Back to the rat race in 18 hours!!

Damn, just a few more hours of freedom. Work starts at 8 a.m. and I’m afraid it’s a blog-free company. Unfortunately, I have to join the family for dinner soon, so this may be the last post I’ll write as a free man.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to pump out as many posts as possible, knowing that come morning I’ll be an indentured servant to The System. I’ll have to pay taxes again! Two weeks vacation. Bi-annual reviews by a boss who’s half my age. Half-hour commutes and fast-food lunches. Ah, the American Dream! I’m so excited, I can hardly wait….

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Quote of the Day

From the never-to-be-misunderestimated Maureen Dowd:

Meanwhile, the Bush crew is shamelessly doing to Mr. Kerry what it once did to Mr. McCain: suggesting that the decorated Vietnam vet has snakes in his head and a temperament problem. “Senator Kerry appears to have lost his cool,” Scott McClellan told reporters in Crawford on Friday. And the Bush campaign chairman, Marc Racicot, said on CNN that Mr. Kerry looked “wild-eyed” responding to Swift boat muck.

It makes sense for W. to use surrogates to do his fighting, just as he did when he slid out of Vietnam and just as he did when he sent our troops to fight his administration’s misbegotten vanity war in Iraq.

Ouch.

Yeah, Maureen, but what about Cambodia — he said he was there in December but he was really there in January! Damn liberal media, ignoring the stuff that really matters.

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Hugh Hewitt portrait stolen from museum

the scream.jpg

This is Hugh as he tries to reconcile all the evidence proving the SBVFT lied with his efforts to showcase them as great American heroes.

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Just another war casualty

How awful. And what a waste. Of course, Ann Coulter and twin Asian sister Michelle Malkin will say the guy was just being “girlish.”

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Michelle Malkin, war criminal?

Apparently she’s taking the war on terror into her own hands and actively encouraging others to do the same. And along the way she just may be fucking up the efforts of the FBI and the CIA. This lady is a menace, and she heads my candidate list for internment. A beautiful, crazed birdbrain.

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Poor Man’s blog

There is great stuff over at this blog, told with a flair and a touch of dry wit. Also, meme-orandum is an excellent clearinghouse for breaking news stories and how bloggers are covering them. Both to go on the blogroll today.

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“Big lies for bush”

From an editorial in today’s Boston Globe; absolutely required reading.

IMAGINE IF supporters of Bill Clinton had tried in 1996 to besmirch the military record of his opponent, Bob Dole. After all, Dole was given a Purple Heart for a leg scratch probably caused, according to one biographer, when a hand grenade thrown by one of his own men bounced off a tree. And while the serious injuries Dole sustained later surely came from German fire, did the episode demonstrate heroism on Dole’s part or a reckless move that ended up killing his radioman and endangering the sergeant who dragged Dole off the field?

The truth, according to many accounts, is that Dole fought with exceptional bravery and deserves the nation’s gratitude. No one in 1996 questioned that record. Any such attack on behalf of Clinton, an admitted Vietnam draft dodger, would have been preposterous.

Yet amazingly, something quite similar is happening today as supporters of President Bush attack the Vietnam record of Senator John Kerry.

The situations are not completely parallel. Bush was not a draft dodger, but he certainly was a Vietnam avoider, having joined the Texas Air National Guard rather than serving in the regular military.

Kerry, on the other hand, may have done more than Dole to qualify as a genuine war hero. Although his tour in Vietnam was short, on at least two occasions he acted decisively and with great daring in combat, saving at least one man’s life and earning both a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. That’s not our account or Kerry’s; it is drawn from eyewitnesses and the military citations themselves.

Yet a group of Vietnam veterans is questioning Kerry’s record, operating cynically and ignoring the evidence. Many in this group felt betrayed by Kerry’s opposition to the Vietnam War after he returned home. A renewed debate on that war might be useful, though we believe most Americans now agree with Kerry’s famous statement to Congress at the time that it was a mistake.

Rather than seeking debate, however, this group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is attempting political assassination, claiming in ads and a best-selling book that Kerry is “Unfit for Command.” In many cases the charges conflict with statements the same men made in the past. Sometimes the allegations contradict documentary evidence. Last week a former swift boat commander, Larry Thurlow, said Kerry didn’t deserve his Bronze Star because there was no enemy fire at the time, but this is contradicted by five separate accounts — including the Bronze Star citation Thurlow himself was awarded in the same incident, as reported by The Washington Post.

While a few details and dates of Kerry’s Vietnam record are open to question, most of the accusations are laughable. Kerry’s record of service in Vietnam is clear and, one would think, unassailable. Given the contrast in their Vietnam-era records — Bush even let his pilot’s license lapse while still in the Guard — Bush might be expected to change the subject.

Yet the Kerry opponents, working with funders and political operatives closely linked to Bush personally, are attempting what is known in politics as the big lie — an effort simply to contradict the truth repeatedly.

Both parties do it, but Republicans are developing a shocking expertise. The smearing of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000, the reprehensible attack to oust Senator Max Cleland of Georgia in 2002, and this utterly cynical campaign against Kerry by Bush’s False Squad deserve only condemnation.

Of course, no matter how much light is shed on this act of slime, the Hughs and Glenns and Rogers insist the reporters are glossing over “the truth” and not giving enough space to the Christmas in Cambodia nonsense. Well, they asked for coverage and they sure got it this week.

I am frankly amazed; I thought the media were going to allow the Swift Boat Scumbags to run roughshod over journalistic principle and regurgitate their talking points unchallenged, even encouraging the lies (are you listening, Joe Scarborough and Fox “News”?). I was encouraged when James Taranto and even Bill O’Reilly were critical. Now, the media are standing up and saying, “Sure we’ll cover it; but the allegations will be put under the microscope. It’ll be just as though Clinton had made the same charges against Dole — of course we won’t just report that he said it, we’ll also investigate it.”

Thanks God that after three years of kowtowing before the bush media thugs our newspapers are finally showing some backbone again.

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China loots Buddhist temple, steals $3 million raised in US

It’s like those stories we read about Chinese AIDS orphanages that raise lots of money being plundered by local CCP officials and the kids carted off to God knows where. Only this one strikes closer to home, as the money was raised in the US.

It was supposed to be a heartfelt cultural exchange between Chinese and Americans, a $3-million gift from followers of a Buddhist group in Los Angeles to repair a centuries-old temple in China. The site, reportedly built during the rule of Kublai Khan eight centuries ago, was desecrated during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution and was badly in need of help.

After months of renovation, invitations were printed up for the grand reopening of the Dari Rulai Xingyuan Temple in Inner Mongolia. Three hundred Buddhists from China, Japan, the United States

Suddenly everything went wrong, followers said Thursday. In the days leading up to the party scheduled for last Saturday, police, firefighters, undercover detectives and army troops broke down temple doors, arrested the church’s spiritual leader on charges of “inciting superstition,” carted away two truckloads of precious artifacts and closed the temple, citing “structural danger.”

“They invited us in, said, ‘You did a beautiful job,’ took our money then kicked us out,” said Robert Stubblefield, vice abbot of the City of Industry-based Dari Rulai Temple, who had stayed at the Kulun temple for eight months. “This has been a huge shock to everyone.”

Followers of the 1,400-year-old Hanmi Buddhist sect say that all the necessary permits were approved and that their members were warmly embraced by Kulun officials keen to boost tourism and the local economy.

Somehow this is okay, just business as usual. There’s no one to complain to and no one’s accountable. Oh well.

Link via Cosmic Iguana.

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Four US Marines killed today in Iraq

Things are worse over there, not better. And it’s as though there’s not even a war going on in Iraq — no one seems to notice, let alone care. At least the warbloggers have stopped trying to convince us things are swell by posting happy picture of US soldiers and smiling Iraqi kids at their new Halliburton-built schools.

This site offers good daily roundups of the carnage, lest we forget.

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Swift Boat Veterans for Truth – then and now

Below is a post lifted from Kevin Drum that succinctly demonstrates just how feeble the controversy generated by the SBV really is. All the links to the various quotes can be found in his post.
———————————————————————

THEN AND NOW….I’ve mentioned before that one of the reasons you shouldn’t trust the SwiftVets group is that until recently a lot of them said nice things about John Kerry — and then suddenly refreshed their memories early this year. Some of those nice things were said to reporters during the past few years, some were said in official reports 36 years ago, while in other cases official documents directly contradict what they’re saying today.

This probably isn’t a complete list, but here’s a quick recap of why nobody with a brain should trust a word they say:

Roy Hoffman, today: “John Kerry has not been honest.”
Roy Hoffman, 2003: “I am not going to say anything negative about him — he’s a good man.”

Adrian Lonsdale, today: “He lacks the capacity to lead.”
Adrian Lonsdale, 1996: “He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers.”

George Elliot, today: “John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam.”
George Elliot, 1996: “The fact that he chased an armed enemy down is something not to be looked down upon, but it was an act of courage.”

Larry Thurlow, today: “…there was no hostile enemy fire directed at my boat or at any of the five boats operating on the river that day.”
Larry Thurlow’s Bronze Star citation, 1969: “…all units began receiving enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire from the river banks.”

Dr. Louis Letson, today: “I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury.”
Medical records, 1968: “Dr. Letson’s name does not appear on any of the medical records for Mr. Kerry. Under ‘person administering treatment’ for the injury, the form is signed by a medic, J. C. Carreon, who died several years ago.”

Grant Hibbard, today: “He betrayed all his shipmates. He lied before the Senate.”
Hibbard’s evaluation of Kerry, 1968: “Mr. Hibbard gave Mr. Kerry the highest rating of ‘one of the top few’ in three categories—initiative, cooperation and personal behavior. He gave Mr. Kerry the second-best rating, ‘above the majority,’ in military bearing.”

They were either lying then or they’re lying now. Take your pick. But either way, since there’s no documentary evidence to back up their stories, the only thing going for them is their own personal credibility.

And that seems pretty thin, doesn’t it?

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