Abigail Taylor is a six year old Minnesota kid who was playing in a wading pool this week when she became trapped by the powerful suction of a single pool drain lacking a protective cover. Horrifically,this suction pulled much of her intestines out through her rectum. Doctors said it was a miracle that she survived, but that she may need to be fed intravenously for the rest of her life.
Unbelievably, it's not the first time this has happened.
Haven't seen this elsewhere, and I think it's worth noting.
Paul Craig Roberts has some solid conservative credentials: he was an assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, an associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, the author of The Supply Side Revolution, and was a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institute (I wonder if he knows Dinesh?)
Okay, folks- we've voted, we've volunteered, we've done everything we can possibly do. While we wait for the results to come in, I thought it might be pleasantly distracting to prognosticate on the POST-election future. My predictions about Scooter, Rumsfeld, and Iraq are below the fold.
I've been waiting to write this diary for quite some time- frankly, longer than I expected. Now that the Dow has finally cracked the level it had reached over 6 years ago, I thought I'd provide a little historical and statistical perspective on this momentous event.
A little tidbit to start your day: the founder of the Minnesota Christian Coalition, former delegate to the national Republican convention, and general bigwig in Republican circles has a problem.
While his wallet was apparently wide open for contributing big bucks to the Republican party here, when it came to the IRS and paying his taxes, it seems he was remarkably stingy.
It's always entertaining to watch neocon rats deserting their Good Ship Iraq. Sad, yes....pitiful, certainly...but...
Well, just see for yourself what NY Post wingnut columnist Ralph Peters is saying today about that war where it used to be that "failure is not an option"
Republican Gil Gutnecht, US representative for Minnesota district 1 and big supporter of the war from day 1, just returned from Bagdad with a surprising conclusion:
"The condition there is worse than I expected," he said. "... I have to be perfectly candid: Baghdad is a serious problem"
What's surprising about that is the degree to which Gil seems to be (very publicly) getting out of the GOP/Iraq happy boat.
No, not me. Just quoting from the latest piece from Maj Gen John Batiste, who commanded the Army's First Infantry Division, in Iraq and in Kosovo, but "left the military after 31 years of service despite a promising career and promotion in order to speak out, to turn the lights on in a very dark room."
There's a little more of that light he sheds below.
The GOP state convention started yesterday, and in a surprise to noone, nominated one of Bush's most obedient poodles for the US Senate race to replace Mark Dayton, who is retiring.
What was surprising (or perhaps not) was how vigorously the nominee, Mark Kennedy, ran away from Bush and his buddies in Washington.
Today, Senate Republicans went back to the well one more time, to vote on a medical malpractice limit that has been floated and rejected 5 times in the last 5 years. The press played along, noting that the Democrats "blocked" the bill, although there were more votes against cloture (48 and 49) than there are Dems in the Senate (45), while Frist was only able to muster 42 and 44 votes to move the bill. You can do the math.
The usual press releases were sent out and the verbal hand-wringing once again commenced from both Capitol Hill and the White House. All this struck me as odd, considering the annual report I recently received from my malpractice carrier. Let me tell you about it below the fold.
Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor posted this roundup of some jaw-dropping corruption among US contractors and authorities in Iraq, and I couldn't find it diaried yet. It sounds like the floodgates are about to open...
Okay, not literally - I'm sorry if I lured you here under false pretenses. It's just that I had to let Kossacks know about a delicious piece that Franken delivered in a recent dinner "debate" with our darling of the right, Ann Coulter, in front of an audience from the University of Judaism.
Every once in awhile, I stop by right-wing websites just to see what's on the collective wingnut mind. Today, those right-wing royalty privileged to post at The Corner struggled along with their readers to sort out their inner feelings on whether a raped woman should have to bear her rapist's child.
Okay, so this story appeared in the New York Post. And al Qaeda can, and probably does, make unsubstantiated claims about anything it feels like. And Dubai World Ports is not going to be in charge of port security, blah, blah, blah.
But it's still an interesting story I've heard little of, and couldn't find in the diaries...
Betty McCollum is a hardworking Dem US representative from a Minnesota district that is mixed, if not somewhat Republican leaning. She's done pretty well. This time around, she's being challenged by Republican Obi Sium. His non-Norsky name is not the only disadvantage Mr. Sium is having to deal with:
I know we're not supposed to do one-line diaries, but I really would like to know where Kossacks are on this. Comments can flesh out your feelings, if you wish.
