Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Jason Leopold and Marc Ash | Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair

Jason Leopold and Marc Ash Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair:

"Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by defense attorneys for former White House staffer I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case."


Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View:

"Hyundai has appointed Ray Kurzweil as Chief Strategy Officer of Kurzweil Music Systems. Hyundai, one of the world's largest corporations, plans to work with Ray Kurzweil to 'build Kurzweil Music Systems into one of the largest music instruments brands in the world,' Kurzweil stated.

Kurzweil, who founded Kurzweil Music in 1982, will work with Kurzweil Music Systems management on technology strategy and will also be a primary spokesperson for the company. "

Lifelock

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We're so confident in our services, our CEO regularly publishes his real Social Security number and he's perfectly comfortable with it. Why? Because he knows that we have Guaranteed his Good Name.

Reporters have asked the CEOs of the other supposed identity theft protection companies if they will disclose their Social Security numbers in public. None has to date. That should tell you something.

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Children and Students
You may not immediately think about kids being targeted for identity theft, but they are most at risk because their credit and other personal information isn't often checked until they become 18, or enter college or the workforce.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Specter: Bush not sole 'decision-maker' - Yahoo! News

"Specter: Bush not sole 'decision-maker' - Yahoo! News: "I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider,' Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., said during a hearing on Congress' war powers amid an increasingly harsh debate over Iraq war policy. 'The decider is a shared and joint responsibility,' Specter said."

Crooks and Liars » Olbermann Special Comment Fact Checking the President

Crooks and Liars » Olbermann Special Comment Fact Checking the President

Olbermann Special Comment Fact Checking the President







ko-sc.jpg Keith Olbermann takes a look at Bush's claims about thwarted terrorists plots and fact checks them. Pray tell, what shall he ever find?


Olbermann: Upon his appointment, Sir Norman Bettison made one of the strangest comments of the year: "The threat of terrorism," he says, "is lurking out there like Jaws 2." Sir Norman did not exactly mine the richest ore for his analogy of warning. A critic once said of the flopping sequel to the classic film: "You're gonna need a better screenplay."



video_wmv Download (1260) Play (1101) video_mov Download (0) Play (0)

Monday, January 29, 2007

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish: A Glimpse of Baghdad

Andrew Sullivan The Daily Dish: A Glimpse of Baghdad:

"This is taken from the front window of a U.S. military humvee, navigating Baghdad traffic. I'm assuming the unconventional driving is due to the need to keep moving and avoid ambushes or attacks. You can also see how such necessary precautions can nonetheless hardly endear the U.S. forces to the local population."

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Scooter and Me

via Andrew Sullivan

I went away to boarding schools in the early 1960s, and at one of these my best friend was a boy named Scooter—Lewis “Scooter” Libby—who grew up to become Paul Wolfowitz’s protégé, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, and one of the Bush administration’s strongest advocates for the war in Iraq.

Read essay here

Friday, January 26, 2007

BloggingHeads.tv

BloggingHeads.tv:

Ding-a-link

"Job Openings at Bloggingheads.tv


We're looking for part-time workers who can perform one or more of a variety of tasks. The tasks fall into two main categories:


(1) Editorial and/or publicity: (a) watching bloggingheads videos and noting segments that seem worth highlighting on grounds of newsworthiness or analytical acuteness or entertainment value; (b) composing pithy and sometimes pungent written descriptions of those segments.


(2) Production: (a) processing video and when necessary improving its technical quality; (b) communicating with contributors by e-mail to coordinate diavlogs and gather relevant materials from them.


In addition to these two categories, there are miscellaneous tasks, many of which will call for good e-mailing skills.


Pay will depend on skill set and experience.


If you're interested, send us (a) a resume; (b) a very short explanation of why you're interested in the job and a description of the tasks you feel suited to perform; and (c) anything else you think may be relevant. Send to the following e-mail address: jobs 'at' bloggingheads.tv. "

A Polite Protestor (Virtually) Barges In




New York Times

During a series of interviews conducted in the online universe of Second Life — in which a digital persona of Reuters’ Adam Pasick questioned the digital personae of various Davos attendees — a man carrying an anti-Davos placard apparently sauntered right into the virtual auditorium.

On its Davos blog, Reuters reported Friday that the interloper was Iuemmel Lemmon of the protest group DaDavos. His avatar, or online personality, sported a beard and what looked like a blue beret.

Did virtual guards leap up to eject Mr. Lemmon from the scene? Hardly. Reuters said that he “sat politely with his banner in the front row.”

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Crooks and Liars » The Daily Show on SoTU 2007

Crooks and Liars » The Daily Show on SoTU 2007

Crooks and Liars » Hannity “Explains” “New” Military Strategy to a Four Star General

Crooks and Liars » Hannity “Explains” “New” Military Strategy to a Four Star General

this is a good blog post

i was going to geebus it for that reason, but it was taking too long to find the right spot in the code

Crooks and Liars » A Rumor Is A Rumor Is A Rumor…

Crooks and Liars » A Rumor Is A Rumor Is A Rumor…

A Rumor Is A Rumor Is A Rumor…


By:
Nicole Belle @

7:30 PM - PST
Submit or Digg this Post




…until it is either proven or disproven.


Now, I know that there will be a segment of the readership that will automatically discount this considering the source, but keep in mind that this very topic has been discussed on the comment threads here and elsewhere. I will also point out that this same site predicted (correctly) Rumsfeld's resignation. So with that in mind, consider the following…


Comedy Central Insider:


The CC Insider/InDecider has just heard more rumors (see earlier posts) from a SECOND reliable source that Dick Cheney will be stepping down as Vice President and will be replaced as Vice President by Condoleezza Rice. And now we're hearing that she would like to be on the ticket as the GOP VP candidate in '08.


According to our rumor-meister, John Negroponte will be filling Condi's current position as Secretary of State. Negroponte is currently the Director of National Intelligence (the first person ever to hold the few-years-old position) and the former US Ambassador to Iraq.



Laugh now, but remember where you heard it first.



Why the surge will work

In an interview, Pelosi also said she was puzzled by what she considered the president's minimalist explanation for his confidence in the new surge of 21,500 U.S. troops that he has presented as the crux of a new "way forward" for U.S. forces in Iraq."

He's tried this two times — it's failed twice," the California Democrat said. "I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?' And he said, 'Because I told them it had to.' "

~~~

PELOSI: He's tried this two times — it's failed twice. I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?'

BUSH: Because I told them it had to.

PELOSI: Why didn't you tell them that the other two times?

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

David Corn: Graphing legal cases

David Corn:

"A diagram of Fitzgerald's case would be a straight line: Libby sought official information, he shared this classified material with reporters, he then made up a story to hide all this from investigators. To get a graphic representation of Well's argument, take a large pot of spaghetti--with plenty of sauce--and hurl it against the wall. Then look at the wall."

Bush in Yahoo! News

Bush calls for cut in gas consumption - Yahoo! News:

'Our citizens don't care much which side of the aisle we sit on — as long as we are willing to cross that aisle when there is work to be done,' said Bush, who for six years ignored Democrats' demands to be included in decisions.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Crooks and Liars » The Tale of Two Senators

This is interesting.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall January 22, 2007 12:24 PM

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall January 22, 2007 12:24 PM:

"Lately I've been leafing through Bob Woodward's State of Denial. And here's one choice quote. It's chief weapons inspector David Kay on Condi Rice. 'She was probably the worst national security adviser in modern times since the office was created.'

-- Josh Marshall "

Amazon.com: Breakpoint: Books: Richard A. Clarke


Amazon.com: Breakpoint: Books: Richard A. Clarke

Saturday, January 20, 2007

BloggingHeads.tv dingalink

BloggingHeads.tv

posted for the first 1 or 2 minutes

Friday, January 19, 2007

Companies press Bush, Congress on climate | Top News | Reuters.com

Companies press Bush, Congress on climate Top News Reuters.com:

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ten major U.S. corporations are joining environmental groups to press President George W. Bush and Congress to address climate change more rapidly.

The coalition, including Alcoa Inc., General Electric Co., DuPont Co. and Duke Energy Corp., plans to publicize its recommendations on Monday, a day ahead of the president's annual State of the Union address, the Natural Resources Defense Council said."

AlterNet: The Psychology Behind the Worst Possible President

AlterNet: The Psychology Behind the Worst Possible President

The longer Bush is in office, the more his psychology becomes clear. He's not a well-meaning doofus; he's a madman.

the value of mental models - lateral thinking

from Wikipedia

Example 1

It took two hours for two men to dig a hole five feet deep. How deep would it have been if ten men had dug the hole for two hours?..............

The answer appears to be 25 feet deep. This answer assumes that the thinker has followed a simple mathematical relationship suggested by the description given, but we can generate some lateral thinking ideas about what affects the size of the hole which may lead to different answers:

A hole may need to be of a certain size or shape so digging might stop early at a required depth.

The deeper a hole is, the more effort is required to dig it, since waste soil needs to be lifted higher to the ground level. There is a limit to how deep a hole can be dug by manpower without use of ladders or hoists for soil removal, and 25 feet is beyond this limit.

Deeper soil layers may be harder to dig out, or we may hit bedrock or the water table.

Are we digging in soil? Clay? Sand? Each presents its own special considerations.
Holes required to be dug beyond a certain depth may require structural reinforcement to prevent collapse of the hole.

Digging in a forest becomes much easier once we have cut through the first several feet of roots.

Each man digging needs space to use a shovel.

It is possible that with more people working on a project, each person may become less efficient due to increased opportunity for distraction, the assumption he can slack off, more people to talk to, etc.

More men could work in shifts to dig faster for longer.

There are more men but are there more shovels?

The two hours dug by ten men may be under different weather conditions than the two hours dug by two men.

Rain could flood the hole to prevent digging.

Temperature conditions may freeze the men before they finish.

Would we rather have 5 holes each 5 feet deep?

The two men may be an engineering crew with digging machinery.

What if one man in each group is a manager who will not actually dig?

The extra eight men might not be strong enough to dig, or much stronger than the first two.

The most useful ideas listed above are outside the simple mathematics implied by the question.

Example 2

(this isn't as good as an example, but it shows how good/new/out-of-the-box ideas could come from an exercise like this one)

Consider the statement "Cars should have square wheels." When considered with critical thinking, this would be evaluated as a poor suggestion and dismissed as impractical. The Lateral Thinking treatment of the same statement would be to speculate where it leads. Humor is taken intentionally with lateral thinking. A person would imagine "as if" this were the case, and describe the effects or qualities. Someone might observe: square wheels would produce very predictable bumps. If bumps can be predicted, then suspension can be designed to compensate. How could this car predict bumps? It could be a laser or sonar on the front of the car. This leads to the idea of active suspension. A sensor connected to suspension could examine the road surface ahead on cars with round wheels too. A car could have a sensor for determining when it was going to hit a bump that feeds back to suspension that would know to compensate. The initial "provocative" statement has been left behind, but it has also been used to indirectly generate the new and potentially more useful idea.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Growth of the Political Internet

Pew: 14 Million Online Political Activists in U.S. Today

Micah L. Sifry,
Personal Democracy Forum

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is releasing another of its ongoing reports tracking Americans' use of the internet today (and someone leaked us an advance copy), and this report contains some really important news:

* More than 60 million people (31% of all Americans online) say they were online during the 2006 campaign to get information about candidates and/or exchange views via email. They call this growing group "campaign internet users." This group trends young (duh); wealthy; well-educated; and somewhat more white than of color (33% of white Americans vs 23% of blacks and Hispanics).

* People with broadband connections at home (now 45% of the overall adult population, compared to 3% in 2000) are far more likely to use the net for political news. In particular, people under 36 are twice as likely to cite the net as their main source of political news, compared to newspapers.

* By far the most interesting discovery from their survey: 23% of campaign internet users has either posted their own political commentary to the web via a blog, site or newsgroup (8%); forwarded or posted someone else's commentary (13%); created political audio or video (1%); forwarded someone else's audio or video (8%). "That translates into about 14 million people who were using the 'read-write Web' to contribute to political discussion and activity," the study's authors Lee Rainie and John Horrigan write.

* This group, which Pew labels "online political activists," is disproportionately liberal. "Some 15% of internet users who describe themselves as liberals are such online activists, compared with 9% of online conservatives," Rainie and Horrigan note.

* Big news portals like Google News and major TV network sites like CNN.com are by far the most popular destinations for campaign internet users, beating blogs by 3-1 (60% to 20%). And satirical sites like the Onion or the Daily Show are as popular as official candidate sites (19% to 20%).

* Asked about their news consumption on the day prior to the survey, nearly one in ten Americans said they watched TV news on something other than a TV. Nearly one in six said they read a newspaper online, rather than in print.

* The most common use of the net is to find out candidate positions on issues or voting records, followed by efforts to check the accuracy of claims made by them or about them.

* While campaign internet users and the more intensely engaged subgroup of online political activists tend to go often to sites that share their point of view, that behavior is by no means dominant. Between a fifth and a quarter of those groups say they also use sites that "challenge my point of view."

A few observations. One, I just want to commend Pew for modifying its survey to take into account the changing reality of net-politics. They no longer define campaign internet users solely on the basis of news consumption online; they also include people who send or receive emails about campaigns in that group. This shows they understand, finally, that the net is a two-way, peer-to-peer medium, not just another channel for campaigns to broadcast messages at voters.

Second, I must say that I am not surprised by the size of the "online political activist" pool. Seasoned web organizers like Zack Exley have tried to estimate the size of the Democratic-left online base using cumulative email list totals from various sources and come up with numbers like eight to ten million, if memory serves. I'd say the Republican online base is probably as big on paper, but given the GOP's tendency to append email addresses to its lists, rather than grow them organically, the active online rightwing is probably not as big as the left. Fourteen million adults seems like a reasonable estimate.

Third, I'm sorry that Pew doesn't survey people under the age of 18, since their online habits are the most intriguing and many of these kids will soon be voters. But this survey confirms what we already know; the young are already living in a future where the net is THE main source of news AND a place to participate in making or commenting on that news.

Fourth, Pew's findings again suggest that the much-feared "Daily Me" balkanization and creation of self-reinforcing echo-chambers doesn't appear to really be a problem. Folks online are probably exposed to as much, or more, information that challenges their point of view as anyone else.

Finally, and this is just speculation, but this report suggests to me that the online political universe, and blogging in particular, may be reaching a plateau. While it's true that far more people went to the net for political news and participation in 2006 than in the previous midterm election cycle of 2002, that is both a reflection of the expansion of broadband penetration and of the fact that the prospect of political change made this election pretty engaging. What the survey doesn't show is a concomitant expansion in blog usage over 2004, if I'm not mistaken. So perhaps there are limits to the number of people who are attracted to political blogs? Or maybe the form needs some refreshing?

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Finding neutral jurors tough in CIA case - The Liberty Lounge Political Forums

Finding neutral jurors tough in CIA case - The Liberty Lounge Political Forums

AP - Seven critics of the Bush administration and the Iraq war were approved Wednesday as potential jurors in the perjury trial of former White House aide "Scooter" Libby after they said they could set those feeling aside.

But two other women were dismissed from the jury pool when they said their strong opposition to the administration might color their deliberations in the CIA leak trial. One said she couldn't believe any statement by an administration official; the other said Bush's policies would be a strike against witnesses from the administration.

Two others had been sent home Tuesday over negative views of the administration.

By day's end Wednesday, 24 potential jurors had been qualified to serve at the trial that will delve into the political scandal that followed the public disclosure of CIA official Valerie Plame's name in 2003.

I. Lewis Libby, a former aide to Bush and chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with obstruction of justice and lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding Plame. He says he didn't lie but his memory was faulty.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton hopes to qualify 36 potential jurors by Thursday. Then prosecutors and defense lawyers will use peremptory, or unexplained, strikes, until 12 jurors and four alternates are seated. The defense has 12 strikes and prosecutors, eight.

Wednesday's session illustrated some difficulties in picking a jury in the nation's capital. Lawyers spent about an hour questioning one former Washington Post reporter who had worked for Post editor Bob Woodward, lived near NBC reporter Tim Russert and written a book on spying.

Even though Woodward and Russert are to testify, he was qualified to serve after he said to "give someone a pass goes against everything I was taught."

The courtroom erupted in a rare moment of laughter when a retired math teacher, asked his views of Cheney, replied: "I'm not sure I'd like to go bird hunting with him."

Libby dropped his face into his hands and smiled at the reference to Cheney's accidentally shooting a hunting companion last February.

The ex-teacher was approved as were two women who expressed personal rather than political objections to the vice president, who is to be a defense witness. One of the women called him "a responsible but slightly cold man."

Overall the second day went better for Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, because Bush administration critics weren't all excluded.

Also sent to the next stage were a young database administrator who disagreed with Bush's political adviser Karl Rove politically and a female accountant who didn't think Bush was candid about the war.

The retired math teacher thought Bush should have sent far more troops to Iraq.

Defense attorneys Theodore Wells and William Jeffress asked every juror whether he or she believed the Bush administration lied to push the nation into war — a claim made by Plame's husband, ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, in 2003. Wilson says his wife's identity was leaked to punish him and discourage other critics inside the intelligence agencies.

Also approved were:

_A retired woman who once had top secret clearance for the Air Force and Navy and didn't believe the administration had been "truthful or forthright about the reasons" for the war.

_A male Web architect who questioned administration credibility.

_A woman who works for a scientific association and said the U.S. shouldn't have gone into Iraq but her scientific training would allow her to put that aside.

_A male homeland security policy analyst at George Washington University who never believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Collaboration of the month/Genealogy - Wikia Central - A Wikia wiki

Collaboration of the month/Genealogy - Wikia Central - A Wikia wiki:

"Collaboration of the month is a initiative to encourage edits to help new or quiet Wikia to make improvements.

The Genealogy Wikia is designed for everyone to enter their ancestry and great-aunts, etc, and eventually link everybody. "

APOD: 2007 January 11 - The Eagle Nebula in Infrared

APOD: 2007 January 11 - The Eagle Nebula in Infrared

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Interior #2 Target in Abramoff Probe

The Washington Post (via TPMmuckraker)
Federal prosecutors have notified a former deputy secretary of the interior, J. Steven Griles, that he is a target in the public corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff's lobbying activities, sources knowledgeable about the probe said.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that among the possible criminal charges being investigated is whether Griles made false statements to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2005 about job discussions Abramoff initiated while Griles was deputy secretary.

So Griles, the former #2 at the Interior Department, is on the hook for being Jack Abramoff's inside man at the Interior Department, and then lying about it to Senate investigators.


Kennedy's Anti-Escalation Bill, etc.


S. 233 (pdf)


HuffPo (Bob Cesca)

Senator Kennedy announced legislation today mandating that unless the president's Iraq plans are approved by Congress, lawmakers can cut off spending for the war and halt any new troop deployments to Iraq. Of course this is perfect from the sense that it gives congressional Democrats a safety buffer for de-funding the entire occupation and, in the short term, gives Congress further ammunition for stopping the president's unpopular escalation idea -- oops. Sorry. I meant, the president's unpopular "surge." ....

Freezing the president's supplemental Iraq spending is an obvious administration trap set for the Democrats. But how else, under the Constitution, can Congress accomplish the goal of fulfilling its midterm mandate? Making further troop deployments impossible and illegal seems to be the only way, followed by, in turn, a total forced withdrawal due to spending cuts.

Enter Senator Kennedy's bill which accomplishes both, while placing the onus of funding the occupation on the sweat-stained shoulders of the president -- legally binding him to supply a real plan for ending our presence in Iraq. If the plan isn't good enough, then the law says no more brigades and no more money. In other words, if the commander-in-chief can't manage to squeeze a viable plan from his tiny noggin (he can't) and instead offers up the same vague crap on a stick (he will), then he's screwed himself, and the Democrats can force him to end the war without directly freezing expenditures.

Most excellent. But there appears to be at least two catches.

One catch is obvious: whipping up enough the votes required to override the president's absolutely definite veto of the Kennedy law. This is the Bush White House after all. The Big Executive. The Big Dick. I don't need to remind you that the White House, however unpopular, is run by a regime who at every turn has sucked dry both its constitutional and wholly-fabricated-out-of-thin-air executive powers. And it doesn't help that Congress (minus Kennedy and others) approved the president's Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq bill back in 2002.

Which leads me to another of Senator Kennedy's points in his introduction of his legislation today. The president's congressional authorization has essentially expired. In fact, if you read the bill, it's been expired for some time now. Here's the meat:

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. (a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

The "continuing threat" by the Saddam Hussein government, even though it never existed, is gone. And along the same lines, the enforcement of the various UN resolutions have been rendered inoperative since there was nothing to disarm and, now, there's nothing to inspect. So Congress is well within its rights to stop this shit by passing a new law, this time ending the war.

But, again, they leave the burden of defining a feasible strategy in the hands of the president. After all, and to repeat, the president is the commander-in-chief of the military and war plans are his responsibility -- not the responsibility of Congress. Congress can only provide oversight, declare war, finance war and, also according to Article 1, Section 8, they can stop piracy. This last part will come in handy when Congress gets into investigating how the Bush administration is coaxing the Iraqi government to allow Shell, Exxon-Mobile and BP to grab up Iraq's oil and keep 75-percent of the profits. More on that below.

I mentioned two catches, and here's the other one. Let's say Senator Kennedy's law passes. And let's say Senators McCain and Lieberman manage to convince the president that it's a better idea to deploy a larger number of soldiers for a longer period of time. And let's say McCain and Lieberman rally enough votes to approve that plan. Then we could be in there for a really, really long time, and at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. The president would easily go this direction over withdrawal because at this point, it's all about securing access to the Iraqi oil for western profiteers, isn't it? And what about that?

Right around the time when new brigades will be hitting the ground (should the president get his way) this March, the new and underreported Iraqi "hydrocarbon law" will likely be passed. According to The Independent, the law, written in conjunction with the Bush administration and brokered by a firm in McLean, Virginia, allows Western oil companies specifically including Shell, Exxon-Mobile and BP to hork Iraqi oil and pocket 75-percent of the profits. That's 75-percent of the profits from the source of 95-percent of the Iraqi economy. The Independent:

"[The law] would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972."

You remember Shell, Exxon-Mobile and BP: three of the principles in Vice President Cheney's energy task force. And now, with security a major issue, they could be granted by the president an American military "surge" to protect their trafficking lanes and dampen any resistance from the Iraqi people who surely won't dig the idea of their only commodity ripped out from under their feet.

All told, there can't be any deals outside the bounds of actual legislation because the Bush administration has shown an aptitude for playing with a loaded deck when it comes to rhetoric and assurances. (For example, how much of that money he promised New Orleans has actually arrived?) Without a legally binding stoppage, the war will continue on and on and the cost in lives and taxpayer money will continue ad infinitum. Additionally, Senator Biden's note that the Constitution doesn't allow Congress to deploy or withdraw soldiers is quite true. But Senator Kennedy's proposal might be the solution.

The president is less popular now than ever, and public support for his surgulation is only 36-percent according to Gallup. 54-percent of us want an end to this fiasco within the year. The Democrats want to do it in a way that's bold and swift. And Wednesday night, selling the surge to the American people is entirely up to the president's wickedly awesome public speaking skills. Slam dunk, Senator Kennedy[?]