Sunday, January 08, 2006

Blog Spotlight: Mike on the Bully Boy, the air war and 2005

We asked Mike to talk about this entry and then, while he was thinking of something to say, Ty looked at his watch and asked if we realized the time? Nope. This is Mike's entry. He blogged regularly last week and Cedric said we should note that as well.


Military turns against Bully Boy, air war and 2005
Good evening and hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve. Let's kick things off with Democracy Now!

Bush Support Dropping Among Armed Forces
Meanwhile, a new poll by the magazine group Military Times shows support for President Bush among US armed forces has fallen over ten percent in the last year. The survey found support for Bush's overall policies at 60 percent, down from 71 percent. Support for the Iraq war for is at 54 percent - down from 63 percent. The Times says the poll found "diminished optimism that US goals in Iraq can be accomplished, and a somewhat smaller drop in support for the decision to go to war in 2003."

Reminds me of the movie, Sir, No, Sir. Hope I got the title right. But that's where we are now with Bully Boy losing support daily. From every quarter. He's earned the response and then some and, fingers crossed for luck, maybe 2006 will be the year where the impeachment talk really gets off the ground? If not, maybe we can at least prevent him from launching another war.

US Air Strike Kills 14 Civilians in Iraq
In Iraq, Reuters is reporting a U.S. air strike has killed 14 members of one Iraqi family in the northern town of Baiji. An Iraqi military spokesperson said the air raid damaged an additional four houses, injuring at least three other people.

Smart bombs? Smart bombs kill. They may be "smart" and they may not be. Looking at the first Gulf War, they could just as easily be called "Idiot Bombs." Take out innocent civilians, destroy homes. Winning hearts and minds?

Be sure to check out Elaine's site Like Maria Said Paz. She'll be posting today and everyone took off Monday because we were wiped out from New Year's Eve and from taking part in that and helping put together the latest edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. We all decided to take a needed day off as we finished working on that edition. For me and Elaine that meant posting the stuff we usually do before Sunday on Sunday. I did mine right after the edition was done and Elaine did her's later Sunday night.

My buddy Wally decided to start the new year by posting late to The Daily Jot. How come? Even with him saying, "This isn't a morning blog" people keep assuming it is. So he wanted to start his first post of the new year later and hopefully get that point across.Who didn't take the day off (and who probably needed it the most)? Did you guess C.I.? If not, you haven't been to The Common Ills. There was new stuff up at The Common Ills while the rest of us were resting. Tony came by today and pointed that out but wondered why there wasn't more? I told Tony, "You've got to be kidding." We were all wiped out on January first and putting together the year in review alone took close to half a day.

When I put it like that, Tony got the point. If anyone else missed it, hopefully that explained it to you.

We all tried to encourage C.I. to take the day off but while I can blow off a day and others can to, C.I. feels like there has to be at least one thing up at The Common Ills each day or members will be let down. Thinking about Tony's initial reaction, I'm wondering who else felt there wasn't enough up at The Common Ills? If you're one of them, I hope you'll take a moment to think about how much work goes into The Common Ills and not just in doing those posts but in going through the e-mails and all the stuff involved. I don't put a tenth of that work into this site. (And I still think C.I. should have taken the day off.)

Besides the entries keeping you up to date on the news, here's what else you missed at The Common Ills if you took some time for yourself (and if you did, good for you):

"The Common Ills Year in Review 2005"
The mother of all entries! Seriously, it covers almost everything and Dad called it a "Tolstoy read." Need another reason to read it? Ma's quoted in it. And thank you to Carl for selecting something of mine as worthy of attention. I had forgotten that thing and was really glad it was in there because I was talking about, in July, how people would rather talk about Brad and Angelina than the war in Iraq and C.I. went from my talking about that to Wally talking about the same topic in November. No kidding. Wally's mother had been watching the local news and they go "Next, an attack in Iraq and Brad and Angelina" or something like that. It was still treated like it was "news" and that's pretty silly and disgusting if you want my opinion.

"Ruth's Year End Report"
Also worth checking out. Ruth's got a plan for 2006 and I think it's a great one. What's the plan? Hey lazy bones, read her entry. She's talking about where public radio is and where it should be and what her focus is going to be for 2006. And along the way, she'll make you laugh and she'll make you think.

"Kat's Korner: 2005 in Music"
Kat will make you laugh too. And she mentions me! Get Behind Me Satan by the White Stripes is a killer CD. I like all of Kat's picks for 2005 and since my Dad got Judy Collins' Portrait of An American Girl from my oldest brother for Christmas, I've really been able to hear that one. That's the one that was new to me from the list. I had the others ones myself.













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