“Condi, this man will help you clean out your desk and see you out…”

Last week, the neocons let it be known that they wanted Condi Rice to get booted under the bus upstairs, across the street, somewhere….now they are making it clear that they aren’t kidding. Rice, is now thoroughly discredited and on the way out the door.

Her not-very-magical mystery tour of the Middle East was a humiliation and a diplomatic disaster, culminating in her “non-grata” non-stop in Lebanon. However, she tried to bounce back. In the past three days, Rice has tried to speak for the Israelis (announcing a 48 hour cessation of bombing) and for her husband President George W. Bush (predicting an end to the fighting within a week.)

How are those workin out for ya, Condi?

Read this piece and see how Condi has been squashed like a bug.
There sometimes comes a moment in one’s employment when becomes aware that the skids are greased. Locks get changed, desk moved, meetings held without you, nobody wants to talk with you, boss can’t make a time to sit down with you.

That moment has arrived for Condi Rice, and somebody as smart as she is should realize it.  For whatever reason, I feel sorry for her. She has foolishly sold out the country, and her personal integrity and her reputation and her legacy…for what? the temporary kindnesses of, well, it’s hard to characterize her boss in human terms, so I won’t try.

Give it up Condi, you aren’t in their league in any way, shape or form. Write a book, whatever. I am sure that they are lining up a job in the private sector to cover your exit. Take it, accept the Medal of Freedom, smile, and be gone while you still have your health and a government pension. The next round of disgrace will be much worse if you don’t. That’s the way they work.

Sign me up for some of that “democracy” stuff? not so much…

Biff today signalled that the young democracy in Lebanon was just not good enough to qualify to be one of those democracies that don’t wage war on each other. Instead, the Lebanese are going to be bombed, invaded, occupied, shaked and baked, burned, levelled, isolated, devastated, evacuated and generally blowed up good for at least another few weeks.

he suggested that the Israeli campaign has his support for as long as it takes to eliminate Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon and its ability to attack neighbor Israel.

Hmmm….that sounds like a prescription for “FOREVER.”

In a related vein, I wonder how long a Middle Eastern country has to be one of those democracies that qualifies not to be blowed up….? hmmm…
And what about dictatorships like Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia??? whaaa?

Biff finished up with this criticism, about some guy who is:

…putting out statements basically encouraging people to use terrorist tactics to kill innocent people to achieve their political objectives.

tisk, tisk, your fingers are pointin right back at you, Biff….

countdown to George’s global warming solution, day 165. “It’s not working, Jerry.”

Jerry : What is it that isn’t working?

George : Why did it all turn out like this for me? I had so much promise. I was personable, I was bright. Oh, maybe not academically speaking, but … I was perceptive. I always know when someone’s uncomfortable at a party. It became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every of life, be it something to wear, something to eat … It’s all been wrong.

—Seinfeld

Let’s recalculate those casualty numbers, shall we?

I would like to see an honest assessment of the massive imbalance in civilian casualties, killed, wounded, displaced, and damage to property and infrastructure in the Levant.

Let’s start with “killed.”  A minimum of 350 Lebanese have been killed. Of these, the Israelis are claiming (??) 100 are Hezbollah. That is bullshit but lets let it lie, so at least 250 innocent Lebanese have been killed.  This piece has the numbers on Israelis:

Already, 19 soldiers have been killed in the latest conflict. Another 15 civilians have been killed in Hizbollah rocket attacks since the fighting started.

The Telegraph estimate agrees.

So, of some 34 Israeli killed, 19 have been soldiers, not civilians. That leaves 15 Israeli civiiians killed, compared to at least 250 Lebanese.

Further, the Israel wounded are also being falsely inflated not only by the number of non-civilian soldiers wounded but also by this bullshit “in shock” group of people who are apparently not hurt. They may be “shocked,” scared, angry, indignant….but they aren’t wounded, and they aren’t medically “in shock.” They make up the largest number of the “casualties.”

From this story we can see the ratio:

At least 11 rockets hit Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, and five people were wounded, with 23 treated for shock.

Lebanese wounded are estimated at about 500. That makes sense, compared to the number killed. There is no reason to think that the real Israeli wounded number isn’t also about twice the number of killed, or about 30.

Okay, by this calculus, adding killed and wounded, we have 45 total real Israeli civilian casualties, vs 750 Lebanese.

The estimates of Lebanese displaced is estimated at 500,000. I don’t see many Israelis moving, and if they are, its not because their homes are destroyed. The damage in Lebanon is estimated at 2 billion. Haven’t seen any estimate re Israel…but it is not exactly in that order of magnitude, clearly.

The Brits seem to have figured out the math a little before Biff and The Geniuses, and it’s not goin down easy.

Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has criticised Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon, while on a visit to Beirut.
He said Israel had not carried out “surgical strikes” and attacking the Lebanese nation was not the answer.

Downing Street said the prime minister would stand by Mr Howell’s comments, adding the British government had “always urged restraint on Israel”.

Meanwhile thousands of people across the UK have joined demonstrations against Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

In fact, (and maybe its just a reaction to Biff’s G-8 imitation of Bluto Blutarski at the Animal House), but the Brits appear to be calling bullshit on the idea that there is solid evidence of the neocons Iran/Syria/Hezollah connection:Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told the `Financial Times`

.

“I am sure that Israel would weigh very carefully any suggestion of a ground incursion because, after all, it took them a long time to get out of Lebanon the last time they went in,” the daily quoted her as saying.

“I think everyone understands the position in which Israel finds itself. We have been urging caution and restraint on Israel from the beginning and we continue to do so with ever greater concern as time goes on,” she said.

Beckett told the daily there was no concrete proof Iran and Syria were behind the Hizbollah`s attacks.

“I`m not sure that any government anywhere in the world would tell you that they`ve got cast-iron proof (of Iranian and Syrian involvement),” she said. “What I can tell you is that almost every government in the world shares our view.”

The report said Beckett also backed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has called for a halt to hostilities.

Now, I realize that Alan ““torture is okay with me” Dershowitz has a new definition of “civilian”, but, people, you can’t FIND A FREAKING WAR WHERE IT CAN’T BE SAID THAT THE CIVILIANS GIVE SOME AID TO THE MILITARY. That is why the rules of war were written. Geez.
Let’s get fuckin real…Can we GET FUCKIN REAL ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON THERE?????

166 Days, Biff, don’t forget….

I know that hittin on that Merkel babe and like, all the rockets and Iraq and Afghanistan and all that junk, are on your mind, but don’t forget about that thing you said, you know, about solving global warming….

Countdown to Biff’s solution for global warming: 167 days and counting

It’s getting exciting, just thinking about the mysterious solution and the human suffering that will be avoided. In the meantime, here are a couple of very interesting and relevant links:

LINK 1: I think this is Biff’s solution.

LINK 2: Discusses why many of the proposed solutions are probably not gonna work. Don’t miss the section on limnic eruption.

Bush’s veto: in human lives, equivalent to war, with a draft

[crossposted at dailykos]
There are many ramifications of Bush’s veto. I would like to bring perspective to the human tragedy this will inevitably bring. This is a day to be hug your kids. They will pay the price for Bush’s/Republican posturing,  just as they will price for the massive looting of the United States Treasury that Bush/Republican has accomplished.

By way of perspective, lets compare the effect of the veto with the effect of war. First, lets look at war: Over the past three and a half years, on average, every day 2 or 3 Americans have died because directly because of the war in Iraq and another 5 or so have become disabled.  In addition, a hundred or so Iraqis, on average, have died every day, and many more have had their lives seriously disrupted or have become physically impaired.

Medical advances can easily save this many lives; logically, the failure to make these medical advances, COSTS THAT MANY LIVES EVERY DAY. AND IT IS MY KIDS AND YOUR KIDS THAT WILL SUFFER AND DIE. AND THEY DON’T HAVE ANY SAY IN IT. IT’S LIKE DRAFTING THEM AND SENDING THEM OFF TO WAR.

Example, below: This example has no particular link to embryonic stem cell research. It is chosen only to show the impact of delaying medical research and implementation:

Cervical cancer kills ten women in the United States every day, and world wide it kills at least a hundred. Many more will have abnormal pap smears and curable cancers which will require obnoxious therapy. It is caused by human papilloma virus, and it is preventable by the new vaccine.  (Other cancers such as breast and lung, kill many more, and other diseases such as heart disease also kill many more.)

If your kids are twenty five, they have already missed out on the life saving effect of this vaccine, because they have probably already gotten the virus, if they are going to get it. That is too bad, but it’s nobody’s fault. If the new vaccine is released today, and gets into wide use 100 days from now, then there will be a day about thirty years from now where the death rate from cervical cancer will fall precipitously. Let’s arbitrarily call that date July 22, 2036.

If the release of the vaccine is delayed one month, then the effect is delayed one month, to August 22, 2036. During that month in 2036, 30 American women will die of cervical cancer, hundreds will die worldwide, and thousands will be affected one way or another by the issues of cervical cancer.

Back to embryonic stem cell research: the powerhouse of American embryonic stem cell research has been effectively barred from using all its tools for 5 years, and this will continue at least another year.  This six years will translate to six years delay in the implementation of whatever advances can be made from this technique. Your kids will be the ones to suffer.  How many hundred thousand people in this country and around the world will die or be disabled as a result of this delay?  

What arrogance, what foolishness, what a tragedy, we have seen this week.  

Explain this to others, every chance you get.

Some have reasoned that the absence of the military draft accounts for the absence of huge antiwar rallies, because our young people don’t see their lives as being at stake.

Make your kids and other young people, and their parents understand that Bush is killing them just as surely with his veto of embryonic stem cell research, and that Congressmen who voted not to override the veto have done the same.

This is such tragedy.

R-MN: Iraq worse than we’re being told; meanwhile, Bushco continues to spin

Republican congressman Gil Gutknecht from Minnesota visited and Iraq and apparently the scales fell from his eyes.

“The condition there is worse than I expected,” he said. “… I have to be perfectly candid: Baghdad is a serious problem.”

In fact, he thinks that withdrawal of troops should begin:

he believes removing some American troops is necessary to send the Iraqi government a message that it can’t rely so heavily on the American military much longer.

Finally, a bit of realism from a Republican junketer:

Gutknecht was in Iraq from Saturday morning until late Sunday afternoon. His time in the country’s capital city was spent almost exclusively within the Green Zone, an area of central Baghdad that is heavily fortified and where all access is controlled by check-points.

“We learned it’s not safe to go anywhere outside of the Green Zone any part of the day,” he said.

The Mankato Free Press comments on the Republican echochamber:

Gutknecht’s sobering report contrasts with many of his fellow conservative supporters of the war. The Republican National Committee sends out weekly e-mails to the media called “Iraq Facts” that paint a picture of steady progress toward stability and Iraqi self-governance. And conservative commentators have consistently said that the American people are being provided an overly dire picture of the Iraq war by the mainstream media.

Increasingly, Republicans realize that they have to run against Bush and his war.
Meanwhile, Bushco continues its merry spinning of the facts:

The American energy secretary, Samuel W. Bodman, who met with Iraq’s oil and electricity ministers in Baghdad, had a rosy view of progress here since his last visit in 2003. “The situation seems far more stable than when I was here two or three years ago,” he said in an interview in the fortified Green Zone. “The security seems better, people are more relaxed. There is an optimism, at least among the people I talked to.”

Will they ever run out of Kool-aid?

Global warming to last only another 168 days

the countdown to Biff’s solution continues.

UN: Enormity of killing in Iraq; LA Times:civil war; Iraq: Coalition to blame

United Nations report says that more than 14,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the first half of this year

this is astonishing. 100/100,000 people across the entire population on an annualized basis.

Put another way, on an annual basis, countrywide(not just in the worst urban area) one person in a thousand is being killed.

The middle class is leaving.

Death, destruction, dislocation.

Disaster.

Even the dishonest statistical “apples and oranges” farce used by the wingnuts (Detroit vs. Iraq) can’t stand up to this enormous number.

The LA Times calls it civil war:

Retaliatory massacres by gunmen and bombers linked to rival Muslim sects have left more than 130 people dead across Iraq over the last two days, the latest casualties of what some politicians now are calling an undeclared civil war. At least 57 Iraqis were killed Tuesday and scores more injured when a suicide bomber lured a group of day laborers to his minivan with the promise of work before setting off explosives.

Geez, does anybody else get it???? Smell the coffee. The deputy Prime Minister of Iraq attributes much of the killing to the Coalition Forces:

deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie blamed U.S. and other coalition forces for much of the violence, saying their troops were responsible for about half the deaths due to “raids, shootings and clashes with insurgents.”
“They came to protect the people and democracy and all the problems we have today are because of them. It is a loss for Iraq,” said al-Zubaie, a Sunni Muslim.
He also said Iraq’s Interior and Defense Ministries had been infiltrated by militiamen who are responsible for many deaths.
Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman said the U.N. report makes clear that if the situation continues, “catastrophe will hit the country..”
“The U.N. report is a warning to officials and politicians that the situation is very bad and they have to be careful and solve it but the government cannot find a solution,” Othman said.”