Cast: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Om Puri, Emily Blunt.

Runtime: 97mins

Firstly, its not a political drama. Its much more of a lighter side to politics where issues are dealt with more better by adding a mix of humour and alcohol.

Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a typical,well-liked US congressman, with a reputation for chasing skirts and high flying lifestyle. But this all starts to change when he became a friend of the president of Pakistan and subsequently pays a visit to Afghanistan, which is under attack from the Soviet army. Seeing the suffering of innocent women and children, his conscience began to prick him and telling him hes a nice warm-hearted person. He then goes on to arrange secret covert weapons sent to Afganistan to help them fight the Russian oppressors. The movie then follows him showing how he set it up and what all he had to do to get the money and the weapons necessary. He is contacted by Gus (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who is one of the 3 agents appointed by the US government to solve the Afghan problems. The budget for the operation was set at a very low $5million at which price no weapons could be purchased,so Charlie inorder to raise it to a higher value had to convince people.

Tom Hanks as Charlie was so perfect, the way he manipulates people and gets the things done. He also needed help from Joanne (Julia Roberts) who would do anything to get herself in the afghan issue for a religious cause. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, as we all know can act. But he did in this movie is something even more than that. He has given life to his character. At some points in the film you can see Tom Hanks and Phillip Seymour Hoffman kind of going head to head. The most natural performance seen for a character with a pot bellied agent. No wonder he was nominated for the Golden Globes and will get the Oscar nod as well.Good performances by Any Adams (Enchanted, Catch me if you can) and and a small cameo by Emily Blunt.

The Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin is very apt and to the point. No waste of time blabbering unwanted dialogues, instead focuses on giving more effective ones. Mike Nichols has taken a different subject and tried to venture out as usual. From the Director who gave us films like Primary Colors and Closer, I wouldn’t call it a failure at all. Its an eye-opener in more ways that none.

Charlie Wilson’s War is a satirical take on politics and with some good performances is surely a must watch.

Author: Prem Shashi
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Get my ex back

Paradoxically, the ruin of one is the salvation of the other.

Most cooks fry hamburgers too slowly and eggs too quickly. Fast searing seals in meat juices and faintly chars the outer surface. I’m not a Tartar who likes raw flesh, but I do subscribe to the select school which holds that once the pink is gone the meat is ruined.

Low, low, low heat is the secret of properly cooking an egg. The only right way to fry an egg is on a hot sidewalk. It’s not very sanitary and almost always gets your picture in the paper when you try it. However, it congeals the white and sterilizes the yellow without hardening it.

A Michigan Congressman got worked up a couple of years ago when he was served a piece of restaurant pie with too few cherries. He got up on his hind legs on the floor of the House of Representatives and took the cooks to task. Thereafter, the quality of Washington, D.C. cherry pie improved considerably.

It’s high time a champion of the hamburger and egg stepped forward to take his rightful place in history.

The filaments of a pound of hamburger have a surface area of more than an acre. Oxidation of this surface begins the instant it is forced from the grinder. Within a half hour, the natural taste of good meat is completely hidden by putrefaction.

Probably no more than two people out of a hundred have ever known the real taste of good ground meat. If properly prepared, hamburger is superior to most steaks.

Tasty hamburger should not — I repeat, NOT — be lean. “Ground round” is risky material. Chuck or shoulder is best for grinding as it is more tender and has a generous amount of fat.

Regardless of its geographical location on the cow, the lean meat must be supplemented with suet. Most butchers will throw in a piece of sweet suet free, though hep characters will charge, knowing it to be really indispensable. Ideally, a hamburger mixture should consist of 25 per cent suet and fat and 75 per cent lean meat free of gristle.

Gourmets keep a power meat grinder in their kitchen — an attachment for food mixers is inexpensive — and fix hamburger the minute it is to go into the pan. If you can’t grind your own, freeze hamburger as soon as you get home and thaw later while it is submerged in wine — any kind — to keep out the air.

Never, never, never press a hamburger patty — it bruises easily. Mold the meat gently just enough to insure it’s holding together. There is a special place in Hell for restaurant proprietors who have fallen before the idol of Portion Control and press out hamburger patties with metal plungers. Pressure interlocks meat fibers and makes them rubbery.

Hamburgers should be at least an inch thick when they are eased onto the grill, and they should be fried in butter or lard. Vegetable shortenings and oils produce some other product than hamburger.

Those who like the taste of suet smoke which comes from charcoal broiling will have to raise their hamburgers well above ash-covered coals after a quick searing. This will toughen the meat somewhat but is the only practical way I know to keep fat-fed flames from cooking the hamburger unevenly.

If you like ketchup with hamburger, as I do, spread the red goo on the french-fries. The only moral condiments for hamburgers are butter, salt and pepper.

Consider now the special qualities of the egg. Nature encompasses this delicacy in a perfect container in order to best protect its gelatinous chemistry.

We speak of fragile materials as “thin as an egg shell,” which just proves our general ignorance. Lock your fingers together with your palms on the ends of an egg. Squeeze. If you can break it you are a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

It doesn’t take much of a philosopher to conclude a treasure is contained in such an elaborate strongbox.

Like all valuable things, an egg should be handled gently. It is a shy creature and curdles if hurried. Personally, I like brown eggs which have a deep yellow yolk. White eggs have a pale yolk which make me feel the chicken didn’t get enough sunshine. My farmer friends assure me both white and brown eggs are equally nutritious.

Fried eggs that are basted constantly with hot butter or bacon grease have the best flavor. Turning an egg over to cook on two sides is permissible if it is done “easy” and just for 30 seconds on low heat.

Coddled eggs should be simmered, not boiled. A little cream mixed with scrambled eggs BEFORE. they are put in the pan keeps them moist and tender. Bake custards in thick, earthenware dishes setting in larger pans of water. Overcooking makes watery, bubbley custards. Ugh!

For a change, particularly if you don’t very much like eggs in the first place, try a few drops of vinegar on fried eggs. If you put ketchup on eggs then go stand in the corner.

Lazy people will like my prize egg recipe — Gas House Eggs. Butter both sides of a slice of bread, then tear out the center. Place in a well buttered pan at 250 degrees. Break an egg into hole in bread and cook until you can’t see the pan through the egg white. Turn bread and egg over and cook one more minute. Fry torn out bread at same time.

Yum!

If you think I’m a nut on hamburgers and eggs, wait until I get onto those awful concoctions laughingly called coffee and southern fried chicken.

Forward to bigger and better bellies!

May 28, 1969

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Click here to see this article on Lindsey Williams’s website

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Author: Lindsey Williams
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates

As if poisoning our kids wasn’t enough China also went after our pets. Pet food makers recalled more than 60 million cans of dog food made in China laced with tainted melamine in wheat gluten. Now I know that in China dogs are a mans best food but people in the humane world cherish their dogs and cats. The pet food scandal has prompted many Americans to actually read the labels of what they are feeding their pets. Organic pet food made in America has experienced a huge growth in sales. Hopefully some day packs of wild dogs will roam the empty streets of Beijing.

Besides killing our pets and young children China also wants to help our teenagers to look better and feel better by supplying them with steroids, human growth hormones, and other bodybuilding drugs. A huge underground distribution network was traced to 37 companies in China.

Nike recalled 235,000 football helmets because the chin cup has a defective strap and caused at least two concussions and a broken nose. Okay, now they’ve gone too far! Messing with football is almost like messing with baseball. Sure supplying baseball and football players with steroids is bad but sabotaging the equipment that protects the drug-addicted overpaid prima-donna professional athletes we idolize is stepping over the goal line. Who is going to endorse toothpaste made in China laced with ethylene glycol which is widely use as auto antifreeze? Who will be on Chinese-made lunch boxes containing lead that were given away by the California Department of Public Health to promote healthy eating habits among American children?

With pressure from the American government the Chinese government finally responded. On July 10, 2007 Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of China’s State Food And Drug Administration was executed by shooting. Obviously something must have been lost in translation when President Bush told the Chinese premier that, “Something must be done” which was mistaken for “shoot him with a gun”. After his execution he was charged with taking bribes from various firms in exchange for state licenses related to product safety. He was found guilty and re-executed.

The trade agreement with China is grossly one sided. The United States is not producing goods outside of very few high tech areas and Americans continue to spend on cheaply made Chinese products.

Every time I look at the label of something that I have bought it always seems to be made in China. “Made in America” has almost become extinct. I recently called my congressman to complain but the call was outsourced to India. I got a nice guy named Davesh who was very sympathetic and referred to me as “Buddy”. Only in America. The phrase “Only in America” was made in China.

Author: Richard Raciti
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Make PCB Assembly

Our Congress has deserted us! Like the poor in New Orleans they claim there was nothing they could do they counted heads not enough for a filibuster they lamented,
dang were sorry.
Their comes a time when the table should be overthrown with the cry of no more!
The passengers of the hijacked flight 92 airliner could have formed a subcommittee with a list of recommendations to the hijackers. This was a crisis, they didn’t hold a vote or count heads for they knew unless direct action was taken they would die! Even though there was a very good possibility they would die either way they chose to stand and die to stake a purpose to their last moments of life instead of hiding under the bed like frightened children.

Our government has been hijacked, and our Congressman and Senators meekly explain we counted heads and we just didn’t have the votes. Talk about bringing a knife to a gunfight! This group brings a Jell-O mold to a gunfight! We not talking about the appropriations for national parks, we are talking about the founding principle of modern democracy on earth almost 800 years old, that the King is not above the law. A man has a right to face his accusers and cannot be held without charge. These rights were won at the point of a sword! Do you believe that they could be kept with kind words and platitudes?

This is not a failure of party but a failure of institution, a monumental failure with catastrophic consequences. God Damn you all! To those who voted with the President I say to you, it is not that you are bad Republicans or Democrats for it is not on a political level that you have failed. It is on a moral level you have failed, you are failed human beings and the shame should haunt you the rest of your mortal days and even your children for you have disgraced even your legacy. You are a Judas who sold out the suffering servant of democracy. Not since the Reichstag passed Hitler’s enabling act has their been such an outrageous and odious political performance, your in fine company now!

To those who voted against the President, God Damn you all! You didn’t fight hard enough, you stand there mugging for the cameras shuffling your feet kicking the carpet saying gee wiz we tried! In the dark days of 1940 Churchill concluded one of his speeches “Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.” What would it take? If this principle isn’t enough, what would it take to overturn the tables and cry no more! To throw their damn tea into the harbor!

When Moses walked down from Mount Sinai with the tablets of Ten Commandments do you think he checked to see if there was room on the back for corollaries? He was their leader wasn’t he allowed to interpret the law as he saw fit? No, because Moses was an honorable man, if we learn nothing else from Nazi Germany we must remember democracy requires honorable men. The Germans fell prey to the Fuehrer principal,
let the leader decide, he knows what is best for us.

When disreputable people enter government democracy is easy prey, the Nazis never gained a majority vote but through double-dealing and conniving they obtained key posts including Vice Chancellor and control of national elections. They made sure no one tampered with the vote by having a Nazi official in the booth with you! Little wonder they had such a low opinion of democracies, they brought knives to gun fights. The Reichstag passed the Enabling act to give the leader freedom of action from a supposed internal threat. Do you think the act was passed to provide security for what had already happened? Or what was it passed for what going to happen!

I have heard the crap the President is seeking to protect himself and his administration from war crimes charges. Bullshit I’ll ask again! Your looking through the wrong side of the binoculars, do you think the act was passed to provide security for what had already happened? Or was it passed for what going to happen? The Patriot act defines the term enemy combatants Patriot 2 redefined it. When the Presidents pen touches parchment it’s redefined again to mean any one he says. The Fuehrer principal is alive and well. Think about that for a moment and then ask yourself what is worth fighting for? The plans are already on the board for Halliburton supplied camps. The ship won’t right it’s self it’s passed the tipping point.

If we look to history tyranny is always overthrown, eventually. Either by war or the death of the tyrant that my friends is the good news. The bad news is it almost always follows complete collapse, Napoleons France Czarist Russia, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and the Eastern Block or Argentina. Maybe not in our lifetime or perhaps I should say our expected lifetime. History shows us only two roads back military defeat and or bloody revolution. Our own American Revolution is due in part to mental illness in England’s highest office why do we think we ourselves immune? History’s is like a song the verse may change but the chorus is always the same

We are not the first to have had our government hijacked but we may be the last. The madmen want their wars and won’t be dissuaded. Like children on the fourth of July the want to shoot off the big rockets, they wanted to put conventional warheads on ICBM’s
They’ve grown bored with the other toys and besides they’ve broken most of them.
To those monarchist who prononce “You just hate George Bush!” I proudly say Your God Damn right I do! Every American who loves and cherishes what this country is supposed to be will say the same thing. I’m tried of arguing with morons, if they were to put Charles Manson in a Santa suit they’d say you just hate Christmas don’t you! Charles Manson is the opposite of what Santa is supposed to be and Bush is the opposite of what the President of the United States is supposed to be.

What would George Washington say of this? His idol was Cincinatus, or Lincoln? His idol was Socrates, so he feared much about the death of democracy. Thomas Jefferson expected this and predicted it, in his genius of being a dreamer yet well grounded gave us the answer not at the end of the debate but at it’s inception, you cannot accept only parts of the ideals set forth in the document it must be accepted in total

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

They abuse you because they don’t respect you and they will continue to abuse you because they don’t fear you!

Author: David Cox
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty tariff

As the two or three of you out there who read my blog can attest, I have from time to time been critical of the Chinese government. (My blog is actually banned in China). But today I step up, not in their defense, but against the offense of a few American leaders with questionable motives.

Congressman, Christopher Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, is claiming that his and at least three other congressman’s computers were hacked by the Chinese back in 2006.

Congressman Smith said Wednesday, “The attackers hacked into files related to China. These contained legislative proposals…and the names of Chinese dissidents.” He went on to add that he had “every reason to believe” the Chinese government is behind the attacks.

That a 2006 attack should be considered relevant news today is a tad strange, but according to a Google news search, over 750 publications are running the story worldwide and apparently it is stirring a debate amongst American leaders as to whether there should be congressional hearings.

Another Congressman, Republican Frank Wolf of Virginia also hit the airwaves singing a similar tune. He upped it to four congressmen whose computers were hacked. Should we be even more worried or should we push these guys to better coordinate their stories?

Wolf, in prepared remarks said, “Ever since this happened, I have been deeply concerned that Congress is not adequately aware of or protected from these types of attacks.”

“Deeply concerned?” Really?

While cyber-attacks are certainly a cause for concern, my first question is: If Rep. Wolf is so concerned, why did he and Rep. Smith wait two years to bring this up? In an orchestrated effort at that?

But wait, he has an answer. Albeit a tenuous one.

Wolf claims that while he’s known about the attacks for several years he has been discouraged from discussing them by “people in the US government” whom he declined to identify.

How convenient.

“The problem has been that no one wants to talk about this issue,” he said. “Every time I’ve started to do something I’ve been told ‘You can’t do this.’ A lot of people have made it very, very difficult.”

Who would make it difficult and why?

It is possible that intelligence authorities wanted to keep it hush. Perhaps akin to the code-breakers in World War II who cracked the German code and learned of a planned aerial attack on Great Britain, but refrained from saying anything for fear that the Germans would be tipped off and change the encryption. Hundreds were killed as a result, but in the long run it saved thousands.

Yet, this being the reason for a two year silence seems unlikely. If for nothing else than the fact that Smith and Wolf are presently telling anyone who will listen.

There could be a connection to the recent accusations that Chinese officials downloaded the entire hard drive of a commerce department representative in China last month. But if the two are linked, why the nearly 3-week delay in making the connection?

Thousands of government computers could have been spared the risk of losing state-secrets. Not to mention the technology specs behind their American Idol screensavers.

But, I digress.

Once again, before my two or three readers go nuts and say I am a traitor to my country, let me re-emphasize my point. Yes, there is good reason to worry about cyber-attacks from other countries. Our technology-driven, military, economy and lifestyle could be crippled by an adversary with ill-intent. (Personally, the thought of losing access to Wicked Weasel sends shivers down my spine).

What I am wondering is why is this suddenly making news now? And why the only target is China, with no mention of the dozens of other countries that take pot shots at our networks every day?

I suspect that our Chicken-Little pair of congressmen are gearing up for something. Wolf’s quote about congress not being “adequately prepared,” could be foretelling of things to come. And China is the most easily identifiable villain in a world where power politics requires a villain exists.

Allow me to translate the words “adequately prepared” into the common tongue:

“Big money computer security spending bill coming soon. Large profits expected for the highest bidders. Get in while you can. My campaign finance director can be reached at…”

Author: Bobby McGill
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Programmable Pressure Cooker

Olbermann “Special Comment” On Violent Rhetoric At McCain-Palin Rallies (VIDEO)

Sen. McCain, these people are speaking for you! And how dare you try to claim Congressman Lewis was linking you to Gov. George Wallace’s segregation. He was linking you, aptly, to Gov. George Wallace’s lynch-mob mentality.

“As public figures with the power to influence and persuade,” said Congressman Lewis, “Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.”

Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it. You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theatre. There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain.

But on this, you’re not only a fraud, Senator but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here’s your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.

Post 16 of 100 of Brad’s Tiny World Scribefire Challenge.

“How you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives — how does that stimulate the economy?” House Minority Leader John Boehner asked.

Let me knock off a few ways how spending money to provide contraceptives helps stimulate the economy.

First that money is spent in pharmacies all across the country. Basically the government is providing a subsidy to all these big businesses the republicans are crying need government help.  I have to scratch my head and ask if you are serious about helping businesses or if you are just trying to hurt Democratic initiatives, Congressman Boehner.

Secondly, this birth control money is destined for Medicaid recipients i.e. poor women and teenage girls with no health insurance.   Since you and all the die hard Republicans have made your contempt for poor people and the social programs that support them clear, you should be pleased a government program is trying to reduce the number of poor people and the demands such a system places on the budget.  You of course are not pleased because you are short sighted idiots.

Some Republicans actually believe that telling people not to have sex works, despite every legitimate study we have done over the last fifteen years proving it doesn’t work.  If you want to reduce the number of poor people and the need to keep dumping money into social programs for them you need to start by eliminating the number of poor who must use the system, you do this by encouraging and providing birth control not the other way around.

Last but not least in how providing birth control stimulates the economy.  Reduced pregnancy provides a stabilizing force in the workforce, especially helped are small businesses using unskilled labor.  With fewer women getting pregnant and being forced to adjust work schedules, you provide a much more stable working environment with reduced turnover.  Any first year Human Resources Management student can tell you this is a win for business and the economy as a whole.  On   average, a pregnant woman misses or must take a shortened shift one day every twelve days during her first trimester and by the end of her third trimester it is she is going to the doctor every week or more.  Then if she takes her twelve weeks off after the baby is born you are forced to use temporary labor which must be trained or go short staffed.  This sort of negative workplace impact hurts the hurts businesses.

In the end for those who don’t want to support money for birth control, ask yourself where your loyalties are.  Do you want to help businesses and stimulate the economy?  Are you an ideologue who  thinks if we don’t give them birth control they won’t have sex?  Or are you a fascist political pig who cares more about fucking your political opponent rather than the results of poor people fucking?

From The Huffington Post:

Last week, Congressman Bill Young suggested that as the Obama administration closes Guantanamo Bay, it could send some of the detainees in need of a holding facility to Alcatraz, the famous former prison off the San Francisco coast.

On Sunday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi reminded Young that his statement makes no sense.

“Perhaps he has not visited Alcatraz,” said the San Francisco Democrat, appearing on ABC’s This Week. “And let me say, Bill Young is a great member of Congress and I have a great deal of respect for his opinion. Alcatraz is a tourist attraction. It’s a prison that is now sort of like a national park.”

This is a bullshit statement if I have every heard one.  If Bill Young is a great member of Congress or she really respects his opinion then I will personally stand around and let Dick Cheney verbally abuse me (so long as he understands this is abuse season not hunting season).  I am sure I am going to take some heat from people saying, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  I am fine with that if she had kept her fucking trap shut and said nothing at all about Bill Young.  The press statement should have gone something like this:

“Bill Young obviously doesn’t understand the current condition of Alcatraz or what it would take to return it to operational status.  Furthermore, we shouldn’t be looking at new places to simply house these detainees, we should be looking at either trying them in accordance with international laws and affording them the same inalienable rights we say all men are given by their creator or releasing them.”

Mean What You Say and Say What You Mean

No where in that is anything untruthful or mean spirited said about Bill Young, and no flowery false statements about respect or greatness made.  I could live with that statement.  I would however prefer we be honest as people and politicians.  We live in an age of social media where there is unprecedented support to just be yourself.  I mentioned it on Darren Rowse’s Twitip Blog just this morning how being myself has won me more twitter followers than being nice ever has.  What I would really have preferred Nancy Pelosi (if this is indeed how she feels) to say is this:

“Bill Young is an obvious idiot.  Alcatraz was closed down for many reasons not least of which was it was a financial failure, something we hardly need more of right now.  President Obama pledged to shut down Guantanamo Bay because he believed that it was wrong for the United States to hold people without trials in secret military prisons, to say nothing of star chambers.

If The Republicans were really worried about prison space being available they would drop their opposition to legalizing marijuana and support the commutation on all sentences related to the adult possession and use of it.  They claim to be opposed to big government’s interference with what a person does with their private lives, so now it is time for them to put up or shut up.”

I could get behind a politician who said they were a person who had real feelings and weren’t opposed to telling us exactly what they thought.  Alas we are stuck with meek mouth witless automatons that lack any public passion, no matter how much they actually think.  We live in an age where social media has said it is okay to speak your mind, it is now time for those of us who believe it to tell politicians it is okay to speak theirs.  Just maybe if they learn to say what they are honestly thinking or feeling we might actually get a glimmer of the truth when they speak about policy.

We need to make tax cuts permanent, and we need to make a commitment that there'll be no new taxes," Mr. McCain said. Didn't another failed politician say something like that once?

The more things change in Washington, the more the Republican Party thinks they stay the same. In the old days when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and The White House, they pretty much go their way.  Now that they don’t have either they still think they can pout and get their way.

From The Huffington Post:

Leading Republicans Sunday indicated that they would oppose passage of the stimulus package as it is currently written. While there is bi-partisan acknowledgment that some sort of stimulus package needs to be passed to provide a jolt to the economy, Democrats are attaching a sense of urgency to the situation that Republicans do not seem to share. The economic picture shows no signs of improving, as investors brace for the biggest plunge in GDP in 26 years.

While this is not surprising, especially John McCain’s bitter old man spiel over the whole thing, it is laughable that they think they can do anything about it.  Can they filibuster it in the senate?  Sure, they can try, but the leaderships assurance of pissed off rank and file republican members going along with what ever the leadership says shows just how delusional and out of touch with real people the leadership is.  Before the Republican gnash their terrible teeth, maybe they ought to check with Wasilla Main Street and ask if they want a stimulus plan passed.  it might be just me, but I am pretty sure even fervent Sarah Palin supporters want a plan passed now, not six or seven months from now when they go from living on Main Street to living in Homeless Shelter somewhere down town.

“Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of this package and all of the spending in this package, we don’t think it’s going to work,” the House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And so if it’s the plan that I see today, put me down in the no column.”

Boehner warned that many rank-and-file Republicans had the same sentiments.

With Ohio being one of the hardest hit states when it comes to unemployment John Boenher want congress to give rich people more tax cuts. on top of what they are already getting.  I hope the people of his district remember this when it comes time for him to run for reelection.  He has said no to a plan that actually would bring jobs to Ohio.  Why, Congressman Boener would you do such a thing?  Oh I forgot , you are a World Class Douche Bag who cares very little for the people of his district much less state, unless they are wealthy and politically powerful.

It wasn’t just GOP politicians who took to the airwaves to criticize the stimulus plan. Leading Republican intellectuals offered their own, much more pointed, critiques.

This is where the real laughable bit of the article comes into play.  The Republican Party doesn’t have intellectuals, they have loud mouth demagogues who are as likely to bash a Democratic sponsored bill simply because the Democrats came up with it as they are to promote Intelligent Design because God called on them to do so.  There is a train coming into the station and I can’t wait for these people to stand on the tracks and think they will stop it by running their mouths.

I do however think this is a winnable war, but only if we are willing to pay the price it requires. If you think we should be fighting it you need to ask yourself one question and answer truthfully and then step away and shut your mouth forever more. That question is are you willing to put the people in charge who know how to win and are you willing to let them do what ever it takes to win it? You don’t get to know what it will cost. You don’t get to know how long it will last. Lastly you don’t get to know how many people will die every day on either side ahead of time, even a rough estimate. The only answer you can give is yes we should stay and finish or no we should get the hell out right now.

This is what it will take to win this war:

· First, we have to commit to a very long term war, then a long term occupation. We are talking about decades if not generations. We have to commit to staying there as long as it takes to make the people just like Americans. Not only do we have to be willing to go it alone, we have to be willing to tell our allies to but the hell out of our business.

· The next thing it will take is an increase in taxes to off set some of the debt we rack up by tripling or quadrupling our military budget. That is if we don’t increase the size of our military which we will have to.

· We have roughly 2 million active duty personnel right now, to conquer and maintain order in Iraq we will need minimally 750,000 of them in Iraq

· In order to maintain that sort of force deployment we will need to reintroduce the draft and allow women into combat MOS’s. Denying women the opportunity to serve with as much distinction as men, or saying they are girls there are things girls shouldn’t be allowed to do will be detrimental in bringing sexual equality to a culture where women are already consider less than second class citizen.

· Last but not least we will have to accept a high rate of combat casualties for several years. We will also have to accept there will be a high rate of collateral damage among the Iraqi people.

· Finally in order to win and honestly be victorious Iraq will have to become as American as Ohio, and along the way we will have to offer any Iraqi who wants it the chance to move to the states and become a citizens.

That is what it will take, minimally. If you are still in favor of going forward with everything it takes, you need to make yourself and your desire to win at all costs known to your congressman. On the other hand keep this list handy, because I bet they don’t know what it will take. If you aren’t willing to do what it takes quit bitching at those of us who say it is time to pack it in. War has to be at all costs or nothing at all because halfway is bullshit that wastes money, material, lives and our credibility around the world.