Tuesday, November 07, 2006

South Dakotans Reject Tough Abortion Ban

South Dakotans rejected a toughest-in-the-nation law that would have banned virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest _ defeating one of the most high-profile state measures facing voters Tuesday.

The outcome was a blow to conservatives, who also had cause for worry in Arizona. An amendment to ban gay marriage was trailing there with returns nearly complete; it would be the first defeat for such a measure after prevailing in more than two dozen states in recent years.

Five states approved increases in their minimum wage, while Arizona passed four measures targeting illegal immigrants, including one making English the state's official language. In Michigan, voters took a swipe at affirmative action, deciding that race and gender should not be factors in deciding who gets into public universities or who gets hired for government work.

In Missouri, returns were too close to call on a proposed amendment allowing stem cell research. It had been a factor in the crucial Senate race there, with incumbent Republican Jim Talent opposing the measure and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill supporting it.

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HOORAY FOR THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH DAKOTA! HOORAY FOR SANITY!

What an asswipe. Really.

Saddam Hussein Calls for Reconciliation
Updated 8:12 AM ET November 7, 2006
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN and ROBERT H. REID

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A somber Saddam Hussein called Tuesday for national reconciliation as he returned to court for his genocide trial, two days after another panel sentenced him to hang for crimes against humanity.

During the afternoon court session, Saddam cited references to the Prophet Muhamad and Jesus who had asked for forgiveness for those who opposed them.

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Well, well, well... let's just see how Saddam and his henchboys went about the process of "reconciliation," shall we?

Here's a nasty little collection of videosthat you can download and watch (if you want to) that shows Saddam's boys torturing a few victims.

From the article, "Baathed in Blood":

Two years later, he invaded Kuwait and treated its civilians with notable brutality. When Operation Desert Storm shattered Saddam's army, both Kurds and southern Iraqi Shiites rose in revolt, and the regime maintained power through astonishing savagery, which filled mass graves across southern Iraq with an unknown number of Shiites--perhaps in the hundreds of thousands. The same images are evoked again and again: rapes, murder of children, forms of torture that make your eyes flinch from the page, and masses of victims buried in the night.

Mass Graves of Iraq: Uncovering Atrocities tells us that Saddam's version of "reconciliation" included the following:

The 1983 attack against Kurdish citizens belonging to the Barzani tribe, 8,000 of whom were rounded up by the regime in northern Iraq and executed in deserts at great distances from their homes.

The 1988 Anfal campaign, during which as many as 182,000 people disappeared. Most of the men were separated from their families and were executed in deserts in the west and southwest of Iraq. The remains of some of their wives and children have also been found in mass graves.

Chemical attacks against Kurdish villages from 1986 to 1988, including the Halabja attack, when the Iraqi Air Force dropped sarin, VX and tabun chemical agents on the civilian population, killing 5,000 people immediately and causing long-term medical problems, related deaths, and birth defects among the progeny of thousands more.

The 1991 massacre of Iraqi Shi’a Muslims after the Shi’a uprising at the end of the Gulf war, in which tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in such regions as Basra and Al-Hillah were killed.

The 1991 Kurdish massacre, which targeted civilians and soldiers who fought for autonomy in northern Iraq after the Gulf war.

Opponents and critics of the regime from all religious and ethnic groups were also executed and buried in mass graves. Many of these are believed to be located at or near prisons and former military establishments.

These crimes have acquired a measure of notoriety and salience. Thousands of other Iraqis, including Marsh Arabs, Shi’a Muslims in the 1970s and 1980s, and students involved in uprisings in Najaf in 1999 may also be lying in mass graves in Iraq.


More of Saddam's "reconciliation" efforts here:

Torture Methods in Iraq
  • Medical experimentation

  • Beatings

  • Crucifixion

  • Hammering nails into the fingers and hands

  • Amputating the penis or breasts with an electric carving knife

  • Spraying insecticides into a victim’s eyes

  • Branding with a hot iron

  • Committing rape while the victim’s spouse is forced to watch

  • Pouring boiling water into a rectum

  • Nailing the tongue to a wooden board

  • Extracting teeth with pliers

  • Using bees and scorpions to sting naked children in front of their parents

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An infant's garment pulled from one of the mass graves.

And old Saddam compares himself to Jesus?

My Least Favorite Democrat

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Dear Bill Clinton,

Yep, you are my least favorite Democrat. Where to begin explaining the why's and wherefores...

Oh, heck, why not just dive in and start with the very worst thing of all. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??? Truth is, you weren't thinking. You were being stupid. It was dumb, Bill, to use the Oval Office. It was dumb to use a young woman barely into her twenties who had yet to mature out of how stupid twenty-something young women can be. But, at least she had an excuse.

You were the leader of the free world and you paired up with a not-very-wise young lady and CAN YOU SEE THE PROBLEM WITH THAT?

What was your excuse, Bill?

When you are the President of the United States, you forfeit your personal self and your personal needs to the job. You have to be more than just plain you.

Who were you being when you diddled with Monica, Bill? I'll tell you who you weren't being. You weren't being my President.

My President would never have been so stupid. That was the worst part, Bill. That the President could have been so damn dumb. That was the kind of smarts that was supposed to keep our country safe?

What happens if a President is as dumb as a box of rocks and our enemies know it? Oh, oops. Looks like we are currently in that situation with George II. Well, then, you see? It's sure not working out, this stupid President stuff.

Wagging your finger at the American people while playing word games with the truth was definitely not in the Smart Column.

And look where it got us. We had to have an impeachment over a frickin' blow job! If there had never been any sexual activity with the pretty Monica in the Oval Office, you never would have been nailed by the likes of aldulterers Henry Hyde and Bob Barr. What a travesty all of you made of the dignity of the President and of Congress. A pox on all your houses.

I don't respect what you did with other women, as well. Apparently, you don't respect us back very much, either. You use women. I don't respect how you've treated the two most important women in your life - Hillary and Chelsea. Oh sure, I know they've made their peace with the whole mess but I still don't respect you.

When I see you make public appearances now, I cringe. I know that everybody who's looking at you is thinking of That. You carry the sleaze factor around like a trailing fart. It's with you all the time.

You, Mr. Clinton, are my least favorite Democrat. And now you know why.

Happy Election Day, everyone.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Saddam Hussein Top Ten Lists

Top 10 Strategies Of Saddam Hussein's Attorneys
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Reasons Saddam Hussein Loves Doritos
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Ways To Cheer Up Saddam Hussein
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Rejected Titles of Saddam Hussein's New Novel
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Way Saddam Hussein Celebrated His 67th Birthday
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Questions Asked By Saddam Hussein When He Was Captured
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 18 Things on Saddam Hussein's To-Do List
TopFive.com
Top 10 Other Observations Made By Saddam Hussein's Daughter
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Secrets Learned From Saddam Hussein's Papers
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 11 Things Found in Saddam Hussein's 'Spider Hole'
Too Stupid To Be President.com
Top 10 Signs Your Neighbor Is Harboring Saddam Hussein
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 President Bush Excuses for Not Finding Weapons of Mass Destruction
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Limericks About Saddam Hussein's Mustache
TopFive.com
Top 10 Things Iraq's Information Minister Has to Say About the War
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 13 Quotes From the Iraqi Information Minister
TopFive.com
Top 10 Things Overheard at Saddam Hussein's Last Dinner
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Things That Will Get You Kicked Out of Iraq
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Surprises In Dan Rather's Interview with Saddam Hussein
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Things I, Saddam Hussein, Want To Get Off My Chest
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Things Dumb Guys Think The U.N. Does
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Saddam Hussein Weekend Plans
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Signs Saddam Hussein Is Planning To Move To Your Neighborhood
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Surprises In The 12,000-Page Iraqi Declaration
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Signs Saddam Hussein Is Getting Nervous
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Saddam Hussein Campaign Promises
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Saddam Hussein Tips for A Romantic Evening
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Perks of Being Saddam Hussein's Stepson
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Ways Saddam Hussein Celebrated His 65th Birthday
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 11 Reasons Dick Cheney Helped Saddam Hussein Restore Iraq's Oil Production Capacity in the Late 1990s
Too Stupid To Be President.com
Top 10 Saddam Hussein Nicknames
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Signs Saddam Hussein is More Nuts Than Ever
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Saddam Hussein Summer Fun Tips
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Ways Saddam Hussein Can Improve His Image
Late Show with David Letterman
Top 10 Saddam Hussein Pet Peeves
Late Show with David Letterman

Visit About.com for more political humor!

Goodbye, Saddam

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Saddam given death sentence
VERDICT DEEPENS SECTARIAN DIVISIONS

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's trial, once viewed as a means of reconciliation and justice, instead Sunday seemed to fuel the country's sectarian division after the former Iraqi leader was found guilty and sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.

Some Shiites and Kurds celebrated. Some Sunnis mourned angrily. For large swaths of the Iraqi people, Saddam has ceased to be the mesmerizing patriarch who once towered over their nightmares and lives. Many interviewed Sunday and in recent months said they had laid him to rest long ago, more worried about the internecine violence wracking the country.

``The verdict was right, but prolonging it faded the cheerfulness,'' said Sameer Asadi, a 38-year-old taxi driver in the southern Iraq city of Basra.

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Bush's New Orleans Vacation

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Sunday, November 05, 2006

A Republican Report Card on Family Values

This is a little historical sampler or retrospective on how some Republicans have chosen to display their commitment to "family values." Actions do speak louder than words and it would be good to remember of the two major political parties, which one carries the larger burden of scandal and questionable ethics and downright criminal behavior.