I just hauled the trash down to the curb and realized what I hate about going off daylight saving time...it's not yet 5 pm, but the sun is setting. It makes the nights seem earlier, longer and colder. Ugh. There must be a better way. There must be...
Oh, by the way, there is no "S" on the end of "saving". I know I keep wanting to put one there, but "saving" is correct. Trust me. It really is.
Okay, boys and girls. It's time to make the move. Sorry to do it to you, but it has to be done. Here's the new site. Or dougkrile.com will redirect you automatically. Remember when I told you that was the best address to bookmaark? It still is, just to avoid any confusion over site changes.
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We managed to round up a ton of material over dinner tonight. The fresh posts fill a full two pages and spill onto a third. So make sure you click the "older posts" link at the bottom of each page. And, start bookmarking the new version of this blog If you arrive here via dougkrile.com, you'll be automatically sent to the new blog sometime this weekend. For now, content should be identical, except for the fact that the new blog let's me schedule posts, rather than dump a bunch of them one right after each other here on the current blog.
Not going so well.
S.C. Dems Deny Colbert a Spot on Presidential Primary Ballot
After announcing last night (video here) that would not file to be on the Republican ballot, due to the exorbitant $35,000 filing fee ("I am not willing to write a $35,000 check to the Republican Party. ... I understand you have to keep a club exclusive but I paid less [...]
Tags: Colbert
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If I were unbelievably wealthy, I don't think I could allow myself this degree of luxury. Seems to be such a waste of money that could do so much good. Then, again, who am I to say that whoever wants this hasn't already done more than his or her share of charity. Can I get just a peek inside?
Pimp My Jet: World's Largest Passenger Plane To Be Pinnacle Of Luxury
The new Airbus 380 "Superjumbo" has just completed its maiden commercial flight and there are already plans to transform the world's largest passenger plane into the pinnacle of private luxury -- an executive jet. Two European companies -- Germany's Lufthansa Technik and Switzerland's Jet Aviation -- have announced their intention to convert the enormous airliner into a flying mansion replete with private bedrooms, a movie theater, and a gym fitted with saunas and jacuzzis. [...]
Tags: Airbus 380, Superjumbo
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Fascinating analysis. Much of it sounds right on target to me. It's a solid report, filled with level-headed suggestions about the direction our war philosophy should take.
The Center for American Progress has released a must-read new memo, entitled Strategic Drift in Iraq, about the dangerous shift in the Iraq debate that has occurred over the past several months. In short, it presents the dangers of the Iraq blurring strategy in terms of American and Iraqi security, rather than in electoral terms. Here are some choice passages, rebutting the need for the oft-repeated residual forces mission of "training Iraqi troops": [...]
Tags: Iraq War
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Another day. Another investigation. More troubles for Blackwater...
NBC: Feds Investigate Blackwater Silencer Smuggling
Time to update the ol' Blackwater investigation tally. NBC reports that federal investigators are probing the company's exportation of "dozens" of silencers to Iraq and elsewhere. It's illegal to do so without permission from the State Department. NBC reports that a whole bevy of agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the State Department are in on the investigation, which appears to be related to [...]
Tags: Blackwater
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Rumsfeld. What a guy.
Bombshell article exposes Rumsfeld’s secret distain for Muslims
The Washington Post today exposes Donald Rumsfeld’s prejudice against Muslims and his desire to tie Iraq to Iran in a series of memos the paper obtained just hours ago. From the front page of today’s Post: In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid [...]
Tags: Rumsfeld
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The kids are gonna count this time around. In a very big way. And, they have concerns.
Eighteen- to 30-year-old voters turned out in large numbers for elections in 2004 and 2006 -- and according to a new nationwide poll from Rock the Vote, WWE(R)'s Smackdown Your Vote!(R), and Sacred Heart University, that trend is likely to continue in 2008 as younger voters go to the polls motivated by concerns over the war in Iraq, health care, the economy, and the cost of education [...]
Tags: Rock The Vote, Smackdown Your Vote!
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Powerful stuff today, folks. via Arkansas Times blog:
West Memphis 3 Press Conference
Here's what Echols' lawyers said: No jury in the world would convict Damien Echols today given the DNA and forensic evidence made available this week to federal court. Lawyers for Echols, on death row for the 1993 slayings of three 8-year-old boys, filed a motion Monday showing that DNA evidence collected at the scene of the crime in West Memphis shows no link to Echols or [...]
Tags: West Memphis Three, Damien Echols
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Ah, you just have to love a good journalistic cat fight!
The Hill Irresponsibly Reports False Claim That Clinton ‘Skipped’ Senate Environmental Hearing
Yesterday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on the controversial proposal to establish a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. When this hearing was announced on Oct. 17, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) commended the move, stating, “I applaud Chairman Boxer for scheduling this important hearing, a step that I [...]
Tags: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Yucca Mountain
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You've probably read by now that the State Department can't get enough volunteers to staff our embassy in Baghdad. So, the bosses threatened to "assign" employees to work there. That's didn't go over well. Not at all. So, what do we do? Here's a suggestion...
Juan Cole gets up in Bush's kool-aid: "The US embassy in Iraq should be closed. It is not safe for the personnel there. Some sort of rump mission of hardy volunteers could be maintained. But kidnapping our most capable diplomats [...]
Keep reading...
More on the Need to Close down the US Embassy in Baghdad
...In response to readers who said, essentially, that the State Department personnel signed a contract and should be sent same as the troops, I beg to differ. While all foreign service officers join knowing there will be risks, none is joining the army and typically embassies in war zones are shut down by the secretary of state and the president for precisely this reason. Foreign Service Officers are civilians. They are not [...]
Tags: Baghdad Embassy, Iraq War
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For those of you who are old enough to remember the early days of Saturday Night Live, here's a post to bring back memories. If you're younger, these pictures may help explain why SNL was such a phenomenon. Sadly, I feel it's lost a lot of its luster. Perhaps I'm just falling prey to the "things used to be better" syndrome.
"Saturday Night Live": 15 Best Musical Skits
Tags: Saturday Night Live
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We've touched on this story before, but have ignored it for a couple of days. It deserves an update, if only because it's just so darn strange. And it begs the question: are we really paying him to do this?
Late Nite FDL: Further Tales of the Colonel Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight
Things have gotten even weirder with General David Petraeus’s chief spokesman (and future Right-Wing shill), Col. Steven Boylan. Now he’s taking time from his busy schedule of coordinating communications between Sunni tribal leaders and US forces in Iraq and dodging road-side bombs to harass Glenn Greenwald’s readers individually: Col. Boylan now refuses to respond [...]
Tags: Steven Boylan, David Patraeus, Iraq War
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Lots happening on the economic front today. Not much of it good. Below, you'll find links to the big stories:
Chrysler to cut up to 12,000 jobs
Chrysler LLC said Thursday it plans to cut up to 12,000 jobs, or up to 15 percent of its work force, as part of an effort to slash costs and match slowing demand for some vehicle [...]
Foreclosure Filings Soar in 3rd Quarter
A soaring number of U.S. homeowners struggled to make mortgage payments in the third [...]
Consumer Spending Slows in September
Consumers, battered by a steep downturn in housing and a severe credit crunch, slowed spending growth in September to the weakest performan [...]
And, by the way, the Dow was down 360 points at the close. Energy. Housing. You name it.
Tags: Jobs, Foreclosure, Consumer Spending
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Why do they even try this type of charade? Why continue to deny the obvious?
White House Counselor Ed Gillespie is dirty rotten liar.
White House legal counsel Ed Gillespie is now claiming: "…first of all, this technique [waterboarding], we don’t know that it’s used by the government or is used by the government. That’s never been confirmed by the U.S. government. Is that true? Of course not. In addition to the numerous CIA sources that have leaked information about waterboarding [...]
Tags: Waterboarding, Ed Gillespie
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The impact of global warming (ie: climate change) is spreading far beyond the obvious changes to our environment. It is soon to impact many more aspects of our daily lives.
You've done a good job. You have much of the media buying into your message that climate change based on human driven global warming is a "controversy" which deserves an equal hearing of both sides, despite the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists (i.e., those who actually study and monitor climate change) and despite all the evidence that indicates the climate scientists are right (melting ice caps, disappearing glaciers, widespread drought, increased desertification, soaring temperatures, more intense weather events, more frequent and more intense wild fires, etc.). You have also convinced [...]
Tags: global warming, climate change
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Well, the story seems to be leaking out. It's been rumored for some time and now the big conservative blogs are beginning to "leak" bits of the supposed scandal involving Hillary Clinton. Because you're likely going to run into it somewhere, before long, here's what's being said. If you care.
For several days, we’ve been hearing hints about a dark scandal involving an unidentified presidential candidate. Tonight it may be breaking open: A Dark Unseen Scandal Star? [...]
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Scandal
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And, it's the correct thing to do. These people are out of control...
Jury awards father $2.9M in funeral case
A grieving father won a $2.9 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality. Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued [...]
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And we're almost there. I had the chance to stick around the house longer than normal this morning, keeping an appointment with the pest control guy. So, I kept the TV on and I'm really liking MSNBC's new look. The lighting seems much better, the cameras much crisper and the graphic look is great. I'd noticed that Countdown had a pretty slick new look this week, but the daytime programs REALLY show off the new space.
So, what's there to talk about tonight? More than we can possibly work through without wearing out my tired fingers. We'll begin with Iraq. Are things really looking up, over there?
In general I think discussions of turning points in Iraq -- even in retrospect, much less forward-looking -- are over-hyped; Iraq has been, if nothing else, a slow-moving process, much of it predictable based on the failures of governance by US and Iraqi leadership. Spencer Ackerman takes a look at the current landscape, though, and wonders whether the coming weeks might give a clearer picture of where Iraq is heading for the next few years: [...]
The "next few years"??!?!? I can't bring myself to think about it in terms of "years".
Iraqi Civilian Death Toll Drops
...The Los Angeles Times posits some darker reasons, too. Sectarian segregation is growing, with once-mixed neighborhoods now fully Sunni or Shiite, so opportunities for violence are decreasing. Baghdad is also emptying out, with scared civilians fleeing the [...]
Screech....brakes squeeling. Not so fast on that optimism express..
Rise In Iraqi Deaths Undercuts Administration’s Claims Of ‘Momentum’ In The War
Throughout this month, the administration has been touting a “trend” of decreasing violence in Iraq. The “violence is thankfully coming down,” said White House spokesperson Dana Perino on Oct. 18. This morning, Gen. Raymond Odierno held a news briefing on the war in Iraq, declaring, “I believe we have achieved some momentum.” To bolster this [...]
Tags: Iraq War
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Have to bring you up to date before the entire evening gets away from us. His nomination may honestly be in trouble.
Pamela’s already noted that John Kerry is opposing him. Now it’s time for the principled stance everyone has been babbling about for other Democrats to take in the year since they regained power and torpedo the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey for AG. Now. “In a letter to the 10 Democrats on the committee, Mr. Mukasey [...]
Tags: Mukasey
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They're really blaming Tim Russert for WAY more than he's guilty of. I know he's big. I know he's powerful. But....
Tiny Tim: Meet the Press and the undermining of American democracy
There’s a fantastic piece by Paul Waldman at The American Prospect on Tim Russert — who he is, what he stands for, and how the insider media culture he embodies is harming not just political discourse in America but America’s very political process. Make sure to read the entire piece, but here are a few [...]
Tags: Tim Russert
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