One Utah

Hillary is rapidly living down to her reputation as a pandering shill. Obama, however, is taking the gloves off old school, via tpm:
“We aren’t going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters. It is ironic that the Clintons had no […]

Every beach landing is a frontal assault, the kind of thing the U.S. Army abhors– remember the first 20 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan”? The U.S. Marines train specifically to go straight in without a lot of support, because sometimes there’s no other way. I think that’s where Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), a […]

This recent article, “Why is the US press silent on Brzezinski’s warnings of war against Iran?“, is as frightening for its saliency as for the virtual Big Media suppression of it.
This is the same kind of stuff that was being said and written before Bush invaded Iraq, and as we all now know, turned out […]

In her usual trenchant way, Elizabeth Wood summarizes the problem with discussion of sexuality in our society:
I keep thinking about this discussion we’ve been having about “protecting” people from sex, or sexually explicit material. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that quite often our efforts at protection do more harm […]

Sometimes you can’t really tell if it is satire or seriousness.
Take today’s Tribune letters to the editor, headlined: Remove abortion stain.
The right to choose was made when a pregnancy resulted . . .
Unless, maybe, you were using contraception and it failed. Or you had abstinence only and never learned how to use contraception. […]

You know the message is getting out when the largest power user on the planet, the United States Department of Defense, takes steps to cut its energy consumption for whatever reason.
But let’s review: The Department of Energy is ordered by Congress to install solar power for the first time in history while the DOE wastes […]

A video about things on the ground in Iraq!
This is going around the Internet pretty fast. “I think everyone, no matter where you sit on the political fence… should watch this…”

I went to an Energy Film Festival today sponsored by our local Sierra Club chapter. One film, The Power of Community — How Cuba Survived Peak Oil documented what Cuba had to do when the oil supply from the Soviet Union stopped in the 90s. It was really inspiring to see what solutions they […]

Political Solutions for the problems of the Middle East What can we learn from History?
When I read recently that the European Union and Turkey had made little headway in resolving a stalemate over Turkey’s refusal to open its ports to Cypriot ships —a decision that might stop Turkey’s membership application to the European Union […]

The gospel music group the Winans, from my one-time hometown of Detroit, performed one of my favorite inspirational songs: “Ain’t No Need to Worry”, recognized by the chorus “It’ll be all over in the morning.” I met them in 1996 (after the Oklahoma City bombing and before the Atlanta Olympic bombing) and gushed like a […]

The following originally appeared on Simple Utah Mormon Politics.
Some pretty high-profile individuals can say some pretty uneducated and insensitive things about other people. But when it happens, it’s not a time to effectively ban such speech. Rather, it’s time to talk about what misconceptions would cause that sort of speech to occur. […]

The brouhaha about the Edwards’ bloggers has me thinking - Did Amanda in fact say anything that was anti-Catholic?
Amanda criticized the Catholic church’s stance on women’s issues, glbt issues, contraception and abortion, but is that the same thing as in fact being anti-Catholic?  To the best of my knowledge, and I’ve been reading pandagon for […]

Like many Americans, I have sat back to watch for a hero to arise, someone who can make sense of what has been going on for the past four unbelievable years of war and horror. But what I have seen instead since September 11, 2001, are Americans under attack from the very people they thought […]

Some people only know President Abraham Lincoln from the Rozerem commercials. Here’s Rep. Don Young (R-AK), citing what he thought were Lincoln’s words during yesterday’s debate on the Iraq War Resolution:
“Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.”

I thought […]

Frank Stahali wrote this in response to a comment on “Supporting the Troops” several posts down.
It gave me a new clarity I needed.
I repost his entire comment here without his permission and in the hope that our friends and their friends will also read it.
Let me take a stab at the ASP mentality. Because […]

Once-classified briefing slides on Operation Iraqi Freedom from August 2002 have been obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive via the Freedom of Information Act. Readers of Cobra II and Fiasco will know about this top secret briefing, which was conducted before any congressional authorization for the use of force, and even before […]

You know how every one in a while, an invention comes along that seems so obvious AFTER you see it? Like mountain bikes and roller blades? This one of them.

Why didn’t I think of that? See demo. …and how we did it in the olden days.
BBC Article

In the usual melange of words and idea floating around today, I found myself reading two, not necessarily related posts that actually connect.
Chris Bowers’ Terrorism Remains A Key Political Tool Of the Right at mydd and the concluding post of the amazing series at Orcinus about eliminationism in American politics. At mydd, Chris muses […]

In the Orwellian tradition of doublethink, Bush and the Republicans often employ slogans that mean the opposite of what they say (for example: “compassionate conservatism,” “healthy forests,” “clear skies”). So, we may ask, what do they mean by “support the troops”?
In yesterday’s House debate on the Iraq War Resolution, Rep. David Dreier […]