The House passed a budget with $550 billion in tax cuts. It's very likely that it will pass the Senate and Bush, needing to pay off a few of his good buddies, will sign it. I hope you weren't planning on the economy to stop sucking anytime soon.

[title missing due to looting]
Robert Fisk scoffs at the notion that we have liberated Baghdad, talking about how he saw US troops sitting on their tank while 100 meters away, the owner of a grain silo had to tell his guards to shoot looters. He also says that a UN office that was looted was just 200 meters away from a US military checkpoint, and nothing was done to stop the carnage. And beyond looting, Fisk further points out, "And already America's army of 'liberation' is beginning to seem an army of occupation. I watched hundreds of Iraqi civilians queuing to cross a motorway bridge at Daura yesterday morning, each man ordered by US soldiers to raise his shirt and lower his trousers - in front of other civilians, including women - to prove they were not suicide bombers."

Iraq's third largest city, Mosul, has fallen to US and Kurd forces, prepare to see a repeat of Baghdad because the looting and chaos has already begun.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that US/UK forces may finally be taking the looting seriously by setting up a civil military operations center in Baghdad and asking for help from Iraqi citizens whoused to run public services for the city. This article also states that the looting in Baghdad has reached "epidemic proportions", describes how Iraqi citizens have locked themselves in their homes out of fear. Some Iraqi citizens, taking the law into their own hands, beat a boy looter to death.

The ransacking of hospitals has continued in Baghdad and Mosul.

The first "pot-smoking optional" cafe opens in the Great White North - Canada, eh. The article claims that marijuana users aren't too afraid of law enforcement because charges for the possession of a small amount of marijuana are being thrown out of courts all over the country.

King Kaufman has an article on Salon today that tlls you just how much of a fucking asshole the president of the Baseball Hall of Fame is for politicizing baseball, telling Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon to take a hike and forget about a celebration for the 15th annaniversary of "Bull Durham" because of their anti-war views. Petroskey, the former Reagan administration hack who now oversees the Baseball Hall of Fame, went as far as to say that Robbins and Sarandon have harmed the troops. Kaufman says, "How dare Dale Petroskey hijack his caretaker role in our national game and use it not just for political grandstanding, but for political grandstanding that seeks to stifle debate, that brands debate as unpatriotic." He's 100% correct.

Al Jazeera claims that looters on Baghdad, on top of looting government offices and former homes of Saddam and his sons, have also targeted hospitals and international aid agencies. Baghdad hospitals have been stretched very thin, trying to treat the civilian causalities to our bombing of the city, and now the Internation Red Cross said that small hospitals are closing their doors due to the fear of further mob attacks and looting. I see no reason to think Al Jazeera is lying when UPI, an American news service, also says that hospitals have been looted in an article titled "Looting 'lower priority' than warfighting."

US forces have said that the looting is just the Iraqis "blowing off steam", and given the fact that they are still fighting battles in the city (one troop died today), I can see why looting isn't their top priority. And I'm no military planner, but one would hope that they could post a few troops at a hospital to make sure that that the hospitals can stay open, and also ensure that the World Health Organization (WHO) can deliver some much needed supplies.

The UPI article has a statement from the WHO: "'The WHO is ready to deliver urgently needed surgical and medical supplies into Baghdad. However, this can only be done once the security situation improves and once secure delivery can be ensured.'" The Al Jazeera article also has this quote from Veronique Taveau from the United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (UNOHCI): "The coalition forces seem to be completely unable to restrain looters or impose any sort of control on the mobs that now govern the streets. This inaction by the occupying powers is in violation of the Geneva Convention."

Reading all of this now makes me think that a headline for an article on todays AFP wires wasn't an overexaggeration: Suicide bombing in Baghdad as city descends into chaos.

Take a look at a drawing for the proposed "Saddam Mosque" in Baghdad, scheduled to have been completed in 2015. Reminds me of a line from "Shrek" about conpensating for something...

Salon has a front page article that's on my reading list today. It goes into detail about how the Bush admiinistration has treated post-war Afghanistan, and asks the question of whether or not this will also happen to Iraq. It's a fair question, knowing that we have not given Afghanistan the aid they need and we promised them since the war there ended.

Chalabi Watch
US forces flew Ahmed Chabali into southern Iraqlest anybody question the US government's support for the man. The Age has an article that gives you some background into Chalabi, and questions if the people of Iraq trust him, saying that the Kurds view Chalabi as a "carpetbagger who fled Iraq and showed up again on the eve of change, while others stayed and suffered." The Washington Post mentions a CIA report saying that Chalabi will find little support among Iraqis. The State Department and CIA are not too fond of Chalabi and doubt his ability to rally Iraqis around him. An article from Gulf News provides this information: "He still is subject to arrest in Jordan, according to senior Jordanian officials." I have to wonder if it's a good idea to place a man in power in Iraq who is wanted for arrest in a country that borders Iraq. (I guess Iraq-Jordan summits are out.) The same Gulf News article goes on to quote a Kurdish official: "'He's [Chalabi] tenacious and articulate,' said a senior Kurdish official. 'He's already promising ministry posts. He's cultivating the Turks. He's playing games in Washington. He's smart, you have to give him this. But the opposition is not liberating Iraq. The U.S. is liberating Iraq.'"

I guess there was just way too much good news today, so I'm sorry to piss on the worlds parade. Dragging out the story of Iraq's liberation is something that they have the right to do, and I'm happy that Baghdad has fallen because now we might stop hearing about death and destruction for a while, but there's other news that needs to be aired. A LexisNexis search tells me that only 7-8 US newspapers have even mentioned Chalabi's name today, none of them had it in the front page. His criminal background and possble ascension to Iraqi presidency deserves to be a bigger story.

This photo from Al Jazeera did not come with a caption. I like it, though, and I imagine that these are a couple of Iraqi's who just looted a government building, carted carting away the booty, saw a photog snapping their picture so they got some shit eating grins in their faces and waved.

The current headlining article on Al Jazeera confirms what the US media has been reporting today. Some choice quotes:

"United States-led forces have snapped the spine of Iraq's Saddam Hussein government but the war is not yet formally over, the US military has declared."

"Jubilant Iraqis welcomed advancing US forces in Baghdad while rampaging looters attacked symbols of Saddam Hussein's power."

"Women waved from balconies, girls threw flower petals at young Marines leaning across gun turrets. One woman held her baby aloft. Tank crews picked the flowers from the tops of their fighting machines, smelt them and grinned. Crowds of Shia men beat their chests in the streets."

"Other signs of a breakdown were also apparent. Journalists at the Palestine Hotel confirmed that their minders had disappeared."

Rabid Bitch wants to hear from you in The Rabid Bitchslap, a new loadedmouth forum. If you have absolutely no idea who RB is, she pens the Asshole of the Week column.

Update from my escapades in the message boards of ThenLeave: many people on there have either argeed with me or posted messages that I am in agreement with. There's one lame-o flaming everyone, and he's not even entertaining. But, the administrator of the site has not come out and replied to any of the messages challenging the basis and "logic" of his site, questioning his knowledge of civics and American History.

So, I have publicly challenged him to a debate, in whatever medium. Still no reply.

I then sent him a private message in his forum, asking him to read the thread where I have publicly challenged him to a debate. STILL no reply.

Why am I not surprised? Of course, the rabid right loves the site, and he's getting plugs and interviews on hate radio.

I have a website, but nobody from the media has been calling. Not that I am whining about it, but the fact that hypocritical trash sites like ThenLeave get plugs from the media which does not question whether or not the man who runs the site has a good grasp of how our government works or what the Constitution is, and opinions from people like me are never aired, that should tell you something about the state of the media in this country.

I've had squats worth of time to post things today, so in the free minute that I had to look for news and post it, Warblogging reports that we have bombed the Al Jazeera office in Baghdad. That's just great.

I am listening to one of NPR's supposedly best news shows right now, the Diane Rehm Show. Our good buddy Ahmed Chalabi came up as a topic of conversation. Neither Diane nor a member of her panel on today's show even mentioned that Chalabi was sentenced to 22 years hard labor in Jordan because of how he ran the formerly third largest bank in that country.

I'm hoping an email or caller will bring this to their attention, but, in an honest media, the listeners should not have to do THIS MUCH of the media's job, we should not have to point out things that are common knowledge to the media community. Things that SHOULD be reported to the public. I am very disappointed, because NPR is supposed to be better than this.

Have you ever wondered where the US military puts their advertising dollars? The dollars that come from our taxes to support our country? Where is this being spended to recruit new troops?

I found one spot where our tax dollars have been spent by the military, an internet porn comic site. Click here to see the screen shot I captured, if you don't believe me.

It's good to know that thee military knows how to target young men on the internet. But I'm wondering if the current Republican administration knows that federal dollars are going into the porno industry.

One liner of the day
Yo mama's so fatwa!

Major news services are reporting that US forces bombed a house that Saddam and possibly one of his sons, if not both, were in, raining a few bunker busters down on the house.

Ever being the skeptic, I'll believe it when I see the proof. We know that Saddam has at least one bunker to hide in that can likely withstand eveerything except a direct nuclear hit, and there have been rumors that Saddam has fled Baghdad. Hosently, unless Saddam really believes his own bullshit that he's going to win the war, he should know that venturing anywhere in Baghdad outside of his best bunkers is tantamount to having a suicide wish. So, unless either are true, only one other situation could explain today's events if thy are true: Saddam's a fucking idiot.

We shall see how the events unfold..

Police rough up anti-war protesters in Oakland, CA. It's great to know that we've become so tolerant here in America.

Since the US has essentially ignored Afghanistan since we bombed the everloving shit out of it, the Taliban are gaining power in Afghanistan again. A close ally to Afgahn president Karzai was shot to death last thursday, and last month the Taliban executed an aid worker with International Red Cross because he was an "unbeliever" and a "slave to Karzai, who is a slave to America". The Afghani goverment has not had the aid for rebuilding that they were promised after we bombed the crap out of them, and the soldiers and police have gone unpaid for months and have left their positions, probably looking for other work. These are the people who are supposed to protect the Afghani citizens and keep organizations like the Taliban from coming back into power. Meanwhile, the reconstruction of Kabul has been going along very, very slowly.

Just something to keep in mind when our government says that we will "rebuild" Iraq after the war.

India's Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha makes the case for a preemptive strike on Pakistan by saying that Pakistan is a "fit case" for military actions similar to the war we are currently waging in Iraq, because Pakistan "has weapons of mass destruction, sheltered terrorists and lacked democracy." Unfortunately, all of the above is true, and based on our new foreign policy of preemptive strike, Pakistan does fit the profile. It does a better job of fitting into the profile then Iraq ever did. As you should know, this is only half the story, and even though the president of Pakistan came into power through a military coup in the nation, and even though the nation sponsers terrorist groups that commit atrocities in Kashmir, and even though Pakistan has swapped nuclear secrets for ballistic missiles with North Korea, Pakistan is our good buddies in the war on terrorism. What the US defines as terrorism, of course. Which is why Pakistan got $920 million in foreign aid from America, and India only got $40 million.

I have received a reply to my rant in the www.thenleave.com forum. (I'm still surprised that it has yet to be deleted.) If you are interested in seeing me aruge with idiots (well, one right now), here's the link: com1.akheva.com/bthenleave.fthenleavecomchat.t9

It seems that the copy-protected CDs that record labels are coming out with might keep their artists from getting played on the radio. Some stations do not have stand only CD players anymore, they just have PCs that they use to rip songs from CDs and put them into a playlist. But the copy-protected CDs are not allowing radio stations to rip songs anymore.

Haa haa! I hate the RIAA. Nothing would make me happier then to see all of their record labels go under, and then the real artists out there finally have Hillary Rosen's head on a stake.

For the US forces still searching for Saddam, one of his former aides says that Saddam has fled to his hometown of Tikrit, and that his last day in Baghdad was April 2. Go get'em, but please, no bombing.

I'm really happy that I can read Al Jazeera in English now. I have heard from people in America and elsewhere that it's just like CNN, except it spreads propaganda to the Arab world. It's good to keep that in mind, but you also have to look at the quality of their reporting, and you get great articles like this one which points out how hypocritical the US military is when it comes to the Geneva Convention:

"'Some of the biggest losses we have taken are due to Iraqis committing serious violations of the law of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions, by dressing as civilians and luring us into surrender situations and opening fire on our troops,' General Richard Myers, Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters days into the invasion of Iraq."

[snip]

"But he seemed to be taken by surprise when an American journalist asked him to comment on the the fact that sections of the US-led force routinely operate out of uniform.

His response was one of a pregnant silence, as if struck by the reminder that US-led special forces are dressing as civilian Iraqis."

Read the article, it gets worse.

Here's the text to a message I posted to the forum of www.thenleave.com, which is a site that wants to pay for people who disagree with the Bush administration to leave the country:

I have a question for the person that runs this site and the people who support it: should you be asked to leave the country when you hated the Clintion administration?

It's a valid question, because you are asking people who disagree with the Bush administration to leave. Well, I have little doubt in my mind that you people liked Clinton while he was in office, so why don't YOU leave the country? In fact, you're a couple years too late to capitalize on your opportunity to run this site from France. I'll buy YOUR ticket.

Hell, at least Clinton was democratically elected, unlike the man you support.

So, please, take a civics class, because you obviously slept through it in high school. If you think that those who disagree with Bush should leave the country, you are showing your ignorance of how our system of government, and the LEGAL RIGHT OF DISSENT, and the RIGHT TO VOTE FOR A CANDIDATE OTHER THAN BUSH. If you want to live in a country where everyone is forced to agree with Bush, then I'll give you a one way ticket to Iraq.

And don't even think about complaining that anti-war protesters commit acts of civil disobdience. If you do, then I hope that you think the Boston Tea party was wrong, too. If you agree with one and not the other, then you are a hypocrite.

You are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. I wouldn't say that if you actually came out and told the truth about your website: if somebody doesn't agree with YOU, then they should leave the country. This has nothing to do with respecting the sitting government. So, to turn your "logic" against you, then I dare any one of you who did not support Clinton while he was in office to leave the country. Just leave, right now, don't be a hypocrite.

I'm waiting for this message to get deleted.