Just don’t feel like politics. No sir. Check out Jamie. The crowd is playing the band. Amazing

Fillmore Glen Falls, originally uploaded by outdoorthespian.

The Glen is where I’ll be this weekend, then I’m headed off to Old Forge. Tchüss.

Upper Left: Best black berries in many a county. Upper right: More good eating. Two white tailed deer out in the back 40. Lower Left: Chimney Bluffs, Lake Ontario Lower Right: Notice the Fire Trucks. A few young rascals found themselves stuck about half way up the side of the cliff.

The Federal Marriage Amendment is back — with Vitter’s and Craig’s support
Posted June 27th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Just this week, a group of Republican senators re-introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, which, as we know, would ban gay marriage.

And once again, the language is pretty straightforward:

Section 1. This article may be cited as the `Marriage Protection Amendment’.

Section 2. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.’.

This isn’t especially surprising. Republicans are looking at the political landscape, and they’re feeling awfully discouraged. The polls look bad, the base looks depressed, and fundraising looks iffy. Rallying the far-right troops with an anti-gay amendment to the Constitution — even though it has no chance at even getting so much as a hearing — might be helpful to the conservative movement.

But the funny part is looking over the list of the 10 original sponsors. Most of the names are predictable — Brownback and Inhofe, for example — but there are two others whose names stand out: Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho).

…and so the GOP Veepstakes heat up.

Upper Left: The Clinton House. Upper Right: This nice lady keeps getting in all my pictures. In fact she insisted on standing in front of the “Bake Sale for Obama” that was going on in front of the Cornell Sun while I was clicking away. Lower Left: I bet our good friend Mike knows who put this sign up.. Lower Right: Lucifer Falls, Robert H. Treman State Park .

This is about as political as I’ll be getting the rest of the summer. In fact it about as much blogging as I’ll be getting done too. I’m starting the Summer Semester today and I’m happy to be returning to school. Now lets see if the National Guard can leave me alone long enough to finish these last few credits.

The Flickr Set. My favorite is the one on the lower right. Stopped over to Castaway’s to catch JBB after.

Via TJ’s Anti-Contrarian Blog:

“This news sort of flew under the notice of the Lame Stream Media, and I fear the only way the American People will hear of it is through Bloggers:

Saddam Harbored Al-Qaeda according to a Democrat Senate Investigation!!!

The Democrat-run Senate Intelligence Committee, while trying to find wrongdoing by the Bush Administration in their Phase Two Report, actually proved something that I proved long ago in this blog –

Iraq harbored Al-Qaeda before our invasion of March 2003.

Here is the full report: LINK. Now, go and read Conclusions 10 and 11 on Page 71.

Hey libs, told ya’ so…“

So what does conclusion 10 and 11 say?

There one problem with TJ’s claim, and that’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi didn’t join al-Qaeda untill late 2004, well after the invasion and occupation of Iraq. His claim is just another in a long line of rubbish. Even the pResident knows that:

In 2001, coalition forces destroyed Zarqawi’s Afghan training camp, and he fled the country and he went to Iraq, where he set up operations with terrorist associates long before the arrival of coalition forces. In the violence and instability following Saddam’s fall, Zarqawi was able to expand dramatically the size, scope, and lethality of his operation. In 2004, Zarqawi and his terrorist group formally joined al Qaida, pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and he promised to “follow his orders in jihad.”

Soon after, bin Laden publicly declared that Zarqawi was the “Prince of Al Qaida in Iraq” — and instructed terrorists in Iraq to “listen to him and obey him.” It’s hard to argue that al Qaida in Iraq is separate from bin Laden’s al Qaida, when the leader of al Qaida in Iraq took an oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

In 2004.

Muddying the water is what the right-wing blogosphere does oh so well. And TJ is tops at that. To illustrate let’s take a look at the next two conclusions that seemed to have been glossed over:

Ya.

So to sum up…was Iraq a bad place with bad people prior to 2003? Yes. Did it harbor al Qaida? No. Did pResident Bush, Vice pResident Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and numerous other villains lie this country into a war for their own perceived benefit? Yes.