Return of the New Package

As some of you may have deduced from the widget on the right, the New Package blog is gearing back up again. Yeah, The Wire is over, but David Simon’s new HBO miniseries, Generation Kill, begins July 13. The seven-week series is based on embedded reporter Evan Wright’s book about the first 40 days [...]

Happy Codpiece Day

Yesterday’s gaggle, via the obsessed one:
(this is Helen Thomas asking the questions, bless her)
Q Me? How does the President intend to commemorate “Mission Accomplished” after five years of death and destruction?
MS. PERINO: What you’re referring to is the banner that ran — that was aboard the ship five years ago. President Bush –
Q I’m talking [...]

Five years and thousands of coiled springs later

As I’ve posted before, I live with a parrot, have done so for almost four years now. Like most animals, parrots pick up on the emotions and energy of the people with whom they live. At least in my experience, they do so to a much greater extent and in a very different way than [...]

Deja vu, or “I’ve been drunk in that petstore before…”

I agree with John at C&L: “pretty disturbing all around.”
The war drumbeat against Iran has been going on for sooo long now. You can understand why this report shatters the Bush/Cheney doctrine of immorally—attacking–a–country—that hasn’t attacked us. It’s a virtual replay of their Iraq intelligence scam.

re post title

Go read Naomi Wolf’s post

Won’t Back Down, at Firedoglake.  Just go.  Now, please.
It is clear from this inundation of personal stories of abuse and retribution against ordinary Americans that a network of criminal behavior and intention is catching up more and more mainstream citizens in its grasp. It is clear that this is not democracy as usual [...]

Grain alcohol and rainwater all ’round, barkeep

“There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s [...]

“But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you.”

Two years ago today the annual National Book Festival was held in Washington, DC and Sharon Olds, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning poet, was invited with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works.
Olds did not attend.
Her Open Letter to Laura Bush was posted at TheNation.com on [...]

End this fucking war. Now.

Preznit said it best hizownself:
In the life of all free nations, there come moments that decide the direction of a country and reveal the character of its people. We are now at such a moment.
Of course, he was talking about staying. About “success,” or his self-serving distortion of the concept.
We can’t afford any more [...]

Even the douchebag can see it

Bob Novak, WaPo, today
Hadley called his expedition a “scouting trip,” leading one senator to ask what he was seeking. It was not advice on how to escape from Iraq. Instead, Hadley appeared interested in how previous supporters of Bush’s course had drifted away. In the process, though, he planted seeds of concern. Some senators [...]

Now you see it, now you don’t

Jon Stewart, a week or so ago
“I just figured out the problem with the Republican party.
The country they want to run is fictional.”
Yesterday, from BAGnews Notes:
Next Week, The Only Casualty Left In Iraq Will Be … Reality
At first glance, making a conflation of the two items above might seem a bit of a cherry [...]