thanks to every 1 who e-mailed c.i. that my site wasn't showing up. (and also e-mailed me but i hadn't gone in to my e-mails this morning yet.) c.i. called and i did reindex and republish and that appears to have taken care of the problem.
i plan to blog later today but i see what wally meant when he said it was a ghost town at mike's. (or at trina's to give her a link as well -- trina is mike's mother.) you've got people coming over in the evening (lot of family members as well as some friends) and you've got every 1 rushing in the morning to get out the door, then you're left in an empty house and it's kind of weird. wally stayed here for a few weeks this summer and when i'd call or he'd e-mail, he'd say, 'it's a ghost town.' it really does feel like that when every 1's gone.
be sure and read jason leopold's 'Iraq and 9/11: The Truth Is Out:'
Two weeks before 9/11, national security wasn't even a top priority for the Bush administration. Job security and health security were the top two major issues Bush planned to deal with in the fall of 2001, according to a transcript of a speech Bush gave on August 31, 2001, to celebrate the launch of the White House's new web site.
But 9/11 gave the Bush administration the excuse they needed to execute a long-planned military strike against Iraq. President Bush and his cabinet duped Congress and the American people into believing the country had ties to al-Qaeda, and helped the terrorist organization plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon five years ago.
Now, lawmakers have finally released a report debunking those assertions. For a majority of Americans, that's now old news.
Yet forty percent of Americans are still under the impression that the Iraq war is directly linked to 9/11. A January 11, 2001, article in the New York Times, "Iraq Is Focal Point as Bush Meets With Joint Chiefs," should finally put an end to that debate and prove that the Iraq war was planned out just days after Bush was sworn into office.
"George W. Bush, the nation's commander in chief to be, went to the Pentagon today for a top-secret session with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review hot spots around the world where he might have to send American forces into harm's way," reads the first paragraph of the Times article. Bush was joined at the Pentagon meeting by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The Times reported that "about half of the 75-minute meeting ... focused on a discussion about Iraq and the Persian Gulf, two participants said. Iraq was the first topic briefed because 'it's the most visible and most risky area' Mr. Bush will confront after he takes office, one senior officer said."
"Iraqi policy is very much on his mind," one senior Pentagon official told the Times. "Saddam was clearly a discussion point."
As early as January 2000, Rice was trying to sell a war with Iraq. It was then that she wrote an article for Foreign Affairs Magazine titled "Campaign 2000 - Promoting the National Interest," in which she advocates a policy of regime change in Iraq, but fails to mention threats from Islamic fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda.
that's a taste of it. sherry e-mailed it to me. you'll want to read it in full.
also, must read, c.i.'s 'NYT: Gordo ought to come in brown wrapper' but what about the paper cuts gordo would get on his thingie!
joking. it's a strong critique (no surprise) and also very funny (ditto) and on a day when c.i. feels like shit. i could tell on the phone (i couldn't yesterday) that c.i. was sick as a dog.
if i'm sick, i probably won't write. not even a 'i'm sick, sorry' post. (i wrote when i was miscarrying but i've miscarried enough to know the signs and, honestly, knowing there was nothing that could be done, i posted to get my mind off what was happening.)
i wish i had that kind of stamina or determination but i'm the lazy 1 of the bunch. perfect example, and then i'll post this, elaine. did you read her 'The fear' from early, early this morning? it's incredible and all the more so when traffic was hell. she left here fairly early last night and, even with bad traffic, should have been able to make it home at a reasonable time. instead, traffic was so heavy that it took her forever to get home. to do all that and then write something as beautiful as 'The fear' is rather amazing. i have some amazing friends - and still wait for their amazing gifts to rub off onto me.
