Celebrating Our Pets and Wildlife + Open Thread

A heart warming story…wish it did not taken as long as it did. Lex is looking at the Jerome like he is delivering a message from Dustin…”I’m here for you.”

Thanks Susan. Deeply touching. Bittersweet. my deepest condolences to the Quitmans.
I thought the unnamed congressman from NC, might be Walter Jones, it is. I believe he has more military personnel in his district than anyone else. He’s someone I respect and admire even though he was the “freedom fries” guy originally. He admitted early on he was taken in when he voted to authorized force. His father held the same seat as a Democrat and passed the advice on to him to vote your conscience, your constituents and your party – in that order.
http://www.leadercall.com/local/local_story_356131026.html

This part kinda got to me…

While Marines tried to treat Lee’s wounds, another dog handler was sent to take Lex for treatment, said Staff Sgt. Dana Brown, the regional kennel master for the pair in Iraq.

“Lex, from my understanding, was kind of laying on him or near him, protecting him,” Brown said in an interview from the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. “He just didn’t want to leave him. He knew he belonged there and something was wrong. Even though he was hurting, he knew he was supposed to stay by his handler.”

Regarding Walter Jones, Wes Clark and Richard Perle.

Same Committee, Same Combatants, Different Tune

By Dana Milbank

Thursday, April 7, 2005; Page A10

Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. is a conservative Republican from North Carolina who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. So it jarred all the more yesterday when Jones turned his fury on Richard N. Perle, the Pentagon adviser who provided the Bush administration with brainpower for the Iraq war.

Jones, who said he has signed more than 900 condolence letters to kin of fallen soldiers, pronounced himself “incensed” with Perle. “It is just amazing to me how we as a Congress were told we had to remove this man . . . but the reason we were given was not accurate,” Jones told Perle at a House Armed Services Committee hearing. Jones said the administration should “apologize for the misinformation that was given. To me there should be somebody who is large enough to say ‘We’ve made a mistake.’ I’ve not heard that yet.”

As chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, Perle had gone before the same committee in 2002 and smugly portrayed retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who urged caution in Iraq, as “hopelessly confused” and spouting “fuzzy stuff” and “dumb cliches.”

Thirty months and one war later, Perle and Clark returned to the committee yesterday. But this time lawmakers on both sides hectored Perle, while Clark didn’t bother to suppress an “I told you so.”

Perle wasn’t about to provide the apology Jones sought. He disavowed any responsibility for his confident prewar assertions about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, heaping the blame instead on “appalling incompetence” at the CIA. “There is reason to believe that we were sucked into an ill-conceived initial attack aimed at Saddam himself by double agents planted by the regime. And as we now know the estimate of Saddam’s stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was substantially wrong.”

Jones, nearly in tears as he held up Perle’s testimony, glared at the witness. “I went to a Marine’s funeral who left a wife and three children, twins he never saw, and I’ll tell you, I apologize, Mr. Chairman, but I am just incensed with this statement.”
cont’d
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32440-2005Apr6?language=printer

Sweet story about the coyote..

The Drifter’s classic animated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jctccnyun5g&feature=related

Ouch!

HONOLULU, Dec. 21 (UPI) — U.S. intelligence officials said the Chinese intelligence agency used a Chinese-language translation service to access a U.S. listening post in Hawaii

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/12/21/chinese_accessed_us_intelligence_post/2486/

Lex seems to have quite a personality. In nearly every photo I’ve seen of him, he’s showing his pearly whites. No doubt, he’s an excellent communicator. Good luck to Lex in his new lifestyle.

I’m glad the dogs have a better fate than the dogs were heard about in Vietnam.
Of all of the dogs I’ve owned the German shepherd was the most loyal. The fact he didn’t want to leave the side of his owner is no shock.
I hated to take a trip because my dog would lay down by the front door until I returned.
I hope this dog brings the family comfort and that he has a long and good life.

FYI I went to Target and found a real chew toy bargain. For $2.99 I can get an entire cows knee; labeled as a knuckle.

Safe (no splintering), natural and lasting. My Plott Hound will normally pulverize the average factory made chew toy in a matter of minutes. This knee-knuckle however, takes him 2-3 weeks.

What is the country of origin?

Who is going to get the 10 year contract for this?

FBI aims for world’s largest biometrics database:

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion project to build the world’s largest computer database of biometrics to give the government more ways to identify people at home and abroad.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2007-12-22T114035Z_01_N21298958_RTRUKOC_0_US-FBI-BIOMETRICS.xml

Very touching story and I do hope the Lee’s can heal with the help of Lex.

However having said that, I have to take this story to another level.

When any family loses a member by death, it is a shock, and there are many kinds of mostly justifiable reactions to the stages of grief that they go through.

There are also a lot of consolation reactions from other family members and friends. Mourn, be sad, honor the person’s memory and then try to move on with your lives.

However there are certain cases where all this is not enough. Where the death is by murder, reckless driving or some other careless act, the affected individuals and society usually want justice.

For each and every person who has lost a loved one
in Iraq you have my deepest sympathy but you also have my anger. I am angry at those who love war, promote war, profit by war and most of whom do not serve, because they love to trot out that line that your loved one did not die in vain but in the service of his or her country.

That line is the biggest bunch of crap that has ever been uttered in the history of mankind.

The TRUTH is that none of you should have to be going through this grieving process for the loss of your loved one. What you should be feeling is the same kind of anger that people feel when their loved one’s death is by murder or some other reckless cause.

Why? Because they did not die serving their country they were murdered serving their country in a RECKLESS CAUSE just as if it had happened here.

While I am a pacifist, I am also as patriotic as the next person but I would never, never ask anyone to give their life for this country unless I firmly believed without a shadow of a doubt that the only way to resolve the threat was through force.

Since it has been conclusively proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iraq was never a threat to this country, and even if it was, all the diplomatic opportunities to resolve that threat were completely ignored by the criminals occupying the WH, so as far as I am concerned all these soldiers died in vain.

So where is the anger?

Where is the outrage?

Where is the accountability?

Where is the justice?

Why is Cindy Sheehan the only one who is angry and wants accountability and justice?

Am I the only one on this blog who is angry and wants accountability?

It would appear so, since all the rest of you seem to think it is more important to rant and argue about the leading candidates and who said what about whom, rather then be focused on the one and only issue that will bring accountability and justice….

Impeachment.

Have all you signed Wexler’s petition and encouraged all your friends too?

BTW as of 6:15 PM MST 12/23/07 the count is up to a little over 131,000.

Finally I will also make a comment about the level of compassion in this country and the anger I feel toward my fellow Americans and their total lack of compassion towards the people of Iraq.

With the help of Shirin I posted several times, a way we could help just even a few people in Iraq, Shirin’s young friend Ausama’s orphanage project.

He needed $2750 and as Shirin said in her original email to me, it would just take 100 people giving $27.50 a piece to meet this young man’s goal.

Since I first posted this and also sent it to as many of my friends as I could think of, I know Shirin gave some and I gave some, but the total right now has only increased from $413 t0 $485. That speaks volumes to me about the compassion of Americans who at this time of giving can not even spare spare $5 to help some of those in need in Iraq which are not suffering because of there own actions but are suffering because of our lack of action.

I am ashamed to an American, are you?

I am not ashamed to an American. Never have been, never will be. Nobody responded to my question “What is an American?.” So what you say?

Am I ashamed that we have “elected” criminals? No.
Am I ashamed we went to wars based on a LIES? No.
Am I ashamed that the President and members of his administration have publicly stated they broke the law and violated the Constitution? No.
Am I ashamed that 50,000 Katrina people will be evicted from trailers soaked in formaldehyde? No.
Am I ashamed that corporations, not people are running the country? No.
Am I ashamed we have torture with our tea? No.
Am I ashamed that the entire “civilian sector” of the military industrial complex and our government has been co-opted? NO. Hell NO.
Am I ashamed that we have plundered any goodwill among nations we could find? No.
Am I ashamed that we put price tags on a human life rather than provide health care? No.
Am I ashamed that our children will be the meek that inherit the earth? No.
Am I ashamed we have suspended Habeus Corpus and the Constitution by Executive Order? No
NO. NO and NO!
Am I ashamed that I we are fearful of donating to oversea’s charities at the risk of getting on Homeland Security’s radar? No.
Am I ashamed? If I was all this would not be happening.

Plan B? What might the neighbors think?

TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 23 (UPI) — The Israeli security cabinet approved $206 million Sunday for the “Iron Dome” missile system designed to intercept short- and medium-range rockets

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/12/23/israel_funds_iron_dome_rocket_interceptor/2281/

Rafael’s multi-mission interceptor is designed from the start for seamless insertion into U.S. terminal missile defense systems. Our approach provides the U.S. Army
with a low-cost extended air defense option for the future,” said Michael Booen, Raytheon vice president of Advanced Missile Defense programs commenting on the company’s selection by the IMDO.

Once all programs are completed, Israel will have a three-tier missile and rocket defensive systems in place. The operational Arrow system, capable of defeating ballistic missiles at high altitude, within or above the earth atmosphere, at ranges of hundred kilometers from the Israeli border. Development and production for Arrow were funded jointly by the U.S. and Israel.

http://www.defense-update.com/newscast/0207/news/010207_iron_cap.htm

(One of the most “in your face” website I have seen)

Rafael Armament Development Authority
http://www.rafael.co.il/marketing/Templates/Homepage/Homepage.aspx?FolderID=203