Many are calling Cindy Sheehan the leader of the growing "antiwar movement." I would argue that this description is a bit misleading. Rather than antiwar per say I'd say she's more anti-Bush or even anti-neocon.

Sheehan, and most of America, would not be against this war as vehemently as they are if the blood spilled and lives lost were for a just and noble cause, but even more so if it was based on upfront honesty. Thanks to the DSMs as well as Joe Wilson, Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, etc., we know this war is not like any war before it when it comes to how and why it was started.

Oh, and for those who state that King George can't meet with Sheehan because then he'll have to meet with all of the U.S. soldier widows out of fairness (?), I ask how is it he could meet with Lance Armstrong for a 2-hour bike ride and yet didn't hesitate for fear that he'd have to meet with many, many other professional athletes (you know, to be fair to them)?

In the latest issue of The New Republic, Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute, a big-time ID backer, states, "All ideas that achieve a sort of uniform acceptance ultimately fall apart, whether it’s in the sciences or philosophy or politics, after a few people keep knocking away at it."

How revealing. The implication being no matter the facts, if one "knocks away at it" long enough, eventually the general public will begin to cave and give way to the side which is relentlessly battering away. This pound-into-submission tactic has been the GOP's strategy of choice for really anything, whether it be John Kerry, John McCain, global warming, Social Security, Iraq -- you name it. Spread lies, spread them again, and again, and soon enough the MSM picks up on it and helps to further spread the manure.

Also, unlike what Chapman asserts, most of the ideas and facts in science don't fall apart; rather, it's the acceptance in the public forum that begins to crack due to persistent, politically-driven attacks. As mentioned, the GOP goal is to simply instill a degree of doubt, or at the very least confusion. Like at a court trial, if a defense attorney can establish doubt at any level, he/she has won.

Those that attack science demand the impossible: 100% certitude. Has it ever been proven absolutely that smoking causes cancer? No, but science has shown there exists a very strong linkage between the two, and everyone seems to accept that less than 100% probability. Have they 100% linked air pollution to the increased rate of asthma in children? No, but they've shown a strong link. If those with an agenda don't get the beyond-doubt result that they want, they simply label it "junk science" and toss the conclusions completely.

From Harper's Index (July):

Number of America’s nine “Founding Fathers” who denied the divinity of Jesus: 7

Number of U.S. public-school districts that have adopted a class in which the Bible is the primary textbook: 301

Tons of CO2 emissions that would be replaced each year by a proposed windmill project on Long Island: 235,000

Tons produced each year by a single jumbo jet making a round-trip trans-Atlantic flight daily: 210,000

Average percentage of the U.K. population that Britons believe to be immigrants: 21

Actual percentage: 8

Is this a sign of a strong economy?

11,000 apply for 400 openings at Walmart

And need I remind: Walmart offers low-paying jobs with poor health benefits.

Of Pandas and People is apparently the "official" go-to source for ID. To say it's receiving bad reviews from those in the scientific community is putting it lightly.

The best review I've read is by Jerry Coyne, professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. Some segments:

To teach that a scientific theory is equivalent to a “guess” or a “hunch” is deeply misleading, and to assert that “evolution is a theory, not a fact” is simply false. And why should evolution, alone among scientific theories, be singled out with the caveat “This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered”? Why haven’t school boards put similar warnings in physics textbooks, noting that gravity and electrons are only theories, not facts, and should be critically considered? After all, nobody has ever seen gravity or an electron. The reason that evolution stands alone is clear: other scientific theories do not offend religious sensibilities.
<..>
Intelligent design is simply the third attempt of creationists to proselytize our children at the expense of good science and clear thinking. Having failed to ban evolution from schools, and later to get equal classroom time for scientific creationism, they have made a few adjustments designed to sneak Christian cosmogony past the First Amendment.
<..>
IDers have duped many people by further removing God from the picture, or at least hiding him behind the frame. No longer do creationists mention a deity, or even a creator, but simply a neutral-sounding “intelligent designer,” as if it were not the same thing. This designer could in principle be Brahma, or the Taoist P’an Ku, or even a space alien; but ID creationists, as will be evident to anybody who attends to all that they say, mean only one entity: the biblical God.
<..>
Jon Buell, president of the FTE, is equally frank about his goals: "We have to inundate them [the young] with a rational, defensible, well-argued Judeo-Christian world view. FTE’s carefully-researched books do just that."
<..>
Would an intelligent designer create millions of species and then make them go extinct, only to replace them with other species, repeating this process over and over again? Why did the designer give tiny, non-functional wings to kiwi birds? Or useless eyes to cave animals? Or a transitory coat of hair to a human fetus? Or an appendix, an injurious organ that just happens to resemble a vestigial version of a digestive pouch in related organisms?
<..>
It is clear, then, that intelligent design did not arise because of some long-standing problems with evolutionary theory, or because new facts have called neo-Darwinism into question. ID is here for only one reason—to act as a Trojan horse poised before the public schools: a seemingly secular vessel ready to inject its religious message into the science curriculum.The contents of Pandas, and of the other writings of IDers, are simply a cunning pedagogical ploy to circumvent legal restrictions against religious creationism.
<..>
The fear that if evolution is true, then we are no different from other animals, not the special objects of God’s creation but a contingent product of natural selection, and so we lack real purpose, and our morality is just the law of the jungle. Tom DeLay furnished a colorful example of this view on the floor of the House of Representatives on June 16, 1999. Explaining the causes of the massacre at Columbine High School, he read a sarcastic letter in a Texas newspaper that suggested that “it couldn’t have been because our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud.”

But what about getting on with your life?

"President Bush will cut short his vacation to return to Washington on Wednesday, two days earlier than planned, to help monitor federal efforts to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina." It's OK to vacation for five weeks despite the Iraq situation going from bad to worse, then he couldn't spend one hour of his time to meet with Cindy Sheehan, but he could find time to give some fund-raising speeches, and then decides to cut his precious vacation short by two days (out of 35) so he can rush back to DC to do what again for the hurricane victims? But King GW, I thought that you could run a war from that ranch -- can't you coordinate aid to hurricane victims from there? And isn't your ranch already closer to New Orleans -- why not fly there? Why fly back to DC? Oh, that's right, like the middle-of-the-night flight for Schiavo, this makes for a wonderful political stunt. Rove never misses a trick.

Twin sons, different mothers

Recall that on August 21 I wrote, "It's one thing for somebody to say something and then to deny it later. It's quite another for a radio or TV host to say something on the air and then try to deny it later. Thanks to tape, either audio or video, documented proof exists -- there's no hope in trying to wiggle (lie) out of it. But, that's exactly what we often get with the likes of O'Reilly and Limbaugh." I neglected to mention Pat Robertson.

After stating in blatant terms that Chavez should be assassinated, a day or two later Robertson claims he was "misinterpreted." Here's his exact words regarding Chavez: "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it." And he says more along those lines, such as "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability."

What's to misinterpret? Again, who do these guys think they're going to fool when it's all on tape?? Limbaugh just attempted this maneuver last week concerning his Sheehan comments. I imagine they believe their diehard followers are just too ignorant and/or lazy to realize that they're just flat-out lying.

Also, why is it King GW says not a peep about Robertson's call for an international incident? Yet, the King will fly in the middle of the night when it concerns Schiavo, he'll feel the urgency in that case.

For those r-wingnuts who don't understand the concept of averaging as it may apply to polls conducted around a similar time period, let me explain: if one poll has 36% and another has 40%, you can always average the two and arrive at 38% -- you see? All polls have a +/- degree of error anyway so they're not exact. In fact, by averaging together several polls, you will arrive at a more accurate end result (more data is involved, more various methodologies are fused, etc.).

Of course, the r-wingnuts focus on questioning the polls themselves, attempting to instill doubt in their accuracy, but we all know 1) such polls were 100% accurate anytime (and rarely) they had bad results for Clinton, and 2) if it were Clinton right now with such bad poll numbers, the right would be out of breath repeating it. The fact is 36%, 40%, 38%, whatever, such numbers are dreadful.

The other common refrain is, "oh yeah, well who won the election?" Gads, just moronic. I got news for you: I'm a Yankee fan and plenty of times over the last few years they won the World Series; that doesn't mean come the next season, when perhaps they were in fourth place in May, I barked at someone "oh yeah, but who won the World Series last year?" That was then, this is now, and whatever the Yankees did in that prior year is past history and means nothing now.

And why do you think GW's poll numbers are in fact in the toilet? By simple logic it's because a large number of folks who voted for him this past November have changed their mind. In theory these poll numbers could go lower, but the reality is they'll eventually plateau at some level because there exists a large contingent of citizens who would vote for GW no matter what he did. The "Madness of King George" could devolve into him running around naked on his Crawford ranch, shooting pistols in the air and stopping to urinate on a tree, and it wouldn't matter: X% of his diehard followers will show up to vote for him. Sad but true.

I watched the recent Bill Maher show and he had on Cindy Sheehan. During her eloquent and intelligent replies to Bill's questions, she did mention the DSM as a reason for her outrage. As I've mentioned, the DSMs are one of a few things that have changed since Sheehan's first meeting with GW. The right refuses to mention this. If I had a son who died in Iraq, I would've already been distraught, angry, etc., but then to read the DSM and learn of what they confirm, that would've put my feelings at a whole new level.

Want to see two maps that look VERY similar? Go here. Note how the dots correlate with the blue areas.... Look closely.

I'm tired of the oil companies advertising in publications attempting to show just how environment-friendly they are -- oh really? Can they offer up some hard proof other than "soft" photos of animal and fish life? How about showing us evidence that you don't spend $$$ for lobbying against environmental regulations? One of the worst ads yet was by Shell, showing a pair of tropical fish in a crystal-clear blue ocean -- and yet the ad was about special detergents added to Shell gas to clean your engine. And what does this have to do with fish in the ocean?

Prediction: five years from now we will have realized that GW's "dream" for Iraq boiled down to $600 billion (to perhaps $1 trillion) of U.S. taxpayer's money spent, and the lives of 2000 (perhaps 3000 by that time) U.S. soldiers, all for an Iran-like theocracy (not democracy). As TalkLeft writes, "If our Government told you in 2003 it wanted your son to go to war in a foreign land to topple a regime and ensure that Islam had its proper place in the replacement government, what would your reaction have been?"

Read this and this about the Swift Boat-ish slime attacks against Sheehan. It's what they do.

Did you know that DisneyWorld and anywhere the Super Bowl is being played have no-fly zones in place, and yet the Indian Point nuclear facility near NYC does not?

Is (worse) chaos imminent? Is theocracy (vs. GW's longtime stated "democracy") inevitable?

The much-troubled, off-and-on constitution talks in Iraq have collapsed. The LA Times writes, "Deep divisions in Iraq over the country's draft constitution carry seeds that could destroy the Bush administration's beleaguered strategy for turning the strife-torn country into a unified and stable democracy." The story mentions the administration strong-arming Iraqi officials to reach a deal, but "few who have followed the negotiations expect that it can hold."

Duh. Force-feeding democracy -- what are the odds of it succeeding? Ever? Of course, the great neocon minds behind all of this are likely just coming around to the impending disaster. Look for them to begin covering their asses, running around frantically like that scene in "Ferris Bueller" when the school principal believes he's insulted a child's parent. In fact, when was the last time you've heard from any of these nutjobs? They've been as MIA as Cheney. That in itself is telling.

Confirming another poll cited here, the Times article mentions the "Gallup Poll results released Friday show Bush's approval rating fell 5 points in August to 40%, the lowest since he took office." Perhaps even worse, King George is facing increasing doubts and pushback from supposed allies, such as U.S. diplomats, military officers, Pentagon officials, and Republican elected officials.

As bad as Bush's popularity is right now, it could actually get worse over the next few months. Given the expectation that Iraq could become a horrific mess in the next several weeks, and that there's signs of the housing bubble starting to weaken, and the stock market is teetering and entering into what's historically been its worse seasonal period (September-October), and gas prices are hitting new highs at the pump -- well, Rove will have his work cut out for him (assuming he doesn't resign).

While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.

“I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!”

UPDATE: More on the "Madness of King George."

Bob Herbert:

This is a war fought mostly by other people's children. The loudest of the hawks are the least likely to send their sons or daughters off to Iraq.

The president has never been clear about why we're in Iraq. There's no plan, no strategy. In one of the many tragic echoes of Vietnam, U.S. troops have been fighting hellacious battles to seize areas controlled by insurgents, only to retreat and allow the insurgents to return.
<...>
If the war in Iraq is worth fighting - if it's a noble venture, as the hawks insist it is - then it's worth fighting with the children of the privileged classes. They should be added to the combat mix. If it's not worth their blood, then we should bring the other troops home.

If Mr. Bush's war in Iraq is worth dying for, then the children of the privileged should be doing some of the dying.

Oh look at that, tonight on Pat Robertson's "700 Club" show who do I see him interviewing. Someone religious? Nope. Instead, Edwin Meese, former US Attorney General under Reagan, and their discussion? Nope, not the Bible but rather getting Roberts to the Supreme Court. Meese himself must have uttered the phrase "left wing" about a dozen times. Then later in the program Pat is seen promoting a diet drink with his name on it. Robertson's show is about as religious-oriented as FOX News is "fair and balanced."

More environmental federalism. State by state, we can improve the environment despite GW's efforts to the contrary.

Unlike its opinion page, The Wall Street Journal can frequently get things right elsewhere in the paper. Example, with this recent fuel economy proposal, the paper's headline: "New Fuel-Economy Rules Help The Biggest Truck Makers." Calling Gregg Easterbrook....

With the draft of the Iraqi constitution having this, "a. No law may contradict Islamic standards. b. No law may contradict democratic standards," it drives home that first and foremost a future Iraq will apparently be a theocracy before a democracy. Ah yes, $200+ bil. and over 1800 U.S. soldiers lives for this (not counting the introduction and influx of terrorists).

I guess Jesus whispered these words in his ear....

Pat Robertson, host of Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club and founder of the Christian Coalition of America, called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The number of troops in Iraq has always been too low (by a few 100K), but now it's being said that "if the Army maintains the size of its force in Iraq over the next several years, it could risk a decline in the quality of the force and other severe problems." Just great....

Are the 20s next? "36% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 58% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 33% approve and 62% disapprove." GW continues to set records: for most vacation days and for worst poll numbers at this point for a sitting president. Hey, but he has a life to live! (the rest of us be damned)

Kevin Drum alerts us to the latest MWG (missing white girl) story, and of course his provided link is to Fox News, which can't seem to get enough of the Holloway/Aruba tragedy. Anything to keep the harsh light off of King George. Also, kudos to Bob Costas for at least saying enough is enough and putting his foot down.

I guess Frist's out-of-the-norm, brush-with-reason concerning his flip-flop on stem cell research was simply accidental. He's come out in support of the teaching of "intelligent design" in schools. Ah, now that's the religious right water carrier we all know -- for a second, he threw us for a loop.

A classic empty-headed statement from the right, disguised as reasonable and sensible:

"At a difficult phase in Iraq, it is especially important that the nation have a responsible, constructive opposition. Cindy Sheehan demonstrates that the Left is still incapable of providing one." -- Rich Lowry, National Review

It would be great if Mr. Lowry would offer an example or two of what he means by "responsible, constructive opposition." Citizens speaking out and voicing their views in a peaceful manner seems pretty darn responsible and constructive to me, and it's 100% American.

Of course, what Lowry truly means is now that Iraq has gradually eroded from bad to worse, there should be zero opposition. The right has always had a problem with dissent when it came to King GW, attempting to label it treason, and that's exactly what irks them about Sheehan. The fact is any opposition is bad to them and Lowry's suggestion that the Left could actually offer up a good one, so to speak, is a red herring.

It's astounding how the graph of death below shows no evidence of a sustained flat line anywhere, meaning since the first day of the invasion until now (about 2 1/2 years), there has not been a period of reprieve, much less decline, of U.S. soldiers dying. If anything, the line in the graph slightly curves up as it ascends up, implying the rate of deaths has been accelerating.

It's one thing for somebody to say something and then to deny it later. It's quite another for a radio or TV host to say something on the air and then try to deny it later. Thanks to tape, either audio or video, documented proof exists -- there's no hope in trying to wiggle (lie) out of it.

But, that's exactly what we often get with the likes of O'Reilly and Limbaugh. The latest example: Limbaugh smears Cindy Sheehan by comparing her story to Bill Burkett (CBS forged documents debacle). He said on the air:

I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming onto it. It's not real. It's nothing more than an attempt. It's the latest effort made by the coordinated left.

After receiving more hate mail than he normally does, two days later he felt compelled to "clarify" his Sheehan comments. So what does he do? What he does best -- lies. He said on air:

Apparently, what's out there is that I said that Cindy Sheehan is no different than Bill Burkett, that Bill Burkett lied and Cindy Sheehan lied. They're actually out there, people saying that I am accusing Cindy Sheehan of making up the fact that she had a son and making up the fact that her son died in Iraq. And of course, I've never said this.

This guy simply has to be pathological -- how else to explain this stuff? If you've ever listened to his radio show, it's easy to see how the lies slip out so frequently. He blabbers on in that pretentious staccato, fooling most of his listeners into believing that with that authoritative tone, he just HAS to know of what he speaks. But he doesn't and instead just rambles, free form ranting, working himself up into a head of steam, and before you know it -- there goes another lie. It's not like he sits there and fumbles around for proper citing for the many sources of research. Nope, he just spouts on, offering 99% opinions backed by nothing but Rush's fantasy world. It's frightening and would actually be hilarious if he didn't have so many listeners that took him seriously -- making him that much more scary.

Like Mother, like Son.

"But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that." -- FORMER FIRST LADY BARBARA BUSH, ABC/Good Morning America, March 18, 2003

Now we know where King GW gets his warmth and compassion....

This looks like a must-see program tonight (airs twice):

Programming Note: " 'Dead Wrong' -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown" airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET on CNN.

(CNN) -- A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

Wilkerson is one of several insiders interviewed for the CNN Presents documentary "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program, which airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET, pieces together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be "dead wrong."

Powell's speech, delivered on February 5, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it,'" Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Wilkerson and Powell spent four days and nights in a CIA conference room with then-Director George Tenet and other top officials trying to ensure the accuracy of the presentation, Wilkerson says.

"There was no way the Secretary of State was going to read off a script about serious matters of intelligence that could lead to war when the script was basically un-sourced," Wilkerson says.

In one dramatic accusation in his speech, Powell showed slides alleging that Saddam had bioweapons labs mounted on trucks that would be almost impossible to find.

"In fact, Secretary Powell was not told that one of the sources he was given as a source of this information had indeed been flagged by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a liar, a fabricator," says David Kay, who served as the CIA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. That source, an Iraqi defector who had never been debriefed by the CIA, was known within the intelligence community as "Curveball."

After searching Iraq for several months across the summer of 2003, Kay began e-mailing Tenet to tell him the WMD evidence was falling apart. At one point, Wilkerson says, Tenet called Powell to tell him the claims about mobile bioweapons labs were apparently not true.

"George actually did call the Secretary, and said, 'I'm really sorry to have to tell you. We don't believe there were any mobile labs for making biological weapons,'" Wilkerson says in the documentary. "This was the third or fourth telephone call. And I think it's fair to say the Secretary and Mr. Tenet, at that point, ceased being close. I mean, you can be sincere and you can be honest and you can believe what you're telling the Secretary. But three or four times on substantive issues like that? It's difficult to maintain any warm feelings."

From Daily Kos:

Its taken just over four years for Bush to break the vacation record it took Reagan eight years to establish.

336 days.

Finally, Bush has an accomplishment to his name.

However, if GW is going crazy (literally), and he wouldn't be the first king to do so, than perhaps he needs all the R&R he can get.