Unfortunately, both soldiers were found dead with evidence of torture according to this mornings news.

However it still brings up a serioues of what-ifs as outlined by Rude Pundit

I'm even going to be too lazy to put these into phrases and crap, so here, read and ponder.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_digbysblog_archive.html#115017687147737423

http://www.dianablaine.com/

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_digbysblog_archive.html#115056719698619484

This is a song about the everyday occurrences
That make me feel like letting go
Yes I think weve got a problem
So much for the afterglow

I had a long day. I spent 4 hours and 45 minutes driving 100+ miles around Rochester on a temp job that ultimately paid ok thanks to good gas milage on my car. Was frustrated beyond beleif at shitty directions and lots of U-Turns and swerving and poor drivers. And I got a driver's arm SUNBURN while being hungry and dehydrated. Then I come home, flop into my chair, and see this on my homepage.

And all I could think was: "We have a horrible economy, goverment spending out of control, we have bigotry running rampant, we have violence, we have over 100,000 kids waiting for adoption and even more animals, we have not one but two wars going on, we have soldiers dying, others snapping and murdering civilians, we have global biological and ecological problems, we have cities unprepared for the weather disasters heading their way, and HE'S CONCERNED WITH TWO MEN FUCKING EACH OTHER????"

What the FUCK is wrong with these people?
Oh fucking no, two men want to fuck, oh no, two women want to kiss, oh for crying out loud what the FUCK does that have to do with anything?

How about we fix the economy, the government, and the environment, before butting into peoples personal lives and worrying about how they get off?

Seriously.

At least some others did more ranting for me

If the GOP can energize the shrieking ultra-conservatives and at the same time suck in everybody else and distract us all from the really important issues ... the next election will turn on the issue of gay
marriage, and not on those more important issues.

Such as: Who really screwed up in Iraq? Such as: Where did the budget surplus go? Such as: Why is the Bush White House the most secretive in modern history? Such as: What's happening to individual privacy and freedom in America? Such as: Where's bin Laden? Such as: Is Bush really as stupid as he seems? Such as: Enron, Plamegate, KATRINA, Abu Ghraib, and on and on and ON.

But ... gay marriage?? As THE burning issue at this moment in U.S. history? You have to ask yourself just how desperate these guys are.

I'll hope the Dumbocrats will have enough on the ball to turn this thing on its head with something like "Yeah, you guys go ahead and fill your campaigns with the dangers of gay marriage. The rest of us are
going to talk about the IMPORTANT stuff."

Seriously. Please get fucking real.

This isn't even political labels anymore, there is no such thing as a covservative or a liberal anymore, both sides are so over run by incompetancy and morons slapping labels on themselves and saying they're one thing while turning around and behaving the opposite that the words don't mean shit anymore.

Well worth the read, very, very well worth the read.

I think, that maybe, it's the reason behind the political inactivity of the youth population. No one does much for the War on Crime, the War on Drugs, the War on Cancer, or any other over-cliched and silly-named "war" on X thing here - sure they're bad, but not bad enough to get up and DO something about it. This is why no one's really getting up and DOING anything.

If anyone cared about stopped cancer, they'd donate to science, they'd learn the facts, they'd offer better medical care and support systems. If anyone really cared about terrorism they'd make an effort to stop racism, bigotry in any form - especially religious, and try and understand what causes other nations to hate us. But we really don't care. It's a distant, far off "war" because it's not tied to our personal daily lives, and things not tied to our personal daily lives just aren't taken into consideration.

Similarly, the fact that the War in Iraq is so distanced from the public and so glossed over by the media is discussed again on Reclusive Leftist - a good post to read. I caught part of the nightly news on this recent event in Iraq tonight and was slightly appalled at how quickly it was glossed over, how little the anchorman seemed to care, and how distance he was even from the story he was reporting. It made me realize another part of this apathy - the anchormen don't even care. Watch some old news footage of the real Big Names in Broadcasting reporting on Vietnam or anything - they are visably and audibly upset, angry, and appalled at what they're reporting - that sort of emotion carries through and gets the audience involved and emotional as well. Now though, they don't care, their audience doesn't care, and it's one more news story to be forgotten at the end of the week.

Until it really, honestly effects day to day American Life, people won't care. They'll brush it off, and move on, and hide behind reality television and candy coated news stories and be surprised when something big really does happen. Ignorance is bliss eh?

I've never ben a fan of labels. I've been called a lot of things over time, some of which are not really repeatable. Sometimes they're based on appearances, attitudes, or personal believes. Some labels are more accurate than eithers. Some labels were once accurate but they're not anymore. Words change, meanings and definitions change, and thus so do labels. Words are strongly influenced by actions. So a word that defines a group of people is defind by the actions of those people - and it changes as their actions change.

But there are soooo many silly labels abounding that using them just falls short.

( all about me (again!) )

I've done a lot of walking and talking this semester. Most of it with Alicia. I like walking and talking and I believe I've mentioned it before, but long walks are great for talking and thinking. They're great for getting to know people. I was always jealous of a high school friend that had 2 friends and the Trio used to go on walks all the time in their neighborhood and talk - I had neither a neighborhood nor friends to do that with. Now I do.

I find that getting off the computer consciously does wonders for the spirit and the mind. Cutting the digital umbilical cord out generation draws its sustence for is refreshing. I'm semi-sad to be going home and losing the livliness of a college campus.

I also have no idea what I'm doing this summer, and for once, it's not bothering me. I did sign up with a temp-agency, but I don't know if they'll place me when I call this weekend. I am filling out volunteer paper work for WildWings, a bird of prey rescue center, and have plans to gut my room and really clean it. I'm moving on and it's time to toss a lot of sentimental things that aren't so sentimental anymore.

( Continue with this ramble )

I can't make up my mind about our generation. I'm begining to think that there are two parts to it.

One group is apathetic. No matter what happens, they don't get pissed off. They get annoyed at people trying to have sane, calm, and constructive conversations and debates to fix things. They just don't care, even when problems multiply in their face. They must hide under the modern rock - be it computers and videogames or something - and pretend that things will all be ok eventually. They're the first to deny any problems, and the last to act. They're always anxious to brush events under the rug and move on with day to day life.

The other group cares, a lot, but is impotent. The problem is they see too many problems, and they're so big its just overwhelming. They have ideas to tacakle the problems, but things just seem to grow worse and the tiny dents they make are so little. They're frustrated at their seeming lack of power to effect anything around them, but are unable to just turn away and hide in their personal lives.

Either way, we wind up with a generation that doesn't have a cause despite so many laying around to take up.

We are not going to see any more US troops come home in body bags at Dover for the sake of some Cheney affiliate grabbing the petroleum in Iran's Ahvaz fields.

We are not going to have another 15,000 wounded vets flood onto our streets with spine damange and brain damage.

We are not going to put Yazd behind barbed wire to liberate it, as a millenarian Christian general did to Habbaniyah in Iraq.

We are not going to imprison and torture thousands of Iranians at Evin Penitentiary in Tehran, as worthy successors to the bloodthirsty Shah and Khomeini.

We are not going to kill 200,000 Iranians with aerial bombardments of Tabriz, Isfahan, Qom, Kerman, Shiraz and Mashahd.

We are not going to let dozens of US corporations loot the American people and the Iranian people alike with no-bid "contracts", embezzlement, corruption, and graft.

We are not going to let you have a war against Iran.

So sit down and shut up, American Enterprise Institute, and Hudson Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and American Heritage Institute, and this institute and that institute, and cable "news", and government "spokesmen", and all the pundit-ferrets you pay millions to make business for the American military-industrial complex and Big Oil.

Full article here - WARNING - has some fairly graphic images associated with this quoted block of material.

I saw a comment on one of the many blogs I read daily yesterday that really struck me - the gist of it was that this is not the country it used to be, where has my country gone? And it's about time we stood up and started fighting to take it back.

I think when I get home I shall begin small by posting a couple signs.

The Battle Hymn of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders
(Sung to the tune of The Marine Corps Hymn)

'Tween the walls of mommy's basement
On the floors our spunk has stained
We fight our fights through proxy
With a mouse, keyboard, and brain
First to call for wars of freedom
Policies that kill the poor
We'll do the least that we can do
And fight with our keyboard.

Our George was safe - he made the Guard
And Rush had a sore ass;
Deferments saved Dick's butt five times
But not the working class;
In the dorms of far-off college quads
A light year from the war
You will find us cursin' Democrats
One Hundred-One Keyboards.

There's beer for us and guns for them
And each one has a role;
We're many so glib, we'll flame a Lib,
As warfare takes its toll;
If the Army and the Navy
Are understaffed in war;
Go find another place to turn
We're the One Oh One Keyboards

From Operation Yellow Elephant

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is so hopelessly confounded by the problems of secrecy, it has now fired a CIA agent for allegedly leaking the truth concerning a gulag of "black site" prisons we keep in Eastern Europe (remember when only the Soviets did that?). And of course Bush claims he has the right to instantly declassify anything in order to back up a phony charge against a political opponent. How lovely.

I listened to that pompous self-righteous blowhard Bill Bennett saying the other day that several reporters who won Pulitzers this year should be in jail. I guess the responsibility of being the Virtue Czar has finally driven Bennett daffy. If he can't see that the problem is an administration that runs torture programs, gulags and illegal domestic spying programs, rather than reporters who find out about these programs and print the truth, then I say it's time for a new Virtue Czar.

Jack Anderson was right: The people in government work for us. What they do is our responsibility because they do it in our name and with our money -- that's why we have a right to know about it.

Full article.

Reminds me of this game: All right, not all right.