I hope folks wake up to a couple of possible truths of the present.
1. A Republican creedo is that Government doesn't work... What better way to prove it than by bankrupting it in a series of endless conflicts and with constant assaults on our civil liberties in the name of "The War on Terror"

2. Folks still need to wake up to the fact that the stakes now are as high as the Civil War or Vietnam. There is an idealogy in place which will stop at nothing to achieve it's goals, and has sharply divided the country along sectarian political lines. This seriously may come down to another historic confrontation... In fact that adminstration is so convinced of thier idealogy that they are daring us to do it, and will continue to wage thier idealogical war until they win or die trying.

Unless folks wake up soon (and I mean by September when Betrayus comes back to tell the Congress we will have to continue the Status Quo) The damage done to our Democracy may become permenant.

At this point All I can hope for is that I can salvage my kids future by standing up now. The damage that has already done will take a generation to undo... Indeed if it is even possible to restore our Democracy to it's past "state of reasonableness"

Pat Tillman is just one of many warning signs along the current road we've been dragged along on. This adminstration will stop at nothing to hide the truth from us. The audacity of The President Claiming "Executive Priviledge" in regard to what he knows while everybody under him claims they didn't know anything about it is not just hubris but a direct assault on our Democratic Principles of Justice.

I am an Ex-Ranger and right now I am ashamed at most of my Ranger Buddies...To think that they are allowing this travisty to stand brings Dishonor to our Brotherhood and is just one more sign of how insane the proponents of "The Bush Doctrine" have become.

William Ranger Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at August 2, 2007 1:05 PM in response to Pat Tillman, Soldier, and an Administration That Laughs Off His Death

Good comments all and no surprises from George Will who firmly believes that by writing the same tedious lies over and over again that somehow they will be accepted as relevent truths. Stick around. I am quite sure he will soon expouse on the same BS again.I'll bet he's hoping that the folks here at TPM won't notice.

William Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at June 2, 2007 7:35 PM in response to Fisking George F. Will's "Case for Conservatism"

Interesting article but I wonder why you ignore the elephant in the room? Namely the stated goal of GOP Party Operatives like Grover Norquist? Who loudly proclaim the only good Social Security program is a Dead Social Security Program...and the the way to reform Social Security is to "Choke the life out of it." Folks on the plus side of the income gap don't have to worry about social programs or governments... and I challenge you to name better policy to take these programs away from the poor and "undeserving middle class" other than exploiting the meme of 9/11...We'll just wrap the poor in a flag, and send them off to War.... While at home the GOP will spend our tax money for social programs on tax give backs to themselves... Elimination of the "death tax"... and bankrupting the treasury through endless deficit spending... funding War(s), "Free Trade", and the like. "The haves and have mores" have done very well this last seven years...I would propose the GOP's agenda is going along just swimmingly, and the fact folks like yourself continue to use smoke and mirrors to hide this behind the "need for reform" belabors the point. The GOP "Reform Social Security Platform" of bankrupting the Treasury through huge deficits, "tax relief", and war is working just fine thank you very much....Dare I say (for of course I am just a citizen who works for a living, and not an economist) this "policy" will do more to reform/destroy Social Programs then any proposed "reforms" offered by a Wall Street Capitalist. Yup... I am afraid for the most part those (rare people) who make things, and break a sweat everyday to earn a living... are still being sucked dry by those who discuss Social Security policy at the local country club. Here's to hoping you can keep this ruse up long enough so that your children can inherit your wealth, and move to some offshore enclave to wait out the resulting blowback and civil war. :)

William Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at May 22, 2007 12:57 PM in response to The cost of the Iraq war

The Shia "won" the Civil War a couple of years back when our vaunted Military could not arrest and hold Moqtada Al Sader and disarm the Shia Militia's... IMO that was the turning point in the War. We did not have the political/moral will to risk high US casulties as it would not fit with the current administration's fiction/spin on how well the war was going (another Tet type political disaster was thier fear I'll wager)

The Shia/Syrians/Iranians in my opinion are developing thier end game which in short is to put Pro-US Sunni Regimes in "check" which may not lead directly to "mate" but will force the US into several unwinnible Political/Military positions and jeapordize the Saudi Royal Family Financial Hegmoney on the Gulf.

We are idiots to have underestimated Bin Laden and the Iranians and sadly they did not under/over estimate us and what could possibly be the worst US Foriegn Policy Disaster in our brief history.

Now how do some of you feel about driving a Hummer!!??!

William Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at November 22, 2006 11:35 AM in response to Have the Shia Won the Civil War?

One of the best plain spoken commentaries I have ever read Mr. Newberry. Thank You and I hope that the Progressives listen and takes action on some of your suggestion.

William Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at September 8, 2006 12:04 PM in response to Wage Wars

"A Success story in the making"??? And this premise is based on what set of facts???

You think the only problem our grandchildren will have is how to care for a larger elderly population???

LOL Keep taking those happy pills... but remember that while you live in fantasy land... 2 billion folks will go to bed hungry tonight... 3 billion will not have potable water to drink... one of the greatest mass extinctions in biological history of our small planet continues... Global Warming has yet to peak... and Wars continue to break out over ever shrinking resources with a global population that (In your own words) will not peak for another generation or two....This situation continues to deteriorate daily but due to "mission creep", and a moving baseline Few in the West have any actual experiance of or knowledge of it.

Lets just hope your grandkids have an opportunity to live a decent life.

PS when you suggest that someone is ill informed it would be helpful to the dear readers here if you actually back up your assertations with facts from reputable sources. Namaste

William Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at July 29, 2006 8:57 PM in response to It's Hot Out

JPF311 said,Quote: "Not really. In fact not at all. All over the world, even in the poporest countries, birth rates are FALLING these days, in some cases falling quite dramatically. Europe and japan arealreadywell below the replacment rate." Unquote.

Like I've said. In this climate it's going to be tough to convince people that population growth visa vis resource comsumption rates is THE underlying issue which affects all other issues.The proverbial silver bullet. While it may be true that in some isolated parts of the globe the birth rate is falling (Which only goes to prove the Biological Premise of self susutaining growth especially in Japan's case) on the MACRO level (which is the only level that counts) we're at 6.5 Billion and climbing steadily http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html

The Macro-Effects of unsustianible population growth are unavoidable in the short term (best summerized here http://dieoff.org/) With the earth projected to reach 9 BILLION folks in our lifetime 2050 So while it is true that that population growth has leveled off somewhat in the West Population Growth as a whole continues to grow without limit (example here: From Pravda 7/9/06 "Earth's population to reach 9.3 billion people by 2050
17:48 2005-07-09
The Earth's population will grow from 6.5 billion to 9.3 billion people by 2050. The message from the German Foundation for World Population (DWS), which was published in Austria Saturday, said that the population of planet Earth was increasing by the average of 80 million people every year, which corresponds to the entire population of Germany, for example.

DWS experts said that the 95-percent increase of the global population would be presumably registered in developing countries, RIA Novosti reports. The population of the African continent will raise by one billion people before 2050. The population in Asia will grow by 1.4 billion in Asia and by 246 million people in Latin America. As for industrially developed states, the population will be decreasing there, specialists said.

The report emphasized that it would be possible to avoid the skyrocketing growth of the planet's population only if every person would have access to contraception education. Specialists of the German Foundation for World Population urged the world community to increase investments in family planning programs. According to statistics, each African man can receive only three condoms a year, whereas African women do not have any contraception means at all."

We are beyond hiding behind a few factoids which support ignorance and denile or a political/religeous/economic agenda. Every second another child is brought into the world with a far better than average chance at experiancing a Hobbesian Life Style... "Nasty, Brutish, and Short."

William Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at July 29, 2006 2:40 PM in response to It's Hot Out

Having been an avid supporter of James Lovelocks "Gaia" Hypothesis which in general states that the Earth is one huge living organism and we are just a small part of it. He postulates that a couple billion years of life give the earth the wonderful capacity to right imbalances to the system if they fall outside a certain set of parameters. Simply put... this finite planet can only handle so many of one particular biological organism and before we are men....women...of a race...religion....political or economic "system"...We are BIOLOGICAL beings (with thanks to Pico Iyer for this definition). There appear to be far too many "biological units" in the form of Homo Sapians for the Earth to support. So the choice is simple. Population reduction followed by sustainible population limits on a planet wide scale. However... because our biology triumphs our rationality.... Even looking at the problem in this context we appear to be doomed to have "Nature" or the worst in us through war famine and disease correct this imblance (which in a way is Nature's finest defense... Our "natural capacity" for self destruction LOL :)). So in short... Either we develop policies to drop our population to sustainible levels, or we suffer (within the next couple of generations) a huge long and horrible population crash at our own hands.

I personally chose to have only one child and live a sustainible lifestyle.

What did you choose? Or have you even thought about how your actions contribute to the solution, or the problem as I have outlined it?

William Hazen

PS. Want a good idea of what some of the world experiances now, and what the immediate future may hold? Time to dust off and rewatch that old classic film made when I was a kid.... "Soylent Green" It's eerie how prescient that Movie is today.

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at July 29, 2006 12:30 PM in response to It's Hot Out

Two things that were glossed over. One. With the demise of the Soviet Union's Nuclear Forces and the inept and tiny Strategic Arsenals in the rest of the world, We will continue to remain the World's Superpower for at least another few generations. No country in the forseable future will be able to match our ability to launch a suprise Massive Nuclear Strike or retalitate for the odd lucky North Korean or Chinese Missle by wiping out a country. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85204/keir-a-lieber-daryl-g-press/the-rise-of-u-s-nuclear-primacy.html

Two. The bad guys know this and the only way to compete and win is to fight us man to man & tank to tank on the street. Like it or not we don't have the money to sustain operations in Iraq and Afganistan without a massive injection of fresh manpower and material and as such we are rapidly losing our ability to field battle ready divisions for future conflicts without significantly expanding the force structure (More Special Forces is a good start but these cost big dollars!) and a massive procurement of replacement parts and new equipment. The spectre of the late 70's early 80's "Hollow Army" is more scary to these General's than another Vietnam. The Principles of War remain despite Rummy's BS attempts to make the Armed Services "leaner and meaner". We are being bled dry in the desert by a thousand pin pricks and have been very lucky so far but our capabilities are being rapidly eroded because there is no plan for victory and hence no chance for the Services to refit and regroup for the next potential conflict... Which may look nothing like a Jihadist with an AK47, and more like 2000 NKPLA tanks backed by modern artillery and rockets... or a massive swarm of Chinese Silkworm missles in the Straits of Hormuz.

Man I tell ya things are fooking crazier than anytime I can remember.Imagine having to go Nuclear because we can't win a stand up fight!

William Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at April 17, 2006 10:59 AM in response to What The Generals Said

What part is of this bioligical??? There's now 6.5 BILLION folks of the planet...Fully a THIRD of those are unable to meet basic daily needs... The hoarders of resources among us are just trying to party like it's 1999 until the crash comes and that looks like it will happen in this generation or the next...Either we shift our current paradigm to meet the needs of everyone including the entire planet or the correction comes at at a horrible price...It's good to be a lemming heading toward the cliff. Note to Billionares...There is no escape. LOL

William Hazen

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Posted at February 27, 2006 9:48 AM in response to IT'S WHO YOU KNOW, STUPID