Why is Iraq in Chaos? NO END IN SIGHT Learn the Truth!

For those of you that have not seen it here is the trailer for the Sundance award winning film called "No End in Sight". Here is their web site: http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/

Democracy Now! Amy Goodman speaks with Michael Moore

For those of you that haven't seen it, here is a video with Michael Moore being interviewed by Amy Goodman of Democracy NOW! about his soon to be relesed movie about health care in this nation. As you know it focuses specifically on how shabbily the government has treated the 9/11 workers and how they have been denied health care. It also focuses on Americans that have health insurance and how they often have to fight there insurers for treatment.

A few thoughts and observations for the day -

First: Gene Taylor has done it again. This time he was one of only 16 Democrats in the house that voted against the Stem Cell Enhancement Act; this bill passed even though he voted against it; it provided money to spur research that might lead to cures for such things as Autism, Parkinsons, Diabetes, and a whole host of other diseases. What has he got against the sick and suffering of the United States? I urge you to call him and voice your concerns about his voting record that seems to align him more with the neo-cons than the Democratic Party.

Second: The state of Mississippi has just announced that they have discovered that they have taken in some $10 million dollars more than anticipated. What do they intend to do with the surplus? Use it to lower tuition at the state colleges! If you recall Barbour and his cronies cried and screamed that do to a predicted budget shortfall they would have to trim back the states already poor Medicaid program. Some of the state residents that need it most have been eliminated from the program. Why not use the surplus to bring these people back on the rolls? I'll tell you why not - because the people eliminated from the rolls are the poor of the state and most probably vote Democrat, while the majority of the little dahlings that go to college are children of neo-cons. I urge you to call your Senators and Representatives and ask them to make it known to Barbour that the surplus should be used to shore up the worst Medicaid program in the United States.

Third - Are you as sick and tired as I am of the crap Senator Liberman is pulling? Why is he still the chair of the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate? Now he is hosting a fund raiser for a Republican Senator. I have called the Senate Majority leader, Senator Reid, and urged him to remove Liberman as chair of the Homeland Security Committee. I urge you to do the same. He can be reached at (202) 224-3542

If you are like me you've had it with the majority of companies you deal with today if you have a problem with one of their products.

Recently I have had reason to call the customer service of two different companies about items I have purchased from them, each time I have had to call a number that was not a toll free number; in others words I had to pay for the call. One of the companies I called is the manufacturer of the computer I am typing this on, E-Machines; the other is Electrolux (who also makes Frigidaire products). In both cases not only have I had to pay for the call but, now here is the part that really pisses me off, I have been connected with an individual in a foreign country, most likely India. This mind you after having to listen to and respond to a lengthy menu of options (meanwhile the long distance charges keep piling up). After finally being connected to one of the so called "customer service agents" I attempt to explain my problem. These people understand and speak very good English, however they always seem to have trouble understanding if you try to explain to them that your problem is not one of the run of the mill problems they encounter everyday.

They following is a brief synopsis of the problem I had with a so called service rep for Frigidaire:

After finally navigating through a menu on a 1800 number that was provided with the owners manual of our brand new Frigidaire Gas Range I was told to call a (706) number if the previous menu did not solve my problem and I needed to talk to a customer service rep. I did this:

Rep: hello this is Mike (?) how can I help you?

Me: (after having recognized the heavy accent) Where are you located?

Rep: you called Atlanta but I am in India

Me: why don't you have a 1800 number I can call so I don't have to pay for this? (big mistake here - this is one of those out of the ordinary issues I talked about earlier; at this point he became completely flustered)

Rep: I don't know sir. How can I help you?

Me: here is my problem - We purchased one of your ranges two weeks ago. The first time my wife used the oven the heat from it caused two spots on the porcelain surface to flake off (at this point he interrupts: can I have the model and serial number?)

Me: I give it to him; he messes up both numbers and I have to correct him numerous times.

Rep: let me put you on hold while I look this up

Minutes later he finally comes back on line on tells me that I will have to contact a service rep and they will come out and fix the problem.

Me: they will not come out and fix the problem! the warranty info clearly says that the company is not responsible for damage incurred during installation; there is no way I can prove it didn't happen during installation (another mistake - again an out of ordinary concept) all I want from you is to know if your company sells a product that will allow me to repair it myself. (I'm put on hold again).

He finally comes back on line and AGAIN refers me to a locale service rep and offers to give a phone number so they can come out and repair it. At this point I hung up.

I immediately went to the Frigidaire web site and sent them an e-mail expressing my displeasure with the fact they have their customer service center in a foreign country and that they do not have a 1800 number for their customers. I had previously e-mailed E-machines with the same gripe after having encountered much the same problem with their customer service - their reply: by not having a 1800 number we keep our cost to the consumer down. They never responded about the frustration of having to deal with foreign nationals when a customer encounters a problem.

I urge you all to do the same thing I have done - find out how to get a hold of the parent company and call them and complain. If enough of us do it may be it will make an impression.

Reference my earlier post about the massive troop build up Turkey is undertaking on the northern border of Iraqm, as I warned and this opinion column confirms if they invade Northern Iraq, it will become a very disastrous situation.

From a post by Karen Dalton-Beninto on The Huffington Post: The Scruggs Katrina Group erected a billboard on the Veterans Highway in Bloomington, Illinois. It is the route the CEO of State Farm has to take to get to his office. The billboard says "21 Months in a FEMA Trailer. Thanks Neighbor," with a photo of one of the many trailers still along the Gulf Coast.

You can read the entire post here, the post includes a picture of the billboard and pictures of a $7.5 million dollar water park that is for the exclusive use of State Farm employees.

Defend Habeas

Many of you know that I have railed against the Military Commissions Act (MCA) ever since it was passed last year. I have been particularly pissed off at Gene Taylor for voting for it. One of the most horrendous provisions of the MCA was the elimination of Habeas Corpus, now the Senate Judciary Committee has just voted to send a bill to the Senate floor to repeal that portion of the MCA. I urge you to watch this video and call Cochran and Lott and urge them to support the bill that calls for the restoration of Habeas Corpus.

There is a potentially explosive situation evolving in the Northern Iraq area controlled by the Kurds. This region has for the most part been violence free. The war as a whole has been concentrated in the part of Iraq that lays south of Kirkuk. Now the Iraqi Arab majority is mounting attacks on civilians and strategic infrastructure targets of the Kurdish controlled area. Just Saturday a vital bridge that links the Kurdish region to Baghdad was destroyed by what is presumed to be members of the Iraqi Arab majority. On the same day many innocent Kurdish civilians were killed and/or injured by a sustained mortar attack mounted by the very same people.

Meanwhile Turkey has built up their troop strength on the Northern Iraq/Turkey border threatening to invade Kurdish Iraq on the pretense that it is to destroy alleged Kurdish terrorist camps that are located in Kurdish controlled Northern Iraq.

Will our fearless leader demand that the Turkey government pullback their troops and abandon any plans they might have to invade Iraq? Our will he sell the Kurds down the river like his daddy did to the Shia when he urged them to overthrow Hussein after the first Gulf War and then abandoned them to be slaughtered by forces loyal to Hussein? Want to take a guess as to what I think he'll do?

Update - I just found this on The Huffington Post..it is a report on a possible incursion into Northern Iraq by Turkish troops.

Well our idiot dictator to be has done it again! This time he has nominated an individual for Surgeon General who promotes healing gays by praying away their lifestyle. His name? Dr. James Holsinger. You read that right: Bush's nominee for Surgeon General believes that gays should just pray harder to be cured of their choice. Except, of course, he doesn't want gays to minister or become church members. Seems he and his wife founded a church, Hope Springs Community Church, after they were asked to leave their previous United Methodist church in Lexington, Kentucky. Hope Springs Community Church is "recovery-oriented." Recovery from gayitude is one of the recoveries he preaches.

Dr. James Holsinger appears to be a heavily "faith-based" religio-political activist, and isn't likely to serve the health interests of the full and diverse community of tax-paying Americans. His record as a member and current president of the United Methodist Judicial Council, the highest church court for the Methodist Church in the US, includes votes against allowing a lesbian associate pastor, and also supporting the denial of church membership to a gay man. The latter decision was overturned by the church's Bishops.

This nomination has to go through the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. If you are like me you don't want an individual as our Surgeon General who believes that it is possible to pray the "gayness" out of an individual. You want a medical doctor who is solidly entrenched in the 21st century. To that end it is imperative that you contact them via e-mail at help_comments@help.senate.gov. If you want to contact the individual members of the committee you can find them here.

If history is any judge our objections may all be for naught. This creep may just use one of his infamous "recess" appointments. Oh well we can try.

Have you heard about the latest little trick that our dictator to be pulled? According to some observers that were with him at his western castle in Texas, he supposedly pounded himself on the chest three times and declared each time he did it that "I am the President". Has he finally succumbed to his visions of grandeur? In addition to the chest pounding it was also reported that he said that he had no intentions of trying to end the Iraq war before the end of his reign. As a matter of fact he intended to continue the war so that the next President would have to handle it them selves. He allegedly made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

Want another example of the lack of compassion of this man? I just listened to an interview from NPR with a group of gold star mothers that are against the war. They along with approximately 95 other gold star family's met with the wannabe dictator. He sat down with her and 4 or 5 other grieving mothers to talk with them about their loss. When he came to the woman that was being interviewed on NPR she told him in no uncertain terms that she was against the war and asked him when he was bringing the troops home. His answer - "when the mission was complete". After receiving nothing but negative responses from her he correctly observed that she "seemed very hostile". Just prior to them leaving the room he presented each one of them a presidential coin and asked them to "not tell the others and (this is the clincher) please don't sell them on e-Bay". Compassionate Conservative my ass!!!

If you want to read a sad commentary as to how this nation is treating our fighting me and women that are killed in this illegal war, please read the following from "Crooks and Liars"

It was exactly two years ago today that Dick Cheney told us that the insurgency in Iraq is in its last throes.

I heard that earlier today, and it came to me again as I read this story:

Fort Lewis, which this month has suffered its worst losses of the war, will no longer conduct individual memorial ceremonies for soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, the post will hold one ceremony for all soldiers killed each month, the Fort Lewis acting commanding general, Brig. Gen. William Troy, wrote in a memo to commanders and staff last week.

"As much as we would like to think otherwise, I am afraid that with the number of soldiers we now have in harm's way, our losses will preclude us from continuing to do individual memorial ceremonies," Troy wrote in the memo, according to a copy obtained by United for Peace Pierce County and posted on the group's Web site. A post spokesman confirmed the policy change Tuesday. It will start in June.