The Hollywood Liberal

U.S. ranks low, just above Iran on new peace index

AP
Excerpt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and
Iran, according to a new index released on Wednesday that evaluates 121 nations based on their peacefulness.

According to the Global Peace Index, created by The Economist Intelligence Unit, Norway is the most peaceful nation in the world and
Iraq is the least, just after Russia,
Israel and Sudan.

“The objective of the Global Peace Index was to go beyond a crude measure of wars by systemically exploring the texture of peace,” said Global Peace Index President Clyde McConaghy.

He said the inaugural effort proves “peace can and has and will continue to be measured.”

The index was compiled based on 24 indicators measuring peace inside and outside of a country. They included the number of wars a country was involved in the past five years, how many soldiers were killed overseas and how much money was made in arms sales.

Domestic indicators included the level of violent crimes, relations with neighboring countries and level of distrust in other citizens.

HL’s Take:
Second least peacefull nation in the world, behind only Iran, with Yemen, and Israel right behind us. Sounds about right to me, since the United States is the tool of Israel in their never ending problems with Arabs. How come no one ever invades Norway. How come “terrorists” don’t want to go to Norway and blow up buildings. Violence, begets violence. The more you screw with other people, the more they want to screw with you. Not because they hate freedom you stupid monkeys. If we took all the money we spend on war and used it to promote peace, and fair trade with other countries instead of using it to screw with them, we wouldn’t have any war. But the military industrial complex would not like that because they would no longer be making billions and billions of dollars. The many suffer so the few, like George Bush and his scumbag father, can party on yachts and buy 98,000 acre ranches in Paraguay

5 Americans among 7 dead in Afghan crash

AP
Excerpt
KABUL, Afghanistan –
NATO troops on Thursday secured the wreckage of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter apparently shot down by Taliban militants, an attack that killed everyone on board — five U.S. soldiers, a Canadian and a Briton, officials said

NATO said troops going to the crash site in southern Helmand province were ambushed by enemy fighters, and the unit called in an airstrike “to eliminate the enemy threat.” It did not say if the troops were from the U.S.-led coalition, NATO’s force or the Afghan army. One civilian was injured by gunfire.

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, said there would be a full investigation into Wednesday’s crash. “We will try to determine everything that happened and to fully investigate the site,” he said.

A U.S. military official, who insisted on speaking anonymously because the crash was still under investigation, said initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade.

I was watching the news last night and there was a story about a relative of a fire fighter asking him why he didn’t warn the cops and firefighters that the World Trade Center was going to collapse when he knew in advance it would. Giuliani told a bald faced lie to her and said he had no such warning. Well here is the proof that Rudy was lying through his teeth. He was in on 9/11 Just like Bush, and his scumbag father who was in New York City that day watching it go down live with relatives of The Bin Laden family. Heres Rudy

In that video it seems the word collapse is edited out but here is another one where you can clearly hear him say it.

Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak

MSNBC
Excerpt
WASHINGTON – An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame’s employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was “covert” when her name became public in July 2003.

The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald’s memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

The nature of Plame’s CIA employment never came up in Libby’s perjury and obstruction of justice trial….

‘I felt like I had been hit in the gut’
In March at a House of Representatives hearing, Plame testified saying, “My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the White house and the State Department”

She described how it felt to see her true identity exposed in the morning paper, her career destroyed she said…

No leak charges
Several administration officials, including Libby, former State Department official Richard Armitage and Bush advisor Karl Rove, disclosed Plame’s identity to reporters.

No one was ever charged with the leak of Plame’s name itself, which would have been a crime only if someone knowingly gave our information about someone covered by a specific law protecting the identities of covert agents.

HL’s Take
That’s right, no one has ever been charged. Thanks to Patrick “Bulldog” Fitzgerald. He made sure his bosses stayed out of trouble in a democrat-like swindle of the American people. He made everyone believe that justice would be done, and of course it wasn’t, just like Democrats made everyone believe that they would do something about Iraq, and they didn’t. Politicians don’t give a rat’s ass about the people anymore for anything it seems

Rolling in on two wheels

Cron.com
Excerpt
Some of the world’s biggest gas peddlers are encouraging their workers to pump the pedal.

Exxon Mobil, BP and ConocoPhillips are among the Houston-area employers trying to make it easier for employees to bike to work.

Workers already have enough excuses: potholes, impatient drivers and the Houston heat.

But some businesses are easing the commute for those who decide the exercise and reduced emissions make biking worthwhile. They’re giving them locker rooms, shower areas and safe places to park their bikes.

“I figure I save $3 a day every time I commute,” said Dave Ivy, a projects manager at Exxon Mobil, who’s been biking 14 miles from his home in Katy to Exxon Mobil offices in Westlake three to four times a week for the last few years.

HL’s Take
I guess the oil companies know that thanks to Bush and Cheney, they will be able to keep the prices up to a level that is so high that only rich people can afford it. Typical of Dick Cheney and his pet monkey to only cater to the rich. Cheney you remember held closed door meetings with the heads of the oil companies in which he allowed them to dictate policy, then refused to hand over the notes of those meetings. Since the prices will remain so high the oil companies are giving their less then rich employees to bike to work, like showers, and places to lock the bikes. Gee guys thanks, you guys are the best employers ever.

Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party
By CINDY SHEEHAN

Counterpunch
Excerpt
There is absolutely no sane or defensible reason for you to hand Bloody King George more money to condemn more of our brave, tired, and damaged soldiers and the people of Iraq to more death and carnage. You think giving him more money is politically expedient, but it is a moral abomination and every second the occupation of Iraq endures, you all have more blood on your hands.

Ms. Pelosi, Speaker of the House, said after George signed the new weak as a newborn baby funding authorization bill: “Now, I think the president’s policy will begin to unravel.” Begin to unravel? How many more of our children will have to be killed and how much more of Iraq will have to be demolished before you all think enough unraveling has occurred? How many more crimes will BushCo be allowed to commit while their poll numbers are crumbling before you all gain the political “courage” to hold them accountable. If Iraq hasn’t unraveled in Ms. Pelosi’s mind, what will it take? With almost 700,000 Iraqis dead and four million refugees (which the US refuses to admit) how could it get worse? Well, it is getting worse and it can get much worse thanks to your complicity.

Military: 8 Memorial Day deaths in Iraq

AP
Excerpt
BAGHDAD – Eight American soldiers were killed in roadside bombings and a helicopter crash in a restive province north of Baghdad, the military reported Tuesday, making May the deadliest month of the year for U.S. troops in Iraq.

In other violence, three German computer consultants were kidnapped Tuesday from an Iraqi Finance Ministry office in Baghdad, an Iraqi government official said, and two car bombings killed 40 people in the capital, police said.

The Americans — all from Task Force Lightning — were killed Monday in Diyala as the U.S. commemorated Memorial Day, bringing the number of U.S. forces killed this month to at least 110.

Hang in there, America: Competent leadership is just 600-plus days away

McClatchy
Excerpt
As of May 28th, there were 602 days left until Jan. 20, 2009, and the end of our long national nightmare as President George W. Bush and his Rasputin, Vice President Dick Cheney, shuffle off to their necessarily well-guarded retirement homes and onto the ash heap of history.

So much of what they talked about doing in a new century and a new and different world never came to pass. So much of what they did to grow the power of the presidency and prune the constitutional safeguards crafted by our Founding Fathers, they never talked about.

The American people have turned their backs on George Bush and his dreams of planting the seeds of democracy in Mesopotamia at the point of a gun and seeing them spread like kudzu across the Middle East.

He’s failed in his quest for victory in Iraq and for a world put in order by a new and stronger United States, and his brash blundering into a dangerous land has made us all much less safe.

The president’s approval ratings are below his knees, sinking to 28 percent in one recent poll, and he cannot recover short of the kind of miracle that parts seas and feeds the multitudes.

The war that was never ours to win by military means – the only button this president who never learned war ever learned how to push – is lost. Bush and Cheney and the rest of their cronies and co-conspirators are toast.

The question is: How did such ordinary-looking men – seemingly unable to carry out even the smallest non-political tasks of governing – succeed in doing such extraordinary and lasting damage to our country, our military and our body politic in so few years?

Disoriented Bush team in Inquisitor Waxman’s sights

Cron.com
Excerpt
On the day presidential senior adviser Karl Rove administered a tongue-lashing to a Republican congressman, disturbing news about his former executive assistant was spread on Capitol Hill. GOP House members learned that Susan Ralston is requesting immunity to testify before Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman’s investigating committee.

She was an assistant to Jack Abramoff, Washington superlobbyist and Republican fund-raiser, in 2001 when he recommended her for the top job with Rove as he entered the White House. As Rove’s gatekeeper, Susan Bonzon Ralston became special assistant to the president and the highest-ranking Filipino-American in the administration. For Waxman, she is a link between the disgraced, imprisoned Abramoff and Rove, a principal political target of the Democratic-controlled Congress.

As House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, Waxman is tirelessly making life miserable for a confused administration during George W. Bush’s last two years as president. Bringing down Rove ranks high on Grand Inquisitor Waxman’s agenda. But Ralston appears to be seeking immunity for self-protection rather than nailing her former boss, and she could be a blank fired by the fierce political marksman from Westside Los Angeles.

Rove, the hard-edged architect of two victorious presidential campaigns, was in the Democratic cross-hairs long before Republicans lost control of Congress. Democrats were bitterly disappointed when he was not indicted in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case (when Ralston was among the grand jury witnesses). They have targeted Rove in investigating the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, and the Waxman committee sought testimony from Ralston about Rove’s e-mails. She was deposed behind closed doors last month prior to her request for immunity.

Here’s how you get to worst President ever. Take Iraq War Freeway South, to the Katrina Causeway South, to the Guantanamo Expressway South, to the Gas Price Parkway South, to the ’06 Election Highway South, to the 9/11 Truth Turnpike South, get off at the Where’s Osama? Offramp, make a right on Alberto Gonzalez Avenue, another right on Wolfie World Bank Boulevard, take that to Torture Trail South, and that will take you right to 30% Rating Road. You can’t miss it.