Today, the 9th of September, Tommy Ridge announced that September is National Preparedness Month. This comes over a week late. Not a good sign!!

While on the subject of security, Russ Kick of the Memory Hole points out in his Blog that of the almost 3,000 deaths from terrorism since 9/11, 58% (over 1,700) of the deaths took place this year. This coming out on 9/2/2004 in an article from MSNBC.

Also, Cheney reassures his INVITED party faithful in Cincinnati that the economy numbers are short and don't include some 400,000 people who " ... make some money trading on eBay." Edwards had a reply to Mr. Cheney, "If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking."

Unbelievable!

Dr. Juan Cole brought this to my attention. . .

About 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas.

U.S. medical commanders say the sharp rise in battlefield injuries reflects more than three weeks of fighting by two Army and one Marine battalion in the southern city of Najaf. At the same time, U.S. units frequently faced combat in a sprawling Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad and in the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, all of which remain under the control of insurgents two months after the transfer of political authority.

read on here.

Senator Bob Graham, democrat of Florida, brought up the under-reported but impeachable fact that our Republican government sent $700 million of Senate appropriated funds for the war in Afghanistan and the search for bin Laden to the build-up for the second Golf War. In addition to this the retiring Senator said that "just months into combat in Afghanistan, Gen. Tommy Franks also told him that fighting terrorism in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere should take priority over invading Iraq." He also said that "Franks told him he thought the United States knew less about the situation in Iraq than did some European governments, and the Bush administration should ask them for advice."

In other news, the service of Mr. bush came in to question again. The AP re-opens the discussion of whether or not the young Mr. bush went AWOL form the ANG in the 70's. The article questions the documents released by a FOIA request, or rather the holes in the released documents which have significant gaps. The article focuses on 5 points that are absent from the FOIA reply pertaining to bush's service in the ANG.

A summary of the points:

Specific reports from the Texas Air National Guard to Bush's local draft board certifying that Bush remained in good standing in 1972 and 1973.

Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status after bush skipped his 1972 physical which required a direct "investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination."

A written document from bush that states he had received the orders grounding him.

Reports from a formal sessions that Bush was required to have after missing more than three training sessions.

A signed statement from bush acknowledging he could be called to active duty if he did not promptly transfer to another guard unit after leaving Texas.

Full article here.