Dido - “Thank You”

The downbeat video version is here, but the version above is more intimate, and features the smile. Happy Thanksgiving!

BIN LADEN ON THE MOVE

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BAGHDAD BLAST KILLS 115 PEOPLE

COPS DEFEND SHOOTING 92 YEAR OLD WOMAN

SHARPTON: COMEDIANS APOLOGY NOT ENOUGH

PM DECLARES QUEBEC A NATION WITHIN CANADA

U.S. MARINES HAND OFF BATTERED FALLUJAH

AN 11 YEAR OLD IRAQI’S STORY

4 MILLION IN DARFUR NEED AID

To Mr. Bush:

You, sir, have given me such a renewed sense of life, even as your policies have taken the lives of almost three thousand of my fellow Americans who are soldiers and perhaps 650,000 of my brothers and sisters in a land of which I knew little and cared less only six short years ago. I should be dispirited by such appalling carnage, yet I am curiously-perhaps troublingly-enlivened by the scope of this engine of death that has become my country.

I want it not to be this way; but in the effects of what you have done, I now have returned to something I had forgotten: you were always there.

I don’t mean you, personally, but you as an attitude, a posture, a way of Americanism that had been lurking in the shadows all the years I was becoming complacent, all the years I was imagining a world becoming better. It was not; and it was not because you as a face of America had always been there waiting to return from the receding memories of Vietnam, Central America, and other places most people don’t even know about.

I almost forgot, as I drifted into this century in a sort of self-assured, half’slumber of comfort about America’s future.

You reminded me that my America is not everybody’s America; and if I should want my America, I must be forever diligent, eternally at the guard, and permanently ready to fight for it, perhaps even with my life, which you, I am most certain, would be willing to take if I were to become too much a vexation to you and your kind.

Read the full letter at The Dark Wraith Forums ( a great blog I came across)

My thougths and prayers are with the families of our fallen soldiers, and those still in Iraq and Afghanistan.

22-Nov-2006 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
21-Nov-2006 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Salah ad Din Province Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Specialist Eric Vizcaino Salah ad Din Province Non-hostile
19-Nov-2006 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Lance Corporal Jeremy S. Shock Fallujah - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
18-Nov-2006 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Specialist Bradley N. Shilling Baghdad (southern part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
16-Nov-2006 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Captain Rhett W. Schiller Balad Ruz - Diyala Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
15-Nov-2006 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Captain John R. Dennison Balad - Diyala Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US Specialist Mitchel T. Mutz Ba’qubah - Diyala Hostile - hostile fire - IED
US Sergeant 1st Class Schuyler B. Haynes Ba’qubah - Diyala Hostile - hostile fire - IED
14-Nov-2006 7 | US: 7 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Sergeant 1st Class Tung M. Nguyen Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US Specialist Justin R. Garcia Baghdad (northern part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Colonel Thomas H. Felts Sr. Baghdad (northwest part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Lance Corporal Michael D. Scholl Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Lance Corporal Mario D. Gonzalez Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Timothy W. Brown Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire - IED
US Specialist Eric G. Palacios Rivera Ramadi - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
13-Nov-2006 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Private 1st Class Jang H. Kim Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Private 1st Class Daniel J. Allman II Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
12-Nov-2006 6 | US: 2 | UK: 4 | Other: 0
US Private 1st Class Harry A. Winkler III Samarra - Salah ad Din Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Lieutenant Michael A. Cerrone Samarra - Salah ad Din Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
UK Marine Jay Hylton Basra (Shatt Al-Arab waterway) - Basrah Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
UK Corporal Ben Nowak Basra (Shatt Al-Arab waterway) - Basrah Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
UK Warrant Officer Class 2 Lee Hopkins Basra (Shatt Al-Arab waterway) - Basrah Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
UK Staff Sergeant Sharron Elliott Basra (Shatt Al-Arab waterway) - Basrah Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
11-Nov-2006 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Staff Sergeant Misael Martinez Ramadi - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Staff Sergeant William Samuel Jackson II Ramadi - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Sergeant Angel De Jesus Lucio Ramirez Ramadi - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
10-Nov-2006 2 | US: 0 | UK: 0 | Other: 2
SLO Sergeant 1st Class Rastislav Neplech Al Kut - Wasit Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
POL Sierzant (sergeant) Tomasz Murkowski Al Kut - Wasit Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
09-Nov-2006 5 | US: 5 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Sergeant 1st Class Rudy A. Salcido Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Lance Corporal Kristopher C. Warren Trebil - Anbar Non-hostile
US Sergeant Bryan Burgess Fallujah - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US Sergeant Courtland A. Kennard Baghdad (western part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Staff Sergeant Gregory W. G. McCoy Baghdad (western part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
08-Nov-2006 0 | US: 0 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
07-Nov-2006 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Staff Sergeant Richwell A. Doria Kirkuk - At-Ta’mim Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US Lance Corporal Ryan T. McCaughn Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
06-Nov-2006 4 | US: 3 | UK: 1 | Other: 0
UK Kingsman (private) Jamie Lee Hancock Basra - Basrah Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US Sergeant Lucas T. White Baghdad (northwest of) Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US Chief Warrant Officer John R. Priestner Balad - Salah ad Din Non-hostile - helicopter crash
US Chief Warrant Officer Miles P. Henderson Balad - Salah ad Din Non-hostile - helicopter crash
05-Nov-2006 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Specialist Douglas C. Desjardins Ramadi - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Corporal Jose A. Galvan Fallujah - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
04-Nov-2006 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Corporal Kyle W. Powell Fallujah - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire
US 2nd Lieutenant Mark C. Gelina Rawah - Anbar Non-hostile
US Specialist James L. Bridges Baghdad (western part) Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
02-Nov-2006 8 | US: 8 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Lieutenant Colonel Paul J. Finken Baghdad (eastern part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Lieutenant Colonel Eric J. Kruger Baghdad (eastern part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Staff Sergeant Joseph A. Gage Baghdad (eastern part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Lance Corporal James Brown Habbaniyah - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US Staff Sergeant Jason D. Whitehouse Hit - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Corporal Michael H. Lasky Hit - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Lance Corporal Luke B. Holler Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Private Michael P. Bridges Taji - Salah ad Din Non-hostile
01-Nov-2006 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Lance Corporal Minhee Kim Fallujah - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire
US Corporal Gary A. Koehler Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US Kevin J. Ellenburg Baghdad (west of) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack

Source

Retired General Batiste was on Hardball yesterday. His behavior and answers were totally bizarre. Watch the video here Even Tweety was scratching his head when this interview was over.

I’ll tell you what, what’s going on in Iraq is the first phase of a long term struggle that this nation needs to come to grips with pretty quickly.

And this man is sitting on the Iraq Forum the Democrats are holding next week. God help us all if they listen to this guy!!!

Did Dick go to Iraq to share some plastic turkey with the troops? Tomorrow he plans to be in Saudi Arabia.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s office on Thursday denied reports he was in Iraq for a previously unannounced visit to celebrate the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday with U.S. troops.

Iraqi state television and several other Arabic news channels reported his arrival, but the U.S. embassy could not confirm it.

A spokeswoman for Cheney, Megan McGinn, told Reuters in Washington: “That is not true. He is not there now.” Asked if he had plans to travel there later on Thursday, she said: “Not to my knowledge”.

Asked whether Cheney was in Baghdad or anywhere else in Iraq, the U.S. military said it was “unaware of any information of the vice president being in Baghdad”.

When U.S. President George W. Bush visited U.S. troops for Thanksgiving in 2003, journalists traveling with him were not allowed to report the visit until Bush had already left Iraq.

More here

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!