PW!

I’ve known a number of Iranians, in fact I’ll be spending New Year’s Eve with one, and without exception they have been the souls of courtesy and kindness.

Meanwhile, as an atheist I don’t know that I’d feel as safe driving around the U.S. in an art car that reads “Happy Winter Solstice” as the owner of that little red car feels in Teheran.

Evildooers…..no wait!!!

Great PW!

Spotlight!!! Digg!!

PW
Just finishing reading Women Who Ruled, which is a book from a 02 exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Did you know that Elizabeth I used (i.e., had it put on medals that were awarded) the phoenix as a “perfect symbol for asserting both Elizabeth’s claim to dynastic rule and her chastity.”

Absolutely! I had a couple of Iranian kids on a middle school basketball team I coached and they and their folks were great.

Yes Humanize them you can’t kill people once you start thinking about them as people. Too bad their president is a Bush League Clown.

Ding, fuck a buncha Ayatolla’s too~!

Bush and Darth have been quiet lately with the attack Iran mantra. I wonder if Darth is sick?

They used to be able to celebrate Christmas openly in Iraq, too, but that was back before Bush invaded the country.

how sad a statement is this?

what has this president done to this world, to America, to Americans, to Christianity, to the entire middle east

what has he done?

Good morning every-one :)
Great post PW. As an English-woman I am continually amazed by just how little the ‘average american’ really know about the rest of the world, its different cultures, its people.. It is very strange to me….

Completely OT, but this was just odd….
‘Experts are trying to identify a huge metal container that has been washed up on a beach in the Western Isles.
The tank, which is 27m high, has no markings and is thought to have fallen from a ship before being washed up on the west of Benbecula.’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sco…..164220.stm

One day we should compare the Southern Baptist stand on social issues like abortion and women’s rights with the Iranian Ayatolla’s and the Saudi Wahabi sect.
Of course we should save that snark for when Huck makes a smart remark about Liberal Values.

Same shit in my opinion. We need to put the FUN back in Fundamentalism!

Morning, PW!

Ever since the drums of war began beating against Iran, I have been on tenterhooks. Our next-door neighbors for 25 years were Iranian, and we could not have asked for better neighbors. Last year they moved to a condo as their kids had ‘left the nest’, and we really miss them. If I was sick or in the hospital, they would bring over home-cooked meals for my family. We took care of each other’s animals, children and houses. The Moghimis are intelligent, cultured, warm and good-hearted. The idea of attacking their country makes me sick.

lol

Conyers does NOT care about Wexler’s Petition to start Cheney impeachment hearings!

Read the transcript from Democracy Now.

http://willyloman.wordpress.co…..-petition/

He will NOT allow impeachment hearings to take place.

Conyers knows that Pelosi will undercut the efforts of impeachment rather than helping to build a bi-partisan coalition to impeach.

Conyers knows that Pelosi will again be Speaker of the House next year and she will take him off the Judiciary Committee if he goes against her wishes. It’s a “lose-lose” for him and impeachment.

Let’s help him and the rest of the members of the House of Representatives by removing an obstructionist Speaker. It can be done and must be done to start the impeachment process.

http://www.petitiononline.com/…..ition.html

If God says is the only reason for morality then morality is not rational. But if God is rational then moral claims not backed up by reason (a real harm to society, Gay marriage and Women’s rights are not a real harm).
Then those moral claims are not from God, they must then be Satanic Verses.
I wonder if Huck would issue a death threat to a reporter who asked him that question on TV. Certainly Malkin and Coulter would be inciting their *cough * readers to commit Murder/Jihad in the name of God and the GOP.

True but Huck and the GOP think that their shit don’t stink we need to open up a can of snark and hold their noses to reality.

Too quiet..Kinda like when your kid or animal is too quiet…you have to investigate.

Cheney’s agenda never sleeps.

Just signed please keep posting that petition on different posts throughout the day we need to get rid of Nancy. We need Cindy to run against her!

True and what am I thinking the Undead don’t get sick.

Christmas Card to Southern California:

http://freewayblogger.blogspot…..ornia.html

Albatross: Yeah. You could probably do it in places like NYC, San Fran or Minneapolis, but I don’t think that’d fly in many places below the Mason-Dixon line, or certain parts of the West and Southwest.

hey, PW. sorry to go all OT on you, but you were the one posting the interesting comment on the problem with bush’s so-called pocket veto of the defense bill.

can you tell us what you think the pelois and reid could do – if they wanted to confront bush over this?

thanks!

Thanks, Freeway Blogger!

Hey Scarlet, peace on earth! You radical.

Hi Selise!

I sent that little bit of case law to various people, including a reporter for the WaPo. His response was that he thinks that Bush might have a way around it if the house that stayed open (or was brought back into session) wasn’t the one from which the bill originated. Since budget bills come from the House, and the Senate stayed open (though the House did not adjourn sine die, IIRC), Bush might have an out here.

Oh, and Good Morning to everyone here today! How are you all today?

Bay Area’s next.

Take a look at that container…anybody recognize what it is?

thanks!
can either reid or pelosi call the house back into session?

What a wonderful post!
Thanks !
This is something that needs to be shown broadly, the people and cultures of the country “we” want to bomb.

No f’ing idea.

From space?

You Rock!

It’s the office of Saddams WMD program.. found at long last.

LOL…or a big aluminum tooob.

Natural gas maritime transport container…my guess.

I wonder how far you would get even in liberal Seattle with a car saying Happy Mohammeds Birthday? Assuming that people made the connection between Mohammed and Muslims.
Nobody is free unless we all are free. There can not be true freedom if some are more free than others.

Does it have a sunroof?

WMD – Window of Mass Destruction

apropos i guess: from h/t for crazy Deady

It appears that Christians in Iran are more free than Muslims in America to express their religion. Dissent against Government or the ruling religion is punished more harshly in Iran, but if G.W has his way…

Is there such a thing as a Muslim Republican?

If Bush is going to blow Iran up, he’d better get to it. He only has a year left. Of course there is another Middle East country waiting in the wings and salivating at the prospect of ‘getting it on’ with Iran. They have more time than Mr. Bush.

OT,

Nice tribute to Steve Gilliard at NYT(with a couple of corrections from Newsbloggers)

http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2…..rd-jr.html

Thank you for this post Pheonix. No country deserves to be called the axis of evil, as if it weren’t full of human beings who are full of weirdness, contradictions and life in general. I feel there are so many countries like Iran and Turkey that have cultivated this precarious crazy balance. It’s would beyond tragic to see any preznit to apply the ChimpCo/Milton Friedman methods they have applied to Iraq, and New Orleans for that matter. (Yes I am reading Naomi Klein).

Is anyone polling who America’s Muslims plan to vote for and what percentage will likely vote. I think John Deadly (that can’t be his real name) could boost Muslim turnout all by himself.
What states will Muslim votes be a factor in?

There used to be.

Aren’t both Houses of Congress scheduled to return on January 3rd? If they are it seems that unless Bush insists on ruining their New Year’s (including all those Republicans) by recalling them for a Special Session then he’s simply got two options. He can accept the Bill, or return it to the House with his objections. That’s the normal veto process.

I don’t really see where this would apply to his making Recess Appointments. A recess appointment would have to occur when the Congress was in Recess (or at least the Senate, who handles confirmation hearings). Unfortunately it is undertaking pro forma sessions. If it was the House he might have an argument (but I really doubt that, either).

Neither the House nor Senate leveled a complaint about the Houses recess…so there is no “disagreement” between the two regarding the recess (unless one takes the term “disagreement” to mean “the schedules do not match”…but that would allow the President a regular power to suspend Congress, as one House frequently leaves a day or two earlier while the other finishes up business).

Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers #69, clearly stated that the President had no power to prorogue or suspend Congress unless there was a disagreement between the Houses. That was what set the President apart from a King. George III actually frequently suspended and terminated sessions of the various Colonial legislatures in the years just prior to the Revolution. It was one act that drove many Tory legislators into the Revolutionary movement….because they joined with others to form an alternative “unauthorized” legislature. Every time these bodies would come close to issuing a law that opposed things like the Quartering of troops in civilian homes, suspending habeas, or taxes on imports…the Governor’s would shut down debate by closing the session.

That’s why the power of the President is more like that of a referee, than a dictator.

NO President has ever used the power to adjust Congressional recess schedules to correspond. Taft, when informed by Congressmen that he shouldn’t try to Prorogue a particularly disputative Congress, pointed out that he didn’t even think he had such powers, and wasn’t considering it.

Of course I’m far, far from being an expert on military matters, but I don’t see this country can defeat Iran militarily without resorting to the use of some of our very ample suply of WMD’s.

Is there such a thing as a Muslim Republican?

Only the fundie Muslims are Republicans.

You’d have to be a pretty fundie funny Muslim to be a Reptilian Republican these days…

PW,

Great post – thanks. I’ve bookmarked the Photo Activists for Peace site. This is a terrific site.

Over the last several years in lurking at FDL, I’ve gathered up a good number of great sites. This is another one, and I’ll pass it on to some other like-minded folks out here.

Thinking back to the Chimporer’s Axis of Evil statements in his SOU in 2002 — how I wish that more Americans had pushed back on that idiotic statement. It’s pretty clear now that Bush was laying the groundwork for implementing the NeoCon/PNAC agenda.

My New Year’s wish is that there’s a holding cell reserved in the Hague for the Chimporer and Darth. It may take years, but I am absolutely convinced that bringing all of these war criminals to the bar of justice is an imperative.

Here’s the Congressional Schedule. The House returns on January 3rd, 2008.

http://www.fednet.net/schedule/

Oh, there are always some credulous diehards out there who equate “War on Terra” with “Soviet threat.” Muslims included. Plus the no-tax religion. There’s always someone out there that thinks their business (small though it might be) benefits from Republikans.

Ah the same day I hope Hilary/Obama lose?

You haven’t been in the States very long, have you?

Hey Americans are NOT stupid. Ha!

Iran doesn’t have nukes, and so the US can most certainly defeat Iran with conventional weapons. The terrain is more treacherous that Iraq’s though.

I am sweeping my jaw up off the keyboard…

OT: Per Marc Cooper of HuffPo:

Rival John Edwards also came under a withering attack from Obama. “Some people say, ‘Well, Obama talks a good game, but he’s not angry enough, he’s too conciliatory,’” he said, referring to a new stump speech by Edwards claiming the powerful must be confronted and not conciliated. “I don’t need lectures about how to bring about change because I’ve spent my life bringing about change,” Obama said in response to his own rhetorical query. “I turned down the big jobs to do community organizing in Chicago. I turned down the big money law firms to be a civil rights lawyer. I took on the lobbyists in the state legislature in Illinois.”

“We don’t need more heat in Washington,” he added. “We need more light.”

What the hell is Cooper talking about? Since when do statements like:
* “I don’t need a lecture …”
* “I turned down big jobs …”
* “We don’t need more heat in Washington; we need more light.”
constitute a “withering attack”?

Can someone please call a halt to this insipid election coverage?

Sooner or later we may find out. One question I would have is where are the U.S. soldiers going to come from for the war and the occupation of Iran? I’m afraid my belief is that if the U.S. attacks Iran, Iran will atttack Israel. And Israel certainly won’t have any compunction about nuking Iraq. And I do think that sooner or later our governmant will resort to some form of WMD’s. Perhaps we shall just have to disagree. As I say, we may find out. ;0)

I suspect Iran doesn’t have much capacity for self-defense. Whereas Israel . . . on the other hand, Iran does have alliances.

I also believe I have heard a few warnings from Russia about a U.S. attack on Iran. Obviously, if a showdown were to come between Russia and this country, neither country will be coming at each other conventionally. And Pakistan and India might also figure into the mix of an attack Iran. Many questions. Many possible scenerios.

But can they pacify Iran? They’re not having much luck with Iraq, just as they didn’t with Vietnam.

The view here is that all Israel needs is one little itty bitty attack on Israel by Iran and that will do ‘it’.

That’s a cute little car. Is it a Mini Cooper?

Iran will atttack Israel

Now that would be suicidal. Israel has nukes…but really doesn’t have to use them against Iran. And Israel has knocked out several Iraqi WMDs (and incipient nuke material) in the past. I think the point is that any nuke activity form Israel will certainly spread to the entire Middle East, and I don’t the West can afford that…

That’s right. If we go into Iran, the result will be worse than what’s going in Iraq. I read somewhere recently where we are projected to run out of replacement U.S. soldiers sometime after April of this coming year. So how in heck are we going to defeat Iran and occupy that nation?

OK why is it important whether or not the U.S. can defeat Iran? We can’t. And we shouldn’t try. And the thought of messing with a country that has thousands of years of history, antiquities, etc. and a diverse population makes me want to vomit.

Israel is preparing to attack Iran, not vice versa. Iran has no capacity to attack Israel other than by providing weapons to Hezbollah.

Israel on the other hand, seems to have no compunction about leveling a city to the ground with its airforce. And I find that ghastly.

If we attack Iraq, we are likely to lose our entire fifth fleet: http://www.agoracosmopolitan.c…..01932.html

I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran is still reeling from the Iraq/Iran war and very very weak militarily. Which makes the whole talk of invasion pretty sad.

Make that “Iran” not “Iraq”.

That maybe so. But Iran, some argue is not a nation necessarily run by a bunch of realists. Are you prepared to say “absolutly” that if America attacks Iran, Iran will not do that which they have threatened to do numerous times? That is ‘if America attacks Iran, that Iran and possibly other countries will attack Israel. As I said there are many possibilities and scenerios which could result from an attack on Iran by this country, or for that matter, by Israel.

That is a very interesting article from “The Canadian”

The U.S. neoconservative agenda to Sacrifice the Fifth Fleet – The New Pearl Harbor

by Michael E. Salla, M.A., Ph.D.

Thanks for the link.

I’m not necessarily talking about an “invasion” by Iran. I do think there are perhaps other ways Iran could attack Israel. Who would have ever thought “9-11″ would have happened? And 9-11 I think could be termed an attack.

If we attack Iraq, we are likely to lose our entire fifth fleet:

We probably have the JCOS to thank for our reluctance to attach. Shooter wants it so badly he can taste it.

Iran would not attack Israel directly. Rather they’d give weapons and advice to Syria and/or Hezbollah.

In any event, the US has more fish to fry right now in Pakistan:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Qaeda network accused by Pakistan’s government of killing the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is increasingly made up not of foreign fighters but of homegrown Pakistani militants bent on destabilizing the country, analysts and security officials here say.

In previous years Pakistani militants directed their energies against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan and avoided clashes with the Pakistani Army. But this year they have very clearly expanded their ranks and turned to a direct confrontation with the Pakistani security forces while aiming at political figures like Ms. Bhutto, the former prime minister who died when a suicide bomb exploded as she left a political rally Thursday.

The expansion of Pakistan’s own militants and their increasing links with Al Qaeda is a shift deeply troubling to the United States, which has been trying to help stabilize this volatile nuclear-armed country on the front line of the Bush administration’s fight against global terrorism.

Plus: the UK is robust with Pakistani immigrants and Brits with Pakistani heritage who have been willing recruits of Al-Qaeda or who are freelance jihardists–responsible for the recent terorist incidents in London, and who may well export themsleves to the US.

i wonder what other countries use depleted uranium

jihadists…terrorist…

Hmmmmm…..

“But the effect of what will happen is if you only rely on the formal constitutional process people will simply turn to extralegal means to protect themselves. I wish to offer you an iron law about security. It is this. One way or another, communities will attempt to provide themselves with security. This has been true for thousands of years. And if they can’t use legal processes to provide themselves with security, they will use extralegal processes to provide themselves with security.

This has happened all over the world, on many occasions, in many places. It happens now in a number of different parts of the world where, basically, you have vigilantes, if you want to call them death squads, or whatever you want to call them, that people will create. Therefore, it’s very important, if you believe in the rule of law, which I do and which the Administration does, to devise some legal framework that is workable, given the policy challenges you face as a matter of legal policy. If you don’t find a workable legal framework, people will simply solve their problem through extralegal means.

Working on such an emergency framework leads to dilemmas that are very uncomfortable to those used only to the traditional criminal justice paradigm...”

http://www.state.gov/s/c/rls/rm/65947.htm

That’s could be true. But I think Israel would conclude where such an attack(s) eminated from. And my thought is an indirect attack by Iran, is still an “attack”. And I doubt two things: That the Israeli goverment will care whether it’s indirect. And that the Israelis won’t respond. ;0)

Re: My #84 – this from Christy’s Cheney post yesterday:

“Cheney’s core concerns, “the iron issues,” as his aide Mary Matalin referred to them, were the economy, energy, the White House legislative agenda — and, of course, national security. To address those concerns, Cheney put together a staff that was unparalleled in the history of the vice presidency, in the process expanding its powers accordingly.”

I sent that little bit of case law to various people, including a reporter for the WaPo. His response was that he thinks that Bush might have a way around it if the house that stayed open (or was brought back into session) wasn’t the one from which the bill originated. Since budget bills come from the House, and the Senate stayed open (though the House did not adjourn sine die, IIRC), Bush might have an out here.

According to the Washington Post reporter who responded to my email with the subject “Not in Session???”

I know the Senate is still gaveling in, but my understanding is that for the purposes of a veto, the fact that the House is adjourned makes a
traditional veto improper. There is some dispute about this. The House is the chamber of origin for the defense bill, so under the traditional veto process Bush would send the bill back there — which of course he can’t do at the moment. But the murkiness is one reason why he hedged his bets and is following both procedures .. traditional and pocket.

It sounds like the press is going to treat this as a moot point, since Shrub’s both pocket- and traditional-vetoed the bill.

That’s a decent question. I think.

Sounds like a more sophisticated version of John Yoo.

Hello Phoenix Woman;
Amy Goodman had interesting pakistania guest yesterday. It was very informative and a constructive criticism of USA policy in the ME and South East Asia. Check it out, some history and an evaluation of the coming troop increase in Afghanistan. Essentially, occupying either Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or others puts the population at odds with us and does not solve the political problem. We have used a military solution that is not a solution. Worth a look if you want to understand our foreign policy.
Thank you for the interesting posts. Happy New Year!

Report…Israel could survive nuclear war with Iran. These people are batshit crazy:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articl…..11,00.html

I’ve also bookmarked the Photo Activists for Peace site. Thanks, PW!

na, pretty much only rich muslims, who rail against the “death tax,” are republicans. though in 2000, many democrat muslims also voted bush because they didn’t like joe lieberman.

I’ve actually been here for 20 years and I am still surprised by the lack of interest and knowledge of most folks (not here though :) )