And you can put this in your signs-of-things-to-come file: Muqtada Sadr, the cherubic (and Rubenesque) militant young cleric, said on Sunday that the Mahdi Army, which is now a big part of the Iraqi government to be, says that his forces will fight alongside Iran's if Iran is attacked by the United States over its nuclear program.

Now, as a parent of a kid in law school, who also is opposed to Bush and to war, I can't even imagine him in that situation. If it happens, I bet I won't be the only parent who says, "Hell, No, We Wont' Go."

He just lost his chance to make a choice. His induction notice caught him with his decisions down. He waited too long to choose Army.

So the 1960's and 1970's were the golden age, that was a time when people who were in charge of regulation, or who were running the plants, had actually done things with their hands. One thing I've noticed about animal welfare regulators who have never worked in the industry is that they always go for some sort of zero-tolerance approach. If the plant violates one or two agency rules, it has to be shut down. If you don't know anything about the meatpacking business, that sounds like a good idea. Make sure that no animal ever bets hurt, under any circumstances. But in real life that's never the way it works out. In real life what happens it that a plant makes one or two mistakes, so the agency shuts it down. Well, shutting down a plant creates a huge uproar, because you've closed a whole big huge company that employs a lot of people. Management immediately protests the decision, and lots of pressure gets put on the inspectors who reported the violations to clean up his report so that the plant can go back to work. And that's what happens, The plant goes back to work and doesn't get inspected so closely anymore. It doesn't have to be that way. I constantly argue that what we really need to do to protect the animals is sets high standards. People can live up to high standards, but they can't live up to perfection. When you give a plant a good standard-like 95 percent of all cattle have to be stunned (killed) correctly on the first shot every single day- they always do better than they do with zero-tolerance regulation. A lot of times they beat the standard, too. But, regulators today are too abstract in their thinking to see that. They're focused on their thoughts about the animals, not on the real animals in the real plants, so more animals end up suffering. It's not right.

"Are there gonna be elections this year?" "Why yes! How could you tell?

In fact, all a large body of troops is, is a juicy target for a nuclear armed opponent.

.... it sure seems that there is an inverse ratio between the amount of one's military experience and one's desire for war.

I'm a veteran, and certainly some of the things I hold against Bush are his cowardice and desertion, if the incompetence and ethical lapses were not enough.

The judgment of the Nuremberg trials says: The Charter specifically provides in Article 8: "The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment."

Posted by JimakaPPJ January 25, 2006 06:23 PM The difference this time Ras, is it is the pentagon who commissioned the study.

DIWANIYAH, Iraq - The top U.S. general in Iraq acknowledged Thursday that American forces in this country are "stretched,"... "The forces are stretched ... and I don't think there's any question of that," (Gen. George) Casey said.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday disputed reports suggesting that the U.S. military is stretched thin...