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I’m curious…..how many did we lose in VietNam?

WASHINGTON: The U.S. Army has lost 130 helicopters in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about a
third to shoot-downs, its aviation director said Friday. He complained that industry is not replacing them fast enough.

“While the military may be on a war footing, our nation’s industry is not on a war footing,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen Mundt.

He said it takes 24 months to get replacement aircraft built and delivered and that replacements for the early losses are just now arriving.

“The U.S. is not at war, the military is at war,” he told a group of Defense Department reporters, also complaining about the timing of how money flows from the government to pay for the purchases. “Industry, you have got to get to the point of where you’re producing … faster.”

Mundt did not have a further breakdown of the losses of aircraft except to say that in addition to shoot-downs, helicopters fall prey to dirt, dust and the rough terrain and conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The number of helicopter downings has dropped dramatically since a spate in Iraq in January and February, Mundt said.

There were at least eight incidents over a few weeks in which U.S. military and civilian helicopters were either shot down or landed under fire in Iraq.

Officials say militants are increasingly targeting choppers with an assortment of weapons, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Asked if missiles were involved in any of the downings, he said officials would rather not reveal that.

“The answer is there is a multitude of weapons out there,” Mundt said.

In response to the increased targeting of the aircraft, the military has been changing its procedures on when, where and how it flies.

This scumbag couldn’t care less about the troops. If he did, he would have hippity hopped over to Walter Reed when the shit hit the fan. Six weeks later he shows up for a photo op and wants everyone to believe he cares. Yeah he’s sorry…..a sorry excuse for a human being.

WASHINGTON - President Bush apologized Friday for the shoddy conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and promised during a visit to the facility for war veterans that “we’re going to fix the problem.”

Critics questioned the timing of Bush’s visit six weeks after poor conditions and neglect of veterans were exposed there.

Bush toured the main hospital and Abrams Hall, where soldiers were transferred after they were vacated from the facility’s Building 18, the site of moldy walls, rodent infestation and other problems that went unchecked until reported by the media. He said his conversations with those who had been in Building 18 left him “disturbed by their accounts.”

“The problems at Walter Reed were caused by bureaucratic and administrative failures,” the president told about 100 medical workers and patients at the hospital. “The system failed you and it failed our troops and we’re going to fix it.”

Among the areas of the hospital that Bush toured were a typical - but empty - patient room in Abrams Hall that featured a large wide’screen television and a Macintosh computer, and the physical therapy unit of the main hospital. Along the way, he awarded 10 Purple Hearts to soldiers recovering from serious wounds suffered in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It is not right to have someone volunteer to wear the uniform and not get the best possible care,” the president said at the end of his more than two-hour visit, cut short from its planned length by almost an hour. “I apologize for what they went through and we’re going to fix the problem.”

He said important steps, including the replacement of military leadership in charge of the hospital and the establishment of several commissions to study the facility and the broader military health care system, have been taken already.

But, Bush added: “We’re not going to be satisfied until everyone gets the kind of care that their folks and families expect.”

More at Yahoo News

Now this is ugly………ugly ugly ugly! Nothing uglier than prejudice and what comes from it.

CHICAGO - More than half a century after 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman, his family sat down with federal investigators to discuss the final autopsy on the boy’s exhumed body and to hear about the investigation.

The report released Thursday found that Till died of a gunshot wound to the head and that he had broken wrist bones and skull and leg fractures. When his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in the summer of 1955, the report said, “the crown of his head was just crushed out … and a piece of his skull just fell out.”

The report also set out a timeline constructed from witness statements, and it said a third man had given a deathbed confession.

Roy Bryant, the white woman’s husband, and his half-brother J.W. Milam were charged in Till’s death shortly after the killing but were acquitted by an all-white jury. Both men, now deceased, later confessed in a 1956 interview with Look magazine.

According to the new report, Leslie Milam, a relative of the two men, also confessed before he died.

“We just wanted the truth,” said Ollie Gordon, Till’s cousin and one of half a dozen family member who reviewed the report with federal investigators on Thursday. “Just knowing the truth has been comforting to the family.”

The FBI reopened the Till case in 2004 and exhumed the boy’s body in 2005, but it decided last year not to press charges. The case was turned over to local prosecutors, with the FBI suggesting a closer look at Bryant’s wife, Carolyn Bryant Donham, now 73.

A Mississippi grand jury ruled late last month that there was insufficient evidence to indict her, essentially closing the book on the case.

“We felt that since the investigation took so long and the results as they were, we would sit face-to-face with the family to answer any questions,” said Joyce Chiles, the chief prosecutor on the case.

Till’s cousin, Simeon Wright, was with the teenager the night he was kidnapped from an uncle’s home in Money, Miss., and he had pressed for a further investigation.

“From what I saw, I think they had enough evidence to indict,” Wright said Thursday. “Every last person up to now has gotten away with murder.”

In 1955, nearly 100,000 people had filed past Till’s open casket during a four-day public viewing in the boy’s hometown of Chicago. A graphic photo of his face appeared in Jet magazine, and that image stoked national outrage and fueled the civil rights movement.

Till’s mother, who had wanted her son’s casket open to expose the brutality of racism to the world, died in 2003. She was buried next to him.

More at YahooNews

He’s already been held 5 years……… term served.

Australian David Hicks has made a plea bargain limiting his jail term for aiding al-Qaeda to seven years, a US tribunal at Guantanamo Bay has heard.
Hicks will serve his term in Australia. It is not clear if it includes the five years already spent at the prison camp.

Hicks pleaded guilty on Monday to providing material support for terrorism, in the first case to be heard by the special tribunals.

The 31-year-old Muslim convert appeared with short hair and in a suit.

A military judge announced the terms of the deal at a hearing on whether to accept Hicks’ guilty plea.

The Australian, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for five years, was accused of attending al-Qaeda training camps and fighting with the Taleban.

The US and Australia have agreed that he can serve out his sentence in his homeland.

More at BBCNews

“the ugliness of the portrayal”……why is it ugly? Because it’s “chocolate?” This cracks me up!

From who else but Newsmax:

‘Chocolate Jesus’ Outrages Christians

The Easter season unveiling of an anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ, dubbed “My Sweet Lord” by its creator, has infuriated Catholics preparing to observe some of their holiest days of the year.

The 6-foot sculpture by Cosimo Cavallaro was to debut Monday evening, four days before Christians mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. The final day of the exhibit at the Lab Gallery inside Manhattan’s Roger Smith Hotel was planned for Easter Sunday.

“This is one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever,” said Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, a watchdog group. “It’s not just the ugliness of the portrayal, but the timing - to choose Holy Week is astounding.”

The gallery’s creative director, Matt Semler, said the Lab and the hotel were overrun with angry telephone calls and e-mails. The gallery was considering its options, he said.

H/T Bat for this post. Yah Bat, this is REAL comforting. Not surprising…….

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For three decades, U.S. inspectors visited 250 meat processing plants as rarely as once every two weeks despite federal law requiring daily inspection, Agriculture Department officials admitted to lawmakers on Thursday.

“All I can say is, it’s been going on for a long time,” said Undersecretary Richard Raymond to the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture. “It’s going to stop now.”

There are 6,000 federally inspected slaughterhouses and meat processing plants in the United States, USDA says.

The practice started under directives issued in the early 1970s, said Raymond. He told reporters afterward that daily inspections would commence “soon, damn soon.” He said the plants apparently were small operations located a long distance from an inspector’s base.

Also during the hearing, Raymond said USDA would delay until June or July the implementation of “risk-based inspection” of processing plants, rather than begin in April. USDA may propose at the end of 2007 to adopt the system at slaughterhouses, he said.

Subcommittee chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (news, bio, voting record) repeatedly challenged whether USDA has the data needed to justify the new inspection system. “If I can help it, not on my watch,” said the Connecticut Democrat in adjourning the hearing. She said Raymond would be called to another hearing in April.

More at YahooNews

No civil war here……..

It’s Friday…….. what will the news be today? Will there be a Friday dump? Why does Monica Goodling still have a job?

Bush going to Walter Reed today…….I hope someone beats him with a prosthetic leg. I would.

It would appear Gonzales has no plans on stepping down, even as the White House turns it’s back on him.

MSNBC.com:

Ex-aide: Gonzales signed off on attorney firings

Democratic panel chair Leahy says Justice Department motivation improper

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was briefed regularly over two years on the firings of federal prosecutors, his former top aide said Thursday, disputing Gonzales’ claims he was aware of the dismissals from afar and newly undercutting his already shaky credibility.

Gonzales and former White House counsel Harriet Miers made the final decision on whether to fire the U.S. attorneys last year, said Kyle Sampson, the attorney general’s former chief of staff.

“I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate,” Sampson told a Senate Judiciary Committee inquiry into whether the dismissals were politically motivated.
[...]

White House steps back
The White House stepped back from defending Gonzales even before Sampson finished testifying.

“I’m going to have to let the attorney general speak for himself,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said as Sampson entered his third hour in front of senators. Perino made it clear that Gonzales needs to explain himself to Congress - and quickly.
[...]

A growing number of Democrats and Republicans has called for Gonzales to step down. Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Thursday the attorney general has no plans to resign.

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

The Washington Post and Newsweek have been running debate and discussion sites for several months now.

Running since November 2006, On Faith is “an interactive conversation on religion moderated by Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn of The Washington Post.”

Categories

• Interfaith Issues
• Morality
• Personal Religion
• Religion and Leadership
• Religion and Politics
• Religious Conflict
• Spirituality
• Theology

Running since June 2006, PostGlobal is “an interactive conversation on global issues moderated by Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria and David Ignatius of The Washington Post.”

Categories

• America’s Role
• Business and Technology
• Culture and Society
• Environment
• Human Rights
• Iran
• Iraq
• Islamic Movements
• Israel-Palestine
• Reader Views
• Rule of Law
• Security and Terrorism
• The Global Economy
• The New Asia

The sites still need work. They both badly need some sort of search function. Still, the aim of both sites is admirable, and reader response and participation are heavily encouraged. It’s nice to see a place where religion can be discussed from a variety of perspectives, and it’s valuable to read about some of the trouble spots in the world from multiple viewpoints.

Update: David Waters, the publisher for the On Faith site, reports that website should be receiving an upgrade in the next few months, which should include adding a search function. He adds: “By the way, many of our non-panel pieces can be found on the Guest Voices Archives link on the main page. Links are at the bottom.”