largest contractors, have accused the company of taking a fly-by-night attitude toward maintenance of military aircraft
by Kelly Patricia O'Meara

Aug 02, 2011
Contractor Accountability and Human Trafficking at Center of Upcoming Film, The Whistleblower
"...Dyncorp employees ran a “prostitution ring” that imported prostitutes from Kuwait into Baghdad in armored vehicles and operated out of hotels along the Tigris River, according to Barry Halley, a former Dyncorp subcontractor. The women appeared to be adults from Eastern Europe, he said..."

And believe me, it aint just DynCorp:

‘Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge’ and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy’s Rampage Through Iraq

Does the 99% have support within the Occupy Movement?

I know somebody who lives in a "right to work" state and it's commonly known as the "right to starve" state.

As I was watching this clip I wondered how do the land/buliding owners, or property management corporations expect to collect disgustingly high rents if people who are working are living in their cars? If the 1% are so fucking organized why can't they talk to each other and figure this shit out?

Because they're NOT brilliant and they ain't gonna figure out shit until they are headed for the guillotines.

7 Marines die in training accident

Crash was 1 of deadliest for Marines in years
By JULIE WATSON
The Associated Press

"SAN DIEGO — A collision that killed seven Marines in one of the Marine Corps' deadliest aviation training accidents in years occurred over a sprawling desert range favored by the U.S. military because its craggy mountains and hot, dusty conditions are similar to Afghanistan's harsh environment.;;;"

"...It was the fifth aviation accident since March involving the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing headquartered at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego. Throughout the Navy and Marine Corps, there have only been two other aviation training accidents in the past five years involving seven or more deaths, according to the military's Naval Safety Center..."

*sigh*

Seriously? This is considered a "top headline" for Findlaw?

Monaco Heir's Jaw Broken in Royal Brawl
By Andrew Lu on February 21, 2012 3:01 PM | No TrackBacks

I think I'll go read this book.
The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy
byJohn J. Mearsheimer,Stephen M. Walt

Republicans just suck ass sometimes

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

When I think about women in these states who register and vote Republican I am baffled at the thought, "Jeez, how fucking dumb or brain rattled by some violent religious fucktard are these bitches?"