When did it get to be November 3?

Ok, Roko gives a plausible answer as to why sailors are being killed in Iraq, from the comments

"The USMC [United States Marine Corp] does not maintain it's own medics; the Marines have been served by Navy Hospital Corpsmen since WWI. That is probably why a sailor was killed with marines in action."

Fair enough Roko, lets take a look at how these sailors were deployed...
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/Service.aspx

10/13 members of the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 were KIA in action - their mission is "to be mobilization ready in the event of war, conflict, natural/man-made disaster or other event which should require the activation of all or part of the battalion personnel for construction, combat, relief or related participation."

8/46 Sailors were assigned to Medical Units.

And what the hell was a member of the coast guard doing in Iraq, let alone getting killed? Also, 378 members of the National Guard - I like Mississippi's Mission Statement the best -

"As a partner in the Total Force, the Mississippi National Guard has the federal mission to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The State mission of the Mississippi National Guard is to provide trained and disciplined forces for domestic emergencies, or as otherwise required by state law. "

What part of being in Iraq "defends the constitution" or is a "domestic emergency"?

Meanwhile, back in the good old states, the head of the national association of evangelicals that I mentioned yesterday....has resigned, and admitted complicity in some of the accusations leveled by a gay (and male) prostitute. All I can say is HA Huh HA ha HA. Here's what I think about all those rabid anti-gay evangelicals....they're all gay and in denial. every single one of them.

As an added bonus, " Religious right spokesman: Haggard scandal will absolutely depress evangelical voter turnout " (via Americablog) Commence laughing exuberantly. What is it with republicans and their gay sex scandals?

Via Katie - the blog covers energy drinks of all kinds. My favorite comments came from the non-review of Cocaine Energy Drink, some excerpts for your consumption:

"This drink is so bad it makes me want to kill truck loads of puppies... it burned my throat so bad i dont have a throat anymore... i have to eat with a straw because the phosphorous is so intese... If you drink this drink you will decend into the fire pits of hell and dance with satan in a firy circle of extacy.. well maybe not extacy rather than a pile of shit.. that is basically what this drink is.. a piece of shit in liquid form (diarehha)and it burns .. hot damn!..it turned my penis into a wet noodle covered in franks red hot sauce" (editors note: spelling remains unchanged)

"Amazing. So much energy. Yes, it burns, but it's for your own protection: If you drank this all at once, you would ascend and become a being of pure energy. It's that powerful."

"your all stupid as hell. If you want to go get a kick why don't you just go smoke some meth? Those energy drinks are bad for you, your teeth, and your stomach. what ever happened to one cup of coffee in the morning"

Remember the experiment we ran yesterday by typing "kerry and joke" intoo google news and then doing the same with "boehner and rumsfeld"? The first referring to a non-issue and the second referring to an actual insult to the troops? Well "kerry and joke" got 3190 hits yesterday and "boehner rumsfeld" got 240 hits. I did the same experiment today. "kerry joke" = 3480, "boehner rumsfeld" = 210. so over the course of the day the non-issue had an increase of 9% and the actual insult had coverage decrease by 12.5%....see anything wrong with this picture? Happily the ted haggard story (anti-gay gay evangelical pastor) is at 1880, and i suspect it will increase dramatically.

This (via ariela) from bill hicks:

As I sit here at my job, I am reminded of a Mr. Bill Hicks...By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself.No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.Seriously though, if you are, do.Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers.Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke... there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too,"Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." Goddammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags!Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just caught in a fucking web."Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..."
Even stars have problems with their landlords - Maya Rudolph of SNL is suing her landlord for $450,000 and change for their apartment infested with bedbugs... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061103/ap_on_en_tv/maya_rudolph_bedbugs

Oh yeah, and I hope you don't like seafood. A recent report out from a team of ecologist and economists says that "If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, the populations of just about all seafood face collapse by 2048." Yes, you heard that right, no seafood. We will have exhausted the most abundant food source on the planet. We are fucked. That is messed the fuck up.

I hate not having flash. It so limits the websites that I can visit - especially those that would pass the time.

This is just weird - http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/crime_courts/15919306.htm
"Naked Man Arrested On Weapons Charge: Indecent exposure suspect near El Cerrito BART station had a screwdriver hidden within body cavity, police say"

I just had the best phone call of my life. Gentleman (mr. mike) calls in this morning, he has received the gift boxes that you are supposed to put our product in, but has not received the actual product. i tell him that i'll call him back. We look into the system, seems his order has been cancelled - but looking into the back end of the system, we discover that it hasn't really been cancelled but has in fact shipped...and we determine that it was delivered this morning. My boss calls someone in shipping and I call UPS to find out if one tracking number could have been used for two packages - they confirm that the tracking number was only assigned to one package and that was delivered. Meanwhile, I have mr. mike go check with his dock to make sure that no other package was delivered. he says no. i tell him that we're still awaiting an answer through my boss and that i'll call him later - he grudgingly accepts this... after i get off the phone with him, my boss finally comes back with the answer. the gift boxes and product ship together...in the same box. therefore, mr. mike has had them the whole time - he just didn't look through the entire box. I take great pleasure in calling mr. mike back to tell him - i refuse to leave a message and instead hang up and call back later so that i can personally tell him that he's an idiot. somewhat disappointingly, he sounded apologetic and didn't try to be an ass...

NEWS FLASH!

Three quarters of Britons surveyed (one of our closest allies in the war on terra) think that bush is a bigger threat than the head of the "rogue nation" that recently tested nuclear weapons, the crazy Kim Jong Il and the head of the axis of evil country that wants to wipe Israel off the map, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Kim and Ahmadinejad receive a measly 69% and 62% respectively. Bush is topped only by Osama bin Laden who received 87%.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/03/europe/EU_GEN_World_Views_of_Bush.php


UPDATE on haggard - google news now lists 2160 hits, up from 1880, an increase of 13%.
kerry is up to 3540 (+2%, +10% ) (3480 - this morning) (3190 - yesterday)
boehner rumsfeld down to 207 (-1.5%, -14%) (210 - this morning)(240 - yesterday)

That's our LIBERAL media in action.

caller: "you're like my new best friend."


on yeah, it seems that the bush administration was playing politics with national security again, and posted documents that could be used to build atomic weapons - the headline from NYT "U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer" and the link http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/middleeast/03documents.html?hp&ex=1162530000&en=1511d6b3da302d4f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
and excerpts:

"...in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq's secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb. "

"The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs. "

"The director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte , had resisted setting up the Web site, which some intelligence officials felt implicitly raised questions about the competence and judgment of government analysts. But President Bush approved the site's creation after Congressional Republicans proposed legislation to force the documents' release."

"Peter D. Zimmerman, a physicist and former United States government arms scientist now at the war studies department of King's College, London, called the posted material "very sensitive, much of it undoubtedly secret restricted data." "

"On Sept. 20, the site posted a much larger document, "Summary of technical achievements of Iraq's former nuclear program." It runs to 51 pages, 18 focusing on the development of Iraq's bomb design. Topics included physical theory, the atomic core and high-explosive experiments. By early October, diplomats and officials said, United Nations arms inspectors in New York and their counterparts in Vienna were alarmed and discussing what to do."

THOSE IDIOTS.