Friday, February 24, 2006

More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins

A groundswell of sectarian fury continued to roil Iraq on Thursday after Wednesday's bombing of a major Shiite shrine, leaving at least 138 people dead in the past two days and political negotiations over a new government in ruins.


Not to worry. I'm sure that Bubble Boy will work tirelessly and diligently to improve the situation.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Competence

Bush Admits to 'Mixed Signals' Regarding Laboratory on Renewable Energy

But the next day the laboratory announced that a $28 million budget cut was forcing it to lay off researchers in ethanol and wind technology, two of the areas that Mr. Bush cited in his address as full of promise.

This past weekend, with Mr. Bush's visit to the laboratory looming, the Energy Department announced that it had transferred $5 million back into the laboratory's budget and that the 32 employees would be reinstated.

...

Managers at the laboratory began calling the employees back on Monday, a holiday, and phone calls were continuing on Tuesday. None of the employees were back at work in time for the president's visit, said a laboratory spokesman, George Douglas.


It sure is great when government is run like a business. Hooray for the MBA adminstration.
U.S. Concedes to Force-Feeding Detainees

The commander, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, head of the United States Southern Command, said soldiers at Guantánamo began strapping some of the detainees into "restraint chairs" to force-feed them and isolate them from one another after finding that some were deliberately vomiting or siphoning out the liquid they had been fed.


Do we even realize that we, as Americans, have lost our soul?

This country was created based on a recognition of human rights.

Yet, it's clear that the official policy of this government is: human rights when we say so. Not all the time, only when we say so.

Many of these poor fuckers have done nothing other than being a brown man in a place and time that would earn someone else a bounty, and someone else an accomodation for bringing a quota of people in.

We have lost our soul. When will we admit that, and when we will work to get it back?

Update: Holden made it further into the article than I did.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Hero