Did Tony Snow decide to change his name to show his affiliation?

From CNN: "In a statement from the White House, Press Secretary Tony Fox said, "The program is carefully administered and targets only international phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on the call is a suspected al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist."

Here's an email one of my co-workers send me - I thought he was just kidding with me, but no - this is the real stuff..

" Thought you might get a laugh out of this one. We had opened up case with Microsoft concerning a linked server problem (in fact we had talked about this last week).
So here is part of the dialogue:

"Thank you for choosing Microsoft Product Support Services. My name is Weinie, you can call me Peter, and I will be assisting you with this Service Request. Your case number is SRZ060420001964, my contact information is at the bottom of this message." "

And I work for a company called Micro Soft.

The roach has been Exterminated from the House. The Hammer has been nailed. Tom DeLay has been Whipped. The Earle bird got the Worm..Need I say more?

This is one of the best days since Bush and co took to power. There were clear signs of justice on the long hard march back already, what with the prosecution of Libby, Scanlon and Jackoff. Now this: Delay resigning as he doesn't want to be frog marched out of the halls of the House.. There is a God!

You can't cover up the truth and you can't hide from what is coming to you, you crook..It will catch up with you and your corrupt thieving ways. And we all hope and pray that we have seen the last of you, except in news bits about Bubba having a go at you in your jail cell.

Now wipe that smirk off your face.

Upon his arrival at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, gamekeepers released 500 pen-raised pheasants from nets for the benefit of him and his party. In a blaze of gunfire, the group—which included legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), along with major fundraisers for Republican candidates—killed at least 417 of the birds. According to one gamekeeper who spoke to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cheney was credited with shooting more than 70 of the pen-reared fowl.

After lunch, the group shot flocks of mallard ducks, also reared in pens and shot like so many live skeet. There's been no report on the number of mallards the hunting party killed, but it's likely that hundreds fell.

Rolling Rock is an exclusive private club for the wealthy with a world-class golf course and a closed membership list. It is also a "canned hunting" operation—a place where fee-paying hunters blast away at released animals, whether birds or mammals, who often have no reasonable chance to escape. Most are "no kill, no pay" operations where patrons only shells out funds for the animals they kill.

Bird-shooting operations offer pheasants, quail, partridges, and mallard ducks, often dizzying the birds and planting them in front of hunters or tossing them from towers toward waiting shotguns. There are, perhaps, more than 3,000 such operations in the United States, according to outdoor writer Ted Williams.

For canned hunts involving mammals, hunters can shoot animals native to given continents—everything from Addax to Zebra—within the confines of a fenced area, assuring the animals have no opportunity to escape. Time magazine estimates that 2,000 facilities offer native or exotic mammals for shooting within fenced enclosures.

The HSUS worked hard to expose Cheney's shooting spree, and we were fortunate in persuading The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, and other media outlets to cover the events of that day and our subsequent criticism.

Our criticism is simple to understand: Farm-raised pheasants are about as wary as urban pigeons and shooting them is nothing more than live target practice, especially when they are released from a hill in front of 10 gunners hidden below in blinds—as Cheney and his party were. Such hunting makes a mockery of basic principles of fair play and humane treatment, and the vice president should not associate himself with such conduct.

The private excesses of Cheney are bad enough, and worthy of The HSUS's rebuke. But it's the public policy excesses that are of even greater concern to me. Cheney's hunting trip strikes me as emblematic of the Bush Administration's callousness towards the earth's animals.

The administration's most outrageous proposal is its plan to allow trophy hunters to shoot endangered species in other countries and import the trophies and hides into the United States. The administration first floated the proposal a few months ago, with formal proposals subsequently published in the Federal Register, and President Bush is expected to make a final decision soon on the plan, which originated with his U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Read the rest of this article from The Humane Society of US website.

The Humane Society of United States

Been a while since I blogged.

A question that has been nagging me for a while. What is with Mr.Bush and his speeches lately? Or for that matter, Mr.Cheney's? The audience are all military, almost always. Reminds me of Hitler in his hey day, when you would see this adoring throng of SS and German Army soldiers, thousands of them, clinging to his every word.

And then I read that the Council of Foreign Relations speech on Dec 7th was so sparsely attended that organizers had to send in another urgent email on Dec 6th evening to all members to bring in a guest, any guest, to fill the room. Of course, that didn't work either, so they ended up removing all the empty chairs from the back of the room and fill it with some props before Mr.Bush arrived.

I think that is just absolutely amazing - I don't think Bill Clinton (or for that matter, any previous President) had this particular problem of unable to attract civilians for an important policy speech. I guess the Emperor is slowly appearing naked to his subjects.

And so now, all the military audience make sense. First, attendance is mandatory for them, as is for all federal employees. They are disciplined enough not to question their Commander in Chief, and will applaud when cued. Perfect for Mr.Bush, who hasn't had a heart to heart conversation with four members of the common population in his five years in office, unless they are vetted to be absolute fawners of the Prez. Our  founding fathers must be mighty uncomfortable in their graves looking at this excuse of a Presidency right now.

I would bet some money that the President's handlers would not try the CFR approach for any of the remaining speeches.

I find it sad that some who call themselves patriotic Americans deem it necessary to alter the Constitution so as to prohibit certain types of political expression (i.e. flag burning). One of the many reasons I love this country so dearly is its fundamental premise that government must not be allowed to quash dissent. The founding documents make clear that from the beginning, America has been a country that abhorred government censorship of political expression. I just pray we can hold on to that sentiment.

The flag of the United States is one of the proudest symbols seen around the world. The brilliance, strength, and effectiveness of that symbol is built on the one freedom from which all others spring, the freedom of expression. The troops who so bravely gave their lives in defense of that freedom throughout our country's history did so, in fact, not to protect a material symbol, but to preserve the freedom that it represented.

It also helps to keep in mind that the US Codes recommend to dispose of a dilapidated flag by burning it. So if it is alright to burn a flag, what is the goal behind this amendment? That would be to suppress a form of protest - which clearly goes against the Bill Of Rights.

Only those who's self-professed patriotism is nothing more than superficial would fail to see that an amendment to protect the actual "symbol flag" is the first step in compromising the actual freedom that those troops made the ultimate sacrifice to protect.

How ironic that these superficial patriots are close to achieving what our enemies never could.

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) was forced to apologize for remarks he made about US Govt policy towards Guantanamo Bay prisoners. It was an impassionate speech he made on the senate floor, the entire minutes of which you can read at http://images.mydd.com/images/user/1360/Sen_DurbinOnIraq05061.pdf.

The 'offending' words came towards the end when the Senator was describing a report by an FBI agent. Read the PDF (specifically page 4) and make your own judgement. I think the Republicans (and some spineless Democrats) are so wrong for making this honorable man apologize for telling the truth like it is.

Any time the words Nazism or Holocaust are used the right just jumps on it as it should never be mentioned. It is history, however terrible and tragic it was, and not mentioning it doesn't make it go away. Holocaust and the Soviet & Chinese gulags and the Pol Pot/Saddam Hussein regimes and a host of other historic events should all be mentioned when it comes to inhumane treatment of people for any reason (as opposed to Senator Santorum (R-PA) comparing Democrats to Nazis for using the fillibuster - shouldn't he apologize?), because that's what these regimes did. We have not reached that level and we never will - but even a single incident of torture will band us into a list with those others.

Most of the world's great tragedies/genocides started on a very small scale that ultimately snowballed into killings and torture on a grand scale. May be mentioning the H word might shake them into action - I didn't observe the right (or the left, for that matter) doing anything to prevent close to a million deaths in Rwanda 11 years ago. Or were we waiting for the body count to reach a certain number? Or was it the skin color? How else can we explain or justify the apathy we displayed in those three tragic months?

But I digress. We cannot afford to be seen on the one side as that great champion of human rights around the world, and on the other, the second best torture experts after Syria. It just doesn't jive.

No apology was required, Senator Durbin. You spoke from your heart.

While this weekend bought some sad news the likes of which I had not heard in the last ten years -  when my grandmother passed away -  it had a lot of bright sides too. Janie and I got to spend some time with the newest arrival in the family, my nephew Calvin. He's a handsome baby and can look real cute through a viewfinder.. And he's growing up real fast.

Janie also got to meet my cousin Gautham for the first time, who came over for a visit. Above all, I got to spend some time with my Achan and Amma - which I do not get to do very often.

My grandpa passed away this weekend, June 11th, and I will miss him for a long long time.

He was 94 years young, and I emphasize the young part. I talked to him over a bad connection while driving to work couple of weeks ago, and I didn't have to repeat anything, not once. He loved my American wife, calls her "mole" which is an affectionate term for daughter, although he knew nothing about her culture. But they hit it off so well, me translating furiously as he was describing his ailments to her. He was witty - sometimes inadvertantly - like when he announced to a friend who was in the hospital, "I came to see you now, because my daughter told me that I should, if I have to see you alive". A philanthropist till the very end, he helped a lot of folks with money and more. I am sure he felt much richer when he thought about his children, who are all exemplary human beings themselves.

A few years ago, I had immortalized Appooppan (grandpa in my native Malayalam) in the internet by writing a few words about him in my personal page. So I quote, from eight years ago:

"When my grandmother passed away, he was shattered and had to be admitted to the hospital, and there he told me quite a few things about the past, how both of them would go without food so that the children could eat, the hard times when he had to toil in the fields from morning till evening to make ends meet. It was a real eye opener because, up until then I had thought that all that wealth was there in my family for a long time, even before my grandfather, or appooppan, as I call him. I remember, when I was young, I used to be amazed at the biceps he had, never for a moment thinking about the brutal hard labor in the fields and plantations that led to his physical strength. I really love him and, although he sometimes defeats us with his view of things, admire him for what he is. A grand patriarch, a gentle loving grandfather."

Godspeed, Dear Appooppan!

No team quite captures the essence of baseball quite like the St.Louis Cardinals. Winner of nine (roll that around in your mouth, Red Sox fans) World championships since the 1920's, it is one of the most storied and famous team franchises in American sports history. Entire generations in many many midwest states grew up listening to Cardinals Radio 550, or in later years, watching them on the television. The legends that played for this team was and is still known for their skill, stamina and sportsmanship inside the field, and for their humanity and good naturedness outside of it. And the fan base is something many cities would give their pitching arm for. I have heard of so many instances where the fans stay loyal to the Cardinals even when some of their own cities eventually came to own their own baseball teams.

So it is always with a feeling of anticipation mixed with awe, and respect for the legends who played here for so long that I step into this field of dreams called Busch Stadium, everytime I am lucky enough to come and watch them play ball. And they have hardly ever disappointed - well except for the last World Series against the Red Sox. And so it was a pleasure to watch them last night trouncing the same Red Sox 9-2 for the second day in a row. Spectacular game, from all aspects of it. And thanks, Jeff, for the terrific seats, right behind the home plate.

There are some photos from an earlier game against the Pirates I attended with Janie and our friends Matt and Jonathan. And this year would be the last for Busch Stadium - a new Busch Stadium is already rising fast right next to the legendary older one.