Random Topics.......

[swordfish]

Let's expel (lying) Republican George Santos from congress, but Menendez (the thief with hidden gold bars) is off-limits?  Hmmm.

https://nypost.com/2023/12/04/news/gold-bars-found-in-sen-bob-menendezs-home-linked-to-2013-robbery-report/

Four of the gold bars Sen. Bob Menendez stashed at his home were previously stolen from the businessman accused of bribing the New Jersey Democrat, according to a report. 

The serial numbers on some of the gold found by the FBI during a June 2022 raid of Menendez’s Englewood Cliffs, NJ, home match identifiers that Fred Daibes reported to police after a 2013 armed robbery, according to NBC News. 

Robbers made off with $500,000 in cash and 22 gold bars from Daibes’ Edgewater, NJ, home during the 2013 heist, the outlet reports.

Police later nabbed four suspects and recovered the stolen gold. 

The matching serial numbers indicate that authorities have now directly linked at least some of the gold found in Menendez’s home to Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer and Menendez fundraiser.

 

[swordfish]

SF is left wondering in which "context" supporting genocide would be considered as OK?  

All joking aside - Especially when on any of the campuses represented before Congress last week, simply addressing somebody with the improper pronoun would/could be considered as "Hate Speech" ......

[swordfish]

“A white male would probably already be gone,”  This coming from the black female professor she plagiarized......

Ms. Gay is a product of DEI, and therefore seems to be immune from any punishment.....

https://nypost.com/2023/12/13/news/harvard-redefining-plagiarism-by-standing-by-claudine-gay-claims-academic-she-accused-of-copying/

Harvard only standing by Claudine Gay as too scared to ‘fire its first black president,’ claims professor she’s accused of plagiarizing

One of the academics accusing Harvard president Claudine Gay of copying her work has blasted the Ivy League school for redefining plagiarism by standing by her — claiming she was only saved because she’s “its first black president.”

Carol Swain, a former political science professor at Vanderbilt University, spoke out hours after Harvard said it was standing by the embattled president — even while conceding some of her academic work needed correcting after an investigation into the plagiarism claims.

“I feel like her whole research agenda, her whole career, was based on my work,” Swain told Fox News Digital of allegations Gay lifted some without proper attribution.

“My blood pressure is rising today because of Harvard’s decision that what she did doesn’t constitute plagiarism, and it doesn’t rise to the level of her removal,” she said.

“My message to Harvard is: You don’t get to redefine what is plagiarism. Most of us know what plagiarism is,” she said.

Harvard Corporation’s decision to stand by the embattled president “is very demeaning to every person, not just racial and ethnic minorities, but anyone who has worked in school, who’s written papers, who’s tried to follow the guidelines,” she complained.

Swain suggested Gay is “getting a free pass” because she was the product of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, echoing claims made by hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman.

“Obviously, the Harvard Corporation did not have the courage to fire its first black president, someone who should never have been elevated in the first place,” said Swain, who is also black.

“They have decided they would rather lower standards for everyone rather than to hold her — who attended the most, you know, elite schools in America — to the same standards that average Americans are held to.”

Harvard should “apply the same standards to [Gay] as they would apply to a white person under the same circumstances,” Swain also told City Journal.

“A white male would probably already be gone,” she claimed.

Swain still hopes that Gay will “step down” from her position, following in the footsteps of former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill who lost her job in the scandal after their congressional testimony about antisemitism and calls for genocide.

“I hope that the pressure doesn’t relent until she does that because she’s harming academia, she’s harming black people,” said Swain.

 

[Muda69]

[swordfish]

SF thinks if one of his employees was absent from his/her position for 3 weeks without any notice, that employee would no longer be an employee.  While being sympathetic, this person/Government Employee is the Secretary of Defense.  If he cared about his country's security and his job, wouldn't you think at a minimum a quick call or email to his boss or his Deputy would be warranted?  Yet the Pentagon even waited 3 days to let the White House know after he passed duties on to the Deputy SecDef........SMH

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/defense-secretary-austin-hospital-low-profile-asset-liability-rcna133412

The White House has said President Joe Biden has full confidence in Austin, and officials have said the president does not plan to fire him or accept any offer to resign.

Inside the White House, from Biden’s top advisers to the president himself, Austin’s understated public demeanor has been viewed as an asset, particularly for a team that loathes leaks and drama. But, some officials said, sometimes an asset can turn into a liability. And, they say, that’s what happened in this instance with Austin.

A former senior military officer and friend of Austin's described him as an introvert, a “good, decent guy without a dishonest bone in his body.”

While the former officer did not believe Austin should be fired, they said the lack of disclosure about his condition and hospitalization was inexcusable.

“He’s a private guy, but he’s also the secretary of defense,” the person said.

Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University, who has written extensively about civilian-military relations, said that “while the desire for privacy is understandable, it’s not a privilege that you can have when you’re the civilian in the nuclear chain of command.”

Feaver said it was an “egregious mistake” for Austin not to inform the president, the national security adviser and the White House chief of staff about his condition.

[swordfish]

The South Bend St. Joseph High School is removing the "Indian" name from it's sports teams and looking for a new name.......SF wonders if slightly obese men will be offended by the proposed name "Husky"?  IDK.....Asking for a friend.....

 

[Impartial_Observer]

6 minutes ago, swordfish said:

The South Bend St. Joseph High School is removing the "Indian" name from it's sports teams and looking for a new name.......SF wonders if slightly obese men will be offended by the proposed name "Husky"?  IDK.....Asking for a friend.....

 

Was Royals taken?

[Bobref]

Obviously, the best nickname/mascot for St. Joseph would be “The Carpenters.” Perhaps some people thought fans would get board of it, since it’s rather plane. But I think it hits the nail on the head.

[Muda69]

Portland Requires Homeowners Get Permits To Remove Trees Knocked on Their Homes by Winter Storm: https://reason.com/2024/01/30/portland-requires-homeowners-get-permits-to-remove-trees-knocked-on-their-homes-by-winter-storm/

Quote

If you need more evidence that America has become a "permission-slip" society, look no further than the City of Portland, Oregon, requiring homeowners to get permits to remove trees that've fallen on their houses during recent winter storms.

Portland alt-weekly Willamette Week published a story last week about Joel and Sarah Bonds, who had a large Douglas Fir in the backyard squash their house after it became weighed down with ice. The tree barely missed the Bonds' young daughter and cat.

As it turns out, the couple were not unaware of the danger posed by the tree. In 2021, they'd applied for a necessary city permit to cut down the tree and another in their backyard. The city's Urban Forestry division turned them down, citing the trees' apparent health and the damage their removal would do to the "neighborhood character."

That decision rankles the Bonds now. Making them even more mad is the fact that the city is requiring them to obtain a $100 retroactive removal permit for the one tree that fell on their house and plant a new one in its place at their own expense.

A Forestry Department employee also advised them to hire an arborist to chop down the second, still-standing tree, but that they should take care to document the work in case they'd need to apply for another removal permit. According to the Willamette Week story, the couple could risk daily $1,000 fines for removing the tree without a permit.

The Bonds aren't the only homeowners being required to get retroactive removal permits for trees knocked down by the weather. This fact has provoked local outrage and calls for a change in policy.

A recent Oregonian editorial argues that the city should suspend the need to get retroactive removal permits for weather-downed trees, noting that neighboring cities in the area are not requiring such permits. One lawyer who spoke to the paper argued that the city code doesn't obviously apply to trees felled by bad weather.

The city maintains that the removal permits are required by the city code and that city council action is needed to waive those permitting requirements.

The whole episode is an illustration of how property rights have been turned on their head in America's cities. The city regulates tree removal to protect surrounding property owners' interest in the shade and character of the neighborhood. Homeowners' interests in doing what they please on their land are of secondary concern, even though they have to bear all costs and liabilities associated with keeping these trees on their properties.

Complete bullshit.  It's clear in Portland home "owners" don't really own anything.

 

[swordfish]

Dude robs a bank on a wheelchair......SMH

Not sure whether to be feel sorry or think this is kinda funny.....He was on the run (roll) for 6 minutes.....

https://www.953mnc.com/2024/02/07/elkhart-police-take-just-minutes-to-arrest-robbery-suspect/

Elkhart Police take just minutes to arrest robbery suspect

 

elkhartpolice.org

Elkhart Police officers only took minutes to arrest a suspect in a bank robbery Tuesday morning.

At approximately 9:06 a.m. the Elkhart City 911 Communications Center received notification of a robbery in progress at the 1st Source Bank on Franklin St.

The 911 caller reported that an unknown male suspect entered the bank and presented a note demanding money. The employee complied and the suspect left the building.

Just six minutes later, at approximately 9:12 a.m., officers arrived near the bank and detained an adult male matching the suspect’s description. 

He was arrested and officers found the money allegedly taken during the robbery.

No weapon was displayed or recovered during the incident, and the suspect was booked into the Elkhart County Jail on a preliminary charge of Robbery.

 

[swordfish]

SF just can't let this one go.......The headline was just too enticing......A guy/girl is ticked off because his/her girl/boy friend won't giver her nuts back to her/him.....

“I can put a dollar amount on, say, if you were missing work at $16 an hour,” he said. “But as to testicles, I can’t really put a number on it.”

She told him her surgery at Henry Ford Hospital in March 2022 cost $20,000, but noted that the state covered the charge because she’s disabled, according to the outlet.

“The state paid for that, you didn’t. You’re not going to be unjustly enriched,” the judge told her.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/09/news/transgender-woman-loses-bid-to-sue-ex-over-surgically-removed-nuts/

Transgender woman loses bid to sue ex for throwing out her surgically removed testicles: ‘We’re talking about my nuts’

A transgender Michigan woman who sued her ex-boyfriend for discarding her surgically removed testicles had her case tossed out by a judge — who also rejected the ex’s counterclaim for being “humiliated” by the case.

Brianna Kingsley, 40, last year filed a small claims petition alleging her ex, William Wojciechowski, 37, “retains possession of my surgically extracted testicles, preserved in (a) Mason jar, kept in (the) fridge next to the eggs.”

The Pontiac resident demanded the immediate return of her “human remains specimen” in her handwritten affidavit, in addition to $6,500 in damages.

“We’re talking about my nuts. … I wanted them in my fridge — not his,” Kingsley told a court hearing. “The damages were the loss of these nuts.”

Wojciechowski, meanwhile, said he’d already tossed out the testicles — and filed a counterclaim for the same amount, claiming he’d been “humiliated” by coverage of the nutty case by “worldwide news outlets,” the Detroit News reported.

The judge noted how hard it was to calculate potential damages in the bizarre case.

“I can put a dollar amount on, say, if you were missing work at $16 an hour,” he said. “But as to testicles, I can’t really put a number on it.”

The judge said Kingsley had the chance to retrieve her testicles when an Oakland County sheriff’s deputy accompanied her to her former beau’s home in January 2023.

At the time, Kingsley had just gotten out of jail, where she spent three days and was fined $100 for violating a personal protection order he had filed against her, the Detroit News reported.

“We allow a one-time visit with a sheriff’s officer in situations like that for people to go back to get their belongings,” Bowie said.

“Ms. Kingsley failed to retrieve the testicles from the refrigerator at that time. … If they were so important to her, she had the opportunity to grab them, and she didn’t,” he said during the hearing.

Wojciechowski told the judge he tossed out the testicles in July.

“They were rotting in my fridge, and it was disgusting — I’ve got food in there I wanted to eat,” he said. “She didn’t keep them in a biohazard container like she was supposed to.”

She told him her surgery at Henry Ford Hospital in March 2022 cost $20,000, but noted that the state covered the charge because she’s disabled, according to the outlet.

“The state paid for that, you didn’t. You’re not going to be unjustly enriched,” the judge told her.

 

[Impartial_Observer]

On 2/9/2024 at 1:50 PM, swordfish said:

SF just can't let this one go.......The headline was just too enticing......A guy/girl is ticked off because his/her girl/boy friend won't giver her nuts back to her/him.....

“I can put a dollar amount on, say, if you were missing work at $16 an hour,” he said. “But as to testicles, I can’t really put a number on it.”

She told him her surgery at Henry Ford Hospital in March 2022 cost $20,000, but noted that the state covered the charge because she’s disabled, according to the outlet.

“The state paid for that, you didn’t. You’re not going to be unjustly enriched,” the judge told her.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/09/news/transgender-woman-loses-bid-to-sue-ex-over-surgically-removed-nuts/

Transgender woman loses bid to sue ex for throwing out her surgically removed testicles: ‘We’re talking about my nuts’

A transgender Michigan woman who sued her ex-boyfriend for discarding her surgically removed testicles had her case tossed out by a judge — who also rejected the ex’s counterclaim for being “humiliated” by the case.

Brianna Kingsley, 40, last year filed a small claims petition alleging her ex, William Wojciechowski, 37, “retains possession of my surgically extracted testicles, preserved in (a) Mason jar, kept in (the) fridge next to the eggs.”

The Pontiac resident demanded the immediate return of her “human remains specimen” in her handwritten affidavit, in addition to $6,500 in damages.

“We’re talking about my nuts. … I wanted them in my fridge — not his,” Kingsley told a court hearing. “The damages were the loss of these nuts.”

Wojciechowski, meanwhile, said he’d already tossed out the testicles — and filed a counterclaim for the same amount, claiming he’d been “humiliated” by coverage of the nutty case by “worldwide news outlets,” the Detroit News reported.

The judge noted how hard it was to calculate potential damages in the bizarre case.

“I can put a dollar amount on, say, if you were missing work at $16 an hour,” he said. “But as to testicles, I can’t really put a number on it.”

The judge said Kingsley had the chance to retrieve her testicles when an Oakland County sheriff’s deputy accompanied her to her former beau’s home in January 2023.

At the time, Kingsley had just gotten out of jail, where she spent three days and was fined $100 for violating a personal protection order he had filed against her, the Detroit News reported.

“We allow a one-time visit with a sheriff’s officer in situations like that for people to go back to get their belongings,” Bowie said.

“Ms. Kingsley failed to retrieve the testicles from the refrigerator at that time. … If they were so important to her, she had the opportunity to grab them, and she didn’t,” he said during the hearing.

Wojciechowski told the judge he tossed out the testicles in July.

“They were rotting in my fridge, and it was disgusting — I’ve got food in there I wanted to eat,” he said. “She didn’t keep them in a biohazard container like she was supposed to.”

She told him her surgery at Henry Ford Hospital in March 2022 cost $20,000, but noted that the state covered the charge because she’s disabled, according to the outlet.

“The state paid for that, you didn’t. You’re not going to be unjustly enriched,” the judge told her.

 

Darwin wins again, there will be no procreation!

[swordfish]

Very interesting case - in order for the couples whose embryos were (accidentally) destroyed to get any serious monetary recompense, the court would have to determine embryos were actually human lives.  This has nothing to do with the overturning of Roe V Wade, but the WH spokesperson had to draw a connection there anyway since this was Alabama......

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Alabama decision reflected the consequences of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and blamed Republican elected officials from blocking access to reproductive and emergency care to women.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/20/us/alabama-embryo-law-ruling-supreme-court/index.html

In unprecedented decision, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos are children. It could have chilling effects on IVF, critics say

[Muda69]

[swordfish]

It took a "study" to figure this one out?

https://studyfinds.org/female-psychopaths-are-surprisingly-common/

Study: Female psychopaths are surprisingly common

44 MINS AGOADD A COMMENT

by John Anderer

CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom — While the word psychopath usually conjures up images of knife-wielding attackers and masked assailants for most people, not all psychopaths are serial killers. The vast majority simply blend in with the rest of society, all the while masking their cold and calculating true nature. Now, new research set for presentation at Cambridge may just disprove yet another psychopath falsity. Most depictions and popular examples of psychopaths in the media are male, but the study argues female psychopaths are up to five times more common than currently believed.

Dr. Clive Boddy, an expert in corporate psychopathy from Anglia Ruskin University, is set to present his findings at the Cambridge Festival. While current estimates tell us male psychopaths outnumber females by roughly six to one, Dr. Boddy believes prior studies have failed to properly identify female psychopaths. This is in large part due to solely basing profiles around criminal and male psychopaths.

Dr. Boddy posits the characteristics of female psychopaths are quite different from males. He also notes gender bias likely plays a role in the under-reporting, as society tends to ignore perceived male traits when they’re displayed by women.

According to his latest research, the real ratio of male-female psychopathy may be roughly 1.2:1, or up to five times higher than previously estimated. He reached this conclusion by using measures of primary psychopathy, or excluding psychopathy’s antisocial behavioral characteristics and instead concentrating on its core elements.

Referencing research pertaining to corporate psychopaths and how they operate in high-achieving roles in workplaces, Dr. Boddy explains female psychopaths tend to be more manipulative than males, use different techniques to create good impressions, and use deceit and sexually seductive behavior to gain social and financial advantages more often than male psychopaths.

“People generally attribute psychopathic characteristics to males rather than to females. So even when females display some of the key traits associated with psychopathy – such as being insincere, deceitful, antagonistic, unempathetic and lacking in emotional depth – because these are seen as male characteristics they may not be labeled as such, even when they should be,” Boddy says in a media release.

“Also, female psychopaths tend to use words, rather than violence, to achieve their aims, differing from how male psychopaths tend to operate. If female psychopathy expresses differently, then measures designed to capture and identify male, criminal, psychopaths may be inadequate at identifying female non-criminal, psychopaths,” he continues. “Female psychopaths, while not as severely psychopathic or as psychopathic as often as males are, have nevertheless been underestimated in their incidence levels and are therefore more of a potential threat to business and society than anyone previously suspected.”

“This has implications for the criminal justice system because current risk management decisions involving partners and children may be faulty. It also has implications for organizational leadership selection decisions because female leaders cannot automatically be assumed to be more honest, caring and concerned with issues such as corporate social responsibility.”

 

[swordfish]

IDK - Anyone else connecting the funds from the Obama administration released to Iran and the amount of sophisticated missiles they are throwing at Israel that the US is now aiding in the defense of?  Probably nothing to be concerned about......

https://www.the-sun.com/news/11092635/israel-iran-missile-attack-catastrophic-escalation-war-middle-east/

Iran threatens ‘1,500 missile’ strike if Israel launches revenge attack as Middle East risks ‘uncontrollable war’

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-administration-acknowledges-1-7-billion-transfer-to-iran-was-all-cash/

WASHINGTON D.C. -- The Obama administration is acknowledging its transfer of $1.7 billion to Iran earlier this yearwas made entirely in cash, using non-U.S. currency.

[swordfish]

IDK - SF feels pretty confident because President Biden said that not a single dollar released by the US to Iran is being used to purchase any of their Military's equipment......I base that confidence on the the fact that President Biden sees Hunter Biden as the "smartest guy he knows"....... 

[Impartial_Observer]

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

IDK - SF feels pretty confident because President Biden said that not a single dollar released by the US to Iran is being used to purchase any of their Military's equipment......I base that confidence on the the fact that President Biden sees Hunter Biden as the "smartest guy he knows"....... 

My guess is it won’t really matter, Israel will once again deal with nuclear proliferation in the region. 

[Muda69]

They Said They Didn't Want War With Iran. Now They're Cheering on War With Iran.

https://reason.com/2024/04/17/they-said-they-didnt-want-war-with-iran-now-theyre-cheering-on-war-with-iran/

Quote

Drop a frog into boiling water, and it jumps right out. But put the frog in lukewarm water that is being heated gradually, the legend goes, and you can boil the unsuspecting creature.

We are now in boiling water. After years of tension with Iran, war looks to be on the horizon. Iranian-backed militias have been clashing with U.S.-led forces across the region for the past several months. This weekend, the U.S. military stepped in directly to defend Israel from a direct Iranian missile attack for the first time ever.

Many of the hawks calling for war today used to swear up and down that they weren't seeking war. We just want a little bit more pressure on Iran, politicians insisted, and certainly wouldn't call for a full-on invasion. Boil the water slowly.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) has been one of the loudest voices in Congress calling for war over the past few months. In the wake of the October 2023 attacks on Israel, he called for bombing Iran even if there was no evidence that Iran was behind the attacks. After Iraqi militias killed three U.S. troops in December, the senator declared, "Hit Iran now. Hit them hard." Referring to an Iranian military headquarters, Graham urged President Joe Biden to "blow it off the map."

 

A few years ago, Graham was terribly offended by the idea that he would call for war with Iran. In 2015, when then-President Barack Obama said that a deal to halt Iran's nuclear program was the only alternative to war, Graham issued a joint statement with the late Sen. John McCain (R–Ariz.) attacking the "false choices" that Obama was presenting.

"No one believes that military force can and should solve all problems. No one believes that diplomacy, including diplomacy with adversaries, is tantamount to weakness," Graham and McCain stated. "The alternative to this deal was never war; it was greater pressure on Iran and insistence on a better agreement."

Commenting on Graham's attitude, Max Fischer noted in Vox that "Iran hawks can't be honest about what they really want" because "a repeat of what we did in Iraq…is not a politically palatable idea." At least not yet.

Graham got what he wanted; former President Donald Trump tore up the deal that Obama had made, began a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, and brought in Graham as an adviser. They never did get that "better agreement," but the United States did come close to bombing Iran several times, with Graham as a cheerleader for escalation.

Along with Graham, the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) was one of the most important actors advising Trump on Iran. FDD had a cozy relationship with the administration and even kept a member of Trump's National Security Council on its payroll.

Like Graham, the foundation's CEO Mark Dubowitz had insisted that his goal was to "fix not nix" diplomacy over the Iranian nuclear program.

"One thing we don't want to do is go to war with Iran, and we're trying to find peaceful ways to stop the Iranians and all the malign activities," Dubowitz said in a 2016 interview on C-SPAN.

 

Would it be surprising to hear that Dubowitz is now calling for war? On Monday, he mused that "it is time for friendly foreign powers to commit to a crushing preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear weapons program as well as giving Israel all the support it needs to destroy Tehran's terror armies." 

He made it clear on social media that "friendly foreign powers" means the United States: "It's geopolitical malpractice for the US to subcontract the destruction of [Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamanei's nuclear weapons program to Israel, a country of 10 million people. The Islamic Republic is one of our most dangerous enemies."

Dubowitz had also claimed in 2019 that he wasn't pursuing "regime change" in Iran because that would involve "mechanized US troops invading Iran like [in the] Iraq War." He then argued in 2022 that he had always been calling for "regime change" but only "through support for the Iranian people."

What do the Iranian people actually want? The Iranian opposition inside and outside the country is bitterly divided on whether Iran should be freed through foreign intervention.

But whenever the threat of war flares up, American media likes to give the hawkish faction a megaphone. One of the most prominent commentators is Masih Alinejad, an exiled Iranian journalist who now works for Voice of America, the U.S. government-funded news outlet.

After Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month, killing seven Iranian military officers, Alinejad told CNN's Jake Tapper that "Iranians are celebrating" the attack.

Alinejad once denied that she supported this kind of campaign. On the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum in November 2022, she urged a journalist in Persian to ignore anti-interventionists "who tell you 'don't launch a military attack, don't close the embassies,' because no one is calling for a military attack."

 

Exactly one year later, at the next Halifax conference, Alinejad called for a military attack. "If Israel or any allied democratic country were to strike Iranian nuclear sites," she said in another Persian-language interview, "I would naturally welcome it. Not just me but the people of Iran, too."

Others in the Iranian opposition disagree. Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer who has been in and out of Iranian prison for the past decade, issued a statement on Monday condemning both Iranian and Israeli actions. "We don't want war by any name," she wrote.

Americans are no strangers to the anti-war to pro-war switcheroo. The Iraq War had unfolded in much the same way. In the aftermath of the Gulf War of 1991, many American leaders insisted that regime change in Iraq would be going too far. A decade later, they insisted that regime change was the only way forward.

"I was not an enthusiast about getting U.S. forces and going into Iraq. We were there in the southern part of Iraq to the extent we needed to be there to defeat his forces and to get him out of Kuwait, but the idea of going into Baghdad, for example, or trying to topple the regime wasn't anything I was enthusiastic about," former defense secretary Dick Cheney said in a 1996 interview. "I felt there was a real danger here that you would get bogged down in a long drawn-out conflict, that this was a dangerous, difficult part of the world."

Just six years later, speaking as vice president, Cheney attacked the idea "that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region."

We've been boiled once. Will we get boiled again?

All these war hawk hypocrites should be voted out of office.  How much war can this nation afford, both in blood and in treasure?