Oh, screw the Fresno Fair. now, THIS is fun stuff. at today's White House press briefing, Tony Snow laid down some thick brown fog...if you get my drift:
“We're making progress,” he replied. “I don't know. How do you define ‘winning’? The fact is, in taking on the war on terror -- let me put it this way, the President has made it obvious, we're going to win. And that means, ultimately, providing an Iraq that is safe, secure, and an ally in the war on terror. And at any given time, as you've seen in previous wars, there are going to be spikes in violence. And it is natural for Americans who have -- really are probably the most empathetic people on the face of the earth, to feel deeply the loss of those who have given their lives in battle.”
(huh? i'm not so sure i'd define the American people as the most empathetic on Earth. maybe spoiled, lazy, entitled and naive, but not so much empathetic past the tip of our collective nose. and empathy is defined by one source as meaning:
"The imaginative projection into another's feelings, a state of total identification with another's situation, condition, and thoughts. The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without explicitly articulating these feelings".
well. thirdly, former president bill clinton was badly maligned by the republican party and all conservatives in general for uttering the words "i feel your pain". does this mean that in the 1990's we weren't empathetic? but now suddenly we are? somehow over the last ten years we have become able to understand what it's like to be bombed daily, to have our families dragged out and executed by those who used to be our neighbors and buy from our stalls? we now know what it's like to live under an occupying military and wonder if we're going to be called a terrorist by someone else in order for them to freed by their captors? somehow, i think not)

Q That's the proposition that the White House put out there, that as they [the Iraqi government] stood up, violence would come down, and we'd stand down.
MR. SNOW: As part of our constant adjustment, let me just add that apparently, the terrorists have also decided not to stand down. They've got to stand down.
(so, the terrorists have to stand down, the Iraqi government has to stand up and then WE can stand down? when did the terrorists get invited to this game of musical chairs? and what's with "constant adjustment"? kind of sounds like "we have no fucking clue what we're doing")
and while the standing up and standing down goes up and...well, up, the newest round of peace talks in Iraq have been cancelled as Sunnis and Shiites continue to massacre one another. heckuva job, georgie.
and now it seems that only 16% of Americans polled think that bush and company weren't lying about what they knew before 9/11 happened. 84% think that they lied or withheld info crucial to the terrorist hijackings. and that's only down 5% from 2002. so, we've been extremely cynical about bush and his for 4 years and still they are in power and every day increasing their hold on it and destroying our rights as citizens.
but, finally, good news from California (where only the fruits and nuts seem to grow in abundance according to most who don't live here): if this source is right, then you and i can request paper ballots when we vote on november 8. click on the link, then the pdf link within the story. hopefully, this plays out. i, for one, am mighty distrustful of electronic voting at the moment.