Listics

A few weeks before he died, Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that a
private security company he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and
committed human rights violations. Westhusing confronted the contractor and

reported the concerns to superiors, who launched an investigation.

These facts will soon be in dispute, yet anybody who has paid attention should know beyond a doubt that the mercenaries employed by the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton/Bechtel axis of deceit are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Saying it sounds so strident.  To voice the truth ironically discredits the person telling the tale.  How can such things be true?  Our country is a paragon of virtue, nicht wahr?   Our leaders are at worst occasionally misinformed, and the thugs they’ve hired for private security, the gangsters who owe no allegiance to the US or obedience to the UCMJ are just men in a bad situation trying to do the job they’ve been paid to do.

There is one truth to tell, one justice to administer when it comes to the crimes of the Bush administration, but the untangling is a lengthy process that is as demoralizing as the fact of their criminality.

Today Kos linked to the following from the Sunday Telegraph.  Is anybody surprised by these matters?

A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad
randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was
posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The video has sparked concern that private security companies,
which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq,
could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.

You are water. You’re not really organic; you’re
neither acidic nor basic, yet you’re an acid
and a base at the same time. You’re strong
willed and opinionated, but relaxed and ready
to flow. So while you often seem worthless,
without you, everything would just not work.
People should definitely drink more of you
every day.

Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks to Cyndy for the link.  She’s water too.

Not.

Thanks to Terry Teachout for the following from foodlosopher MFK Fischer…

“There are very few men and women, I suspect,
who cooked and marketed their way through the past war without losing
forever some of the nonchalant extravagance of the Twenties. They will
feel, until their final days on earth, a kind of culinary caution:
butter, no matter how unlimited, is a precious substance not lightly to
be wasted; meats, too, and eggs, and all the far-brought spices of the
world, take on a new significance, having once been so rare. And that
is good, for there can be no more shameful carelessness than with the
food we eat for life itself. When we exist without thought or
thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts.”

M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf

Thanks to Madame Levy for the dinner music, Ry Cooder and V.M. Bhatt… I recommend it.

Thanks to Governor Reagan for closing the state run institutions oh so long ago, and showing us a new model for caring for the emotionally disturbed, thus made homeless and often successfully suicidal, sometimes homicidal.  There’s something special about these winter holidays when you know there are people sleeping in cardboard boxes and on the streets because a choice was made to defund a program and return a buck-three-eighty to some rich son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t want to pay any taxes.

Habib Kahn.

Thanks to Chris Mooney for his Tom Bethell postings.

Thanks to Chris Locke for his posting regarding Bush’s violence against the media.  I’m still waiting for the evidence regarding the administration’s use of anthrax to stifle media and opposition dissent just after the September 2024 tragedy.

Thanks to Kris Kringle for showing up again in the Macy’s parade, despite stiff competition from Sponge Bob Square Pants and Mr. Potato head.

Lebanese Blonde by Thievery

Thanks to the Sierra Club for their Thanksgiving Turkey competition (and to Dean for pointing to it).

Thanks to the people and governement of Canada for returning vast tracts of land to native people.

No thanks to the energy industry that is busy submerging those vast tracts for hydro-power to deliver to the cities north and south of the border.

Thanks to Buffalo Bill and his ilk for clearing the plains of those pesky bison so Wyoming ranchers could make a killing in the British beef trade.

and thanks for all the fish…

Bill Kreutzmann’s son Justin has a blog.  It’s called Rock and Reel.  Justin is a film maker.  I was reading comments at Danny Miller’s and there was "Justin Kreutzmann," and how many Kreutzmann’s are there in this world?  I had to click through.  (Plus, it was my recollection that one out of every three boys born between 1967 and 1980 in the San Francisco Bay Area was named Justin).

I’m delighted to see that he’s blogging.

And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire.

It must be more than ten years since I was sitting in a scummy hotel bar in Plano, Texas listening to some EDS mainframe geek lie not all that convincingly about how he wrote "Ring of Fire" for Johnny Cash.  I didn’t know until I read Danny Miller’s review of "Walk the Line" this morning that it was actually June Carter’s song .

"Walk the Line" stars Joaquin Phoenix as the man in black, and Reese Witherspoon as his inamorata.  I am not ashamed to say that Ms. Witherspoon captured me with her filmic tour de force, "Legally Blonde," and I look forward to seeing what she can do with a role as a brunette.

The snow came a day or two too soon.  It’ll be melted by the time Wendy’s here.  She’s NEVER seen snow. 

This morning I read the execrable Ms. Suitt.  Then I streaked on to formerly Nazi occupied France where I read Madame L’s Reading Cow, a palette cleanser of a blog if ever there was one.  Gets the icky taste of trite right out your mind.

I like Halley.  As a person.

Sutro the dog was a very fine dog except when she ate cat shit.  I used to say,  "I like Sutee as a dog, I just hate everything she stands for." 

On another note, the Nation has an article about the economic history of rum, the essence of gloablization.

And finally, thanks to Madame L. for the Thanksgiving link.  I never owned a Pontiac, really.

On Thanksgiving Day, many Native Americans
    and their supporters gather at the top of Coles Hill, overlooking Plymouth Rock, for the
    "National Day of Mourning."