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Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, passed away June 2, 2007. He was 42.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us.
We will miss him terribly.
Danny Doom: "The Shit Talk Express"
Not-so-straight talk express
Thanks to Danny Doom for this great cross-post - THANKS DANNY!
The remarkable amount of flip-flopping that GOP candidates Romney, Guiliani and McCain are doing in order to appease, well, just about anyone, is something that will be tallied up at a later time, but let's just say that when it all comes down, the Bible-thumpers and the neo-cons and the homophobes will cast their vote for thrice-divorced Rudy. Despite anything that he's ever said or done. Because Rudy, see, is a "straight-talker."
John McCain used to hold that title — he was, in fact, the conductor on the train — but then the shit began to flow out like diarrhea and the tracks began to rust and it turned out he was stuck on the Blue Line in a 6 mph speed zone. After years of criticism against Bush's handling of the war in/with Iraq, McCain realized that too much straight talk would derail the Republican nomination for him (studies told him that Bush voters like to be coddled, lied to and kept generally afraid), and so now he is for the "surge" and prolonging this unjust and illegal war.
But now he's really done it this time, appearing on the David Letterman show to announce his candidacy and then pandering to his New York audience (he thought) with this line, speaking of our troops in Iraq: "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."
Wait a minute. Isn't that what Barack Obama said? That we are "wasting lives" in Iraq? Mr. McCain may be riding that train right back into the GOP Black Hole with comments like that, or worse, he may find out that he has fathered another illegitimate black child. And we all know what that can do to a Republican presidential hopeful.
But there should be no apologies by McCain, just as Obama should not have after his comments. What they said is true, we are wasting lives in this war and all the hypocritical psuedo-patriotic-car-magnet-support-the-troops-armchair-generals know it.
Three thousand and counting wasted, for a war of choice against a contained dictator who posed no threat to the United States, with the result being an even more unstable region and civil war and thousands of untallied civilian deaths. And the soldiers that survive, maimed or broken, get to convalesce at places like Walter Reed, sharing rooms with mice, mold, and cockroaches. "Supporting the troops" sounds like something you may hear from the Shit Talk Express now, doesn't it?
It all sounds like a big waste to me.
- posted by Danny Doom