John Lee Hooker: Boom boom

I'm in a boom boom boom boom kinda mood! :-) I saw John Lee Hooker in a very small club in Chicago in he early 70's.One of several times. Whooowie baby!

Question Girl

POLITICS AND WAR

I've said all along the Republicans would pull troops out, or have a plan to, prior to the November elections. The thing that makes me mad about this is, Bush has politicized our military. That hit home for me, hard, the other day when I heard a General criticize the family of deceased Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, who was left alone with two other soldiers, was kidnapped and tortured. His family heard the news of his body being found, and of the tortured state it was found in, on CNN. A Private first class soldier was sent to the house to inform the Mother, after she had heard the news. The General thought the family had no right to voice their opinions about the incident, or the war. Such a sad state this country is in. And what scares me even more, is.....how bad are they going to fuck up the withdrawl of troops? I see another big time fuck up coming. And it's going to be at the expense of our brave troops and their families.


Top U.S. General in Iraq Outlines Sharp Troop Cut

By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: June 25, 2006
WASHINGTON, June 24 — The top American commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the United States military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, American officials say.
According to a classified briefing at the Pentagon this week by the commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the number of American combat brigades in Iraq is projected to decrease to 5 or 6 from 14 by December 2007.

Continue reading here

Question Girl

RACING TO FIX LAKE OKEECHOBEE DIKE BEFORE NEXT HURRICANE

Ok, someone explain to me why they are "racing" to fix this? It's not like the government doesn't know it needs to be fixed.....just like they knew the levees in New Orleans needed work. Something is very wrong with this picture. We can spend millions of dollars a day in Iraq, yet we can't properly care for our own infrastructure. Go figure....


Engineers race to fix Lake Okeechobee dike before next hurricane

By Brian Skoloff
The Associated Press
Posted June 24 2006, 9:18 AM EDT


PAHOKEE -- Rest easy was the message.

Engineers had completed 85 miles of the dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee to ensure history would never repeat itself. Thousands died in two 1920s hurricanes when the lake broke its banks.

``This dike has cured the bad habit of tropical hurricanes of using this lake as a weapon of destruction,'' former President Herbert Hoover said at the 1961 ceremony dedicating the southern portion of the dike that bears his name.

``Since this great dike was built, five evil hurricanes have tried their best at destruction around this lake, but they have been foiled in every attack,'' he said.

Read more here

Question Girl

FAMILIES NOTIFIED OF RESULTS OF INVESTIGATION INTO GI'S DEATHS......9 MONTHS AFTER IT'S OVER

A mother awaits answers on GI murders
SCOTT LINDLAW
Associated Press
TRACY, Calif. - The Pentagon waited nine months after completing its investigation into the deaths of two California National Guardsmen before notifying the families this week that they were murdered by the Iraqi soldiers they were training.

Army Spc. Patrick R. McCaffrey Sr., 34, and 2nd Lt. Andre D. Tyson, 33, of Riverside, died in an ambush two years ago Thursday. Until now, however, the circumstances of their deaths were shrouded amid a military investigation.

The Army said Tuesday that McCaffrey and Tyson were murdered by Iraqi civil defense officers attached to their patrol. A Pentagon spokesman knew of no other incident like it.

Military officials visited Tyson's family on Tuesday and McCaffrey's on Wednesday to deliver the report, which was completed on Sept. 30, 2005, according to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. She called the nine-month delay troubling.

"If the American people knew that the people we are directly helping train turned on our soldiers, support for this war would slip," said Boxer, a critic of the Iraq war who helped spur the military briefings for the families.

"It's very disturbing to think that the Pentagon might be told to keep this kind of thing close to the vest," she said.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Boxer's timetable on Wednesday.

"There was a time gap, no doubt about it," Army spokesman Paul Boyce said. "The Army regrets any delay in notifying the family, and we took immediate steps to do so once those facts were determined."

Since her son's death, Nadia McCaffrey has emerged as an anti-war activist. Brig. Gen. Oscar Hilman, her son's former commander, presented her with the findings of the investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Command.

"My son would have wanted the truth," she told The Associated Press in an interview at her home. "He would have asked a lot of questions, and he did - he spoke out over there."

Soldiers who witnessed the attack have told Nadia McCaffrey that two Iraqi patrolmen opened fire on her son's unit. The witnesses also said a third gunman simultaneously drove up to the American unit in a van, climbed onto the vehicle and fired at the Americans, she said.

One of the trainees has been arrested and imprisoned by the Iraqi government, according to Boyce, but he could not say which prison or when he was arrested. The second trainee is believed to be dead, he said.

Key pieces of the episode remained a mystery to Nadia McCaffrey, who wondered why the Army was not more wary of the Iraqi trainees when her son had reported that they previously tried to attack Americans.

Why was her son's unit split in two during the patrol, possibly weakening its defenses against an ambush? And why were the trainees patrolling slightly behind the Americans, leaving the U.S. soldiers vulnerable?

Was her son, a combat lifesaver, left by medics to bleed to death?

Pictures of her son fill the house where Nadia McCaffrey now lives, in the remote suburbs east of San Francisco, with Patrick McCaffrey's daughter.

She retained two lawyers to attend the session with Hilman and other officers, including one with expertise in military law.

"If I'm not satisfied, they're going to hear it," she said. She intended to speak out on the case and the plight of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, she said, "until my voice is gone."

Tyson's relatives told the AP they were not surprised to learn new details about his death when the Army officers briefed them on Tuesday.

"They never tell the family the truth. You know how politics is," said Ophelia Tyson, grandmother of Andre Tyson. "They probably knew what happened in the beginning."

"People are getting killed over there for no reason," Tyson said.

Boyce said the U.S. military remained confident in its operations with Iraqis.

"We continue to have confidence in our operations with Iraqi soldiers and have witnessed the evolution of a stronger fighting army for the Iraqi people," he said.

"The Army is committed to investigating each battlefield death and providing accurate information to families," he said.

Question Girl

Susan Tedeschi on Austin City Limits

One of my favOrites.

Question Girl

MALKIN THE COMEDIAN

Sorry to dirty my blog with Malkin, but this is just too funny not to post. Perhaps this is what the Miami deal was distracting from....not that I'm not glad they arrested the whacked out guys, but c'mon. Anyway....this has got to be the stupidest woman in the world. Either that, or she's really a comedian. Or Karl Rove installed a chip in her head. Or or or or......


NYTIMES BLABBERMOUTHS STRIKE AGAIN
By Michelle Malkin · June 22, 2006 11:43 PM
***update: The Los Angeles Times piles on and flaps its mouth, too...The story is the blabbermouth media's refusal to act responsibly and learn when to shut up...***

Dammit. These people don't know when to stop. The anonymous leak-addicted NYTimes tag team of Eric Lichtblau and James Risen is at it again. Their front-page, splashy piece posted on the web tonight and top-linked on Drudge:

Bank Data Sifted in Secret by U.S. to Block Terror

"Secret?" Not anymore.

Read the rest of the comedic post here.....but be sure to shower afterwards.

Question Girl

BIG BROTHER HAS BECOME HUMUNGA COWABUNGA BROTHER

Is there anything we do that isn't traced, watched, listened to, read, data mined..... probably not.

WASHINGTON, June 22 - Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

Read on here.....if you dare.

Question Girl

PUT THESE TWO ARTICLES TOGETHER AND THEY GO UNDER THE HEADING OF .....HUH??

Casey: U.S. Forces in Iraq to Shrink

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press Writer
Posted June 23 2006, 3:27 AM EDT


WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. commander in Iraq predicted on Thursday that the size of the U.S. fighting force will shrink this year, although he said he had not made new recommendations to his Pentagon bosses on the size and timing of any cuts.

"I'm confident that we'll be able to continue to take reductions over the course of this year," Army Gen. George Casey told a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at his side.

Rumsfeld said Casey had not yet had sufficient time to consult with the new Iraqi government, but that in any case the size of the U.S. force is likely to rise and fall in coming months, depending on political and security conditions.

"It will very likely not be a steady path down," Rumsfeld said. "It could very likely be a drawdown with an increase." Noting that there now are 126,900 U.S. troops in Iraq, he said: "It could very well go back up at some point. It very likely will go down and up and down and up depending on the circumstances and depending on the need."
(WHO HIRED THIS GUY??)

Continue reading here

and then there's this......



Iraqi Govt Declares State of Emergency

Posted June 23 2006, 5:23 AM EDT


BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency in Baghdad Friday, the prime minister's office said, after clashes broke out in a central district.

It also imposed a 2 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew, sending residents of the capital scrambling to get home before it took effect.

The prime minister's office did not immediately give more details about the state of emergency, but it was announced after police said gunmen opened fire on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in the Shwaka district of central Baghdad.

The patrolling forces returned fire and sealed off the area as they clashed with the gunmen, Iraqi army Maj. Ihssan Abdul Hamza said.

Question Girl

7 ARRESTED IN MIAMI

I gotta wonder about this one. Robert Mueller taping CNN Larry King Thursday afternooon talking about this. 7 crazy guys who the FBI says had no chance of pulling anything off by themselves..... yet it's on the news 24/7. Press conferences to be held today. Sounds like another Mission Accomplished by Rove. What are we being distracted from?


Read the story here

Question Girl

25 GUNNED DOWN IN IRAQ

25 gunned down in gangland-style killings in Iraq
Baghdad, June 23. (AP): At least 25 people have been executed gangland-style in Iraq's third-largest city this week, with residents gunned down in ones and twos and bodies found scattered throughout Mosul.

Elsewhere, five US troops were killed in operations south and west of Baghdad, US military said yesterday, and the police stormed a farm and freed 17 victims of a factory kidnapping.

The good news just keeps on coming....rigggghhhttttt.

Question Girl

HOUSE SAYS NO TO PERMANENT BASES IN IRAQ

Ahhhhh..... aren't they already there?

WASHINGTON, June 21 (UPI) -- The House of Representatives has passed a bill barring the U.S. military from establishing permanent bases in Iraq.

The 2007 Defense Authorization Act, approved by the House Wednesday, includes language sponsored by Democratic war critic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, banning the United States from negotiating for permanent bases with the government of Iraq. Language to that effect was included in both versions of the Senate and House emergency war supplemental but was stripped out during conference earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, introduced an amendment deleting the permanent basing language. It was defeated by a vote of 50-376.

John Isaacs, the president of the liberal Council for a Livable World, said Wednesday the vote shows the Republican-dominated House -- while rejecting a firm withdrawal date from Iraq -- is also against an open-ended occupation.

Read more here

Question Girl

WOMAN FLUNKS DRIVING TEST

People in Florida make a past time of driving their cars into canals. It has always amazed me.

AS AN UPDATE, THE GIRL DID NOT GET A DRIVER'S LICENSE. SHE WAS, HOWEVER, GRANTED A CAPTAIN'S LICENSE. :-)

By Macollvie Jean-Francois
sun-sentinel.com
Posted June 21 2006, 12:00 PM EDT


POMPANO BEACH -- A 19-year-old woman flunked her driver's license exam on Wednesday after she drove a borrrowed taxi-cab into a canal, authorities said.

The woman's neighbor, a Broward Taxi Co. cab driver, took her to the testing agency agency at 2712 W. Atlantic Blvd, city spokeswoman Sandra King said. The cab driver agreed to let the woman practice by herself in the parking lot around 11 a.m.


Read the complete story here

Question Girl

HEAT WINS THE CHAMPIONSHIP

Things are crazy in the hood. Heat fever abounds. My favorite radio station, 105.9, got a Maverick this week and dropped a ball on it from a crane. They got manikins dressed in Maverick gear and put them in the truck prior to crushing it. The Maverick is now going to be in the celebration parade, and then sent to Mark Cuban, who is known in South Florida as the whiner. The celebration last night went on through the night. A Cuban thing..... clang pots and pans together and barbecue wherever your heart desires. It's been a wild week here. My observations.....get rid of Shaq, hire Lebron James, keep Dwayne Wade (the next Jordan).....and you have a dynasty. I'll skip the Miami parade and opt for the Ft. Lauderdale boat parade. Congratulations Heat!!


Pictures and story here

Question Girl

BODIES OF TWO U.S. SOLDIERS FOUND

JUNE IS ANTI-TORTURE MONTH....THIS IS WHERE BUSH'S
POLICIES ON TORTURE HAVE BROUGHT US.


If this isn't proof it's time to get out of Iraq, what is? This is only going to get worse. Why? Because of Bush's policies. These people hate Americans because of his policies. Policies that include thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens being killed, policies that approve of torture, policies that approve of detaining people and sticking them in Gitmo with no hope of ever being released, policies of torture in Abu Ghraib, policies of pre-emptive strikes for no apparent reason other than greed. Policies that build permanent military bases in Iraq. Policies that built a country club embassy in Iraq, the extravagance unmatched in no other country. You can't do the things we are doing around the world and think there will be no repercussions. No consequences. Unfortunately, the people suffering the consequences aren't the ones who should. If anyone is going to be tortured, it should be the policy makers...not our kids. And let us not forget, there were no Al-Qaida in Iraq before we went in there. Let's not forget who created the huge fucking mess we now find ourselves in over there. Let's not forget who is ultimately responsible for the loss of these two young men. It wasn't Al-Qaida. It was George W. Bush. It was the greed and self serving actions of our current policy makers.....the one's who think they are above the law, the one's who think 2500 is just a number.....the one's who lied to get us there in the first place.

Rest in Peace Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon. My deepest sympathy and heartfelt thoughts to the families of these brave young men!


The bodies of two U.S. soldiers reported captured last week have been recovered, and an Iraqi official said Tuesday the men were "killed in a barbaric way." Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for killing the soldiers, and said the successor to slain terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had "slaughtered" them, according to a Web statement that could not be authenticated.

The language in the statement suggested the men had been beheaded.

Read the rest here

Question Girl

US CAMPAIGN TO STOP VENEZUELA FROM JOINING UN SECURITY COUNCIL

I truly believe the plan is Iran, then Venezeula. I have thought this for some time and posted about it in the past. Chavez is such a thorn in Bush's side, not to mention the O word.


US campaign to stop Venezuela joining UN security council

· Washington fears Chávez will block Iran sanctions
· Latin American countries under pressure over vote

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday June 20, 2006
The Guardian


The US has launched a diplomatic campaign to block Venezuela's bid to become a member of the United Nations security council out of concern that Hugo Chávez's government would use its seat to try to block punitive measures against Iran.
Washington has publicly backed Guatemala's rival effort to take the two-year rotating council next year, but it has reportedly gone further in recent weeks - threatening retaliatory action against Latin American countries who support the Venezuelan bid.

Read the full story at the Guardian Unlimited

Question Girl

Frank Sinatra - Fly Me to the Moon

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD....nuff said. Trying to balance out all the bad news tonight.

Question Girl

HURRICANE HALIBURTON

Hurricane Halliburton

Conflict, Climate Change & Catastrophe
Contact: Pratap Chatterjee 510 759 8970
May 15th, 2006

Hurricane Halliburton: Alternative Annual Report 2006

Houston, May 15, 2006: CorpWatch and its partners today released an alternative annual report on Halliburton titled: "Hurricane Halliburton : Conflict, Climate Change and Catastrophe." The new report was prepared in association with Asociacion Civil Labor in Peru, Environmental Rights Action Nigeria (members of the Friends of the Earth International network), Halliburton Watch and the Oil & Gas Accountability Project.

The new report (the third in the series) is being issued on the eve of Halliburton 's annual general meeting in Duncan, Oklahoma, on Wednesday, May 17th, 2006. It documents:

* how the company management in Iraq and Kuwait has cheated taxpayers out of millions of dollars through bribery and waste;

* how the company has increased its profits in Iraq by employing sweatshop Asian labor and refusing to pay injury claims;

* how senior management used worker's pensions to pay for management benefits, despite the fact that the soaring stock price has made the top managers tens of millions of dollars.

Today as the military slows its purchases of Halliburton services in Iraq, the company is diversifying into such profitable areas as the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the Gulf States and the provision of direct services to the oil and gas industry abroad.

In the latter part of this report, we show that the company's biggest profit center, energy services, has been fraught with charges of bribery and political meddling in Iran and Nigeria.

* Its hydraulic fracturing operations in the United States have had disastrous impacts on the environment, including community water supplies;

* It's lobbying efforts have prevented legally mandated regulatory oversight.

Speakers available for interviews at +1 510 759 8970 or by email at "pratap@corpwatch.org"

Short descriptions:

Pratap Chatterjee, executive director of CorpWatch, Oakland, CA. Author of "Iraq Inc.: A Profitable Occupation." Has traveled numerous times to the Middle East and Central Asia, including to Iraq three times in the last three years. He is a Halliburton shareholder and editor of the 2006 alternative annual report: "Hurricane Halliburton : Conflict, Climate Change and Catastrophe."

Robert Guimaraes Vásquez, vice-president of Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana-AIDESEP, institution that represents all the indigenous groups in Perú including the COMARU from lower Urubamba, where Hunt Energy and Halliiburton are constructing a natural gas pipeline.

Michael Keania Karikpo is a lawyer from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where Halliburton has been charged with bribery and corruption. He represents Environmental Rights Action (Nigeria), a member of the Friends of the Earth International network.

Quotes:

"From Iraq to Peru, Halliburton 's sloppy work has contaminated water supplies for soliders and communities alike. In Nigeria, the company is being investigated for bribery and in Washington DC, Pentagon auditors are examing the company for overbilling. The company needs to come clean about its books and clean up its mess," says Pratap Chatterjee, executive director of CorpWatch.

"Stop corrupting our government. We call on the federal government of Nigeria to fully comply with the recommendations of both Houses of the National Assembly by barring Halliburton and its subsidiaries from doing business in Nigeria," says Michael Keania Karikpo of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, who represents Environmental Rights Action (Nigeria), a member of the Friends of the Earth International network.

To download the Hurricane Haliburton report go to Corpwatch. Scroll down to bottom to download.

Question Girl

ROVE RAISES MONEY FOR TOBIN

I heard on the radio that the reason Karl went to New Hampshire was to raise funds to help pay Tobin's legal bill. How nice..... I hope the new Hampshire voters see this for what it is. One criminal going to help out another criminal who helped him, along with his boss, steal an election. Nice.....very nice. How anyone in their right mind (no pun intended) can vote for a Republican is beyond me. Family values.... Christians..... uh huh.

On the same day that convicted phone-jamming conspirator James Tobin was sentenced to ten months in prison for his role in a criminal campaign to keep New Hampshire voters from getting to the polls, the people of New Hampshire learned that Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove will headline a fundraiser for the state Republican Party. Rove will raise money for the Party amid reports that legal bills stemming from the phone-jamming case have left it almost broke, leaving just $733.60 in its bank accounts. [Associated Press, 5/17/06; Washington Post, 5/17/06]

Read the rest here

Question Girl

LOOKS LIKE LONG LOST WWII SUB FOUND

HONOLULU (AP) — For 60 years, Nancy Kenney wondered what happened to her father. The submarine that William T. Mabin was in disappeared while he and his crewmates were on a mission to attack a Japanese convoy in the last months of World War II.
Now, the Navy says a wreck found at the bottom of the Gulf of Thailand appears to be the sub, the USS Lagarto.

"I have never in my life, unequivocally, felt such a high," said Kenney, who was 2 years old when her father and the submarine did not return from their mission in May 1945.

Read the rest here

Question Girl

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE......NOW ITALY

American GI's Indictment Sought in Italy

By ARIEL DAVID
Associated Press Writer
Published June 19, 2006, 12:41 PM CDT


ROME -- Italian prosecutors requested the indictment of a U.S. soldier Monday in the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent in Baghdad -- a case that saw the agent mourned as a national hero.

Authorities were seeking the indictment on charges of murder and attempted murder, said one of the prosecutors, who asked that his name not be used because a new law in Italy allows only the chief prosecutor to speak to the media.

The fatal shooting of Nicola Calipari on March 4, 2005, angered Italians, already largely opposed to the war in Iraq. The former conservative government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi -- a strong U.S. ally -- called repeatedly for an investigation into the killing but insisted the incident would not affect Italy's friendship with Washington.

Italy's new, center-left government also has said it would not let this case and others get in the way of good relations between the countries.

"This involves issues from the past, you can't intervene in the past, the assessment of responsibility and of possible violations of the law is up to the magistrates," Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema told The Associated Press.

The prosecutor investigating the Calipari case said it would be at least two months before a judge rules on the indictment requests. He said prosecutors planned to argue the U.S. soldier had committed "political murder," because Calipari was a civil servant and his slaying damaged Italy's interests.

Italian law does not allow foreigners charged with killing Italians abroad to be tried in absentia unless the murder has political connotations, the prosecutor said. Magistrates have said they would not seek the soldier's arrest for the time being.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined to comment.

Calipari was shot at a checkpoint while heading by car to the Baghdad airport shortly after securing the release of an Italian journalist who had been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital.

Another agent, who was driving the car, and the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, were wounded.

Italian prosecutor Erminio Amelio, who identified the U.S. soldier as Mario Lozano, said last week that he and his colleagues had wrapped up the investigation into the incident.

Fabrizio Cardinali, Lozano's court-appointed lawyer, said Monday he had yet to read 2,500 pages of documents related to the case before he could formulate a defense strategy. American newspapers have reported that Lozano is from New York.

Italy and the U.S. issued separate reports on the incident, after failing to agree on a shared version of events.

U.S. authorities have said the vehicle was traveling fast, alarming soldiers who feared an insurgent attack. Italian officials claimed the car was traveling at normal speed and blamed U.S. military for failing to signal there was a checkpoint.

In another case, Italian prosecutors are trying to extradite 22 purported CIA agents in the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan.

In 1998, a judge threw out a manslaughter case against the crew of a U.S. Marine jet that severed a ski gondola cable in the Alps, killing 20 people. The judge ruled that Italian courts lacked jurisdiction under a NATO treaty.

Question Girl

IRAQ MAY CAST SHADOW ON BUSH'S EUROPE TRIP.........YA THINK????

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. Haditha. America's problems with Iraq are casting a long shadow over President Bush's meeting with European Union leaders this week.

The gathering is restricted to U.S. officials and the European Union leadership, and the agenda focuses on Iran's nuclear ambitions, agricultural subsidies and the West's dependence on imported oil and gas.

But the United States' precarious world standing will be the unspoken theme of Wednesday's session in Vienna.

Read the rest here

Question Girl

5 TON COCAINE BUST IN MEXICO.......GUESS WHO

This makes me sick. For many reasons. No one will go to jail for this, undoubtedly.

Question Girl

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO YOU DADS

Happy Father's Day to all you Dads. I sure do miss mine...... he was intelligent, funnier than all get out, and a gentleman to the end. May he rest in peace.

Enjoy the day fellows....... milk it for all it's worth. :-) And if you're lucky enough to still have your Dad around......show him the love today!

Question Girl