I usually write about veterans affairs with a couple G. W. Bush rage writings thrown in. But a conversation with a co-worker this evening about broccoli, French and French food; and since Dana Priest has taken the wind out of my sails regarding veterans and Bush; and since this was all followed by my nightly view of PBS’s News Hour, caused me to consider France, the United States, Economics, world health and broccoli.

This woman has told more lies than truths.  Today it was revealed that she lied when she indicated that she had never heard of Iran's attempts to negotiate with Iraq in the ramp up to the war.

As reported by Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice misled the U.S. Congress when she said last week that she had not seen a 2003 Iranian proposal for talks with the United States, a former senior government official said on Wednesday.

This is a small tribute and a call from a veteran to those who have fallen since the people have spoken and the mission has been validated as a failure.  I could get into a long discussion why someone who's making a little more than minimum wage and just has had 2 legs blown off needs to pay for phone calls home to Mom but won't.  The facts are that calling cards are really needed and they mean a lot to a young man or woman trying to recover from this insane war.

What I'd like to ask you to do is send calling cards to:

Walter Reed Medical Family Assistance Center (MEDFAC)
6900 Georgia Ave., NW
BLDG. 2, Third Floor, Room 3E01.
Washington, DC 20307-5001

Phone: (202) 782-2071 or toll free 1-866-546-1310

I called MEDFAC and asked what was the best way to do this.  The MEDFAC can't accept cash/check.  They can receive the calling cards.  I was advised that only AT&T and MCI don't expire.

AT&T cards can be bought at the Post Office, Sams/Wallmart, Eckhard, Best Buy or Office Depot.  They Come in $10, $20 and $30 cards that give approximately 100, 200 and 300. minutes.

For the grim details of those who have died for Bush's crimes see the flip

Short diary here.  Maureen Dowd's Saturday column in the NYTs is, for me, a hit or miss affair.  Today, she phoned it in.  With Donald Trump making all the trash news ... for some reason she interviewed him.

It seems the 'Trump' has and opinion on everybody from Paris Hilton to Monica Lewinsky.  Nice going Donald, you've only overstated the fact that like assholes everybody has one.

But he does a good job on Bush when Maureen asks,"How about those other international party girls, the Bush twins?"

"When you’re a president who has destroyed the lives of probably a million people, our soldiers and Iraqis who are maimed and killed — you see children going into school in Baghdad with no arms and legs — I don’t think Bush’s kids should be having lots of fun in Argentina," he says.

In a recent column in 'TVNewser' the headline screams
Olbermann Doesn't Take Abrams Seriously

Is there bad blood between Keith Olbermann and Dan Abrams? In a recent interview, Radar quoted MSNBC's general manager as saying that Countdown "could become a model for the newscast of the future."

Dan Abrams replaced Rick Kaplan about 6 months ago as MSNBC's General Manager.  The word at the time was that Rick and Keith didn't play nice and at one point Rick considered letting Keith go.  After Abrams took over, It was obvious keith was allowed some extended liberties ... or was he.  This article, quoting Keith, makes that previous opinion look pretty weak.

Well we know that Dick Cheney has been meeting with King Abdullah in an effort to have Saudi Arabia pressure the Sunni extreamist in Iraq but before his trip Cheney was in yet another "Undisclosed Location".

Craig Crawford, writting for Congressional Quarterly suggests:

If disappearing can be a weapon, then Vice President Dick Cheney is the ultimate warrior. But this time his vanishing act could finally be wearing thin, raising the possibility that he might just go away for good.

More on the flip on why we may be seeing a whole lot less of the VP.

Howard Kurts in his 20 November piece in the Washington Post quoted Dan Abrams the new General Manager of MSNBC:

"We've found a voice as of late, and a large part of that voice is politics," says MSNBC General Manager Dan Abrams. And although he doesn't plan to put on "all politics all the time until 2008," Abrams says he wants to continue "branding" MSNBC as a haven for political junkies.

The mainstays of journalists that at least try to make sense: Andrea Mitchel, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter and Howard Fineman, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, and Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford have become part of the MSNBC mainstay.

see more on the flip side.

I have a lot of trust in the thoughts and writings of Fareed Zakaria.  For those of you not acquainted with Fareed, he is the editor of Newsweek International, overseeing all Newsweek's editions abroad.  

This morning he took part of the roundtable of ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanapoulos" and while he was able to make a couple general comments could not fully articulate what’s happening in Iraq and his glimpse/prediction of the future.  This is a shame in that by my accounting, Mr. Zakaria has not missed a beat.

See the flip side for Fareed’s assessment of what will be missing from the up coming Baker-Hamilton report.

It appears there are three facts that have come out of after the Saddam Hussein verdict.

First, The majority Shiites are jubilant and the minority Sunni are pissed which will lead to increased civil tension and an escalation of the Iraqi civil war. Second, Maliki and his Shiite controlled administration has been given a boost.  Third, the impact to the US midterm elections seems to be minimal at best.

From the  Guardian.

George Bush is ranked with some of his bitterest enemies as a cause of global anxiety. He is outranked by Osama bin Laden in Canada, the UK, Mexico and Israel.   UK voters: 87% think the al-Qaida leader is a great or moderate danger to peace, compared with 75% who think this of our Commander and Chimp, George Bush.

More on the flip side ...

During a closed-door session of the house, the republican side of the House Armed Services Committee, over the objections of Democratic counterparts, inserted an obscure provision that terminates the federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007.

In a world of coincidence CIA director Michael Hayden, just so happened to visit Saudi Arabia and King Abdullah a day after the US issued alerts that the Saudi oil fields were possibly under attack from the sea.  Also coincidently, the US Navy was conducting exercises in the Persian Gulf.  Another coincidence is that oil prices have hit a recent low with Saudi Arabia threatening to raise oil prices and the US elections are a little more than a week away.

This is a very short diary that I'm posting because the BBC video is so powerful.  It gives insight into the soldier's view of Iraq and the whole joke of We'll stand down when they stand up.

Sean Smith, the Guardian's award-winning war photographer, spent nearly six weeks with the 101st Division of the US army in Iraq. Watch his haunting observational film that explodes the myth around the claims that the Iraqis are preparing to take control of their own country.

As I said down below, All that is missing is Martin Sheen paddling up the Euphrates River for a rendezvous with Marlin Brando.

Click on this link to see the video:

Video: GuardianFilms and BBC Newsnight present ....

This diary started as a specific posted diary but has turned into something that I just keep adding to as new Bell/Rowson cartoons become available. If you are new to Steve Bell, he takes a little getting use to. Bush is primarily depicted as a ape and blair sometimes as a dog (lap dog). You can tell Blair because his left eye is always bulging. From the start of the Iraq conflict these two cartoonist have cut through all the crap anc chronicled the whole bloody mess. Enjoy.  As usual, you can catch them at The Guardian.

I have written a couple of diaries where I try to take the politics out of the inhumanity this war has leveled against the Iraqi people and our men and women in the Armed Forces.  In one of my last diaries I was asked how to help.  So I've gone on a minor hunt for the best way to help and here it is.

Of course we all knew that there had to be something to the report when it was instantly dismissed by both the Bush and Blair administrations.  An editorial featured in  Daily Star of Lebanon writes that regardless of what the real number is, the report is another indictment of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq.

There are two wars being fought in Iraq.  The only nobility to be found are is our young that signed up to fulfil a sense of duty.  Now they find themselves in two conflicts.  One day they are the police the next the warrior.  what follows is a couple of threads I've followed about the civil and war of occupation we find ourselves.

I'm a Viet Nam erra vet who until this year has not really felt compeled to fiancially support veteran political groups.  I think the main reason is that veterans groups seemed to me to be aligned to a conservative political agenda.  Also, to be honest, I wasn't all that proud of my service.

There is a group that is diffent.  It's made up of progressive veteran's and the way I got involved was to support their political bad body armor vest ads to help defeat Conrad Burns.