War! that old ‘fog of war’… and a Blaahhgger – or two… War UPdates :: WHUP all the PUPS update :: WHUPS

Matthews had a special Sunday hour today on the increased-ever-ongoing-but-spreading hostilities.  Or The Wars.  Martin Fletcher who reports from the ME for NBC/MSNBC, not a raving leftie! said that the two soldiers were largely ”an excuse”, the IDF/Israel had wanted to do just what is unfolding for “five years”.  No surprise, I am just glad it got said. If there is a transcript put up tomorrow I will post it.  

[hell, 10 PM in the West, I am just catching MTP, Fletcher said the same thing. transcript, it also seems pretty clear that Gingrich wants to run... no news there = I guess ]

From an ABC AP round up piece 

But both Israel and Hezbollah signaled that their attacks would only intensify in an already brutal battle that has killed at least 152 in Lebanon and 23 in Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed “far-reaching consequences” for the Haifa attack, Hezbollah’s deadliest strike ever on Israel. The morning barrage of 20 rockets came after Israeli warplanes unleashed their heaviest strikes yet on Beirut, flattening apartment buildings and blowing up a power station to cut electricity to swaths of the capital. [...]

Along with the Lebanon attacks, Israel attacked along the second front where Israel is fighting, in Gaza. Fighter jets bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Gaza City, and clouds of smoke rose from the building, which has been hit before. [...]

In Israel, Haifa a bustling port city of 270,000 people was brought to a standstill. The streets were eerily quiet as residents huddled in bomb shelters or stocked up on milk, bread and other staples.

“It’s a war, it’s an emergency situation and it will get worse,” said Sharon Goldstein, a 34-year-old security guard.

And this AP report via Anti-War, is the simple truth, I do believe.  I guess we are left to be thankful somebody says it.  In this case the Army Chief of Staff.

WASHINGTON – The Army’s top uniformed officer said Friday he did not think the United States was losing the war in Iraq but declined to say the nation was winning.

Americans should brace for a long fight against terrorism, said Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff.

“I believe that we are closer to the beginning . . . than we are to the end,” he said during a luncheon on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Defense Forum Foundation.

… It is a short piece and just loaded with bitter truth…

Schoomaker said Friday he does not envision reducing the time soldiers spend deployed in Iraq because shorter combat tours would cause too much “turbulence” in the war. Soldiers are typically sent for yearlong deployments in Iraq, which many experts say is too long and stressful.

Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune cabs it from Demascus to Beirut

MASNAA, Lebanon — At the border crossing between Syria and Lebanon, the taxi driver becomes jumpy. Israeli jets had struck the area hours earlier, and they could strike again at any time. He wants to move on as fast as possible.

That isn’t hard. At 10 p.m. on the third day of Israel’s strike against Lebanon, there are few travelers in either direction. Beirut’s airport has been bombed and so has the port, cutting air and sea links between Lebanon and the outside world. The roads are the only way in and out of the country, and they aren’t safe either.
War is always with us… and, you got it, the arms dealers cheer!

And so is jetsam, always with us, I mean!… in over the transom [Thank You Ma'am] is this tidbit … an hors d’oeuvre… but read in a certain way, a laugh is to be had. 

BTW, “Kossack” is seriously out of hand… and considering it started as a joke… rully rully out of hand.   A bigger laugh is the photo that accompanies this Hispanic Magazine article [thanks to Deepest Troat]. 

ENJOY!  … that photo is primed to go, imo.

hmmm… more than the Righties are setting up what they need for that marshmallow and weenie roast if Lamont fails to clear the high hurdle (everything is a horse race!) and WIN.  Catch this in the Toledo Blade.  Oh yes yes, just the writer’s opinion (which I think is more or less center/right).

HIGH noon approaches for the moonbats. We’ll soon know if they’ll sit above the salt at the Democratic table, or be exiled to the outer darkness.

High noon is Aug. 8, the date of the Connecticut primary. The “netroots” gang of left-liberal Web loggers have picked a fight they must win, or suffer a potentially catastrophic loss of face. [...]

Most in the Democratic establishment regard the Kossacks as a force to be reckoned with. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, and presidential hopefuls Mark Warner, Wesley Clark, Tom Vilsack, and Bill Richardson were among the dignitaries who attended a conference Kos sponsored in Las Vegas in June.

 ooo that makes the Dems look so good, doesn’t it?  What a mess… they’re following a Pied Piper Munchkin.   Flotsam found Jetsam.  Oh yes, not exactly what is going on, but what the not too interested eye will see.  And remember, the Lieberman CT issues are national interest level.  Bowers says so…

The Internet has given lefty bloggers and the Democratic politicos intimidated by them an exaggerated sense of their strength, said the Web logger Silflay Hraka:

“Say one 10-member anti-globalist organization in San Francisco comes into contact with another 10-member group in Seattle. Each feels that their membership and political power has doubled, when in fact nothing of the sort has occurred. Communication … is enhanced, but the actual number of votes has not changed at all.”

The Connecticut primary will separate fantasy from reality, Mr. Hraka said:

“If the Leftnet cannot elect a candidate of their own choosing in a Democratic primary in one of the most liberal states in the union, then they can’t win elections, period,” he said.

 Not a Deaniac (but supported Howard from July 2002 – tho not for the chair).  Not a moonbat (but was a ”bat outta hell”, breathless to leave the party on Nov 3) and NOT, never, never!, a ”Kossack”. 

 ”Once upon a time” I posted at a pretty smart, not stupid, not dittoing, not blissed-out, not cultish political site. Not a “community” either (quick as wink you get “leaders”, gah!), an ad hoc gathering of adults to discuss politics. 

 And it sure as hell was not self-celebritising. Self-celebratory? Tho the owner, I do believe, was desirous of making it all of that.  Right about now, remember the pic in the Hispanic Magazine.  I was kind, it’s a click away.

About where it is at.  Oh yeah… I am not done… but I think they knew that.

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UPDATE:  5:15 am, PT

Socialist Worker Online (UK) has eyewitness reports from the ground in Lebanon.  This a haunting one:

Terror in Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps
12 noon (British time), 17 July 2006

Alaa, a Palestinian refugee living in the Sabra and Chatilla, spoke to Socialist Worker

“The camps are almost completely empty. There is a fear that the Israelis will return and finish what they did during the massacre in 1982. Some have gone to Syria, others have taken to the shelters.”

“There is not enough food. We fear the worst, we have nowhere to hide. We are preparing for an Israeli attack on our camp.”

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UPDATE, 6:00 am, PT

Paper Tigress at Nur-al-Cubicle has this:

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Israel using banned weapons

Lebanese military experts confirm the use by Israel of implosion bombs and white phosphorus in its airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs. Reporters have seen at the facades of at least 20 eight-story apartment houses blow off in the Haret Hreik and Bir al-Abed neighborhoods.

Meanwhile 15 thousand refugess have arrived in Tyre, which the Israelis immediately upgraded to “prime target”.

no link, PT indicated in a comment she was translating an Italian dispatch.

ABC reported that we are charging US citizens, the few we have evacuated, for the flight to Cyprus.  Nasty engineered war and if you are so out of the loop that you are in the area, you pay for the evacuation.

Lordy!

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UPDATE: 6:26 am, PT

picked this up over at Angry Arab, from the Independent (UK)

The Afghan government has alarmed human rights groups by approving a plan to reintroduce a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the body which the Taliban used to enforce its extreme religious doctrine.

The proposal, which came from the country’s Ulema council of clerics, has been passed by the cabinet of President Hamid Karzai and will now go before the Afghan parliament.

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WHUP all the PUPS UPDATE, 7:30 am, PT…

not taking any prisoners even if I don’t know all the playas!  Have a laugh, I will never sort this one out – but lurching ahead to have an opinon anyway!… and it is lookin’ messy on all sides:

Looks like Greenwald is calling for some investigation (oh yeah, like Greater Blogland can do that and not lose it’s brains in the deal) of rightie bloggers.  OK… whatever!  Summer beach reading.  Riehl World View piles on — and this does seem to be a biiig mess this post… 

HOWEVER, Donkey Cons (not endorsing the whole post there either!… Cats are not dumb!) makes some very pointed points – which I DO endorse…(glad you read this far?):

Moonbat Patrol
Dan Riehl examines the increasingly bizarre paranoid projections of a left-wing blogger, which seem to have been touched off in the wake of the Kosola/JeromeGate meltdown and the frightening Frisch freakout.

Greenwald, it seems, is calling for an investigation of right-wing bloggers. But Glenn, here’s the thing: When did Jeff Goldstein or Glenn Reynolds

(a) hold online fund-raising drives for Republicans,

(b) become consultants to leading GOP candidates,

(c) organize a campaign to unseat an incumbent Republican senator, or

(d) hold a Vegas convention, invite the national media, lots of top candidates, and declare themselves the future of American politics? 

[the a b c d is what I endorse... that is part of the Boyz problems... they preened, they peacocked, they paraded... ]

Answer: Never. Kos and Jerome did all that, thus exposing themselves to scrutiny. I can’t explain what happened to Frisch except a possible object lesson in why drinking and blogging don’t mix.

 Total disclaimer and full on walk away, I know nothing about the Frisch mess.  Have not followed.  Have no opinion.

 Poke fun… this was not a fully informed posting, but nonetheless it was FUN.  All that matters.

 Unless, of course, you think with the likes of the tied-together-for-better-or-worse-so-called-Lefty Blahhhggers working full-time on things Democratic that ’06 will be a blow-out and ’08 a piece of cake. In which case be reverential…

 Since I am expecting little, I intend to amuse myself.

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UPDATE:  9:20 am, PT

 Well WHUP THE TRANSPARENCY Update… have a big big horselaugh. [thanks to Deepest Troat... there are several throats, hope i got the right one]

Ooops! DT also provided the year ago notice that Kos ran about DA: 

One year ago Kos introduced DA:

The alliance is the brainchild of longtime Democratic strategist Rob Stein, who spent years studying conservative groups — in particular their success in sustaining GOP politicians and achieving many of their policy goals. Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, is working with Stein and is a leading promoter of his effort.

 They wanna help the Dems (they say!  I don’t fully believe them!).. but they wanna be secret.  And sign off on being secret, too.

Too funny.  Read away.

and I hear there is a routine going on at another site – about La Gata.  The sun shines and little birdies sing.  Here is the deal:  despite various and sundry at that site from time to time over the year (and I have the links), I never felt the need to register and reply or comment.  Further I considered anything there, FPed or from a principal [wrt anyone also being chastised at DKos, or from Dkos and the Thugs] to be Armando driven.  Still do.

And still don’t feel the need to register and comment at the site where the effluvia is rising.

Back to reading about the (laugh now)  BIG SECRET LIBERAL (oh puh leeeze) DONORS…. page A01 in the Wapo.

“Like a lot of elite groups, we fly beneath the radar,” said Guy Saperstein, an Oakland lawyer and alliance donor. But “we are not so stupid though,” he said, to think “we can deny our existence.”

whew!  Not stupid.  Sooo relieved.

Still reading.  But here is one thing I think… CAP does wonderful research.  I recently read an analysis at their site on access to birth control, rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion among one of the most challenged groups in CA, SE Asian immigrants.  It looked at the issues down into sub groups within the larger population.

 But the Dems don’t use any of that.  National Dems, DC Dems… and I don’t mean limited to abortion stats in poor Asian CA groups… I mean all the good research at CAP.

Lotta Three Card Monte going on.  I think a lot of that “liberal” money is funding online consensus and shushing opposition.  And doing it with money.

Oh yeah, just my opinion.  But at least I have mine.  And they are rock solid. 

Don’t miss this:

This accreditation process is the root of Democracy Alliance’s influence. If a group does not receive the alliance’s blessing, dozens of the nation’s wealthiest political contributors as a practical matter become off-limits for fundraising purposes.

Big huge horselaugh, just a long whinny:

Democracy Alliance organizers say they are trying to bring principles of accountability and capital investment that are common in business to the world of political advocacy, where they believe such principles have often been missing.

Gets to the nitty gritty on Page 3:

But some consider Democracy Alliance’s hidden influence troubling, regardless of its ideological orientation. Unlike election campaigns, which must detail contributions and spending, most of the think tanks and not-for-profit groups funded by the alliance are exempt from public disclosure laws.

“It is a huge problem,” said Sheila Krumholz, the acting executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. She noted that for decades “all kinds of Democrats and liberals were complaining that corporations and individuals were carrying on these stealth campaigns to fund right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups. Just as it was then, it is a problem today.”

The exclusive donor club includes millionaires such as Susie Tompkins Buell and her husband, Mark Buell, major backers of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), and Chris Gabrieli, an investment banker running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Massachusetts this September. [...]

Bernard L. Schwartz, retired chief executive of Loral Space & Communications Inc. and an alliance donor, said the group offers partners “an array of opportunities that have passed their smell test.” This is most helpful, he said, for big donors who lack the time to closely examine their political investment options.[...]

There also are a few “institutional investors” such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that pay a $50,000 annual fee and agree to spend $1 million on alliance-backed efforts.

Trickle down to the Blahhgers is thru Media Matters and NDN.  NO news there.

From an earlier posting of mine in BBB: Orange Crush… :: Navelling Update :: Whup Uppity Update :: Drahma Wahma Update 8 July 2006

And the look back. With “slander” as a topic (or was that an implied warning?) you know there was a heavy hand that meddled in this posting.  hmmmm.

The whole of this is very interesting, but catch the comment that, in lawyerly tone, leveled some questions. 

The same questions were sent to Media Matters.  There were no responses. 

I have x’d out the poster’s name (but of course it can be found in the thread) merely as a courtesy.  To my knowledge, this individual does not participate any longer, at all, on the political blogs.

Re: Ideas on Slander (none / 1)

There is indeed some money coming soon to liberal bloggers. That money is coming through Media Matters, which has received some funding through the Democracy Alliance (an arm of the NDN), but a lot of funding from other sources as well. The money is going to be made available for a variety of purposes that will potentially benefit all liberal bloggers. There are no strings attached, there will be no quid pro quos, and there will be no mandated talking points. The idea is really not that different from an artist cooperative where various photographers, for example, pool their limited resources to buy color printers. In this case, cheap or free technical support might become available. Or access to Lexis-Nexis. Maybe broadband can be bought in bulk. Who knows? These things are still under discussion.

to whom is media matters distributing this money?  who gets to decide how that money is spent and which liberal blogs will benefit from it.  these things are still under discussion by whom?

Smaller bloggers stand to benefit the most as liberal blogging gets more publicity and costs come down and expensive resources are pooled.

how will small bloggers benefit the most?  what expensive resources are going to be pooled?  who decides who will get to participate in that pool?  

Where women’s voices are valued and respected… Our Word

by xxxxx (xxxxxx at aol.com) on Wed Dec 7th, 2005 at 10:11:34 PM EST

From what i have observed for, well, years now, “transparency” from the boyos is “Trust me, you know me”.

No.  Don’t think so.

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