This data is an accounting of civilian deaths in Iraq to date.
See Iraqbodycount.net for statistical methodologies

Back from Vacation!!!
Spent 7 glorious days with the family-in-law in the Appalachian mountain chain. My historically right leaning in-laws are doing grand soul-searching for reasons to re-elect Bush. Alas, pop-in-law, and perhaps even dear mom-in-law are probably pulling the Donkey lever, despite being directly in the cross hairs of the GOP target demographic (pro-business physician in a specialty fraught with frivolous malpractice suits.)

Really enjoyed the grand public works project that is the Blue Ridge Parkway. If you really hate the Democratic priorities that inspired this magnificent ribbon of asphalt, please stay the hell off it and leave it to us speed limit relativistic tree huggers.

Missed the Boston donkey-fest in exchange for spirited word games. Sigh...

$445,000,000,000
By the White House's own projections, that's how much more money the federal government will spend than it has to spend this year. And of course that doesn't include any additional spending in Iraq and Afghanistan after early next year, when current appropriations run out.

Funny how self-proclaimed "Conservatives" and even "Libertarians" embrace the Bush presidency as somehow more responsible on fiscal matters and less intrusive on individual liberties (snicker!). By throwing good money after bad in Iraq and elsewhere, while giving greater and greater tax relief to the very privileged, Bush is placing an inordinate burden on future taxpayers to ensure his priorities are met. Those priorities would be:

• Creating an image of America as half-cocked cowboy, willing to enter any conflict on a whim
• starving social and environmental programs, while giving them Orwellian titles to confuse all but the few Americans who read beyond bumperstickers.
• welfare for defense contractors and oil companies

Certainly America has resorted to deficit spending in the past. FDR did it to pull America out of Hoover's economic malaise. JFK, LBJ and RMN did it to further commit America to a disastrous war. Ronnie did it to achieve the same priorities as bullet-listed above.

and Bush keeps telling us America is safer. Wow.

Some Sort of Central Agency to Deal With Intelligence
Yes, the long-awaited 9/11 report oozed out of Congress a couple weeks ago. Stephen King must have been clearing his throat in between novels, because the darn thing became a best seller. Many tepid recommendations came out of the not-so-inflammatory work, one of which is the creation of a centralized agency for dealing with intelligence. I know! we could call it the "Central Intelligence Agency!"

Led by a czar (didn't the Commies behead them all?), this agency would report directly to the President to present intelligence information that implicates whatever nation his wrathfulness is intent on invading next. By making it a cabinet level position, it would have to be voted on in Congress, which we all know is the embodiment of imbued power.

I will resist the blame game for the WTC attacks, since even a Clinton-like vigilance wasn't enough to get ObL before he was protected by American ally Pakistan. Still, the Congressional recommendation of a czar seems to be a bureaucratic solution for a insufficiency of nimbleness and imagination, when in fact it's the recipe for just the opposite.

Press Back in Form
With a brief respite from right-wing pandering during the Boston convention (during which Fox"News" and "news" teams from other networks castigated Kerry/Edwards/Democrats for violation of modern American political image guidelines), the press is back with non-stop coverage of Bush's campaign. Give a lazy reporter talking points and who needs to do research?

Although everyone knows the media is the spearhead of the left wing, it seems sickening that pundits for mainstream "news" outlets spent so much time analyzing the imagery of the Boston convention and so little time devoted to substantive issues. It's a sad fact of American political life that image has totally trumped substance. Even this Clinton supporter understands that he beat Bush and Dole by having a better image. Bush wasn't able to offer a better image than Gore (who had the offsetting penalties of Clinton's coattails, good and bad) and thus lost the 2000 election.

I'll be the first to admit that Kerry's image is a far cry from what most of America yearns for, despite the anything-but-subtle military theme to his acceptance speech. It's so painful to see him play the image game that he has only his articulation of the issues to bolster his candidacy. Meanwhile Bush runs against himself, with all the help of the Rove conspiracy finding derisive name-play worthy of the 3rd grade boy's room to paint Kerry into a corner. "He looks French" and other such completely irrelevant name calling that unfortunately holds sway with Americans who prefer an asinine put-down to a comparison of policy approaches.

And where is the media in the image projections? Why, front and center stage, of course. They portrayed the imagery of the Iraq war the administration wanted them to portray. They copped the talking points for the Convention. I suppose it's only natural that America, still the undisputed world leader in sloganeering, marketing and image branding, would gravitate toward selecting leaders on that basis, and the American media selling it on same.

Meanwhile, Back in the Sunni Triangle
Of course, with Iran in W's sights, the NYC flag-coffin-burning-WTC-GOP convention starting soon, and the handover of blame, I mean power, to Illyad Allawi and cohorts, strife in Iraq is old news. Right? So only unAmerican patriot haters would still pay attention to the rebel gains of the past few weeks.

Falluja we already wrapped up in gilded gift wrap to Saddam's own Republican Guard a while back. Samara is now considered lost to rebel insurgents. Ramadi is following suit, while Baghdad is in utter turmoil as rebel's focus their terror on the capital of Iraq, leaving millions doubting their safety anywhere in the city of millions.

It's all going to hell in a handbasket, but look to Bush's handlers to focus attention elsewhere. Brace yourself for the Madison Square Garden bullshit festival, with every distraction imaginable to focus you far from the streets of Iraq cities, where Iraqis are now living in even greater fear and instability than they every did under the despotic Hussein.

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