Please view this video and listen to the song by James Blunt. I love James Blunt’s music (especially "You’re Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover") but I hadn’t heard "No Bravery." The song is even more powerful now in terms of Iraq than it was for Bosnia, where he was stationed when he wrote it. What I noticed most about the video montage is the sadness in everyone’s eyes, including those of American soldiers. Support our troops. End this illegal war….
P.R. 101 for Vice-Presidents: Handy Tips for good P.R. when you accidentally (woops!) shoot somebody in the face. Take at least 18 hours to try to figure out what the heck to say to the Press Don’t drink any more alcohol. Send off a check soonest for the quail hunting license you were supposed to have had. Don’t call the police. Have friends publically point out the virtues and wonderfulnesses of the shooter. Blame the bird. Blame the victim. What…
Who do you call to protect you from the New Iraq’s security forces? We found out a few hours later that one of our neighbors, two houses down, had died. Abu Salih was a man in his seventies and as the Iraqi mercenaries raided his house, he had a heart-attack. His grandson couldn’t get him to the hospital on time because the troops wouldn’t let him leave the house until they’d finished with it. His grandson told us later that…
Come see this week’s Progressive Faith Bloggers Carnival at Truth and Beauty. There are some amazing reads, and the host’s own post is a breath of fresh air. I’ll be hosting next week- join us if you’d like to participate. Send me those links at heidi (at) virushead (dot) net.
The United States has, until now, been a (if not "the") world leader in scientific research and the development of technologies. This has been the backbone of public policies that navigate reality, and it has brought us our highish standard of living and our economy of relative priviledge. But I think we’re on the way out of that role. When ideologies replace knowledge, it is always the people who pay. Certain fundamentalist groups, suspicious of all intellectuals, "eggheads," and independent…
The New York Review of Books: ON NSA SPYING: A LETTER TO CONGRESS Vol 52, no 2, Feb. 9 2006 A collection of constitutional law scholars and former government officials published this letter to Congress in the New York Review of Books. I would love to post the whole thing, but I don’t want to run afoul of their permissions rules. The administration’s argument that the 2001 AUMF authorization of the use of force somehow grants permission for the NSA…