| « | February 2005 | » | ||||
 |
||||||
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | |||||
Yeah, i ralize that Phil Jackson has a patent on the word, but fuck him, these New England Patriots ain't no pampered Air Jordanasskissing Bulls, THIS is more America's team than any other team in the history of sports can claim to be!!!
Unlike the Yankees, the Patriots are not a checkbook dynasty, and any free-agent with sense will be looking to play there next season to be part of that historic THREE-peat team, and for the first time in their history New England might be teeming with superstars!!!
The road to the THREE-peat is a lot harder in the NFL than it was for the Bulls...while the refs in the NBA would go out of their way to protect Michael Jordan--you used to get called for a foul if you looked at him wrong!!!
In the NFL there are a plethora of rules against the New England Patriots, and in addition to calling for the bookies, the refs enforce these rules with the fanaticism of an SS officer.
Am i saying that the refs are working in concert with the bookies???
Let's say that Ray Charles could have seen a certain pick that wasn't called, but instead they saw a costly New England penalty, and instead of the penalties offsetting, the Patriots were heavily penalized!!!
"> ALSO courtesy of THE MAXX!!!
Arbeit Macht Frie
We also got to see the first PC Super Bowl,with only godaddy.com daring to go against the dictates of our theocratic FCC!!! Listening to Howard Stern this morning i was appalled by the hoops godaddy.com had to go through to get this commercial on the air, and i was saddened that SIR Paul McCartney didn't have the chutzpah of John Lennon, who would probably have had a "wardrobe malfucntion" and would have mooned Amerikkka.
Courtesy of THE MAXX!!!
Post-Election Buzzkill: Why Iraq Is Still A Debacle
February 02, 2005 [ Printer-friendly version ]
Quick, before the conventional wisdom hardens, it needs to be said: The Iraqi elections were not the second coming of the Constitutional Convention.
The media have made it sound like last Sunday was a combination of 1776, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Prague Spring, the Ukraine's Orange Revolution, Filipino "People Power," Tiananmen Square and Super Bowl Sunday -- all rolled into one.
It's impossible not to be moved by the stories coming out of Iraq: voters braving bombings and mortar blasts to cast ballots; multiethnic crowds singing and dancing outside polling places; election workers, undeterred by power outages, counting ballots by the glow of oil lamps; teary-eyed women in traditional Islamic garb proudly holding up their purple ink-stained fingers -- literally giving the finger to butcher knife-wielding murderers.
It was a great moment. A Kodak moment. And unlike the other Kodak moments from this war -- think Saddam's tumbling statue and Jessica Lynch's "rescue" -- this one was not created by the image masters at Karl Rove Productions.
But this Kodak moment, however moving, should not be allowed to erase all that came before it, leaving us unprepared for all that may come after it.
I'm sorry to kill the White House's buzz -- and the press corps' contact high -- but the triumphalist fog rolling across the land has all the makings of another "Mission Accomplished" moment.
Forgive me for trotting out Santayana's shopworn dictum that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it but, for god's sake people, can't we even remember last week?
So amid all the talk of turning points, historic days and defining moments, let us steadfastly refuse to drink from the River Lethe that brought forgetfulness and oblivion to my ancient ancestors.
Let's not forget that for all the president's soaring rhetoric about spreading freedom and democracy, free elections were the administration's fallback position. More Plan D than guiding principle. We were initially going to install Ahmed Chalabi as our man in Baghdad, remember? Then that shifted to the abruptly foreshortened reign of "Bremer of Arabia." The White House only consented to holding open elections after Grand Ayatollah Sistani sent his followers into the streets to demand them -- and even then Bush refused to allow the elections until after our presidential campaign was done, just in case more suicide bombers than voters turned up at Iraqi polling places.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget that despite the hoopla, this was a legitimate democratic election in name only. Actually, not even in name since most of the candidates on Sunday's ballot had less name recognition than your average candidate for dogcatcher. That's because they were too afraid to hold rallies or give speeches. Too terrorized to engage in debates. In fact, many were so anxious about being killed that they fought to keep their names from being made public. Some didn't even know their names had been placed on the ballot. On top of that, this vote was merely to elect a transitional national assembly that will then draft a new constitution that the people of Iraq will then vote to approve or reject, followed by yet another vote -- this time to elect a permanent national assembly.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget that many Iraqi voters turned out to send a defiant message not just to the insurgents but to President Bush as well. Many of those purple fingers were raised in our direction. According to a poll taken by our own government, a jaw-dropping 92 percent of Iraqis view the U.S.-led forces in Iraq as "occupiers" while only 2 percent see them as "liberators."
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget that the war in Iraq has made America far less safe than it was before the invasion. According to an exhaustive report released last month by the CIA's National Intelligence Council, Iraq has become a breeding ground for the next generation of "professionalized" Islamic terrorists. Foreign terrorists are now honing their deadly skills against U.S. troops -- skills they will eventually take with them to other countries, including ours. The report also warns that the war in Iraq has deepened solidarity among Muslims worldwide and increased anti-American feelings across the globe. Iraq has also drained tens of billions of dollars in resources that might otherwise have gone to really fighting the war on terror or increasing our preparedness for another terror attack here at home.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget the woeful lack of progress we've made in the reconstruction of Iraq. The people there still lack such basics as gas and kerosene. Indeed, Iraqis often wait in miles-long lines just to buy gas. The country is producing less electricity than before the war -- roughly half of current demand. There are food shortages, the cost of staple items such as rice and bread is soaring, and the number of Iraqi children suffering from malnutrition has nearly doubled. According to UNICEF, nearly 1 in 10 Iraqi children is suffering the effects of chronic diarrhea caused by unsafe water -- a situation responsible for 70 percent of children's deaths in Iraq.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget the blistering new report from the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, which finds that the U.S. occupation government that ruled Iraq before last June's transfer of sovereignty has been unable to account for nearly $9 billion, overseeing a reconstruction process "open to fraud, kickbacks and misappropriation of funds."
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget that we still don't have an exit strategy for Iraq. The closest the president has come is saying that we'll be able to bring our troops home when, as he put it on Sunday, "this rising democracy can eventually take responsibility for its own security" -- "eventually" being the operative word. Although the administration claims over 120,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained, other estimates put the number closer to 14,000, with less than 5,000 of them ready for battle. And we keep losing those we've already trained: some 10,000 Iraqi National Guardsmen have quit or been dropped from the rolls in the last six months. Last summer, the White House predicted Iraqi forces would be fully trained by spring 2005; their latest estimate has moved that timetable to summer 2006.
And the election doesn't change that.
And let's never forget this administration's real goal in Iraq, as laid out by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and their fellow neocon members of the Project for the New American Century back in 1998 when they urged President Clinton and members of Congress to take down Saddam "to protect our vital interests in the Gulf." These vital interests were cloaked in mushroom clouds, WMD that turned into "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities," and a Saddam/al-Qaida link that turned into, well, nothing. Long before the Bushies landed on freedom and democracy as their 2005 buzzwords, they already had their eyes on the Iraqi prize: the second-largest oil reserves in the world, and a permanent home for U.S. bases in the Middle East.
This is still the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the election, as heart-warming as it was, doesn't change any of that.
This is from "Arianna Online"
Too many people have forgotten some of the comments George the Second said while campaigning for the 2000 elections...Jews cannot go to heaven because they don't have JC as their personal lord & saviour..."If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot
[ This story was reported on Lynn Samuels. ]
WASHINGTON -- The Army for the first time is placing women in support units at the front lines of combat because of a shortage of skilled male soldiers available for duty in Iraq and is considering a repeal of the decade-old rule that prohibits women from being deployed alongside combat forces, according to Pentagon officials and military documents.
The Army's Third Infantry Division has added scores of female soldiers to newly created ''forward support companies" that provide maintenance, food service, and other support services to infantry, armor, and Special Forces units that commonly engage in combat.
Army officials acknowledge that the changes will increasingly place women, who make up about 15 percent of the armed forces, in combat situations, but believe they are following federal law, which prohibits female soldiers from serving in units that engage in direct combat.
The Army maintains that it has not changed the overall Pentagon policy regarding women in combat, which limits women to serving on surface ships and in attack aircraft. But internal Army documents indicate the service is ignoring a 1994 regulation barring women from serving alongside units that conduct offensive operations.
The change made by the Third Infantry Division was prompted by a shortage of trained troops caused by the unexpected length of the Iraq war and has set off a quiet, but highly charged debate within the Army over the role of women in the military. As a practical matter, the guerrilla tactics used against US troops during the occupation have also blurred the traditional lines between combat and support functions and is expected to prompt a wholesale review of the definition of ground ''combat" within the Bush administration.
''After this operation is over the question of how they define combat has got to be raised," said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who heads the Women in the Military Project at the nonpartisan Women's Research & Education Institute in Washington.
US law prohibits women from serving in combat units, and the Army insists it is following the law. At issue is a separate Army rule that also bars women from front-line support units.
Opponents to putting women in ground combat fear their presence on the front lines -- even in a support role -- will harm the cohesion and effectiveness of fighting units, a view Republican and Democratic administrations have held for decades.
''The issue remains unresolved," said Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, who contends that the military is ''implementing illicit plans to force female soldiers into land combat units for the first time in our history." She asserts that the Army is circumventing regulations through ''subterfuge" by labeling the female soldiers as being ''attached" to the new units as opposed to ''assigned" to them.
Others military specialists, however, contend that the US experience in Iraq provides a powerful new argument for permitting women, who make up about 10 percent of the force there, to take on more combat roles because they have been shown to be as capable as men in handling the rigors of combat.
The Third Infantry Division is the first to attach support units to combat forces, but those changes will be expanded to other units as part of the Army's effort to make its forces more mobile and flexible. Most of the division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., has arrived in Iraq since Christmas to start a second tour there, and all its deployed units are scheduled to be in the country by the end of the month.
The Army, as required by law, has notified Congress of the division's changes.
''The whole structure of our Army changed," said Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Hart, an Army spokeswoman. ''The Third ID is the first unit to deploy with the reconfiguration, so this will be the first time where this is in question."
Women soldiers have found themselves in the line of fire more often in Iraq and Afghanistan than in any previous wars. Since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, about 30 women have been killed, most of them in hostile action, according to official statistics. In one attack, Army Private Teresa Broadwell, 20, was awarded a Bronze Star for returning fire when her military police unit was attacked in Karbala in October.
Army documents show that the strain the war has placed on personnel is a factor in women serving in units previously for male soldiers only.
A confidential Army brief given to commanders last summer declared that there are ''insufficient male soldiers [with the needed skills] in the inventory to fill forward support companies." The paper, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe, said that continuing to exclude women from support units that deploy jointly with combat troops would create ''a long-term challenge," contending that the pool of male recruits may be ''too small to sustain [the] force."
The Army could not immediately quantify how many women are serving in the forward support companies in Iraq. A company generally has 60 to 200 soldiers.
Late last year, Army Colonel Robert H. Woods Jr., a senior personnel official, suggested in a brief that the next step may be to either ''rewrite" or ''eliminate" the regulation that prohibits what the Army calls the ''collocation" of women with combat units.
Military specialists disagree about the implications. Opponents like Donnelly contend that it could be just the beginning of placing women in broader combat roles, a move she asserts has not been taken for good reason.
''If it stands, the same would apply to other units," she said. ''It will be an incremental change that is unjustified and very harmful to those land combat units," including weakening their fighting ability and creating romantic liaisons that would harm unit cohesion.
She is lobbying members of Congress and Pentagon officials to have women in the forward support companies reassigned.
''We have push-button wars and the battlefield is different, but there are certain things about combat that haven't changed," Donnelly said. ''Female soldiers are at a physical disadvantage."
The changes are being made out of ''expediency," she added, and if more male soldiers are needed, then the Army should recruit them.
Some of the division's soldiers also want women removed from the support companies.
''We are trained to engage in direct ground combat on land, and the collocation of gender-mixed forward support companies with us would seriously distract from the mission and possibly cost lives," a Third Infantry Division soldier who asked not to be identified wrote in a letter this month to Representative Duncan Hunter of California, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
The soldier said that when the division participated in the initial Iraq invasion, six female medics attached to his all-male battalion were romantically involved with male soldiers and one female medic became pregnant. ''It became an enormous distraction for the company commanders who had to constantly separate the pairs and deal with the pregnancy," the eight-year veteran told Hunter. The letter did not identify the soldier's battalion.
Still, proponents of giving women more opportunities in the military say research suggests Iraq has been a positive experience for women and the military.
''The general take is that they are doing very, very well," said Manning of The Women's Research & Education Institute.
''They are able to bond with men or pick up and shoot an automatic weapon when that is necessary. They have no problem living hard in the field," Manning said. ''All those old excuses for why women can't be in combat are falling by the wayside."
The Army, for its part, is closely watching the Third Infantry Division deployment. According to the December briefing by Woods, the Army will ''incorporate lessons learned from Third ID into future decisions on policy affecting assignment and utilization of women soldiers."
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.
? Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Just found out that Ruth Warrick died, even though it happened nine days ago!!!
You would think that the pogromiesters at ABC/Disney would have notified the faithful viewers of one of their longest running show of that fact, but maybe they're too busy with coronations and pretending to be a news channel for that!!!
The Shitsburgh Steelers were invincible, and having beaten the Patriots on Halloween they were looking for the treat that is the Super Bowl, unaware of the trick that is the Patriots!!!
With Bettis and Staley, they had two of the biggest power backs in the game, and Big Ben Roethlisberger looked like he was poised to do something that immortals like Marino, Elway, Montana, or Eli Manning couldn't do...take their team to the Super Bowl during their rookie campaigns, the Steelers are the only viable threat to the Pats three-peating that i can see right now.
Philly fans may beg to differ, but in their hearts they're hoping beyond hope for some kind of Rocky story in Jacksonville.
The press is already playing it as the second "African American" quarterback who can win the Super Bowl, but we already know that Donovan McNabb is a nigger by association!!!
Terrell Owens end-zone antics was coonshow cute, but he will be forever hated and detested for his halftime encounter with a white woman, even if it was fictitous. Almost forty years after Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Amerikkka is still offended when some black buck looks like he might fuck one of their women!!!
And there is still the stigma that many little Black kids face growing up--Hey you call us spearchuckers, so why cain't we be quarterbacks???
The only thing interesting about THIS Super Bowl will be the race card, since none of the sports media has the balls to start whispering THREE-PEAT!!!
Saudi Arabia: Flogging Used to Silence Protesters
Cancel Sentences That Violate Convention Against Torture
(New York, January 17, 2005) The Saudi government should act immediately to stop the sentence of flogging imposed on 15 anti-government protestors, Human Rights Watch said today.
For all the Saudi government's promises of reform, this sentence is a terrible disappointment. The Saudi government is flogging those who attempt to exercise the basic rights to free speech and association.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
Printer Friendly Version
Also Available in
Free Email Newsletter
Contribute to Human Rights Watch
The protestors, including one woman and two foreign nationals, were among 21 people who had been arrested following a public demonstration on December 16 in Jeddah. The protest called for an elected government, independent judiciary and a new Islamic constitution. A religious court sentenced them to a range of 100 to 250 lashes and two to six months imprisonment for taking part in demonstrations against the government.
In an unusual move, the government on January 11 publicly announced the sentence. Previously protestors and political dissidents have been sentenced to jail terms and fines, but not flogging. When religious courts have handed down flogging sentences, it has usually been for morals offenses such as adultery, and the government has not taken the step of publicly announcing the sentence.
"For all the Saudi government's promises of reform, this sentence is a terrible disappointment," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The Saudi government is flogging those who attempt to exercise the basic rights to free speech and association."
