http://last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/

Indigo said...

the American war in Iraq has produced a humanitarian catastrophe of historic proportions, with a death total already higher than that in Rwanda in 1994 17 Sept 2007

December 24, 2007 11:58 PM

http://last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/

Entertaining film...at least 97% of it

Since reading "The Omega Man" in 7th grade, I have had a thing for "last man alive" fantasy's. Maybe because of that long infatuation all films fall short?... Many parts of this film completely satisfy. I did find myself re-writing while watching... I guess I will continue to pursue the ultimate book or film.... however this film keeps your heart rate up and your muscles tense for most of it.

Nicely done!

Without a doubt the best of all Sondheim scores. The recent NY revival was one of the finest things I have seen on the stage. The Tim Burton film was a delight from start to finish. Sondheim himself assisted on the project. I believe that to be a factor in how well the score was "cut" to fit into the restrictions of film. It is a cold, dark, bloody film that is stylized wonderfully. The cinematography is eye candy. All actors, while not "singers", bring a new quality. Thank you Tim Burton! Hats off to Stephen Sondheim, a living 'Mozart' of our time.

Tis the Season to love your fellow man.

I was depressed last night so I rang Lifeline.
I was transferred to a call center in Pakistan.
I told them I was suicidal.
They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

Baseball and steriods

Hello!
What kind of a media/owner/player pile of crap are we enduring now?
The fact that one owner or player 'feigns' shock over this "new steriod news" is amazing.

I don't think there is a single american citizen that hasn't known steriods are a major part of sports for at least ten years.... SNL was doing sketches on it back in the early 80's....

Perspective

Putting things in perspective.

We would rather be doing what we are doing than:


Iraq is more important to us than......

Not bad for a "Web forward"

The Demographics of American Newspapers:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country. Or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist height challenged who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. The Honolulu Advertiser is bought by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap fish guts in.

Iraq is improving????

"Man, we are out of workers"

You can tell that this was important.

Things are going way better in Iraq.

Our Marines training the Iraqi Army.

Tired of the Patriot Act? You should be

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.

Benjamin Franklin

Thank you to all Veterans!

If you have not had a chance to view "Baghdad ER" on HBO, here is the link.

http://www.brasscheck.com/videos/iraq/iraqwar10.html


It will change the way you think. **Warning** it is quite graphic. It was nearly censored by the government. I am surprised that "this" Government allowed it to be seen.


Thank you Vets

Mad as Hell

Both Parties can kiss my ass. America is currently "broken". We have a complete moron at the wheel and a congress that can not pull its head out of it's collective ass.

We have a pointless war with thousands and thousands of our young people being wounded (watch HBO's Baghdad ER!!) for absolutely zero reason....they aren't stopping terrorists...WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!
Our economy sucks, Our health care is in crisis, Big business is fucking over the entire country every chance they get, and the best part? We are letting it happen.

The dumbass butt lickin republicans are so completely "lock-step" that they can not see the reality of what their party has done to this country and the worthless Dems are completely "ball-less".

All great societies crumble from within.... it is time to throw these bastards out...all of them!!
I was republican and that party left me, then I was democrat and that party failed me...

It is time for the "Howard Beal Dems" to stand up and send them all packing.

This country sucks (just slightly less than every other country on the planet)

Where are the fucking public servants? Where are the Statesmen?

Throw these pandering assholes out.

Secretary of "The" agriculture

North Dakota's own Ed Schaffer

New Attorney General

I can't decide, can you?

It was very interesting trying to upload these images.

They would not load until I changed the name of the jpg.
This graphic I titled "My first merit badge"
The one below I titled "happy cookie baking"
once I did that they loaded instantly.

For Lolife

found this on a blog, thought you would appreciate it.

Continue the journey

In my never ending quest to find passion that cost money rather than make money, I have found ..rather re-discovered a new one. After years as a freshwater enthusiast, and then years and thousand of dollars, as a saltwater enthusiast...I have now come 360 degree's. About three years ago a friend "turned me on" to the work of Takashi Amano.....I was in the middle of my saltwater period, quite happily spending hundreds of dollars a week on the hobby....one glance at the work of Takashi and I sold all of the salt systems and am now, finally, going to realize where my aquatic vision lies.

Tomorrow I pick up a 125 gallon tank. Monday a 55, possibly a 90 octagon...to add to my 29 and multiple 10's...hopefully one day I will produce a photo of my own aquascape that holds as much beauty as those posted below.

Takashi Amano

Photographer,Aquarist, Genius

Takashi Amano

Takashi Amano

Same Yard, Same Date

He's a dumb shit- R. Nixon

Fred Thompson was Nixons biatch?

Student Protests in Iran

An amazing site
Several hundred students protest in Iran today. Hopefully the media will cover as much of this as is possible.
Hind sight is, of course, 20-20...I am just finishing "Imperial Life inside the Emerald City"
Author Rajiv Chandrasekaran stated that it was highly likely that Sadam was about 12-18 months from being over thrown before the US invaded. He also stated that his "bravado" and antagonistic behavior in the court of world opinion was to try to remain in power at home...
That being said...with all the threat of war with Iran,
I am hoping that the US has the right intelligence. Ahmadinejad is not the "leader" of Iran, more of a figure head and front man for the Supreme Leader,Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Students have long been active in Iran and are potentially what will force the ultra radical muslim extremists to recognize the youthful majority in Iran. (something like 70% of the population is under the age of 30) I would hope that we are "on our game" this time...and do not get sucked into a situation that could be avoided with proper intelligence.

The Graphic at the top is actually Ahmad Batebi. His 1997 protest condemned him to death only to have the sentence commuted to 15 years by international pressure.

I believe there is much, much more to Iran than we know....I believe there is a boiling underground protest of Iranian youth seeking a more democratic Iran.

Jon Stewart

Carter in Darfur...hmmm what will GW do?

We all read about Jimmy Carter in Darfur. I wonder what GW will be doing after his Presidency?

Will he build the GW Library?
Will he write a book?
Will he read a book?
Will he heal the sick?
Feed the hungry?

What will GW be doing in 18 months, 2 years, 5 years?

Such a legacy he has left behind for this country.

bullshit war for bullshit principles

I have been watching as much of the Ken Burns series on WWII. In visiting with my parents (mid 70’s) spoke of the rationing of gas, sugar, etc… and the fact that you couldn’t by rubber, silk, meat…
There were collections of scrap metal and fund raising for the war effort…

We now find out that while there were significant shortages that some of what was happening during WWII was done to ‘involve’ the American public…

This war (Iraq) is very expensive. The cost is real and will not just go away. What was the quote? “The cost of one day in Iraq would have funded the un-insured childrens health bill”?

This much debt, this much deficit makes America weaker, not stronger. No one will conquer us militarily. Fiscally we are sinking our own ship.

The Cold War was won, in part, by making the Soviets spend themselves into collapse....

This Republican party is not fiscally conservative, nor are they for smaller government. The Dems. are a ball-less lot that is incapable of dealing with the worst administration in the history of the country.

The American populace needs to wise up, band together and get a grip on the direction we have been heading for the past six years....you can not wage a war for this long at this expense, enlarge the size of government and give tax cuts....

We have close to 30,000 wounded vets and if history repeats itself (apparently we do not learn) we will go from “loving our soldiers” to “not supporting our wounded Vets”....There is and will be a growing on going expense to this pointless war that does not have an attainable end. (we have the might but not the diplomacy skills)

We are not even capable of securing our borders, yet we think that what we are doing in Iraq is fighting a war on terror?....Give me a frickin break.

yet another reason we are in a shit hole.

Greenspan says:

"They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose" in the 2006 election, when they lost control of the House and Senate.

Look, someone kicked over another rock.

Just when you thought the upcoming election wasn't quite sleazy enough. Apparently Newtie thinks everyone has forgotten what a scumbag he truly is.??



For the record, I will run for President for ten million.

"My dinner in Harlem" by Bill O'Reilly

"My Dinner In Harlem- Billy O'Reilly


" I was pretty sure I would get stabbed"
...you won't want to put it down...- Boston Globe

"What?, no break dancers?"
...a page turner with non-stop action.. The daily dribble

" No Soul food, no jive talkin, and no one stole my car?"
....a realization of epic proportion.... Star trumpeter.

.."you see suh, we po folk dun throwed off de chains and weez movin on up. We don halfa lissen to Jesse J or baby al sharpten no mo'"
..a radical enlightenment of post cival war negroes...- KKK gazette

The Worst President in the history of the US?

"..Our Children's does learn..."

Does anyone feel a Draft?

It has been a long time since U.S. Citizens have experienced non-voluntary conscription. With all this rhetoric about Iran, Syria and North Korea, and the Israeli's recent air strikes into Syria ....made me start thinking about the real potential for the U.S. to seriously need to consider a "Draft".

"It will never happen", "we don't need a draft", "We have plenty of forces available".

I don't know about you, but I have heard the above quotes for a number of years. To be honest I have believed them to be accurate and have not given the "Draft" any real serious consideration. Given current events and our administrations inadequacies in diplomacy...or rather the complete failure of any resemblance of foreign policy..other than "we'll kick your ass"...I started wondering why todays 18-42 year olds are not a bit more concerned.

I was surprised by the selective service site (see above link) and the fact that within 193 days from the Presidents signing new recruits would start reporting.....

I was surprised that recent bills contained significant conscription changes.

or do we believe this link and rest a bit?

WTF?

KO gets a bit dramatic, but his points ring true

Why have we not sought to Impeach?, and while we are at it throw out every single member of the Senate and member of the House.

The spokesperson for the republican party

Great post from "Left in East Dakota"

I just read this on "Left in East Dakota".

I felt I needed to post it here also....I really like Graeme's blog you should check it out

A breath of sane air

Mohamed ElBaradei:

"I repeat: we have not seen any undeclared facilities operating in Iran, we have not seen any concrete evidence that the Iran program is being weaponized. We have not received any information to that effect. So, I haven't heard any other information, to the contrary. So while we are still concerned about the nature of the Iranian program, we should not... I do not believe, at this stage, that we are facing clear and present danger that requires that we go beyond diplomacy."

ElBaradei also said:

"I would not talk about any use of force. There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."

Put in the context of today's world, these are radical statements. They ought to be on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

Fighting Back

If you visited the Say Anything blog....do so again...the topic is worth discussion and there are valuable talking points...
for the record it was not Rob Port who made the sexist comment.....lable withdrawn...
He is a Right Winger that can swing hard... I'm sure he can take it.

Guns in School, Great Idea?

Say Anything blog-does this make sense?

I keep going back to "Say Anything". I just got the biggest charge out of this post. I am not sure if they are serious, but I sure hope they are. I have been wondering why I am so completely opposite of so many views on that blog.

Ignorant, sexist, arrogant, un-educated,....I'll stop there...you have to go check it out, seriously..It is the absolute best and of course the absolute worst all wrapped into one.

Should teachers bring guns to school?

Iraq

I find comparisons between War and Football to be insulting. However I have 100% confidence in our military and the ability to succeed in battle. I have almost zero confidence in our administration to do what it takes 'politically' to create a sustainable peace..



"We are, in short, a long way from the goal line, but we do have the ball and we are driving down the field," said Petraeus, who will next week report to Congress on progress in Iraq.

Guns or Knives?

NCLB?

If you were wondering NCLB seriously is a major scam. Granted there is plenty wrong with public education. No Child Left Behind is not the cure.

Guess how many billions of "education" dollars are going to the companies that produce, print, distribute and grade all these "standardized, bullshit tests"? Guess what the qualifications of the test evaluators are?....can you say 'off-the-street-minimum-wage' jobs?

If you have not seen Taylor Mali...enjoy!


ps. you don't piss yourself anymore because someone taught you not to.

Say Anything blog

These guys get a bum rap from we "progressive, leftist, socialistic,....highly intelligent, Bush disdainers. But they toss out the posts like a frickin machine.....

I almost always disagree with every single post on the site. If you comment you get absolutely gang raped verbally....but I keep going back....what is wrong with me? Do I really care? Do I want to try to save them? or am I just trying to find the "flush handle"?

How to get rid of a Senator?

They can lie. They can cheat. They can steal. They can duck questions. They can cook the books. They can ignore their base. They can be wined, dined and bribed. They can live like kings. They can vote themselves raises. They can be completely out of touch with reality.

They can not, however, after a long flight engage in random gay sex in the restroom of an international airport. We Americans have standards damnit!!

This video was significant to me in my formidable years!!

Shirts not tucked in? Honorable mention

Just before you "SNAP"

Times like these, where much more political BS will send you right over the edge and the news is nothing but shit. Hello Mr. V thanks for the advice.






I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
Kurt Vonnegut

Coulter vs Franken

Michael Vick vs. This guy!

Michael Vick is a scumbag for his treatment of animals and should pay for his crimes.
What about "these guys" from Texas? Baby in the dryer? Baby in the microwave?

I Love Ann Coulter

Isn't she fun to have around. She's like the Wicked Witch of the West. Terrible, terrible person, but when she melted....weren't you a little bit sad?

If Ann Coulter melted.......would you be a little bit sad? or would you splash in the puddle like Gene Kelly in "Singin in the Rain"?

This Congress

I do not understand this Democratic congress. Do they not feel this complete 'lack' of approval is based upon their actions?

The approval rating on the previous congress was only 10 pts higher and that was based on their actions.

If I can't be a republican, because I have a soul. If the Democratic party has no 'stones', what is a person supposed to do/become? ...... Canadian? Libertarian?

Can we get over Cuba yet?

Is there a logical reason that we are still kicking Castro in the neck?
Couldn't relaxing restrictions on Cuba create good things for the US?
Or does the "anti-Castro" crowd still hold to much power in this country?

Fox? Fair and Balanced or Sleazy liars?

Take a moment and watch the posted videos. Start at the Top, if you get to the fourth without puking you win a prize.

Fox News is the worst excuse for news on the planet.

Want to know what propaganda looks, feels and smells like?
Tune in to Fox news. You don't even have to look for the lies, they are everywhere.
Wait, I should probably back that statement up by saying...if Fox News is "Fair and Balanced" the rest of the world is spewing a pack of lies.

Try watching any story, but a political story is best. Watch it on Fox then switch to any other station...NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, CBC..and watch the same story.

Propaganda and the twisting of every nuance to suit the right wing.

Now That!, is a dog

Cosmo the Wonderdog!

General Petraeus report

The long awaited report from General Petraeus will come with some conditions. The White House is requesting that the General give his report to Congress "behind closed doors".

The report given to the American people will not be written by the General. It will be prepared by the White House but it will contain the Generals "Thoughts and basic intent".

(This information from "Face the Nation" Sunday, August 19)

Since we have no reason to have "distrust" for this administration we can be grateful that the White House will make it easier for us to understand.

I just found a link that discusses this topic. If I was not such a noob I would know how you do that link thing....until my ignorance wanes...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/15/AR2007081501281.html

Prescription drug advertising

The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries on the planet that allow television advertising for prescription drugs. New Zealand is considering making them illegal as they encourage the consumer to purchase and take drugs that they do not need to be taking.

I am sure corporate America will follow suit and voluntarily take these ridiculous ads off television.

Cloudy day

Cloudy day

What immigration problem???

The latest poll taken by the office of the Governor of Texas
Asked whether people who live in Texas think illegal immigration
Is a serious problem:

A) 35% of respondents answered: "Yes, it is a serious problem."
B) 65% of respondents answered: "No es una problema serio."

Dorgan

I saw Byron Dorgan last night at a local establishment. He brought some federal energy folks to meet with some local energy folks. I have always liked Mr. Dorgan and I have always voted for Mr. Dorgan.

It was interesting to observe the demographic of the entourage. Definite primitive instinctual seating, yet without placecards.

To be honest it is amazing that our Senators can travel this state with little if any security, with respect and with freedom. I have always found our Senators and representatives to be completely approachable. (did I just contradict my previous post?)

Cival War?

The conflict between the Sunni and Shia tribes goes back for centuries. Until recently they have lived peacefully with one another. The U.S. is currently arming the Sunni's.

Iraq is improving!!!!!

I am happy to read the news that the war in Iraq is improving. Specifically Baghdad is not the huge giant "shit-storm" it was before the surge. (ie...they only pick up the remains of 20 tortured, mutilated bodies each morning on the city streets compared to the 70-130 they were picking up just a few short months ago)

I had zero doubt in the abilities of our armed forces. We are, without a doubt, the super power of the planet. That being said, let's play a little role reversal....come along, this will be fun. It will, maybe, put a different perspective on the situation.

Let's pretend a foreign army (the size and scope of the US forces) does the same thing to Mpls. that it has done to Baghdad and for the same amount of time.

Who is still living in Mpls? Who didn't leave after the first bombs dropped? Only those who could not leave. The poor and the "un-connected".

And then in come the militants...outsiders (for the most part) that aren't even from your city. They start shooting and torturing and blowing the living hell out of everything. Do you take your wife and children and leave? or do you stay?

CNN stated that 4 million Iraqi citizens have either left the country or are refugee camps.

I happen to reside in a city that had a major disaster (flood of 97)
Those with means (rich folk) split the scene at the get-go...called back and said "is my house toast?", "it is?", "ok, here is some money...fixit and call me when you're done"

Those with moderate means (mid-class) left and stayed with family and friends all over the country.

Those with little to zero means (un-connected or poor) went to the refugee camp at the Air Base.

The town was empty.......

So my point is....are we amazed that the death toll is slowing? or are we just getting ready to say "yup, our work here is done" and then split the scene only to let the thing then boil over into a major blood bath.

Karl Rove Quits!!!

Karl Rove is going back to Texas.
Apparently there are rocks in Texas that actually have nothing underneath them, so he feels there is opportunity for him.

Mr. Rove has been G.W.'s chief adviser for the past decade. That being said, maybe he is just getting a headstart in finding a proper hiding place?

It will be interesting to see what the "Commander in Chief of the World" will do without "Turd Blossum" to give him direction.