Sergeant John’s 3-D Chiller House of Terror!

Fort Drum in New York is discontinuing individual memorial services for fallen soldiers in favor of a single monthly ceremony, the business of death having become routine.

May 31, 2007 - FORT DRUM, N.Y. (AP) - Army officials at Fort Drum say the military post will begin hosting monthly memorial services for 10th Mountain Division soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Previously, the upstate Army post held individual ceremonies for soldiers killed overseas. A Fort Drum spokesman says the change is due more to scheduling than an increase in combat deaths. When a member of the 10th Mountain Division is killed, the Army pays for a funeral as well as a service at Fort Drum for comrades and families. Fort Drum has lost nearly 140 soldiers since 2003.

Sounds like an economizing move, as well.  I spent one of my last months in the Army on funeral detail, and find this story a distasteful sign of how disposable our troops have become.

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Dallas Morning News columnist Georgie Anne Geyer hints deliciously at Da Prez’ growing paranoia as his wars grow less and less popular:

The White House sees terrorists as born, not created by history, bearing the mark of Cain, not the mark of circumstance. There is a scarlet “T” written on their foreheads at birth and the only answer is to destroy them. This kind of thinking, of course, relieves the thinker of any responsibility for the presence of the insurgent-terrorist-whatever in our innocent midst.

What’s more, there is not much real give in the administration’s policies. True, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other American diplomats met Memorial Day weekend with the Iranians in Baghdad (a good first move but limited, since the Iranians have most of the power because of our incredible stupidity in Iraq). But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

The thought of his shaky hands on The Button is still frightening.

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Londonbeat: “I’ve Been Thinking About You”

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“Thou hadst been better born a dog,
Than answer my wak’d wrath.” —Othello, 3.3.368-69

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Crash Test Dummies: “Afternoons & Coffee Spoons”

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First out of the gate with a universal health care plan is presidential candidate Barack Obama, promising to do what Congress has been unable to accomplish—ever:

“My plan begins by covering every American. If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is that the amount of money you will spend on premiums will be less,” Obama said. “If you are one of 45 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, you will after this plan becomes law.”

Obama also called for a series of steps to overhaul the current health care system. He would spend more money boosting technology in the health industry such as electronic record-keeping, put in place better management for chronic diseases and create a reinsurance pool for catastrophic illnesses to take the burden of their costs off of other premium payers.

His plan also envisions savings from ending the expensive care for the uninsured when they get sick. That care now is often provided at emergency rooms. The plan also would put a heavy focus on preventing disease through lifestyle changes.

In all, Obama said, the typical consumer would save $2,500 a year.

Obama conceded that the overall cost of the program would be high, while not providing a specific number.

The cost of American health care is already high, and tens of millions aren’t covered at all.  We can fix this, but only after the wingnuts stop gasping, “Socialized medicine!”

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“Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,
And art confederate with a damned pack
To make a loathsome abject scorn of me.”
—The Comedy of Errors, 4.4.99-101

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“Only George Bush could fight a war for oil, and not get any.” –Bill Maher

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Australian duo Sigrid and Lee perform as Co-E-sion, this time with an acoustic version of, of all things, Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Boogie Wonderland”

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Digby takes on the idiotic notion that defunding the war would endanger American forces in the field, finding it symptomatic of the country’s intellectual crisis:

The Iraq funding debate is a perfect example of hundreds we could choose from. The bill provided for the troops in every way. But it demanded that the president begin to plan for the withdrawal of those troops from Iraq by certain dates. Both of those things were supported by the people, in large numbers. The president vetoed the bill and this action was explained to the American people — by Democrats as well as Republicans and the media — as being done because Democrats were refusing to fund the troops. It was, of course, precisely the opposite.

So, we are stuck trying to work out reality based solutions in a political world that operates as if it is underwater. You can sort of see the vague outlines of what’s in front of you, but it’s distorted and wierd and everything moves in slow motion. For instance, one of the big questions that rarely gets asked by anyone is why in the hell we are “funding the troops” with emergency supplemental spending bills like this year after year in the first place? Why would a vastly powerful and wealthy country such as ours be unable to plan for the troops’ basic necessities in a defense budget in the trillions? It’s absurd, ridiculous, and yet everyone accepts the fact that the troops could be left foraging for food and bullets in the middle of Baghdad, and the only question is whether the Democrats and the President are to blame because they failed to pass a bill before Memorial Day.

It’s a blackmail scam that the Bush administration has been pulling successfully since the beginning of the war.

We continue to fall for these tricks.

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