Accidental Blogger

A general interest blog

Recent posts

about

  • Coming To A Pulpit Near You

    The rapid fall from grace of Tom DeLay, a man known for his supersized ego and penchant for power has stunned his loyal constituency in Texas’ District 22. Many of my neighbors now say that they are relieved to see the last of DeLay.  His departure they think guarantees that the seat will remain quietly in Republican hands and not be the focus of negative attention from the whole nation. The new GOP successor is widely believed to be a candidate who will be hand picked by DeLay himself who will continue to wield his influence from behind the scenes.  Sidelined  within the GOP, facing legal troubles in Washington and Austin and his close aides singing to federal prosecutors,  Tom DeLay decided to pack his bags "for the good of his party."  Now we learn that it was not simple politics after all  – The Hammer it seems, has heard from God. 

    "Tom DeLay may look as though he’s finished because he is quitting Congress, facing a trial on felony political corruption charges in Texas and being targeted by federal prosecutors in the Jack Abramoff scandal. But that would be dead wrong: DeLay recently told one of his pastors that God wanted him to leave Congress in part because He has bigger plans for DeLay.  That pastor, the Rev. Rick Scarborough, introduced DeLay to a Christian conference just last week, saying, "This is a man, I believe, God has appointed … to represent righteousness in government."

    In an intense series of interviews at his suburban Houston home, at his church and at his office during the spring of 2001, DeLay shared with me his hope to "drive the president" to a more conservative agenda that would result in a "permanent realignment" of American politics.

    DeLay spoke with a passion about his goal to make us all into one "God-centered" nation. "Our entire system is built on the Judeo-Christian ethic, but it fell apart when we started denying God. If you stand up today and acknowledge God," he said, "they will try to destroy you." Five years later, that is also the argument DeLay is deploying to portray himself as the victim of prosecutorial persecution. He is suggesting that his legal salvation is linked to the salvation of the Republican Party, of Christianity itself.

    One Sunday in Sugar Land, I knelt alongside DeLay as we prayed at the First Baptist Church, then listened to the fiery preaching of DeLay’s friend and minister, whose name was Rambo. I went to Bible study and the Sunday school class DeLay taught. Afterward, I told DeLay I was somewhat troubled by the idea that he essentially wanted to remold the government to meet his fundamentalist Christian worldview. I told him I thought a good many Americans would share my reaction.

    He looked me squarely in the eyes and shook his head sadly at the fate of us nonbelievers. "When faced with the truth, the truth hurts. It is human nature not to face that," he said. "People hate the messenger. That’s why they killed Christ."

    And now, DeLay says he prayed long and hard before God made clear to him that He no longer wants DeLay to represent Texas’s 22nd Congressional District. Instead, DeLay says, his God wants him to be a messenger — on a much broader scale. And we will see DeLay constantly smiling as he delivers his message because in his heart he knows that we hopeless sinners will always hate the messenger."

  • Carnival of Education #62

    Carnival of Education #62 is up at The Magic School Bus, discussing science education in particular.

  • Got Asthma? It Could Be Your Sex Life – Says Pat Robertson.

    Just in time for Easter, Pat Robertson tells the story of another resurrection – this one brought about by the power of prayer.  He described a "stone cold dead" woman brought back to life by the prayer of her church members. Robertson related the story to Rita Braver of CBS news who interviewed him about his new book, "Miracles Can Be Yours Today."  He also talked about the time he cured a woman’s asthma – just by asking her about her sex life! How did Robertson know to do that?  Was he following one of Sigmund Freud’s obscure prescriptions?  No, God instructed him to ask this diagnostic question. Note that Robertson repeatedly reminds Braver that his wife was with him all the time during the miracle cure. Read the full interview here.                                                   

    RB: (Rita Braver)
    What– what’s the basic thesis of your book?
                                                                                                             
    PR: (Pat Robertson)
    Well the basic thesis is that there’s a god in heaven who is all powerful who wants to help people. And that– he will answer prayer, and does miraculous things in people’s lives. And so I’ve documented some of these wonderful things.

    I’ve– I’ve had one woman– African-American woman raised from the dead. She was stone cold dead, and her prayers of her church brought her back to life ….

    RB:
    You know you– you talk about– a couple very specific cases in the book that–
    PR:
    Yeah.
    RB:
    –you say you were personally involved in. You tell the story of– being on a trip to the Holy Land, and some people coming to you and asking you if you can help a woman with severe asthma.
    PR:
    That’s right.
    RB:
    And you say– that God spoke to you and– ….
    PR:
    …… And then the next night, they had moved this poor woman out of the hotel. She was crying out for mercy and saying, "Oh God, help me," because she had such bad asthma. So– I had to go see her. But fortunately I had my wife with her, so we went to another hotel– in the heart of Jerusalem and knocked on the door. And here, this haunting woman, she looked like– she really looked like she was terrified– very attractive– striking brunette, 45 years old, you know thin, 5’8" kinda thing. And– she had this look in her eyes. And– so I went in, and my wife was with me. And they took the two chairs and I sat on the bed.

    And I said, "Tell me about your problem." And she said, "I’ve got this asthma." And I said, "Have you been to the (LAUGHTER) doctor?" And– and she said, "Yes. The doctor said my asthma was caused by praying with nuns." And I said, (LAUGHTER) "A doctor?"
    RB:
    –that sounds like– (LAUGHTER) you should’ve advised her, "Maybe go see another doctor."
    PR:
    There was– (LAUGHTER) well see– the– "A doctor told you this?" (UNINTEL) said, "Yes, that’s what my doctor told me." And I says, "There is no way that praying with nuns is gonna cause you– asthma." And then I prayed. And I said, "Lord, what’s wrong with her?" I just prayed silently. And the Lord said, "Ask about her sex life." And–
    RB:
    The– the Lord said that to you?
    PR:
    Yes, He said that to me. And I said, "There’s no way I’m going to ask a strange woman about her sex life." So I said– (COUGHS) "Excuse me for– being personal, but would you tell me about your marriage."

    She said, "Oh, I have a wonderful marriage." I said, "You do?" She (UNINTEL PHRASE), "A wonderful husband, wonderful marriage. It’s just absolutely marvelous." I said, "You do?" She said, "Yes." So I prayed again. (LAUGHTER) I said, "Lord, what’s the matter?" And she– He said, "Ask her about her sex life."
    RB:
    I– it’s hard to imagine the Lord– saying this to you–
    PR:
    –the Lord say– well He did. And I– and I said– "You know, please forgive me if I’m being personal, but tell me about your sex life." And she said, "I don’t have any." And I said, "Well, I thought you had a wonderful marriage." And she said– "I do, but I don’t have any sex life."

    And I said, "How long has that been going on?" And she said, "Two years." And I said– "And that’s when your asthma started, isn’t it?" And she said, "Yes." And I said, "Well it’s obvious that you’re blaming yourself– for this condition. What’s the problem?" And she said, "My husband’s impotent."

    And I said, "You think it’s your fault." And she said, "Yes. It’s– I think it’s my fault." And I said, "Well it isn’t your fault. And it may be that he’s working too hard. He may be having a physical impairment. But– there’s something in his life, that this isn’t your fault." And she said, "It’s not?"

    I said, "Absolutely not." And I said, "Okay, now let’s pray for your asthma. And she said, "Okay." And we prayed. And God healed her asthma just like that. And– "

  • “B Is For Bunker Buster” and Other Primers For Warmongering

    At the annual Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinnner last month, Dick Cheney assumed the role of the humorist in chief. Without a trace of irony or shame he poked fun at the hunting accident in which he shot his friend, Harry Whittington. In the looming shadow of the failing and bloody Iraq war for which he himself was the chief instigator and disseminator of falsehoods, he quipped that he was planning a companion volume to his wife Lynn Cheney’s patriotic children’s primer "A is for Abigail".  But that Lynn "didn’t care much for my first draft of "B Is for Bunker Buster"."

    We can correctly guess what chicken hawk Cheney’s history book will look like.  Howard Zinn, a historian, political scientist, fighter pilot in WWII and anti-war activist would like us to examine the history and politics of US wars from the angle of dispassionate self examination. The true story of US wars lies much closer to Zinn’s version than the now discredited mendacious one put forward by Bush-Cheney.

    The ability to accurately gauge the human, material and moral cost of  war apparently eludes most American presidents. So claims Howard Zinn, in his candid essay in The Progressive  called "American Blinders".  In it he examines why Americans place blind faith in their presidents in matters of war and peace.  In his opinion, the  geographic and psychological insularity of the US and the overly patriotic nature of American history taught in schools have made it possible for successive American presidents to  persuade US citizens and the press into supporting their war efforts.   

    "Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?

    The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.

    It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived.

    One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.

    If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. I am not speaking of the history we learned in school, a history subservient to our political leaders, from the much-admired Founding Fathers to the Presidents of recent years. I mean a history which is honest about the past. If we don’t know that history, then any President can stand up to the battery of microphones, declare that we must go to war, and we will have no basis for challenging him. He will say that the nation is in danger, that democracy and liberty are at stake, and that we must therefore send ships and planes to destroy our new enemy, and we will have no reason to disbelieve him. …..

    (more…)

  • IRS : An Early Diagnostic Tool for Alzheimer’s

    Filing for taxes is hard enough for the mentally sound.  Ploughing through tax forms, available deductions, hidden loopholes and the fear of a tax audit can turn most people quite batty around this time of the year.  But for those whose mental faculties may be failing, the tax season can be especially taxing. In fact, extreme confusion and disarray during tax time may signal the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease for some elderly citizens.

    "Jim Saye first realized his mother had Alzheimer’s disease when he found her unfinished and error-riddled income tax forms spread across her table. His father-in-law, before being diagnosed years later, had made so many mistakes in his tax forms that the Internal Revenue Service sent letters threatening to seize his property. It was all a wake-up call for Saye, now on the board of directors for the Alzheimer’s Association in Houston.

    As this year’s April 17 tax-filing deadline approaches, Saye and experts familiar with Alzheimer’s say it’s a good time to reach out to elderly family members who may be in the early stages of the dread disease. "This," said Saye, "is a typical threshold moment for Alzheimer’s families.

    Tax time is daunting enough for the mentally acute. For people in the early throes of dementia, finding all the documents and receipts they need to complete the tedious IRS forms can be a near-impossible task.

    Stephen McConnell, vice president of advocacy and public policy for the Alzheimer’s Association, said that managing finances is often one of the earliest skills to be compromised by the disease.

    "Many people with this disease are able to mask it. They have developed patterns and ways of getting by that can disguise the disease," said McConnell, whose office is in Washington, D.C. "What the tax filing does is it makes public to the IRS that there is a problem."

    IRS officials say they have no idea how many people miss the deadline or file erroneous forms because of Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. They say they can waive penalties and collection actions if they are informed about the impairment."

  • Hammer and Chain

    See this great picture of Tom DeLay here – I am looking forward to the movie.

  • Reality Check – Outside the Bubble

    For the better part of his presidency, George W. Bush remained insulated from the real world. His able handlers Karl Rove et al, have effectively shielded him from adverse public opinion and criticism. Up until the 2004 election, the president addressed only carefully selected partisan audiences and held very few press conferences.  Bush, we learnt does not read the papers (or blogs), goes to sleep by nine every evening and spends his waking hours exercising, reading the Bible and meeting with his trusted advisors (yes men). For more than four years, he indeed has lived in a bubble and listened to an echo chamber.

    In the recent months when the truth about the Iraq war at last started penetrating the consciousness of the majority of Americans and the presidential polls started sinking like a lead balloon, the White House scrambled to push George Bush before "real" people as opposed to the usual cheerleading GOP squad in order to burnish his tarnished image.  There have also been more presidential press conferences where Bush has even called on Helen Thomas. But of course, all this show of openness means nothing because this administration has perfected the art of saying nothing. But real world is unpredictable and the more Bush goes out into it, the more likely it is that he will have to face the harsh reality.  Last month in Cleveland, Ohio where Bush had gone to shore up the sagging support for the Iraq war, he was asked (politely) by a member of the audience about the falsehoods that led to the Iraqi invasion.

    Yesterday before a supposedly friendly audience in Charlotte, N.Carolina, Bush got a bitter taste of what many Americans are thinking and saying about his failed presidency.  For the first time, someone publicly took him to task for his misdeeds without mincing words.  Harry Taylor, (now known as "Give ’em hell Harry"), a 61 year old real estate broker had this to say to George Bush.

    "While I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you’d like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice… about whether I can abort a pregnancy… What I wanted to say to you is that–in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened, by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency. And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of youself… I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak… That is part of what this country is about."

    Standing on a stage in his shirtsleeves holding a microphone, Bush drew applause and laughter by chiming in, ”I’m not your favorite guy.”

    Taylor had no questions for George Bush.

  • Deja Vu All Over Again

    A little over a month ago, Anna reminded us in her informative post " Day of Remembrance," of a piece of US history many of us know little about – the plight of early Asian Americans. The US has since then apologized to its own citizens of Japanese descent for the unfair and cruel treatment meted out to them during WWII when a large number of Japanese Americans were interned. But hostility and xenophobia raise their heads again and again in times of political and economic upheavals. Arab and Muslim Americans have been living under precariously uncertain conditions since 9/11. (Non-Muslim south Asians too have been targeted by those who impatiently lump all similar looking "foreigners" into the same category in their eagerness to vent their anger). In the recent turmoil over immigration, the Hispanic community has become the "undesirable foreigners du jour".

    Today I came across an eye opening article by Cragg Hines, columnist for the Houston Chronicle. It appears that in the depression era of the 1930’s, a large number of Mexican Americans, many of them American citizens, were forcibly and unceremoniously moved south across the Mexican border because they were perceived to be "taking away jobs" from needy Americans.  The pressure for the deportation was brought about by an aggressive domestic labor movement and politicians hostile to Mexicans for other reasons.

    "THE sharp-edged, vigilante tone of the current immigration debate is as old as it is regrettable. Today’s rancor sounds all too familiar to academics who mine the often-neglected field of immigration history and to politicians who are beginning to pay attention to some startling findings.

    California state Sen. Joe Dunn remembers being "absolutely devastated" as he read the story of concerted government action to force at least 400,000 Hispanics out of the United States as economic woes mounted in the Great Depression. Some historians estimate total Hispanic departures at closer to 2 million if the tally includes families, fearing deportation or further financial hardship, whose departure was nominally voluntary.

    It is a sordid story that echoes from the farm fields of the Rio Grande Valley and Winter Garden of Texas to the barrios of Los Angeles and as far north as Detroit and Gary, Ind. Most alarming, Dunn, D-Santa Ana, said, was that up to 60 percent of those forcibly stampeded across the border, some on locked trains, were U.S. citizens. So-called "repatriations," at least in those instances, were actually illegal forced removals from a homeland. It is as shocking as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, except that very few people know about it.

    Dunn’s reading of Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s, by historians Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez (University of New Mexico Press, revised edition 2006) led him to introduce legislation offering an apology from California for the coerced relocations. After several attempts, and the removal of any suggestion of reparations, a bill was passed last year by both Assembly and Senate, was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and became law Jan. 1.

    A plaque marking the apology is to be erected in Los Angeles, possibly at La Placita, a downtown park in the historic Olvera Street area, where perhaps the most notorious deportation raid took place in February 1931.  An apology and plaque are not much, but it’s more than any other governmental or private entity with a hand in the sorry campaign has done. …..

    Lack of knowledge about the mass deportations is a result of what historian Abraham Hoffman called "a kind of benign neglect."  Hoffman, author of Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929-1939 (University of Arizona Press, 1974) said that just as studies of blacks in American history suffered for a long time from the "Booker T. Washington and all the other Negroes" syndrome, study of Hispanics’ role was classed in many minds as "Cesar Chavez and all the other Mexicans."

    Even Hispanics are generally unaware of the mass deportations, said Nora Rios McMillan, a historian at San Antonio College who has written about the removals. McMillan’s research, as well as that of others, shows many of the deportees were children, most of whom were citizens, even if their parents were not, and could not speak Spanish.

    Balderama and Rodríguez write that the raids stemmed at least in part from Secretary of Labor William N. Doak’s "personal vendetta to get rid of the Mexicans." His motivation, they said, "was purely political, for he was acting under President (Herbert) Hoover’s orders to create a diversion to counteract organized labor’s hostile attitude toward his administration.

    "Deportation meant jobs for real Americans," the authors said the reasoning went.

    Sound familiar?"

  • Leaker in Chief?

    Is this the icing on the cake of impeachment?  First George Bush told us that he would fire anyone who was "involoved" in the White House leak which made CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name public.  When it became apparent that bosom buddies and close confidants of Bush, such as Rove and Cheney may be involved, he backtracked quickly.

    "I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts. And if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," Bush said.

    Now there is news that George Bush himself may have been part of the leaking conspiracy.  So, will Bush fire himself now? That will mercifully save the nation the trouble and expenditure of a messy  impeachment. 

    Update:  The right wing commentators got on their soapboxes quickly to defend Bush’s leak.  They insist that if the President of the United States, disseminates classified information, it officially becomes declassified and therefore no unlawful leak occurred in this case. Please see Professor Hellie’s explanation at Leiter Reports why this is not so and how Bush’s leak was indeed illegal.

  • Ouch!

    And you thought your trip to the dentist was painful. The primitive man visited the dentist and had his teeth drilled. The procedure was done presumably without anesthesia, using drills made out of flint. This means that dentists were practising their trade as early as 7000 years ago if archaeological findings in Pakistan are to be believed.

    Primitive dentists drilled nearly perfect holes into live but undoubtedly unhappy patients between 7000 B.C. and 5500 B.C., an article in today’s journal Nature reports. Scientists carbon-dated nine skulls with 11 drill holes found in a Pakistan graveyard.  That means dentistry is at least 4,000 years older than first thought — and far older than the useful invention of anesthesia.

    This was no mere tooth tinkering. The drilled teeth were hard-to-reach molars. In one instance, the ancient dentist managed to drill a hole in the inside back end of a tooth, boring out toward the front of the mouth. The holes went as deep as one-seventh of an inch.

    "I showed the pictures to my dentist and he thought they were amazing holes," said study co-author David Frayer, an anthropology professor at the University of Kansas.

    How it was done is painful just to think about. A small bow was used to drive the flint drill tips into patients’ teeth. Flint drill heads were found on site. So study lead author Roberto Macchiarelli, an anthropology professor at the University of Poitiers in France, and colleagues simulated the technique and drilled through human, but no longer attached, teeth in less than a minute.

    The dentistry probably evolved from intricate ornamental bead drilling and went on for about 1,500 years until about 5500 B.C. After that, there were no signs of drilling. The drilling was likely done to reduce the pain of cavities.

  • Saying Nothing Like A Chimp… Champ, I Meant Champ

    Flash back to Hurricane Katrina and the criminally incompetent response of the federal government.  I’m just saying, if Anderson Cooper knows it’s bad, and Brian Williams knows it’s bad, and housewives in Idaho know it’s bad, and the White House doesn’t, that goes beyond your ordinary variety of incompetence.  Saith the Chimperor:

    Again, I want to thank you all for — and, Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job. The FEMA Director is working 24 — (applause) — they’re working 24
    hours a day.

    Then Bush, being appropriately slammed by Republicans and Democrats alike, realized his continued insistence that the government did a heck heckuva job wasn’t playing too well.  Apparently Republicans were worried about the ’06 elections and might have to distance themselves from the President.  A week and a half later Bush realized this and took responsibility, accepted the blame for massive governmental failures:

    To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.

    But but but I thought that MSNBC headline read, "Bush takes blame for flaws in Katrina response."  Um… no.  Mark at AzureBlog explains:

    Lots of headlines claiming Bush accepts responsibility for errors in
    the Katrina response. But what does it mean? Nothing. He said that
    mistakes were made at all levels (hey, it was everybody, not just us),
    and "to the extent" the Federal government made mistakes (not sayin’
    THEY did, but if THEY did) I accept responsibility. At one time in
    Japan taking responsbibility meant a lot — the leaders would run
    themselves through with a sword. Even today there the leaders often
    resign for mistakes made under their supervision. Bush’s acceptance of
    responsibility means nothing. He distanced himself from it in the very
    sentences he used to say it, and he only said it because the press has
    been castigating him over it.

    Now, fast forward to the present.  On April Fools Day, appropriately enough, Condoleezza Rice announced that she’d played a trick on us.  At a speech the day before she’d said, "I know we’ve made tactical errors, thousands of them, I’m sure."

    On Saturday, a reporter asked Rice to give examples of the mistakes.

    "First
    of all, I meant it figuratively, not literally. Let me be very clear
    about that. I wasn’t sitting around counting," she replied. "The point
    I was making to the questioner … is that, of course, if you’ve ever
    made decisions, you’ve undoubtedly made mistakes.

    Let me be perfectly clear about this.  She admitted that the government made mistakes in Iraq.  The "thousands of them, I’m sure" was clearly an off-the-cuff number; perhaps it was even hyperbolic.  The next day a reporter asked her for an example of a mistake, and she ducked the question by attacking a question the reporter did not even ask.  You know what that sounds like?  A husband apologizing to his wife:

    –I’m sorry.

    –For what?

    –I don’t… um… you’re wrong.  I mean… whatever you want me to apologize for?

    Yeah.  That’s a nice sincere apology which concedes wrongdoing while at the same time refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing!  From her response to the question, it seems fair to say that Condi Rice does not recognize the United States as having made a single mistake in Iraq–but that’s a nice little soundbite where she "acknowledges thousands of mistakes."  Reminds me of a little story where George W Bush "accepted responsibility" for massive governmental failure in the Hurricane Katrina debacle.

    Hey, George has had a successful political career.  Since Condi also appears to suffer from a psychopathic personality disorder, perhaps things will work out for her, too, because surely she’ll similarly misdefine "success."  (Man do they make me angry!)

  • Great News From Texas – DeLay Not to Seek Reelection in 2006

    Beset by scandals, Tom DeLay, the powerful Congressman from District 22 of Texas has decided to resign by the end of May – June of this year.  He won’t be running for the House seat he has held for 11 terms.

    "WASHINGTON — Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texan touched by a lobbying scandal that ensnared some of his former top aides and cost the Republican his leadership post, won’t seek re-election to Congress, officials said today.

    They said DeLay also is likely to resign his seat and leave Congress by the end of May or mid-June. That would trigger a special election for his replacement.

    DeLay was expected to disclose his plans Tuesday at a news conference in Houston, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the congressman had not made that announcement.

    In an interview with the Galveston County Daily News, DeLay said his decision was based partly on troubling internal polling results, including a poll taken after the March Republican primary that showed DeLay beating Democrat Nick Lampson in a close race.

    "Even though I thought I could win, it was a little too risky," DeLay said."

    It is going to take me some time to digest and truly relish this piece of news. I live in Tom DeLay’s district and was getting ready to sign up as a volunteer for Nick Lampson (D), just as I have done for other Democratic challengers to DeLay in the past. Perhaps that won’t be necessary now.

    Update: Although I am rejoicing at the prospect of seeing the last of the Hammer (who will most probably have a fateful meeting with the gavel in federal and state courts), I am now in a bit of a quandary about the result of the 2006 congressional race in my district. The Republicans will field a new candidate and the independent and moderate voters in Sugarland, Texas will have less compunction about voting for a fresh ultra right winger than the ethically challenged DeLay.  An embattled candidate like DeLay might have been the Dems’ best hope this year for a win in this heavily Republican district.  We will see. I guess I should go ahead and sign up for knocking on doors on behalf of Congressman Lampson after all.

  • Truth – Not the Only Casualty

    The Bush administration and its right wing attack dogs want the media to tell us positive stories about Iraq – the slow and steady progress they claim goes unnoticed in the coverage of murder, mayhem and impending civil war. I guess what they mean is that stories such as this should go unreported.

    Would-be refugee tells of Iraq horrors

    A “trigger-happy” U.S. army squad leader shot the foot off an unarmed Iraqi man and soldiers kicked a severed head around like a soccer ball, a U.S. war deserter told an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing Thursday.

    Joshua Key, the first U.S. deserter with combat experience in Iraq to apply for refugee status in Canada, told the board he witnessed numerous atrocities committed by U.S. forces while serving eight months as a combat engineer.

    Mr. Key, 27, said he was never trained on the Geneva Convention and was told in Iraq by superior officers that the international law guiding humanitarian standards was just a “guideline.”  “It’s shoot first, ask questions later,” Mr. Key said of his squad’s guiding principles. “Everything’s justified.”

    Mr. Key is one of five members of the U.S. armed forces asking for asylum in Canada.  But the Oklahoma native is unique in that he is the only applicant that has combat experience in Iraq, said Mr. Key’s lawyer, Jeffry House. The other are seeking asylum in Canada to avoid being sent there, he said.  “He has boots-on-the-ground experience about what the actual conduct of the war in Iraq is,” Mr. House said outside the hearing.

    With visible bags under his eyes, Mr. Key told the hearing he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and frequently has nightmares over what he witnessed in Iraq. He recalled participating in almost nightly raids on homes of suspected insurgents in Ramadi and Fallujah as a member of the 43rd Combat Engineer Company. He said that while the raids seldom turned up anything of interest, he often saw soldiers ransack the homes and steal jewellery or money, while superior officers looked the other way.

    He also said several Iraqis were shot dead, and that they were cases of soldiers “shooting out of fear and inventing reasons afterward.”  In Ramadi, Mr. Key said he saw the beheaded bodies of four Iraqis beside a shot-up truck and witnessed several members of the Florida National Guard kick a severed head “like a soccer ball.”

    Mr. Key also said he witnessed one of his “trigger happy” platoon’s squad sergeants shoot part of an unarmed Iraqi man’s foot off in Khaldia, a village between Fallujah and Ramadi. The man was sitting on a chair outside a store and had raised his foot as a sign of disrespect, he said.

    Mr. Key added he was never questioned about the incident and was not aware of any charges being laid.

    “The only thing we were told was how to keep them quiet,” Mr. Key said, explaining that soldiers cuffed prisoners’ hands behind their backs and put hoods over their heads.

    “Could they breathe?” Mr. Brennenstuhl asked.

    “I guess it wasn’t my concern,” Mr. Key responded, adding that officers said the hoods were designed “to humiliate them.”

    Mr. Key, the father of four young children, told the hearing he joined the army for steady pay and medical coverage for his family. He said he initially went to Iraq as a willing participant because he believed U.S. intelligence claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  But Mr. Key became disillusioned with the war during his service and decided to abandon his contract with the army during a two-week leave from Iraq in November 2003.  He and his family lived on the run in Philadelphia before crossing the border at Niagara Falls, N.Y., on March 3, 2005.

    If returned to the United States, Mr. Key said he believed the army would “make an example” of him as a way to deter other possible deserters."

    The story  above explains the following – another uncomfortable fact the Bush administration would like the media to ignore:

    Survey finds returning soldiers haunted by nightmares, flashbacks

    CHICAGO – Nearly one in 10 American soldiers who served in Iraq were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, most after witnessing death or participating in combat, according to a Pentagon study that could add fodder to a budget battle in Congress over veterans’ health care.

    Overall, the study found more than a third of U.S. soldiers received psychological counseling soon after returning from Iraq.