Call of Cthulhu

• Instruct the Secretary of Homeland Security to enact regulations that bypass the Convention Against Torture


• Put the burden of proof on the person being deported to establish "by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured."


• Bar the courts from having jurisdiction to review the Secretary's regulations.


• Allow Homeland Security to deport terrorist suspects to any country in the world at will - even countries other than the person's home country or the country in which they were born.

Viewers of Jon Stewart's show are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch "The O'Reilly Factor," according to Nielsen Media Research.

Comedy Central also touted a recent study by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey, which said young viewers of "The Daily Show" were more likely to answer questions about politics correctly than those who don't.

The unit knew it would soon be shipped to the front. Some soldiers responded by deserting. Others got drunk and fought. In response, officers locked the unit in its barracks, allowing the troops out only to drill, not even to smoke a cigarette, until it could be put on the transport that would take it into combat.

It sounds as if I am describing some third echelon Soviet infantry regiment in, say, 1942. In fact, I am talking about the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment, South Carolina Army National Guard, in September 2004....One shudders to think what will happen once it gets there and finds itself under daily attack from skilled enemies it cannot identify.

Cabinet wars, as they used to be called, are something altogether different. As Frederick the Great said, cabinet wars must be waged in such a manner that the people do not know they are going on.

But National Guardsmen are the people. To send them into a cabinet war is to misuse them in a way that will destroy them. Even in the American Revolution, militiamen were seldom asked to fight outside their own state. When they were, they usually responded by deserting.

For many Guardsmen, deployment to Iraq means economic ruin. They have mortgage payments, car payments, credit card debt, all calculated on their civilian salaries. Suddenly, for a year or more, their pay drops to that of a private. The families they leave behind face the loss of everything they have. What militia wouldn’t desert in that situation?

The fact of the matter is that Versailles on the Potomac does not care about the rest of the country in any respect, so long as the tax dollars keep coming in. My old friend King Louis XVI might be able to tell Rumsfeld & Co. where that road eventually ends up.

"Hundreds of Iraqis die every day," the man yelled at them. "Thousands are being kidnapped by the Americans every day, and nothing happens, but when three foreigners disappear, the whole world is here."

When talking to Ghaith about what happened to him he said that he doesn’t want this to sound that he is against their presence here.

But I used to feel safe when around them, if it looked like trouble go stand by the Americans but now I don’t feel this safe anymore. I hated myself for having the same feelings and fear when I was being detained by the Americans as when I was being detained by the Iraqis. I was worried about the space they would put me in and was hoping someone I know would come by so that I don’t just disappear.

One of the men lifts a big sword, and the scene cuts to the man in the jumpsuit lying dead in a pool of blood. The men around him are screaming "Allahu Akbar" - "God is great."

"Every time I watch this I feel sick," said the man. "But this is the only way to liberate my country."

ZAHN: Is the world a safer place because of the war in Iraq?

MUSHARRAF: No. It's more dangerous. It's not safer, certainly not.

ZAHN: How so?

MUSHARRAF: Well, because it has aroused actions of the Muslims more. It's aroused certain sentiments of the Muslim world, and then the responses, the latest phenomena of explosives, more frequent for bombs and suicide bombings. This phenomenon is extremely dangerous.

ZAHN: Was it a mistake to have gone to war with Iraq?

MUSHARRAF: Well, I would say that it has ended up bringing more trouble to the world.

BROKAW: Do you think the American war against Iraq was a mistake?

MUSHARRAF: Well, I wouldn't comment on that. But I will certainly say that it has complicated the issue.

BROKAW: In your part of the world.

MUSHARRAF: In the Islamic world. In the Iraqi region. In the Middle East.

BROKAW: Made it worse for America?

MUSHARRAF: Yes.

Amendment II:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

• Either the Founding Fathers were talking about the ability of States to create and maintain a militia, or


• The Founding Fathers wanted all Americans to be able to bear arms so that they might, among other things, contribute to the common defense.

• Under the Articles of Confederation, the States were really little countries that printed their own money, made their own laws, collected their own taxes, and ran their own little armies (the state milita).


• The States were collectively leery of any large Federal army, having just witnessed first-hand the abuse possible under the boots of such an army (ie, The British Army).


• The fact that so many Americans posessed firearms meant that any State could whip up a militia to protect its borders in a jiffy.


• The Founding Fathers were a bunch of revolutionaries with anti-government feelings, and they weren't inclined to let a central government be so strong as to oppress The People: Letting The People have guns was a good reminder to any would-be dictator that The People had means other than the ballot and the protest to make known their political discontent.

1. The existence of the National Guard in every state, commonwealth, and territory in the United States fulfills the definition of a "militia", such that any given state may forbid the existence of additional, private militias if they so choose.


2. The Right to Bear Arms is an intrinsic part of our collective heritage, and the Founding Fathers' idea of "gun control" was mostly along the lines of "Hey! Watch where you point that thing!".


3. That being said, the Supreme Court has left it up to the states to decide just how much they will or won't control access and posession to firearms.

Osama bin Laden becomes truly scary when the realization comes that he is not unique, not singular, not an invention of the universe. He becomes truly scary when the realization comes that there are millions of people who have seen what he has seen, who feel what he feels, and why. He becomes truly scary when the realization comes that he is a creation of the last fifty years of American foreign and economic policy, and that he has an army behind him created by the same influences. Simply, Osama bin Laden becomes truly scary when the realization comes that he can be, and has been, and continues to be, replicated.

Osama bin Laden is a damned murderer of innocents, with thousands of notches in his belt. His actions are indefensible by any measure. Yet to dismiss him as something other than the creation of his experiences, to categorize him as some unique freak whose motivations are beyond comprehension, is to deny the most important dilemma that faces our world. Monsters are not born. They are made.

...do you really think that he's thinking "Oh, it's just a few bad apples blowing off some steam.".

Or do you think he might be a bit more inclined to view these actions as the violence of an oppressive invader.

I don't blame America first, dispite what that pill-popping hypocrite Limbaugh says. America didn't do this; a fanatical fascist element of neo-conservatism framed a foreign policy that made this possible. Unfortunately, I don't think this man knows the difference, or cares...


The freepers and neo-clowns will happily claim that each and every one of these people deserved their fate, that they were terrorists or insurgents or criminals. But what you need to realize is that the only opinion that matters is that of the man deciding whether or not he wants to do something about this...

We accused Saddam Hussein of collaborating with bin Laden, and of being involved in 9/11, despite the fact that bin Laden has wanted Hussein dead for years. We killed over 10,000 Iraqi civilians. We raped and tortured Iraqi men, women and children in the dungeons of Abu Ghraib. All of our poor history in the region has been distilled into that one nation, a place that now manufactures bin Laden allies by the truckload.

Because the Gallup Poll, despite its reputation, assumes that this November 40% of those turning out to vote will be Republicans, and only 33% will be Democrat.

Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 13-15
Reflected Bush Winning by 55%-42%

Total Sample: 767
GOP: 305 (40%)
Dem: 253 (33%)
Ind: 208 (28%)

Registered Voter Sample Party IDs – Same Poll
Reflected Bush Winning by 52%-44%

Total Sample: 1022
GOP: 381 (38%)
Dem: 336 (33%)
Ind: 298 (30%)

If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000.

So the Democrats have been 39% of the voting populace in both 1996 and 2000, and the GOP has not been higher than 35% in either of those elections.

He added, in his clearest terms yet of what he views as Mr. Bush's lack of accountability: "He's blamed just about everyone but himself and his administration for America's economic problems. And if he's missed you, don't worry, he's still got 48 days left until the election."

Mr. Kerry went on: "At that convention in New York the other week, President Bush talked about his ownership society. Well Mr. President, when it comes to your record, we agree you own it."

--Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad writes for The Guardian and works as a stringer for Getty Images. When

I had just reached the corner of the cube when I heard two explosions, I felt hot air blast my face and something burning on my head. I crawled to the cube and hid behind it. Six of us were squeezed into a space less than two metres wide. Blood started dripping on my camera but all that I could think about was how to keep the lens clean.

This is the front-line elite, a bunch of badly equipped men with rusted AKs and decade-old RPG rockets. When we first arrive they are brewing tea, piles of RPG rockets stacked on the walls two feet away from the fire.

"So how long you have been here?" I ask one of them.

"Three weeks now." He says he is here because he wants to defend the shrine of Imam Ali. "I'm unemployed and have nothing else to do."

He is 17.

When you put a sign on the freeway people will read it until someone takes it down. Depending on its size, content and placement it can be seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

Here at Freewayblogger we feel that free speech is meaningless unless it extends to everybody: not just to those who can afford it. When the founders of this nation said that everyone was entitled to freely express their political opinions, they didn't mean we could hammer up a sign out in the woods somewhere, they meant we could hammer it up right in the middle of the town square. Why? Because that's where all the people were.

Hey Shrub™, how many more have to die before you get a fucking clue?