FOX News edits the Michael J. Fox interview with Katie Couric at CBS to imply that Michael J. Fox was in the wrong in the “controversy” over whether he took his meds that day. The phrase from Michael hangs due to editing at “I took too much…” so a logical conclusion is that Michael was wrong and Rush was right. Yesterday Wolf Blitzer on CNN announced twice that Rush apologized and in the CBS interview Katie Couric states Rush apologized but when you watch the video of Rush he said he WOULD apologize and then continues to mock Michael J. Fox.

ALSO… Look at the headline at the CBS page here and you can see the FULL video there as well. The headline should not have been that he was overmedicated which again implies Michael was wrong but rather the subhead line of him not acting in the video. The subhead line should have been something to the effect of it being impossible for him to balance the drugs or control his movement.

h/t To JoeWo for this post.

We have our Blackwaters…..the Brits have theirs……

Private security firms operating in Iraq are committing human rights abuses, a charity has claimed.

A report by War on Want says no prosecutions have been brought despite hundreds of complaints of abuse.

It says UK ministers are increasingly using private security firms with a total of 48,000 employees in Iraq - six to every British soldier.

And the charity is calling on the government to introduce legislation to ban private security in war zones.

John Hilary, campaigns and policy director of War on Want, said: “The occupation of Iraq has allowed British mercenaries to reap huge profits.

We call on the government to introduce tough legislation as a matter of urgency to ban the use of mercenaries.

“But the government has failed to enact laws to punish their human rights abuses, including firing on Iraqi civilians.

“How can Tony Blair hope to restore peace and security in Iraq while allowing mercenary armies to operate completely outside the law?

Read more at BBC News

Bonnie Raitt and Aretha Franklin
Since You’ve Been Gone

Mirther hasn’t posted any beautiful horticultural wonders this week. Seeing how we could all use a little beauty in our lives…. here’s a little natural wonder for ya.

From Time.com:

Written last month, this straightforward account of life in Iraq by a Marine officer was initially sent just to a small group of family and friends. His honest but wry narration and unusually frank dissection of the mission contrasts sharply with the story presented by both sides of the Iraq war debate, the Pentagon spin masters and fierce critics. Perhaps inevitably, the “Letter from Iraq” moved quickly beyond the small group of acquantainaces and hit the inboxes of retired generals, officers in the Pentagon, and staffers on Capitol Hill. TIME’s Sally B. Donnelly first received a copy three weeks ago but only this week was able to track down the author and verify the document’s authenticity. The author wishes to remain anonymous but has allowed us to publish it here - with a few judicious omissions.

All: I haven’t written very much from Iraq. There’s really not much to write about. More exactly, there’s not much I can write about because practically everything I do, read or hear is classified military information or is depressing to the point that I’d rather just forget about it, never mind write about it. The gaps in between all of that are filled with the pure tedium of daily life in an armed camp. So it’s a bit of a struggle to think of anything to put into a letter that’s worth reading. Worse, this place just consumes you. I work 18-20-hour days, every day. The quest to draw a clear picture of what the insurgents are up to never ends. Problems and frictions crop up faster than solutions. Every challenge demands a response. It’s like this every day. Before I know it, I can’t see straight, because it’s 0400 and I’ve been at work for 20 hours straight, somehow missing dinner again in the process. And once again I haven’t written to anyone. It starts all over again four hours later. It’s not really like Ground Hog Day, it’s more like a level from Dante’s Inferno.

Read full letter here

Biggest Outrage - Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest Offender: Bill O’Reilly. ha!

October 29, 2006

FERN PARK, Fla. –A 15-year-old boy stole a bus, drove it along a public transit route, picked up passengers and collected fares, authorities said Sunday.

Ritchie Calvin Davis took the bus Saturday from the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando, where it was parked awaiting sale at an auction, a Seminole County sheriff’s report said. The bus belongs to the Central Florida Transportation Agency, which runs LYNX public transit services in the Orlando area.

“I drove that bus better than most of the LYNX drivers could,” the teen, who is too young to drive legally, told a deputy after he was stopped and arrested. “There isn’t a scratch on it. I know how to start it, drive it, lower it, raise it.”

More here

I’ve seen how those LYNX drivers drive…..I say give the kid a job!!!

Thousands march in California against Iraq war
(AFP)

29 October 2006
LOS ANGELES - Thousands of protesters marched against the Iraq war and the government of President George W. Bush on Saturday in Los Angeles and San Francisco, just days ahead of crucial congressional elections.

In Los Angeles, some 2,000 demonstrators rallied in Hollywood chanting anti-war slogans such as “Give peace a chance” and “The war is over if you want it,” in references to hit protest songs by the late Beatle John Lennon.

More standard chants included “US out of Iraq” and “Endless war means endless profits.”

Speakers at the event included anti-war activists Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, and Ron Kovic, a Vietnam war veteran whose story was immortalized on the screen by actor Tom Cruise in the movie “Born on the Fourth of July.”

Several hundred people also marched in San Francisco, a bastion of liberal anti-war sentiment, local news media reported.

In Chicago, a group of anti-war demonstrators fanned out across the city with bull horns, banners, leaflets and petitions.

Full article here(and it ain’t the American news)

Go Bears!

Up to 15,000 metric tonnes of heavy fuel oil spilled into the Mediterranean when Lebanon’s Jiyyeh power plant was bombed in mid-July by the Israeli military.

The oil slick drifted north for 150km. The clean-up operation only began a month after the bombing, when the conflict ended.

photo gallery and text here

Sawsan Salameh should have spent this week in the laboratories at Hebrew university starting to work on her PhD in theoretical chemistry.

But instead the 29-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank has carried on working as a science teacher at a local high school.

Despite being given a full scholarship by the Hebrew University to pursue her studies, Ms Salameh has fallen foul of new Israeli army regulations preventing Palestinian students from entering Israel on security grounds.

“It’s been my dream since I was 16 to get a doctorate,” says Ms Salameh sitting in her family’s apartment in Anata.

From the end of her road you can see the university in the distance but a dusty Israeli checkpoint stands between Ms Salameh and further study.

“It’s my dream to become a professor of chemistry,” she says. “But now I feel my whole future is on hold.”

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