Boxer wants deadline for Leaving Iraq; Senator says Iraqis can't rely forever on U.S. for security

By John Wildermuth / San Francisco Chronicle courtesy of michaelmoore.com

Sen. Barbara Boxer, back from a visit to Iraq, called on President Bush Tuesday to set a deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of that country and letting the Iraqis handle their own defense.

"If we do not set a date, the signals are very mixed,'' Boxer said in San Francisco. "People will just sit back and let us defend them.''

While U.S. military leaders were both concerned about the growing danger of a lengthy stay in Iraq and confident that the newly trained Iraqi military forces can handle the country's security, Iraqi officials she talked to had their doubts about when their troops would be ready, the California Democrat said.

With the current open-ended commitment of U.S. troops, there's a danger the Iraqis will become too dependent on the U.S. presence, she said.

"We need to lay out a plan, a goal, an expectation,'' Boxer said. "We have to tell the Iraqis, 'You have to take the second step now.' ''

Click here for all of it.

So I guess some senators have figured it out, but no one who's actually in charge are doing what they should be doing: getting us the hell out of there. There should at least be a cease-fire of sorts, something, anything foreshadowing Peace.

"Some say I'm a dreamer..."

My Friend Joe makes the front page of the LA Times

So I was talking to my brother, Travis, last week, and he tells me that our friend Joe was surfing the other day and this photographer from the LA Times was taking pictures of him.

Yesterday he sends me a photocopy of the paper.

It really is my friend: trumpeter and surf hobbyist, Joseph Motter.

It doesn't mention his name, its not even about him, it was just saying that this storm from Alaska was causing big surf. Knowing Joe only makes it funnier, click on his name above and visit his never-updated website.

March MADNESS!!!!!!!

Just to keep it clear, I don't really care about basketball.

I HAVE been watching a lot of it lately.

Anyways, I was just thinkin', you know, about professional/college sports. There's a lot of freakin' money going into that stuff. And I can't help but wonder, "What the hell is the point?". And then I realized the only reason sports teams exist: To make the fans go, "Wooooooooooooo!". Thats it. Their team wins, and they go, "Wooooooooooooo!".

Millions upon millions of dollars for "Woooooooo!".

I'm not saying its wrong. In fact, I don't think its wrong at all.

It just amazes me.

Officer had nude photos of suspet, report says

From the Houston Chronicle, courtesy of Realart

It began as the fairly routine arrest of a drunken-driving suspect on a Houston street. It quickly evolved into a maze of questions as investigators checked out reports that a Houston police officer had found nude photos of the driver stored in her cellular phone, downloaded them and later showed them around the courthouse.

Patrolman Christopher Green has been reassigned to desk duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation. His partner, George Miller, also has been reassigned while the department looks into reports that he called the DWI suspect's home to ask her out.

Click here for the rest.

I understand that there's cut-ups in every profession, but that just shouldn't be the case with police officers, or any emergency worker for that matter. That cop should have been fired.

More from history class

Yesterday we finished a video about the Korean War. It featured interviews with veterans who fought there.

At the end of the film the narrator asks "Was it all worth it?", and it goes back to each veteran giving their answer. Each one said something like "I do think it was worth it because if we didn't fight for democracy then our own democracy would be threatened."

So the video told us that the commies were out to get us.

Ok. It was a pretty old video, probably made before the fall of the Soviet Union, but it still applies to today's so-called "War on Terrorism". Its not the communists anymore, its the terrorists, and they're "OUT TO GET US! OH NO! KILL THEM TOWL-HEADED SUNZUBITCHES!!"

(I'll say this again: you can't fight a war on an -ism. I mean, you can't fight a WORD and you can never destroy an idea.)

First, lets think for a second. Why on earth would North Korea want to invade South Korea? Oh yeah! Korea was split in two after World War II! I dunno, maybe they just wanted their country back? Gee, how selfish is THAT, right? But no, we were just like, "Holy shit their trying to take over the fucking world!" And now we think that an international group of Muslim fundamentalists from various third world countries is going to overthrow the United States. And we go to war with Iraq because they MIGHT have nukes, which they didn't and don't.

I think we should learn from the mistakes of the Cold War. We must learn that you can't invade a country and change it into a democracy. Its NEVER been done, it CAN'T be done.

When the colonists felt oppressed by England, they built up their OWN resistance and fought for themselves (until the French saved their asses). The people living under oppressive governments today will fight back someday, on their own. We don't need to do it all for them. Our foreign policy should not involve explosives.

Has anyone at the Pentagon thought of this yet?

Bush? Peace Prize?

I don't know why I didn't hear about this until today, or technically yesterday, but I heard that George W. Bush, the guy who got us in to all this CRAP, is supposedtly a candidate to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

I saw this on the cover of TIME Magazine.

Three letters man, W T F.

Well, I guess it sorta makes sense, since Nobel himself invented DYNAMITE. But thats exactly why he started the Peace Prize thing; he felt guilty for being responsible for something so destructive that he wanted to reward people for promoting peace.

Bush does not promote peace, as far as I can tell. Starting a war is slightly the opposite. But I do remember something from George Orwell's 1984: "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength". But that was the antagonist's sloagan, so...we're back to wondering why the crap Bush is up for the Peace Prize.

I guess we'll never know.

Idiot History Teacher

We're talking about the Cold War in history. My teacher said we pumped billions of dollars to western Europe to keep them from becoming communists. Then he said that was the main reason why he has a problem with the French.

Huh?

You have a problem with the French because we gave them billions of dollars in aid after World War II? Huh? Oh, it must have something to do with the War on Iraq. Ha. Yeah, I guess he overlooked the reason why we went to war and the reason France didn't. And he also overlooked that France is not the only country who is NOT helping us fight the war on Iraq. And he also overlooked that there really were no weapons of mass destruction, remember how we found that out recently?

And just this morning my neo-conservative friend Tim started to go off about how he wanted to "run that country into the ground"

Why the hell do people hate France so much? Spain isn't fighting. Germany isn't fighting. Russia isn't fighting. A hell of a lot of people aren't fighting and we pick the French to shit on.

Lets not forget that we wouldn't have won the Revolutionary War without France, remember the battle of Yorktown? Britain had us cornered at the coast and France sailed up just in time.

Sure we helped them out in World War II but that doesn't mean they automatically have to help us blow up Iraq, especially since we're obviously wrong.

Jeez.

Remembering all those arguments made 1,500 deaths ago

By Joseph L. Galloway / Knight Ridder courtesy of michaelmoore.com

WASHINGTON - Something about anniversaries prods us to pause and reflect on what's transpired in the intervening time. March 20 is the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and it's a good time to consider what's happened since then.

Do you recall our civilian leadership's rationale for a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein? President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and, yes, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the world that the United States had no choice but to invade Iraq. They said Saddam was hiding chemical and biological weapons, and that his scientists would be able to produce a nuclear weapon in a few years.

Do you remember those who predicted that the operation would be financed in large part by sales of Iraqi oil? It would be cheap, easy and, oh yes, so swift that civilian leaders in the Pentagon ordered the military to plan to begin withdrawing from Iraq no later than the summer of 2003.

click here for all of it

Is this going to continue for 22 years like Vietnam? How long will it take them to realize what we've done?

Los Angeles

I was in L.A. the past four days. Two words: Friggin' Awesome. Part of the reason it was so fun was because we made it fun. Aaron, Rachael, Yoli, Katy, Kyle, Fulton, Tim, Stuart, KK, Hayley, James, all the band kids.

Friday:
flew to LA, gave thumbs up to Courtney, got tied up by Tim, Bowman, and Andrew with duct tape and stood me up by the window just in time for an entire squad of cheerleaders to walk by and see me. Took pictures. FRIGGIN' AWESOME.

Saturday:
Marched in a parade at Disneyland and played our marching show music in front of the castle, rode rides/was really loud and youthful everywhere we went, ate at the House of Blues.

Sunday:
Recording session at Disneyland. Rode rides/was really loud and youthful. That night we got Stuart to come up to our room thinking we were going to tie up Bowman, only to get duct taped by us and Bowman.

Monday:
Universal Studios. Rode rides, it was friggin' fun. Got the crap scared out of us at the Van Helsing thing, it was like a haunted house. We ate at Midieval Times and pissed off the Black and White Knight, calling him and all the other knights (except our Yellow Knight who seemed to enjoy our abuse of the other knights) "dingle berry"and "douche bag". We specifically called the Black and White Knight "oreo"and had our whole section chanting "oreo!" and he later told me and this dude named Marcus to shut up since he knew we started it. Friggin' Awesome.

Tuesday:
Tour of L.A. Stopped outside the Chinese Theatre and walked down whatever street its on, with all those stars on the sidewalk. And we checked out the celebrity handprints in the cement outside the theater. My hand fits right inside Dick Van Dyke's print. Then we drove down Sunset Strip and saw the hotel where John Belluche overdosed and the club where River Phoenix was killed. Then we turned onto Rodeo Drive, so naturally I put in Rage Against the Machine's Evil Empire and listened to "Down Rodeo". Saw a bunch of stores where you need reservations to shop in, saw Marilyn Monroe's house. Then we turned onto this other street and stopped at Guitar Center. Saw a drum head signed by D.H. Peligro of Dead Kennedys. There were rockstar handprints outside on the sidewalk like Ramones, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, the Yardbirds, the Ventures, Dick Dale, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Ozzy, Carlos Santana, etc. My hand fit really well in Markey Ramone and Eric Clapton's hand. Then we flew back.

A little while ago:
I found out I'm number 72 in a class of 566 with a gpa of 4.257. I have done homework on about five occasions so far this school year. What does that say?

The New Death Penalty Ruling

So now kids under 18 can't get the death penalty.

I've never really decided whether the death penalty itself was a good thing or not. I think the main question we have to answer indefinately is whether "justice" is the same as, or should serve as, "revenge". If we can figure out if justice and revenge are the same thing, or if they relate to each other directly, then we'll know if the death penalty is right.

I wonder if murders committed by teens will rise due to this new ruling. Only time will tell...