From The Associated Press:

As of Aug. 1, the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can’t be attributed to one party.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed his concern about the civilian deaths during a meeting last week with President Bush.

Bush said he understands the agony that Afghans feel over the loss of innocent lives and that he is doing everything he can to protect them. He said the Taliban are using civilians as human shields and have no regard for their lives.

“The president rightly expressed his concerns about civilian casualty,” Bush said of Karzai. “And I assured him that we share those concerns.”

Andrew Sullivan wrote:

Why would a hospital exhaustively record all births on their premises and leave out easily the most famous baby ever born there? There were only 24 births at Mat-Su in April of this year: it’s not like they could have mislaid one. So why is there no formal record of Trig’s birth?

This is not an “unspeakable” question. It’s a simple factual one. Presumably there’s an explanation. Perhaps the Palins decided that it would be an invasion of Trig’s privacy to have the birth actually recorded in the hospital where he was born. But at least they should be able to tell us that.

Or perhaps the hospital decided for some reason not to record that one birth. I have no idea. I do know that if Sarah Palin were running against Sarah Palin, she would demand evidence, as she did with something just as accessible with respect to John Stein’s marriage license.

Daniel Politi wrote:

USAT takes a look at eight key states that register voters by party and notes that while Democrats have increased their rolls by about 800,000 voters, Republicans have lost 300,000. These numbers are likely to change as officials deal with a wave of late-filing registrants. So far, according to the WP, about 4 million voters have been registered in a dozen battleground states over the past year. In some cases the difference between Democratic and Republican registrations is staggering, such as in North Carolina where the ratio is 6 to 1.

The WP says the “trend is clear” even in states that don’t register voters by party as a disproportionate number of new voters live in Democratic areas. While Republicans recognize they’re at a disadvantage in terms of voter registration, which saw a big boost during the heated primary fight, they also insist there’s a big difference between registering voters and actually getting them to the polls.

Senator Barack Obama wrote:

Dear Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson,

There is grave concern in low-income communities about a potential coming wave of foreclosures. Because regulators are partly responsible for creating the environment that is leading to rising rates of home foreclosure in the subprime mortgage market, I urge you immediately to convene a homeownership preservation summit with leading mortgage lenders, investors, loan servicing organizations, consumer advocates, federal regulators and housing-related agencies to assess options for private sector responses to the challenge.

We cannot sit on the sidelines while increasing numbers of American families face the risk of losing their homes.

And while neither the government nor the private sector acting alone is capable of quickly balancing the important interests in widespread access to credit and responsible lending, both must act and act quickly. Continue Reading »

Or at least it’s what joins Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger caught a lot of flack in 2003 for a quote from an interview he gave while making the 1975 movie Pumping Iron in which he reportedly said:

“I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it.”

That storm blew over and Schwarzenegger’s political career was not damaged.

I wonder if Palin thinks she’ll get a similar bye for quoting American Fascist Westbrook Pegler.

From Constant Siege:

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin quoted an unidentified “writer” who extolled the virtues of small-town America: We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity. (9/3/08) The unidentified writer was Westbrook Pegler (1894-1969), the ultraconservative newspaper columnist whose widely syndicated columns (at its peak, 200 newspapers and 12 million readers) targeted the New Deal establishment, labor leaders, intellectuals, homosexuals, Jews, and poets.”

What I’d like to know, is how the feck a politician who can’t name a single newspaper or magazine that she reads regularly could be aware of the writings of Pegler?

Do suppose she discovered him while rooting around in the library for books to burn?

John E. Edgerton, president of the National Association of Manufacturers said:

I am for everything that will make work happier but against everything that will further subordinate its importance. The emphasis should be put on work-more work and better work. Nothing, breeds radicalism more than unhappiness unless it is leisure.

And then there’s this from the same Orion article by Jeffrey Kaplan:

As far back as 1835, Boston workingmen striking for shorter hours declared that they needed time away from work to be good citizens: “We have rights, and we have duties to perform as American citizens and members of society.” As those workers well understood, any meaningful democracy requires citizens who are empowered to create and re-create their government, rather than a mass of marginalized voters who merely choose from what is offered by an “invisible” government. Citizenship requires a commitment of time and attention, a commitment people cannot make if they are lost to themselves in an ever-accelerating cycle of work and consumption.

I’ve been writing and re-writing this post in my head for weeks. It”s time to let this beast loose on the world.

In the America we live in we give lip service to the human values of Justice and Forgiveness, but in our dark rooms we clutch orgasmic end-times fantasies of Revenge and shiver in our dreams of getting even.

Justice is when we get what we want and we grant forgiveness only when we either care nothing for the slight or perceive a benefit. But if neither is true we cling to that crime against us and plot again and again what will happens when they gets theirs.

Our legal system rejects such principles because it must. Individuals cannot be allowed to define Justice. Law must carefully fill the pans of Lady Justice’s scales (have you ever contemplated why Justice is personified as a woman and not a man?) and make the best bargain it can to hold chaos outside the walls.

And when Law renders its verdict, decrees what payment the guilty must make to restore balance and then collects that payment, then Law is done. And we must accept that it is done, that the debt has been paid to Society, or we must retreat to our dark rooms.

Which brings me to convicted felon Tim Russo.

Tim has written, as have others, out the details. I, and the Law, know that he takes responsibility for his his crime, made restitution for that crime as decreed by Law and resolved to never repeat his offense.

In Judaism that is what is required to be forgiven.

We Jews are approaching our own High Holidays — Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the 10 days of Awe — when we do our best to take responsibility for our injustices, to make restitution to those damaged and to resolve to not repeat our offenses.

This post is part of my restitution to Tim Russo because I have not acted as I ought to have. I have not spoken up when others have disparaged him. I have waited far too long to write this post.

I’ve sent a note to Tim about this post and how I feel.

I’m also writing emails to Matt Naugle and Glenn Nichols.

I wish I could speak directly with the real cowards behind the campaign to make Tim Russo curl up and die but I can’t. They refuse to step out into the light.

So I ask Tim Russo to forgive me for not being the man I expect myself to be.

I’ve been writing and re-writing this post in my head for weeks. It’s time to let this beast loose on the world.

In the America we live in we give lip service to the human values of Justice and Forgiveness, but in our dark rooms we clutch orgasmic end-times fantasies of Revenge and shiver in our dreams of getting even.

Justice is when we get what we want and we grant forgiveness only when we either care nothing for the slight or perceive a benefit. But if neither is true we cling to that crime against us and plot again and again what will happens when they gets theirs.

Our legal system rejects such principles because it must. Individuals cannot be allowed to define Justice. Law must carefully fill the pans of Lady Justice’s scales (have you ever contemplated why Justice is personified as a woman and not a man?) and make the best bargain it can to hold chaos outside the walls.

And when Law renders its verdict, decrees what payment the guilty must make to restore balance and then collects that payment, then Law is done. And we must accept that it is done, that the debt has been paid to Society, or we must retreat to our dark rooms.

Which brings me to convicted felon Tim Russo.

Tim has written, as have others, out the details. I, and the Law, know that he takes responsibility for his crime, made restitution for that crime as decreed by Law and resolved to never repeat his offense.

In Judaism that is what is required to be forgiven. We Jews are approaching our own High Holidays — Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the 10 days of Awe — when we do our best to take responsibility for our injustices, to make restitution to those damaged and to resolve to not repeat our offenses.

This post is part of my restitution to Tim Russo because I have not acted as I ought to have. I have not spoken up when others have disparaged him. I have waited far too long to write this post.

I’ve sent a note to Tim about this post and how I feel. I’m also writing emails to Matt Naugle and Glenn Nichols. I wish I could speak directly with the real cowards behind the campaign to make Tim Russo curl up and die but I can’t. They refuse to step out into the light.

So I ask Tim Russo to forgive me for not being the man I expect myself to be.’, ”, 0

On 8 December 2004, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) slipped Section 111 of Title I, Division J, of the Fiscal Year 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act (Pub. L. 108-447) and a new national holiday into our collective consciousness: Constitution Day. Our Constitution is the single most important document in Human History; read it all.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Please keep reading…

I never leave home without my pocket-sized copy of our Constitution.
Celebrate Constitution And Citizenship Day.
A Day Set Aside for the Constitution.

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is A Floorplan of 221B Baker Street.

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways.

I”m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today”s item is Seven Ideas for Preparing Food at Home.

I”m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today”s item is The Art of Frugal Living.

A little more than 50 years ago U Kyaw Nyein, then deputy prime minister of the Union of Burma, wrote a profile of his country for The Atlantic. He died at the age of 84 in 2007. In our nation where news is measured in seconds, how profoundly different it is to deal with a people who can look across 50 years.

Burma is a small country of eighteen million people, sandwiched between the two sub-continents of India and China and sheltered by a ring of high mountain ranges. In spite of occasional unsuccessful Chinese invasions, it stood as an independent kingdom for two thousand years, until 1885 when it was annexed by the British. It was at the height of its prosperity under the Pagan dynasty in the eleventh century, and the magnificent monuments and pagodas of that period which still stand intact at Pagan are a living testimony to the glory that was Burma.

Warlike by nature, though peace-loving by religious upbringing, the ancient Burmese were small imperialists in their own way and periodically invaded their neighbors- Arakan, Siam, Assam, and even Yunnan. It was during their attack on Assam in 1852 that they clashed with the powerful British in India and eventually lost their freedom to them in1885. This historical background is given to indicate that Burma, in spite of her fate as a British colony for a short period of half a century, has had an independent and proud past, with traditions and a civilization peculiarly her own. Continue Reading »

I”m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today”s item is Amic Email Backup Keeps Messages and Settings Intact.

I”m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today”s item is Productivity Software like the Sword of a Samurai.