about Paris living it up at home.

This whole situation is a lot more subtle and involved than merely the Sheriff saying:

I am not a lawyer but I like to read judicial opinions because I often can follow the logic. It seems clear that the New York Times seriously distorted the argument in the decision (pdf) which focused on the capricious nature of the decision.

The decision says that since it agrees with the first argument of the networks, that the FCC flipped long standing policy without giving any explanation, their other arguments don't have to be part of the decision.

We find that the FCC's new policy regarding "fleeting expletives" represents a significant departure from positions previously taken by the agency and relied on by the broadcast industry. We further find that the FCC has failed to articulate a reasoned basis for this change in policy. Accordingly, we hold that the FCC's new policy regarding "fleeting expletives" is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Times on the other hand seems to be talking to "network executives and top officials at the Federal Communications Commission instead of reading the decision.

You have many contacts

Among the lumberjacks

To get you facts

When someone attacks your imagination

But nobody has any respect

Anyway they already expect you

To just give a check

To tax-deductible charity organizations

You've been with the professors

And they've all liked your looks

With great lawyers you have

Discussed lepers and crooks

You've been through all of

F. Scott Fitzgerald's books

You're very well read

It's well known

Because something is happening here

But you don't know what it is

Do you, Mister Jones?

     --Bob Dylan "Ballad of a Thin Man"

Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what is flawed; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. Healing the wounds of the Earth and its people does not require saintliness or a political party. It is not a liberal or conservative activity. It is a sacred act.

     --Paul Hawkins "To remake the World"

In answer to the question in the title of this diary - nothing. Nothing, at least, that isn't also wrong with conservatism, capitalism, environmentalism, neoconservatism, or any other ism we look to solve all of our problems before us.

I have always self-identified as a liberal, because to me, being a liberal means retaining a hope that humanity can change to a more accommodating social and economic system living in harmony with all other inhabitants and creatures in the world. This hope is not held based upon scientific facts or reasoned analysis of our perilous future. This hope is retained because of a belief in the power of the human capacity for love and reverence.

For other liberals, I should make the admission that I am also conservative in the sense that I employ a language of respecting life or holding a reverence for life. This reverence and respect has been co-opted by the political wing of evangelical and catholic churches to battle against the abortion rights of women and other causes. I favor a woman having a right to choose an abortion, but I am not willing to throw out the language of respecting and revering life in all of its myriad forms to win a political battle.

Underneath the political battles happening between liberals and conservatives, a movement is growing that is still unnamed. This interconnected movement has been described by Paul Hawkins like this.

Historically, social movements have arisen primarily because of injustice, inequalities, and corruption. Those woes remain legion, but a new condition exists that has no precedent: the planet has a life-threatening disease that is marked by massive ecological degradation and rapid climate change. It crossed my mind that perhaps I was seeing something organic, if not biologic. Rather than a movement in the conventional sense, is it a collective response to threat? Is it splintered for reasons that are innate to its purpose? Or is it simply disorganized? More questions followed. How does it function? How fast is it growing? How is it connected? Why is it largely ignored?  

In one of the more brilliant paragraphs I've seen in the last couple months, Kos wraps up the core weakness of the Rethugs in bright, shiny paper with a silken bow, and hands the Dem leadership (and PR arm) the gift of a generation.  He says:

You all may remember my earlier diaries about gas prices and whether they were manipulated prior to the election.  Most recently, I posted a double poll at the end of a diary, here.  You should go there and vote - all of four people have as I write this diary.

As an update to that diary, where I noted I'd barely lost my bet that gas would be more than $2.509/gallon by the first day of spring, I note that gas passed through that level about 4 days after, on March 25, when it jumped to $2.519.

So, I wasn't far off....

But, I encourage you to go Vote.  To keep things interesting, I won't tell you the price today....

In my 1/18/07 diary entry I asked the rhetorical question Does Bush Support Our Troops.  Most of the diary concerned the rising rates of post traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and their correlation to multiple deployments.

In 2004 12% of Iraqi veterans were reported to have PTSD.  In 2006 it was reported that up to one third of veterans now suffer from PTSD.  Now over one-third of our troops suffer from PTSD or brain injury.

A new study updates the percent of troops suffering from PTSD.  The study found that "38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of Marines report psychological concerns such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from deployment."

The PTSD rate among National Guard is a shocking 49 percent.  

Keep in mind that the risk of PTSD rises in direct proportion to the number of fire fights that a soldier experiences.  Multiple deployments has caused both a rise in the numbers of soldiers suffering from PTSD and aggravates the severity of PTSD from those already suffering from it.  Unfortunately our military does not have the staff or the money for mental health care to meet the needs of these soldiers.  

In Iraq Bush is in a pickle.  He needs to use multiple deployments to have the manpower needed to fight his war.  Advocating a draft would be political suicide.  However, mulitple deployments is resulting in a spike in PTSD which is rapidly destroying our military.  Bush keeps going to the well by relying on multiple deployments but there will come a time when that well will dry up because too many troops will be suffering from PTSD.  Because of Bush a future President may not have the manpower to take military action even if it is justified and necessary.

Hidden fraternities going back in time

    Are the rungs of the ladder that soulless men climb

                          Charlie Walters

Why can't people follow simple logic? Our resident progressive propagandist (RPP) has proposed a simple solution to ending the Iraq War. Propose a date to that we will fund the war until and then cut-off funding after this date. All the rest of the talk for ending the war detracts from the goal of ending a war which Americans do not support in the majority. The logic is simple. Either you are serious about ending the war and you support this plan as proposed in Reid-Feingold or you are not serious about ending the war.

I agree with this logic whole-heartedly and yet, I realize that this will not happen because of the Cabal and the way Washington is set up to run. Many will call me a conspiracy theorist and I suppose I fit under that category. I look around at the world and try and explain what I observe. Sometimes, what falls under the heading of a conspiracy offers the best explanation. I entertain these theories with the same confidence that I entertain the notion of whether or not there is a God, or if  Quantum Mechanics, String Theory, Relativity or some other combination offers the best explanation of the universe. In other words, I don't know diddley squat about anything other than how to grow a pretty good crop of tomatoes.

Regardless, I am going to pontificate on the subject of conspiracies, cabals, and the necessity of radical change for the US and the World to survive and advance into the 21st century.

As you know, I've been thinking about and writing about impeachment for a while, here.  This article will not have links in it because (a) I'm pressed for time and (b) it's more in the nature of brainstorming than in the nature of finalized analysis.  The "why" for (b) follows.

Last week over at FireDogLake one of the commenters, "looseheadprop" had put up a post asking for those with interest to start putting together the framework of "Causes of action", if you will, to support the impeachment of Deadeye Dick Cheney.  Here's my first draft.

I'm thinking more of categories into which his actions can be fit, not so much as specific legal causes of action.  We need to remember that this is explicitly not a criminal case and the precision of a criminal indictment, hewing exactly to the language of a particular statute, is not necessary for pleading.  But, the statutes are a good guide, too.  Ultimately, however, the question which has to be answered is "which set of facts and reasoning can appeal to 67 Senators such that they will vote to convict?"  Please keep that in mind.

"April is the cruellest month."  Thus begins T.S. Eliot's epic poem, The Waste Land.  Some 85 years after the publication of this literary masterpiece, the words still ring true.  The month that is welcomed in many parts for "stirring dull roots with spring rain" has, in the year 2007, brought a most unwelcome rain.  In the nation of Iraq, in the cradle of civilization, the rain of violence and destruction has been unrelenting.  More than 100 American soldiers have perished in April, making it one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops since the war first began.  In the same time span, some 2,400 Iraqi civilians have perished!  This past Saturday was particularly bloody:

On Saturday 28 April, the most violent day of the week, over 160 lose their lives, including 75 killed by a suicide bomber in Karbala. Among the dead 5 children and 8 people burnt so badly that their age and gender remain undetermined. Three more children lose their lives: a 12-year-old boy is blown up by a roadside bomb in Kut, a 5-year-old girl is killed by mortars in Janaja, and the child of an army officer is killed by gunmen, together with his grandmother, near Baquba. Police find around 50 bodies in Baghdad, Baquba, Mahaweel and Mosul.  [source]

When Nazeri sings, I don't care if the Second

Adam comes down or not; I don't care if my words

Get you to cry or not -- it's already too late.

I know sweet vowels and inescapable rhythms.

I know how sweet it is when a young woman is here

And the old men think of God; but it's already too

late.

Here I am; I am all alone. It's early morning.

I am so happy. How can so much grandeur

Live beneath my skin? Go on asking; it's already

too late!

My tongue never becomes bitter because my

mouth

Keeps holding the grief pipe between my teeth.

Go on and conquer bitterness; it's already too late.

Robert Bly

It's astonishing that members of Congress are either unaware George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied the nation to war with Iraq, or they are aware of the fact and don't care. A Congress grounded in reality would have unequivocally acknowledged the administration's lies long ago and taken appropriate action - almost certainly impeachment.

Is the US currently a dictatorship? No. Is the US currently fascist? Yes. Being fascist doesn't mean citizens don't get to vote. Fascism means government can and does act with impunity to ignore what they want to and act as they want to, votes to the contrary be damned.