transmothraOMFG why didn’t anyone tell me about this!? Westboro Baptist Church apparently has its very own movies site! It’s hilarious and sad at the exact same time. The music videos are priceless! Why on earth do people like Rev. Dr. King and the Kennedys get shot while Fred Phelps is still walking???
Former U.S. soldier droppin’ some Truth about this bullshit war in Iraq. Do your self and your conscience and your country and your fellow human beings a favor by watching this and then doing something about it.
If i were living in a video game, i would probably do video game things: senseless slaughter, reckless driving, and generally causing mayhem. It’s sure as hell fun in a video game.
I’d probably have a real itchy trigger finger; blowing character’s heads clean off would cause me to ceaselessly cackle as i wheel about looking for more victims, and more nastiness to get into.
Soldiers, however, do not live in video games. They kill real people. Actual human beings, with lives and families and friends and day jobs – be they evildoers or just innocent civilians, caught in the line of fire. Sometimes, though, things go wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
Frankly, it’s getting a little tedious, hearing and reading about all the civilian deaths in Iraq. It has been going on for a long time, after all.
That’s why i put off reading this The Nation piece (alt.link.print) for about a week before i got around to reading it.
The Iraq War is a vast and complicated enterprise… Fighting in densely populated urban areas has led to the indiscriminate use of force and the deaths at the hands of occupation troops of thousands of innocents.
I can not and will not blame soldiers en masse or individually. It’s a real bad situation over there, and we need to get those guys out of there as quickly as we possibly can, before more soldiers crack under pressure and bring the whole damn thing down.
It’s ok to be against the war and NOT spit on returning soldiers. That kind of folly is for idiot hippies with misguided frustration. These guys need a lot of help, from many different angles. War does terrible things to a man’s soul. But we must have hope that these inner demons can be defeated, every last one of them, for every last soldier who was there and saw bad things happen.
The bottom line: we’ve gotta get out of that place.
In the four long years of the war, the mounting civilian casualties have already taken a heavy toll–both on the Iraqi people and on the US servicemembers who have witnessed, or caused, their suffering. Iraqi physicians… published a study late last year… that estimated that 601,000 civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion… [They] found that coalition forces were responsible for 31 percent of these violent deaths, an estimate they said could be “conservative,” since “deaths were not classified as being due to coalition forces if households had any uncertainty about the responsible party.”
“Just the carnage, all the blown-up civilians, blown-up bodies that I saw,” Specialist [Jeff] Englehart said. “I just–I started thinking, like, Why? What was this for?”
“It just gets frustrating,” Specialist [Garett] Reppenhagen said. “Instead of blaming your own command for putting you there in that situation, you start blaming the Iraqi people…. So it’s a constant psychological battle to try to, you know, keep–to stay humane.”
it’s starting to really hit me. the initial shock and numbness is done with. today is somehow different. it was already really bad for me (it’s been a deepening pit of hell for 2 1/2 years now, with the absolute worst part of it starting just two weeks ago). but now it seems even harsher somehow. i feel like i’m trying desperately to escape the immense gravity of a black hole.
it’s sinking in.
hell, i’m sinking in.
someone i knew and loved, lived with and shared experiences and conversations with for years and years… dead. gone. forever.
no more talking. no more sharing. no more gestures or hugs or ironic smiles. ever.
i should point out that, as a devout agnostic who leans rather heavily towards atheism, i do not believe in an afterdeath of any kind. extraordinary claims, after all, require extraordinary evidence. so this is… difficult. to say the least.
life. gone. over. finished. done. kaput. a fire is snuffed forever.
this may be even worse than when my poor sweet grandmother died in 2001, if only because now, the other shoe has finally dropped. it’s like the floor itself has been pulled out from under me, and all that exists is empty space underneath for me to fall through. the bottom, as it were, has dropped out!
i am starting to freak out
spent something like the last 20 hours in the ICU. grandfather: “help me” – phlegm, breathing rattley; some suction helped little. not oxygenating enough (level should be ~100; under 90 not good, under 85 bad – he was dropping to low 80s). concern raised: due to leukemia problems=platelet count low, trache tube could be fatal if laceration occurs. had to wait outside for several extraordinarily tense minutes. dad on his way. Doctor comes out, says they got the tube in his throat, but his heart stopped. he died. they revived him with CPR, breaking ribs (par). oxygen level bottomed out at 45.
my god how i cried and how i loved.
that fighter, that ox, that superhumanly strong man – his vitals are god damn near normal and have been for several hours. that is exactly like him, too. i hold no great hope, though.
need sleep now will return to hospital later.
you=regret nothing starting now!
More human remains have been found at the former site of the World Trade Center.
According to the Washington Post article above, ~20,000 pieces of people have thus far been found. ~2,749 died in the attack. This means that, statistically, every person who died at the World Trade Center that day was blown into an average of about 7 pieces.
Really brings it home, huh?
Check out this angrily passionate editorial by the great Keith Olbermann re: the new, absolutely diabolical Military Commissions Act. (Read up on it and know that this is terrible and insane.)
[youtube]uqxmPjB0WSs[/youtube]ProTV Video, a Romanian private TV station, has a video of soldiers of the People’s Republic of China actually killing unarmed, harmless Tibetan refugees trekking through the snow on a pilgrimmage to see the Dalai Lama.
Who will stand up to this brutality? Who will make the PRC pay for their numerous despicable crimes against humanity?
Sometimes I look at all the wonderful and good things that mere people have done throughout the vast, untold millennia of history, and I feel such an upwelling of pride for my fellow human beings, and the accomplishments of this incredible civilization that we have created, that I believe I just might explode.
And sometimes I just want to stab my fucking eyes out. O, how cruelly naive I can be!
Also at work today, i received an e-mail that gave me an idea for a new micro-podcast (which i’ve christened a nanocast; get it?), and the following, unrelated, e-mail (spacing, spelling, and complete and total obliteration of conventional rules of syntax and grammar intentionally left intact for humiliation):
Two thing return . 29.99 and 14.99 just one return no . Just two things back to you . Still owe me 14.99 that is correct and miss one don’t say 14.99 I bet that you forget put on it . Thanks !
[sic]
(Translation: I also returned another item which I noticed you do not have listed on the return confirmation e-mail which I have received but failed to include for your reference. Can you provide further information on this issue? Is it possible that it could have somehow been lost?
)
Q: What was the customer’s name?
| first name | last name |
|---|---|
| Tonto | Nahasapeemapetilon |
| Tumak | Rogers |
| Sharon | , The Ape Man |
| Ayla | Bartokomous |
| Tuong | Souphanousinphone |
A: If you guessed “Sharon Rogers,” you’d be sadly correct. Not only that, but she was from Arizona.
Bonus: If you can guess to whom those other names belong, you are not only smarter than “Sharon Rogers,” you are indeed worthy of being enshrined as a Thinking Person.
NOTE: names and places have been changed to protect the imbecile’s privacy.
I just got done reading my friend Jackie Corley‘s manuscript. Devastated. Trust me, this will blow you away. When it gets out there onto the shelves, finally, you will need to take a deep breath and plunge right into the raging torrent of a story this is. It’s tragic, moving, and crazy good.
Not fictional! He actually threatens a fucking trombonist! I actually did not know what a dick he was until today.