Well now, as you may have noticed, Bush has just warned us to "Expect 'heavy fighting' in Iraq this summer."

http://www.cnn.com/...

And it used to be that it was the losers that showed their desperation by escalating the fighting.  But that was then, this is now, and this summer is around the corner.

And recently I learned that a family friend has a husband and her children have a father in Baghdad.  I won't disclose more than to say that when I was told what his job is, I got very scared for them.  And at long last, this "war" is even closer to home than I ever thought it would be.

I'm a map freak. I love them, have tons of them.  One of my favorite history books is little more than a set of maps as they changed through time.

A day or so ago I opened up my Google Earth program and looked around.  I thought it might be interesting to actually see Baghdad, a curiosity sparked by this diary by Olds88.

Really, this may not be worth a diary, but there have been diaries with links to Op-Eds and interviews with military officials and expert analysts.  

There has been a bi-partisan "study group" that took a long time to actually study the issue to come up with recommendations and a printed book that was apparently just ignored.  Maybe if they had titled it "My Pet War", Bush may have read it.

There have been polls showing extremely little support for an escalation.

Talk and talk and jabber jabber.  All well and good, but nothing works quite like a good visual demonstration (after the flip).

What a difference two years make.

And yet very little has changed for the better, and much for the worse.  The difference between the election outcomes hinges mostly upon the dawning realization of a majority of Americans that the GOP domination was indeed corrupt and failure-prone.  This is better, for sure, but we still have too many people uninformed, and a media which has only shifted from being lapdogs to being footdogs (so to speak).

Yes, a period of celebration is in order, but what is important now is that this election not be perceived as a tsunami, or even the crest of a wave, but as only the beginning rise from the trough.  There is so much damage to be undone, and another election in two years with the presidency at stake.  The level of public cooperation needed to quickly restore America will mean that a much greater shift still needs to take place.  Come 2008, we should not be fighting to fix what is broken, we should ensure a positioning that is strong enough to easily enact the necessary changes.

Of course, you may disregard this suggestion out of hand, but if it makes a difference, I will say "pretty please with sugar on top".

Typically for someone coping with addiction, I would say rehab, but I chose jail.  Is this hypocritical?

As I submit this diary, the poll results are: 35% rehab, 65% jail, with 27,934 votes.  Not that cnn.com online polls are accurate, but it seems a majority would like see some poetic justice here.

Senators: 'Bumbling' FEMA must go

"Our first and most important recommendation is to abolish FEMA," said Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "FEMA is discredited, demoralized, and dysfunctional. It is beyond repair. Just tweaking the organizational chart will not solve the problem."

I recall arguing online with a nutter during the unfoldment of the Katrina debacle.  I just could not penetrate the reflexive BushCo defense mechanisms, no matter what logic and evidence I marshalled.  When he cited reports, I had to show that they actually contradicted his position.  And so it goes.