A Progressive on the Prairie

It may have been around for a while but this morning I saw Bush In 41.2 Seconds for the first time. The mirrors are here, here and here. As a friend of mine said, it surely isn't sanctioned by Kerry and the Dems but they no doubt love it. We need more truth in advertising.
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From The Evening Standard

Serious questions were asked today over how four Britons could be held for two years in Guantanamo Bay - but completely cleared by British police in just 24 hours.

This is especially so when, as The Standard and others note, Bush and Rumsfeld and crew have said the Gitmo prisoners are

• "the worst of the worst, and if let out on the street, they will go back to the proclivity of trying to kill Americans and others."
  
  
• "very dangerous people."
  
  
• "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth."

This follows the story earlier in the week, noted below, about the teenagers recently released from Gitmo. It seems odd 12 and 13 year old boys would fall within these descriptions and I'm guessing British authorities wouldn't let the recent releasees roam the streets if there was even a hint of truth to what the White House claimed.
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Great military minds at work for this South Dakota National Guard unit.

Members of the Guard's 740th Transportation Co. had transferred to Kuwait where they handed in their weapons, gave their vehicles to replacement troops and shipped most of their personal belongings back to the states.

Then they got word that they would be sent back to Iraq, minus some of their military vehicles.

These so-called "weekend warriors" have been overseas nearly a year hauling supplies from Kuwait into Iraq, racking up more than 1.6 million miles. Not only have they been away from their families, jobs and real life, when the carrot of imminent return is held out it is stripped away. Wonder if Cheney mentioned this little change of plan in his speech for John Thune yesterday. And you can sure as hell bet Bush never would have joined the Guard had this been happening back then.
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A couple things that caught my eye in catching up today.

Orcinus: How the press has been AWOL on the AWOL issue.

NY Times: Iraq's new generation of missing men, some 10,000 plus boys and men being held in American-run jails. (Winning hearts and minds).

The Guardian: Guantanamo ain't that bad, at least if you're a teenage captive. Via Arts & Letters Daily.

NY Times: Rap and Hip-Hop's explicit, although perhaps not suprising, foray into hardcore porn.


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Dick Cheney visits, leaving his undisclosed locations to raise money for John Thune. Of course, if you wanna see him you gotta pay. $100 contribution for a "public" event and $4,000 for a private one.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that while the local electronic media has covered this, there wasn't word one in today's Argus.

Let's only hope the visit does as little for Thune as Bush's visits did in his race against Tim Johnson two years ago.
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