Did you hear the one about the perfect woman, the perfect man, Santa Claus and the car accident? Click here.

"I Wanna ROCK!"

Are you sick of snoozy Christmas songs?

Want to put some pure joy in Joy to the World?
Check out this offering by Dee Snider and Twisted Sister:

Sing, choirs of angels, Sing in exultation;Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above!Glory to God, In the highest;

Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, Born this happy morning;Jesus, to Thee be glory given;Word of the Father, Now in flesh appearing...

Joyful and triumphant, indeed.

Surely, you remember this one from 20 years ago?
"What do you want to do with your life?!?"

We've got the right to choose it
There ain't no way we'll lose it.
This is our life; This is our song.
We'll fight the powers that be,
just
Don't pick our destiny 'cause
You don't know us; You don't belong.

Oh, you're so condescending,
Your gall is never-ending.
We don't want nothing, Not a thing from you.
Your life is trite and jaded,
Boring and confiscated.
If that's your best,
Your best won't do.

God bless the soldiers.

When the cheerleaders have long since packed and gone home -- celebrating the holiday joy with their treasured things, the soldiers will still remember the ugly actions of war. Let's hope the cheerleaders are committed to funding adequate VA care for years and years to come.

From the fishbowl...

Is it still Tuesday? It's overcast -- again -- here, and dark so early these evenings. Windows are great most days, but remember November.

Anyway, here's one from the fishbowl. Would this woo you? No? Me neither. lol.

When the day finally comes, you may still like neither party, but you will dislike one a heck of a lot less.

Harriet Miers, Donald Rumsfeld, now Iraq. Express confidence, abandon.

RIGA, Latvia - President Bush, under pressure to change direction in Iraq said Tuesday he will not be persuaded by any calls to withdraw American troops before the country is stabilized.

"There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said in a speech setting the stage for high-stakes meetings with the Iraqi prime minister later this week. "We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren."

No so peppy today, but here're 2 from the vault...
Priceless. Willie n' Paul team up for:

Homeward Bound
and
Graceland

(Don't listen unless well caffeinated; you'll want to go home and catch a nap.)

All Buddy Rich -- Mmph!

Two

more

to get the blood

pumping this Monday a.m.

There's been a load of compromisin'
on the road to my horizon...

Everybody!

And... it's not the first time this has happened. "Turkey begone!"

...
"It's terrible. My house is a disaster!" Sandy Cobbs said Friday, amid window glass littered on a bloody carpet in her dining room. "Everybody thinks it's funny, but it's not. I just couldn't believe it was Thanksgiving and there was a live turkey in my house."

Guess who dropped in for Thanksgiving at the Cobbs' house in Bloomington?
A wild turkey, busting through the dining-room picture window.
...
On Thursday, Sandy was in her kitchen preparing sweet potatoes and vegetables to bring to her sister's when she heard a thunderous crash.

"At first I thought my buffet fell over. It was so loud and kept crashing," she said. "I went in there and said, 'Not again. Not again.' He was huge -- two or three feet tall." It looked like the big bird had landed on her now scratched-up glass dining-room table and flopped to the floor.

Her husband was out walking their two little dogs, and Sandy went looking for him.

"I ran out the door. I grabbed the car and started driving to find my husband. I found him and jumped out and said, 'I'll take the dogs. You go home. There's a turkey in the house.' "
...
The Cobbs live near the Hyland Hills ski area and see wild turkeys strut by nearly every day. Sandy speculated that the turkeys were attracted by the reflection of trees in the window.

The last time around, the officers had to kill the turkey, Roepke said.

That turkey mishap cost the Cobbs' insurance company nearly $10,000 to make repairs and replace carpeting, windows and curtains, Sandy Cobbs said.

"My insurance company doesn't think it's funny," she said. "I don't know if I can turn in another claim."

The turkey-tale moral? She said she had none, "except that on the holidays, I am leaving town."

Encore...

"I ain't got no cigarettes."

Here's my favorite Randy Travis video.

But in case your own Thanksgiving with extended family doesn't look like that, here's something a bit more timely:

("No fighting tonight, no fighting...")
Wyclef Jean with Shakira -- "Hips Don't Lie"
----------

OK, one more -- Randy and BB King, Waitin' on that Light to Change.

(There will be Peace in the Valley for me.)

Drive safe, if you're driving.

(And don't ask about the bus driver.)

Meanwhile, back in Gaza...

...After dawn Tuesday, Israeli troops spread out into a second area of Gaza City, taking up positions east of the Jabaliya neighborhood, an area militants often use to fire rockets.

Israeli bulldozers plowed through farms, ripping up irrigation systems and destroying greenhouses and fields, Palestinian security officials said. A transformer that provides about 60 percent of the power to the Zeitoun neighborhood was destroyed.

The army confirmed that there was an ongoing operation in the city, but declined to provide further details...
--------

Nobody likes collective punishment. Sometimes you have to experience it in your own generation, I suspect, to understand that. What goes around, comes around.

"The violence in Gaza has been accompanied in recent months by increasing poverty brought on by international sanctions slapped on the Hamas-led government that took power in March."

Personally, I don't think starving them into submission is going to work. Call it a hunch...

"Dudes, where are you?"

At first take,
it appears to be UCLA police continually tasering a student on the ground. The student was disobeying orders to "get up", when he was shocked on the ground.

I cannot believe the number of fellow students in the library -- even if they have been trained as a generation to be submissive to authority -- that stood for so long and watched, and did nothing to surround the man on the ground to shield him, or lift him up to physically remove him from the situation.

Nevermind that the UCLA police -- 2 or 3 of them -- thought using their Tasers to subdue a man on the ground was necessary. "Get up, get up". Doesn't UCLA have any type of physical requirements for security; don't they carry handcuffs?

This is a shame for any university. I'm sure it will get spun so the authority comes out clean, but this did not appear to be a drug-addled man out-of-control. The only orders were to "get up! get up!"

Maybe the magnificent echoes, as they continued to taze the student through UCLA's grand library hallway, will wake up some young Americans. "Get up! Get up!"

Your country once stood for something more than making a buck.
Stand up. You have the numbers to make things work differently.
--------------------
Added: I wish the student on the ground would have, at one point, yelled, "Help Me." I am curious to see if his fellow students then would have become more actively involved.

Final.

And in the end, it's Miami over Minnesota, 24-20.
Vikings turning it over in the 4th; Miami D. turning it on...
But did the Dolphins really end up with negative rushing numbers, or is my computer that slow to refresh?* Winnin' Ugly -- to recycle a phrase.

We'll see 'em again on Thursday;
Miami's turn at Detroit this Thanksgiving.
------
*Elias Sports Bureau changed the Dolphins' rushing totals against Minnesota from 14 rushes for minus-3 yards to 13 carries for 4 yards because a 7-yard sack of Harrington was scored incorrectly.

And Julieta Granada wins the ADT...

Related story criticism here; See nothing personal -- I'm a critical reader, and use the facts given me. Sometimes I disagree with what folks out there write. The next day, I might agree with what they're offering up. If you can't take criticism, you should get out of the writing business, eh?

I think in the print business, you understand it's a daily thing. And folks can use your work to line bird cages. Bloggers -- whose "work" sticks around -- are more likely to take themselves too seriously. Their errors and contradictions remain on display, and after a while of reading, most people are less likely to swallow what you're selling when you flip-flop all over the place like a fish out of water.

Sure it helps to have a pretty face, but most sportwriters don't. You learn to stand on what you've written, and probably can take honest disagreement. Deleting critics really isn't an option for the pros. Then again, some folks are still playing AA or AAA ball.

Cheap fun online.

Here's a wonderful comments thread. Miss Ann corrects herself.
Reverses her opinions the next day... And deletes my offerings ...
:(

Flip-flop... flipper-flopper extraordinaire.
See folks, if you don't call even the elite professors on it, they actually can sell that shit! Have you believing up is down, yes is no, black is white.

Now here's what I call the arbitrary deletion policy:
She leaves up the blatantly foul and vulgar language, yet deletes thought-out points of view that disagree with her. For posting too often? Funny, I like to watch the games, and chat away -- responding to people worth responding to, ignoring the others. Yesterday, basically I "won":
Miss Ann corrects herself.
Reverses her opinions the next day...

Today, she suggests that I'm illiterate, can't read.
What a condescending elitist. (DELETE)

To be honest,
I am truly honored that my worthy writings are such a threat to a pretty (and distinguished -- let's not forget scholastically distingushed, folks) self-identified writer* (heh! -- get your OJ, Courtney Love, Borat news alongside penetrating MidEast coverage, and commentary on the gay rights progress) .

Funny thing is, she's got such a lousy track record.
On the war. On the elections. On social movements like the gay rights campaign.

Oh, I know, I know.
She's got a gay son (out himself).
Maybe she's queer herself.
Some have pinned her with the 'faghag' label, but then again, nobody likes labels much.

You're fun to disagree with Miss Ann.
You're full of shit half the time, but in the classroom, it doesn't matter. And people aren't reading your blog for its expertise or insight. Hell, even the NYT isn't quoting your expert commenters as being "middle America folk" anymore. Too easy to manipulate blog comments, you know.

So thanks again for yesterday's thread.
Can't wait to buy your book; smile pretty for the dust jacket, eh?
----------

Now that I'm back on my own blog:
If you read yesterday's thread, any bets on whether or not one of her own boys was initially not accepted for admission at the UW-Madison? I'm thinking Mama Duck is taking this issue just a little personally, so I wonder if that could be what's behind it...

One more to call it a day.

Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday editorial:
...

That direction is becoming clear, we think, even though the study group's report is weeks off. British Prime Minister Tony Blair telegraphed that direction earlier this week in which, independent of the United States, he invited Iran and Syria to be part of the situation. We think Blair is right. Getting traction in Iraq requires the United States to swallow hard and recognize that it has common interests with Iran, Syria and other nations in the region. The solution must be a regional one. Yes, the United States remains unalterably opposed to Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, and it has the power to enforce that position. But that's a separate issue. It is both possible and necessary to deal with Iran on Iraq without caving on its nuclear programs. The same goes for Syria and its support for the anti-Israel group Hezbollah.

This is what realists bring to the table: an ability to recognize and accept where dealing with unsavory countries is necessary to advance U.S. interests. And, at this time, it is the paramount interest of the United States to fashion a plan for building the semblance of a stable Iraq that brings withdrawal of American forces sooner rather than later.

Many have wondered where the ascendant congressional Democrats will go on Iraq. It's a good bet they will stand with Baker and Hamilton. So should Bush. Cheney and his muddle-headed neocon acolytes have lied their way to disgrace on Iraq. If Bush now realigns with them, a battle royal will be joined that Bush must lose.

Kissinger on Iraq:

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who advised Bush on the Iraq war, said military victory is no longer possible and joined calls for the U.S. government to seek help from Iraq's regional neighbors-- including Iran.

''If you mean, by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible,'' he said on the BBC's Sunday AM program.

...
In Sunday's worst attack outside Hillah, a roadside bomb and two car bombs exploded one after another near a bus station in Mashtal, a mostly Shiite area of southeastern Baghdad, killing 11 civilians and wounding 51, police said.

''Innocent people were killed. Where is the government?'' one Iraqi woman shouted in response to the bombing. ''Women and children were killed. God is great, God is great.''

In the old days...

They say real leaders would never ask their men to do a job they'd be unwilling to undertake themselves:

Captain Bagley, a West Point graduate and the daughter and granddaughter of military policemen, said she has come to realize just how little she and her unit knew when they arrived, and just how much was stacked against their success. The company’s challenges crystallized in a moment late last month during a routine assignment.

Some of her soldiers had gone to the Baya Local Police Station, one of 18 local stations in the troubled southern outskirts of Baghdad where her unit has worked this year. They were picking up a contingent of Iraqi policemen for a daily patrol of Dora, an especially violent neighborhood here in the capital.

On these patrols, the Americans, swaddled in Kevlar from head to hips, travel in Humvees and other armored vehicles. The Iraqis, wearing only bulletproof vests, ride in soft-skinned pickup trucks and S.U.V.’s, the only vehicles they have.

The Iraqi policemen begged the Americans not to make them go out. They peeled off their clothes to reveal shrapnel scars from past attacks. They tugged the armored plates from their Kevlar vests and told the Americans they were faulty. They said they had no fuel for their vehicles. They disappeared on indefinite errands elsewhere in the compound. They said they would not patrol if it meant passing a trash pile, a common hiding place for bombs.

The Iraqis eventually gave up and climbed into two S.U.V.’s with shattered windshields and missing side windows, and the joint patrol moved out. One Iraqi officer draped his Kevlar vest from the window of his car door for lateral protection. During a lunch break, the officers tried to sneak away in their cars.

Later in the day, back at her command center on a military base in southern Baghdad, Captain Bagley said the pleading and excuses were common. But she did not blame the Iraqis. They are soft targets for the insurgency, and scores of officers have been wounded or killed in her area during the past year. The police stations’ motor pools are so crowded with ravaged vehicles that they could be taken for salvage yards.

“I’d never want to go out in an Iraqi police truck,” the captain said. “But we still have to convince them. We’ve been given a job to train them.” But she also points out that her orders were to help train and equip a local force to deal with common crime, like theft and murder, not teach infantry skills to wage a counterinsurgency campaign.

Oh right, she there leading OPP -- other people's police. Not her own soldiers.

If we're not there in significant numbers to fight, if our training efforts are proving ineffective... tell me again why we are there? To practice sitting and hiding from action?

“I just want to get everyone home,” she said. In the past several weeks, Captain Bagley, 30, barred her troops from foot patrols in the most violent neighborhoods and eliminated all nonessential travel. “I’m just not willing to lose another soldier,” she said.

Cheerleaders, tell me again how much we're helping the Iraqi people; I don't have stocks with the war profiteers myself. And reports of all these deaths... what for again?

The captain said, “We’re holding their hands so much now.” If the Americans were not involved, she said, some senior commanders would not have the fortitude to confront the militias. “A lot of times I’m just the motivator,” she said. “I’m motivated because I’m going home soon. But what motivates them?”

Days earlier, she recalled, a death squad had killed the family of another of her station commanders. “Yet,” she continued, a tinge of exasperation in her voice, “you’re given the mission to motivate these guys to protect Iraqi citizens.”

--------

Well, if we're not there to fight, but to "motivate" and do some hand-holding, why not send over some of our loudest war cheerleaders then? The Instapundit is always optimistically big-talking, surely he would qualify for this mission; they say Karl Rove knows a little something about motivating a base .

C'mon guys, let's get 'er done.
You do want to win this thing, doncha?

It's a bloody numbers game.

...

Earlier Sunday, Israel called off airstrikes on the homes of two militants after hundreds of Palestinians crowded around the buildings forming human shields, a new tactic that forced the Israelis to re-evaluate their aerial campaign in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians began to gather around the homes shortly after the Israeli army ordered occupants out of them. Israel routinely issues such warnings before attacking buildings that it says are used to store weapons, saying it wants to avoid casualties.

Instead of leaving the buildings, the homeowners remained inside and were quickly joined by crowds of supporters who gathered on balconies, rooftops and in the streets outside.

"Death to Israel. Death to America," the crowds chanted. Local mosques and Palestinian TV and radio stations also mobilized supporters. It was the first time Palestinians have formed human shields to prevent an airstrike.

Eyman interviews Gore Vidal:

Q. Do you feel any sense of grim satisfaction at the "perpetual war for perpetual peace" that we seem to be locked into in the Mideast, a situation you've been foretelling for decades?

A. I told them so. They wouldn't listen. And now we're trapped. Our present party system is of no importance. It pays for the parties and pays for candidates. It will take two generations to restore the damage that the Bush people have done to the republic and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is serious damage. I think everybody's alarmed, but I have to be optimistic.

The other day, I was fascinated by (CNN commentator) Lou Dobbs — a voice of reason. He showed a printing machine turning out thousand-dollar bills, and brought up statistics on how much money has been lost by the defense department — billions of dollars! Gone. They can't account for it, just as they can't account for what they've done to the Bill of Rights.

We get less and less back from the federal government than any other first-world government. Citizens of other countries get health care and they get saved from the worst of terrorists. We get hit, and our money goes to make corporations happy. And this is something entirely new for us.

Q. To take a valedictory tack, what are you proudest of in your literary career?

A. I am without pride. I am not an exhibitionist. I don't do things to be noticed. If there's a hole in the road, I simply draw people's attention to it. In the old days, people would say, "There's a hole," but not anymore.

And you pray they turn out right...

Thank God for kids.



(What, we don't like the Oak Ridge Boys?)
----------

Related:
Never explain. Your friends don't need it; your enemies won't believe you anyway.

Friends provide support for Foley
By Brian E. Crowley
Palm Beach Post Political Editor

Saturday, November 18, 2006

WEST PALM BEACH — Mark Foley, standing at the head of his father's open casket, hugged old friends, wept openly and kept glancing toward his dad, Ed Foley, as hundreds passed through Quattlebaum Funeral Home on Friday to pay their respects.

As he always did in life, Ed Foley was once again helping his son. This painful moment for the family also was a homecoming for Mark Foley, whose once-promising political career was shattered in September when scandal forced him to resign from Congress.

As his father, who died Tuesday at age 85, lay wearing a blue cap embroidered with the symbol of his beloved U.S. Marine Corps, Foley waited for the judgment of his community. He had not made a public appearance since entering treatment for alcoholism in Arizona on Oct. 1.

When the first mourners arrived, Foley broke down as friends reached for his hand, hugged him and whispered not only their condolences for the loss of his father but their support for Mark.

Blame it on the flamingos?

After 30 years of assaults on the cultural barricades, kitsch had become high art, and bad taste had become thoroughly acceptable.

An object that marks the crossing of borders works effectively only when the object transgresses boundaries a majority of people believe should exist. And in 2006, art is pretty much whatever you call art. The boundary of bad taste can be hard to find: decades ago, Variety called “Pink Flamingos” “one of the most vile, stupid and repulsive films ever made,” but film critics now hail the Farrelly brothers as auteurs and find “Jackass” merely annoying. And anyway, who actually knows what’s fake anymore?

Don't drop that notion.

Remember the old days of sport, when grizzled sportswriters added some level of expertise -- some knowing insight, just a feeling, something they saw that day in the paddock -- to their writing? They used the gut, had a feeling, risked an opinion, and saw it through.

Nowadays, I'm afraid easy statistics have made a monster of them all. Trivia freaks. Can spit you numbers from here to kingdom come, sorted in all kinds of categories. Pack a few together that support your angle, you've got copy.

Sportswriters are too much Mr. Predictor's for me these days. Bookie type advice -- like we're all betting on the outcomes. Gone too often is the knowledge passing. The intimate coverage of players or plays.

I watched John Madden Sunday night; he still has it. Taught me more over the years about the game of football than my own Dad could. Made it fun too. Madden offers the insider gut feeling, explaining what he saw and why, whether his immediate hunch was on or not. He's usually on though. It's more than just lumping some numbers together, and creating a pattern. Lock up the statistics cabinets, I'd say, sportswriters.

Things like this just seem wrong to me. Judging a player's future game on how much money she made in the past? That's just ... illogical. The numbers are with you probability-wise (how many times has Annika missed the cut?), but it's not correlated. We judge today's performance on its own merit.

If you're lucky, you work in a place where the highest paid are consistently the top performers. If not, you hope for some of those throwback teammates -- just picking up on a little something they noticed in the paddock.
------------

WEST PALM BEACH — Can't tell you who will win the LPGA's first million-dollar jackpot Sunday afternoon, but figuring out who won't is a cinch.

Ai Miyazato, Thursday's first-round leader at the ADT Championship with a sweet 68, she's toast. Same goes for Il Mi Chung and Julieta Granada, two more hard-chargers from the tour's international ranks, even though they barely missed grabbing the early lead themselves.
...
That's why Thursday's scores don't really mean that much.

Annika's 74 was an annoyance, nothing more. Don't worry about her making the cut to 16 players after today's second round. Sorenstam has won more than $20 million in her unmatched career. She doesn't make a habit of leaving money lying around for someone else to pick up.
...
Look out, though, for quotes like this one from Chung, who has five top-10 finishes on the LPGA tour and 34 missed cuts.

"I'm just happy to be here in this tournament," Chung said. "I always felt that every time I played in LPGA events, nobody knows who's going to win because there is such good talent."

Can't know who's going to win, but at this ADT, above all others, the ones who won't claim a career-making prize already are identified.

The ones who are just happy to be here.

Current Leaderboard

Miyazato on top, with Granada right behind.
Chung and Pressel hanging in there.
Annika went home early this time.
Still, he's right -- two more days of play.
Anybody up on how Webb's been looking lately?

RIP

The winningest coach in University of Michigan history, a giant of an icon here in the Midwest, a legend of the sport, is gone on the eve of the biggest game in a rivalry he helped turn into arguably the best in all of sports.

"I just don't see one any bigger than this,” he said.

Monday he was everything Bo Schembechler ever was, charismatic yet uncompromising, charming yet combative. Bo was never one to tell stories about himself, that’s the kind of self promoting he would never stand for. But here on game week he was willing to talk about Woody Hayes, he was willing to stick up for his protégé, Lloyd Carr, he was willing to choose sides and say the things that others couldn’t or wouldn’t and fight for what he always believes is right.

He would laugh one minute and growl the next. He would bash Ohio State for silly gamesmanship one sentence and praise its class the next.

...

He was, as always, a throw back to a time when football was about building character, about accepting challenges instead of money, fame or glory. A window into a day and age that is about gone for good now, and not for the better. It sounds trite until you listened to Schembechler, until you looked into his eyes and saw the truth.

Bo never believed in national championships, never believed there should be or could be anything greater for a Michigan team than beating Ohio State, winning the Big Ten and playing in the Rose Bowl. He never cared to hold the school up for money, to move games to night for television, to play on a weekday, to make kids miss class.

For as unbending as his demands were, for as tough as he could be, for as all-encompassing as his focus was on winning football games for the Maize and Blue, he also always fell back on a realization that this was nothing more than extracurricular pursuit, that academics were the priority, that this wasn’t the pros.
-------

Today just happens to be the Wisconsin high school state championships at Camp Randall. At that level, you can see the game's benefits to the kids up close.

SICA secession settled.

"These kids are now taught to stick with your own kind, which is more profoundly damaging,” Piers said...
--------

Remember this one?

"It was equal. It was mixed. We had no other problems," Kapovich said. "Kids just want to play other teams and have fun."

"Different school have different ways of playing. That makes you that much better. That ups your game," Jeanita Eaves said.

"It didn't matter who was next to me, their name, what their religion was," Jones said. "Unity was felt through the whole team."

"You can trust them no matter what," Maxie said.

--------
Lawsuit Over Ill. League Breakup Settled

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 17, 2006
Filed at 8:39 a.m. ET

CHICAGO (AP) -- A civil rights lawsuit alleging that racism led more than two dozen high schools to pull out of a suburban Chicago athletic league and create predominantly white leagues has been settled, an attorney said.

The 33-team South Inter-Conference Association was one of Illinois' largest high school leagues when some of its members to decided in 2004 to realign.

Officials in those districts denied race played a role in the decision. The federal lawsuit, however, claimed the breakup created ''separate and segregated conferences'' and amounted to ''white flight.''

The settlement announced this week averts a trial that would have pitted predominantly black schools against predominantly white ones. Under its terms, five of the predominantly black schools will join two conferences that formed after SICA broke up, said attorney Burt Odelson, who represents several of the defendants.

''It's been just a long hard process, but all the superintendents and school boards from day one wanted it settled out of court,'' Odelson said Wednesday. ''The bottom line at all times was what would be the best for the kids in the district.''

The settlement must be approved by each school board, Odelson said. After that, both sides will ask a federal judge to dismiss the case.

Hostage

...
A 1985 graduate of Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, Paul Reuben served at least four years in the Marine Corps. He returned to Minnesota and took law enforcement classes at Normandale Community College and Minneapolis Technical Institute, his brother said. A couple of years ago, a friend who already worked for the security company told Paul Reuben that he could work in Iraq for a short time and make a "ton of money," said Patrick Reuben, who is a Minneapolis police officer.

Paul Reuben intended to earn enough money to buy a house and a Hummer, and then come home, his brother said. But just a few days ago, he told his sister-in-law that he would be cutting short his work in Iraq. "He told me he would be home in a few days," said Jennifer Reuben, Patrick's wife.

On Saturday, Paul spoke by phone with Jennifer Reuben, who said he told her how "scary and dangerous" it was in Iraq. "He was worried about his safety, and he kept saying he loved us all," she said Thursday night.

"This is it," Jennifer quoted Paul as saying. "I'm coming home, and I'm never going back. They hate us here. They look you in the eye and say, 'Go home, Americans.' "
...

Voice of the People

...
On Thursday,
the father of a captured Israeli soldier visited Palestinians injured in the Israeli artillery barrage on Gaza and receiving treatment in Israel. He called both peoples "victims of the same madness" and urging an end to the bloodshed.

"I call on the government of Israel and the Palestinian leadership to stop this unending violence," said Noam Shalit, whose son, Gilad, was captured by Hamas-linked militants in late June.
...
Those calling for a broad, crushing offensive "need to remember that the terrorism will never end altogether," the Haaretz newspaper Web site quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling reporters on his return flight from a five-day trip to the United States.
...

"As I said to my colleagues: as we say in church, let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with us. Let the healing begin."

I've heard that first line.
The second? I swear she swiped it from a Vaseline Intensive Care hand lotion commercial. ("Working hands, working hands, toughen up your skin... Vaseline Intensive Care, let the healing begin." Images of people clapping hands)

Go South Africa:

The bill provides for the "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnized and registered by either a marriage or civil union." It does not specify whether they are heterosexual or homosexual partnerships.

But it also says marriage officers need not perform a ceremony between same-sex couples if doing so would conflict with his or her "conscience, religion and belief."

"When we attained our democracy, we sought to distinguish ourselves from an unjust painful past, by declaring that never again shall it be that any South African will be discriminated against on the basis of color, creed culture and sex," Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told the National Assembly.

Packers 23, Vikings 17
Prime Favre/ better game than the score indicates.
=347 yards./ The hits!

Chiefs 10, Dolphins 13
Defense.

Chicago 38, New York 20
Grossman.

Happy Monday;
how was your weekend?

I hope they take him up on the offer...

“When they put the siege on one hand, and having me the prime minister on the other, I said ‘no: Let us end the siege and let us end the suffering of the Palestinian people,’ ” Mr. Haniyah, 43, a former teacher and union official, told worshippers at Friday prayers here.

3Ps -- Promising, Parity, Property...

By IAN FISHER
...
“I am very uncomfortable with this event,” Mr. Olmert said at a business conference in Tel Aviv. “I’m very distressed.”

Saying that he had personally investigated the artillery strike, which spurred Hamas to warn that it might resume suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, Mr. Olmert called the shelling Wednesday a “mistake” caused by technical failure. And he urged Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to meet with him immediately.

“He will be surprised when he will sit with me of how far we are prepared to go,” he said. “I can offer him a lot.”

He did not explain what he meant. But his words seemed to reflect deep embarrassment at the deaths, mostly of women and children. The strike was condemned around the world, but also by many Israelis who are concerned about the number of civilians killed in Israeli operations to curb rocket fire by Palestinian militants into Israel.
...

Ken Mehlman will step down as Republican National Committee Chairman, GOP officials said Thursday.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because Mehlman had not yet made his intentions public.
...
During his tenure, Mehlman, 40, traveled extensively to promote the Republican agenda. When he became chairman in January 2005, he said he hoped to tighten the GOP's grip on power in Washington.

"Nothing is permanent in politics," he said then. "The goal is how do you — both in the short term and the long term — do things to make it sustainable?"

RIP Ed Bradley.

Here's a nice tribute.
---------------

And another:

At one point, Mr. Fager said, Mr. Bradley tried to convince Mr. Hewitt that he wished to change his name to Shahib Shahab, and thus the opening of the “60 Minutes” broadcast to: “I’m Mike Wallace. I’m Morley Safer. I’m Shahib Shahab.”

“He let the gag run for quite some time,” Mr. Fager said. “Don was quite concerned.”

By IAN FISHER and STEVEN ERLANGER
...

But this latest shelling, on top of the Beit Hanun operation, which Mr. Abbas and Mr. Haniya had already called a “massacre,” caused Mr. Haniya to request a pause in the talks for three days of mourning.

In June, a similar cycle followed another apparently errant Israeli shell that killed Palestinian civilians, including seven members of a single family, the Ghaliyas, who were enjoying a day at the beach. The Israelis said they were shelling areas where rocket teams had fired into Israel, and denied that the shell that killed the Ghaliyas was theirs.

But no Palestinian believed the Israeli denial, there was never any conclusive alternative explanation and the military wing of Hamas announced that it was ending the cease-fire against Israel. The Hamas government belatedly went along, and Hamas started firing rockets again toward Israel, instead of simply supplying them to others.

More important, the Hamas military wing took part in the capture of the Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, later in June, setting off the political crisis that surrounded — and has outlasted — Israel’s summertime war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Only days before the Shalit capture, Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert met together informally in Petra, Jordan, and promised to have a formal meeting within two weeks, actually setting a date for June 28, to begin their relationship afresh. Mr. Olmert promised Mr. Abbas to release 600 prisoners then. But with the capture of Corporal Shalit, the Hamas government found itself unable to repudiate the actions of its own military wing, apparently directed from Syria by Mr. Meshal.

Hamas later said it would reinstate the truce with Israel, but it might now break it again, and more decisively, because its experiment in government appeared to be foundering.

“I don’t believe in the rockets, but their reactions cannot be justified,” Mr. Abbas said of the Israelis. “We totally condemn the international silence and any acts that can be used as justification for the Israeli massacres.”

Leaders at the United Nations and the European Union, and in Russia, Britain and Italy, did condemn the incident. “It is hard to see what this action was meant to achieve and how it can be justified,” said the British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett.

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, called for restraint by all parties, adding: “We deeply regret the injuries and loss of life in Gaza today. We have seen the Israeli government’s apology and hope their investigation will be completed quickly.”

A similar statement was issued in President Bush’s name.

I link here because I read all the news. In my very humble opinion, mistakes like these need to be addressed -- don't tell me the U.S. has no business offering opinions on foreign strategies now. Sometimes if you take care of problems when they are small, they don't grow. Sometimes when you recognize tactics don't work, you change course. Many problems are linked. Meanwhile, back in Gaza.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi
1 hour, 43 minutes ago

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza (Reuters) - Israeli artillery shells killed 18 civilians in a town in northern Gaza on Wednesday, the deadliest strike in the territory in four years, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.

"We saw legs, we saw heads, we saw hands scattered in the street," said Attaf Hamad, 22, in Beit Hanoun, a town in the northern Gaza Strip that has been a launching ground for Palestinian militants' rocket attacks on Israel.

Some of the dead were killed in bed as shells struck seven houses, and others rushed outside, finding no safety.

Thirteen members of one extended family were killed and the dead included seven children and four women, residents and the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the killings as a "horrible and ugly massacre." A senior Hamas official urged Palestinians to attack inside Israel in response, and the Islamic Jihad group vowed to carry out suicide bombings.

Hamas's armed wing, decrying Washington's "political and financial support" for Israel, appeared to call on Palestinians to attack U.S. targets, urging them in a statement "to teach the American enemy harsh lessons."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said he and Defense Minister Amir Peretz "voiced regret over the deaths of Palestinian civilians ... and offered emergency humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority and medical care for the wounded."

Peretz ordered an investigation and a halt to shelling in Gaza until its completion, the prime minister's office said.

A military spokeswoman said Israeli forces had fired shells at north Gaza in response to rockets being launched at Israel. Israeli media said an artillery battery had missed its target, a rocket-firing site about a kilometer (half a mile) from the town. The spokeswoman could not confirm this.

"Work is expected to continue today"

It's a day-old story, but I like the line. And the perspective, sadly.
A real story all around, no analysis needed.

----------

In other news, efforts to convince a majority of voters not to discriminate based on sex/gender failed yesterday in Wisconsin. Supporters were successful in convincing enough voters to add this language to the state constitution:

“Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”

Expect legal challenges on that second line; by design, court involvement required to interpret the ambiguous language. Ca-ching, ca-ching. How much will this end up costing citizens, and would they have passed it knowing the estimated pricetag? Economics can often overcome emotions, for people of all persuasions.

Fear not.

Tom Blackburn explains why last-minute scare mongers chanting "Pelosi. Pelosi. Pelosi" need not make you so afraid as to go running back into the secure arms of ... Dennis Hastert.

There is another reason why "Pelosi, Pelosi, Pelosi!" is a red herring. It has to do with how legislative bodies, like Congress, work. Voters may pay attention to elections, but it's awfully hard to hold their interest long enough for them to understand processes.

Think about this: The Democrats are the minority party and elected a minority leader to, well, lead them. The Republicans, as the majority party, can elect the speaker, which they did, but they also elected a majority leader to lead them. That's Rep. Boehner. Rep. Hastert's job and title is speaker of the House. "Of the House" is important.

The speaker is supposed to look after the House's institutional interests, to make sure that bills move and are truly debated in an orderly manner. If the speaker is good - recent ones haven't been - at the end of the session, majority members go home happy and minority members go home satisfied.

In the majority, you are happy if almost all of your bills passed in a form you can live with. If you are in the minority, you don't expect to pass many bills but want to feel you've been treated fairly. It's the speaker's job to produce those feelings. One thing this means is that whether the speaker personally is liberal or conservative, he or she will be less so, and more majoritarian, while in the speaker's chair. If you want Rep. Pelosi to act less like a Democrat, the fast way - since you can't defeat her - is to make her speaker so she has to concentrate on making the House's trains run on time.

In an important new book, Broken Branch, Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution finger the loss of institutional identity as the House's problem. Members act more like field reps of their party than as members of the first branch of government. The Constitution gives them powers of oversight over executive agencies and of the budget, but they don't show much interest in using them. The authors count the number of days Congress isn't in session while members run for reelection and the decline in the numbers of hearings about anything, including the legislation they pass.

Before he said he wasn't told what he forgot about Foley, Rep. Hastert was famous for keeping the vote tally open three hours beyond normal, in the middle of the night, and treated his constitutional peers like fractious fifth-graders while twisting Republican arms to pass what became Medicare Part D.

Even majority party members felt treated unfairly. For a few hours that night, some Republicans would have preferred Rep. Pelosi as speaker of the House. "Pelosi, Pelosi, Pelosi!" might have looked pretty good to them.

Happy Monday

Now this is another one of those things you learn to keep to yourself, but... Monday mornings are one of my favorites. Fresh, rested up from the weekend. If you've got a victory under your belt, even better. Repeat to the sound of the beat.

Combine with the full Hunter's moon this particular November weekend, what's not to like about Mondays? Speaking of, the deer are in rut with this early cold. So take care if you're driving Wisconsin back roads. Bucks tend to act in non-typical ways being in open areas where they're usually not, running onto the roadways. Even with the earlier crossbow season, you hate to see motorists harvesting with their cars maybe taking a trophy away from somebody Thanksgiving week.

"The greatest need to be defended"

Justice O'Connor on judicial independence:

"I'm increasingly concerned about the current climate of challenge to judicial independence," O'Connor told a gathering of state judges from around the country Friday.
...
The judiciary is the weakest of the three branches of government, she said, and therefore the one with "the greatest need to be defended."

We should listen.
Don't you hate that when folks get so hellbent in acting under cover of "saving the world" that they neglect their own responsibilities at home?
Don't like to see it in the neighborhood; don't like to see it in my government.
How 'bout you?

Nursing error ...

... criminal charge?

Dana Richardson, vice president for quality at the Wisconsin Hospital Association, said in a prepared statement that "it is cruel to allege that this mistake constituted criminal conduct."

The charge "accomplishes nothing other than to compound the anguish of this situation," she said.

In an interview, Richardson said the charge could have a chilling effect, causing people to be less likely to go into nursing or other health-care fields. "This sends the message that you are at risk for criminal charges if you make an unintentional error," she said.

...

If convicted, she faces a $25,000 fine and up to three years in prison and three years of extended supervision.

Julie Thao, 41, who no longer works at St. Mary's, was caring for 16- year-old Jasmine Gant of Fitchburg on July 5 as Gant was about to deliver a baby. She mistakenly gave Gant an epidural anesthetic intravenously, a state investigation previously revealed. Gant was supposed to receive penicillin through the IV for a strep infection. An epidural is supposed to be injected near the spine to numb the pelvic area during birth. Gant died shortly after the error. Her baby boy, delivered by emergency Caesarean section, survived.

According to the criminal complaint, Thao:

Improperly removed the epidural bag from a locked storage system. Gant's physician, Dr. Joseph Fok, never ordered the epidural;

Didn't scan the bar code on the epidural bag, which would have told her it was the wrong drug;

Ignored a bright pink label on the bag that said in bold letters, "FOR EPIDURAL ADMINISTRATION ONLY";

Disregarded hospital and nursing rules in failing to confirm a patient's "five rights" when receiving drugs: right patient, right route, right dose, right time and right medication.

"The actions, omissions and unapproved shortcuts of the defendant constituted a gross breach of medical protocol, resulting in the death" of Gant, wrote Gregory Schuler, an investigator with the justice department's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. According to a written statement and an interview with a state investigator, Thao said she got the epidural bag to show Gant what it looked like. She acknowledged she "had no business getting it out" of the storage locker.

I bet it was fun too...

...writing this editorial: (The Chetek Alert, 11/01/06)

Added to a host of potentially close election races on Tuesday's ballot are two state amendments. Both have been hot-button topics for citizens, one for over 100 years and one more so in the past two decades. But what percentage of the masses is truly affected by these two amendments?

One amendment regards the union of marriage. With a "yes" vote, only a marriage between "one man and one woman" will be recognized as valid in Wisconsin. Approval of the other amendment would enact the death penalty for cases involving first-degree intentional homicide, if supported by DNA evidence.

...

There are dozens of reasons critics are using to oppose the gay marriage and civil union ban, including the rash of benefits that would be lost to happily unmarried couples. But both amendments can be construed as attempts to legislate our morals and ways of thinking.

This is conservative northern Wisconsin. While we like to say we're open-minded, we are also aware there are many Mel Gibsons-in-hiding. Most don't want their daughter marrying her college roommate. But they don't want her marrying meth-head Eddie down the street, either. Don't suppose you'll see that on any ballots in the near future. Will we soon try to govern a divorce rate that escalates at unbelievable rates each year? Our forefathers would've never guessed we'd reach this point.

These are types of legislation that should take place in a living room, not a legislative room. Some voters no doubt carry these issues close to their hearts for personal reasons. But don't you wish your lawmakers were spending their money and time on other topics of interest that affect you every day?

Hat tip: Fair Wisconsin
"A fair Wisconsin votes no"
--------------------


Here's another one, told by Coleman:

Wisconsin State Representative Steve Freese was one of the sponsors of the civil unions and marriage ban. Over the last two years, I traveled to his office twice, and met with him in his district to urge him to drop his support of the ban. Frankly, I found him callous and uncaring about his gay and lesbian constituents. By chance, I’ve had occasion to meet and talk with his wife several times during this same period. I always found her delightful and personable. This week, Dawn Freese wrote a letter to the Platteville Exponent explaining why she thinks her husband is wrong:

“Many important points have been argued in print lately about the Gay Marriage Amendment. However, I am frustrated with the fact that perhaps the most important issue involved has not been given any ink.

Therefore, in spite of the fact that my own husband co-sponsored the proposed amendment, I would like to voice the main reason why I intend to vote no on Nov. 7.

The proposed amendment to Wisconsin’s constitution would limit the civil rights of a specific group of citizens. Think about this one hard, folks. This is no small thing. If you think it is, consult the Federalist Papers and the history of constitutional amendments. The U.S. Constitution, which our state constitutions are supposed to uphold and be modeled after, was intended to be amended rarely and prudently.

Amendments weren’t made to satisfy specific political agendas, but to protect our citizens’ rights and the integrity of the Constitution. The first 10 amendments, The Bill of Rights, expanded basic civil rights to all citizens.

History proves the reverence Americans have held for our government’s framework and the civil rights it guarantees. When our founders first framed the Constitution, the only citizens who were allowed to vote were propertied white men. Since that time, Americans have amended the document to give non-property owners, black Americans, women and American Indians the right to vote. As our nation has grown, the Constitution has grown to reflect our expanding notion of civil liberty.

In sharp contrast to that tradition, some are proposing to amend our state’s constitution to limit the civil rights of a specific group that they deem to be not worthy. This fact should be alarming to all who love freedom.

I am alarmed enough to speak out and vote no.”

Dawn Freese
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