Sometimes we Liberals are asked to explain just what we've got against Bush's War in Iraq.
There's no simple answer.
Sure, we don't like the idea of our country invading other countries in a war of choice, like other now-defunct nations we could name. I mean, going after the Taliban in Afghanistan is one thing, but deciding to start Desert Storm II strikes a lot of us as really stupid. If you're going to launch an invasion of another country to take out a dictator who "killed his own people", why not try Bay O'Pigs II? It's closer, and you can probably get a direct flight.
Oh yeah, I forgot...no OIL in Havana.
And by the way, we're not "against the troops" and we don't want the US to "lose" (although I have yet to have a conservative explain to me just what "winning" would look like).
It just ticks us off that 3 thousand plus young men and women from this country are dead so that companies like Dick Cheney's Halliburton and its current and former subsidiaries can continue to take advantage of the soldiers still alive, while ripping off the American taxpayers (that's you and me, in case you were wondering).
By now, you're probably saying "Com'on, TC!", if they were ripping us off, the "Liberal Media" woulda told us, doncha think?".
Yeah...maybe.
Thanks to the media, we've all heard of Donald Vance, right?
Right?
As you should know, Vance is a US Navy veteran, who found himself locked in a cell just outside Baghdad, in solitary confinement, for 97 days. He underwent both physical and mental "interrogation tactics", including sleep deprivation, constant loud music, and being asked the same questions over and over by his captors.
An unlucky American picked up by a Taliban-inspired insurgent group?
Actually, no...it was "our guys" who got him.
Vance was held in Camp Cooper, an American security prison that once held Saddam Hussein, where he was categorized as a "security detainee".
"Ah Hah!", you're saying, "another American Taliban, like that John Walker Somebody from a couple of years back."
Wrong again...
Donald Vance worked for an American firm, the Shield Group Security Company, and he became a whistle blower.
He told the FBI his company was selling guns, land mines and rocket launchers for cash, no receipt required, to anyone who could pay. Their customers included Iraqi embassy employees, insurgents, and even American soldiers and State Department Workers!
“It was a Wal-Mart for guns,” he says. “It was all illegal and everyone knew it.”
It hasn't made the Network News, but the entire sordid story can be found on MSNBC's web site here. Please read it, and notice how angry you find yourself getting with each paragraph, regardless of your political inclinations.
It's just one more reason why we Liberals are demanding we get our young (and not so young) men and women in uniform out of Iraq immediately.
Frankly, I, for one, am getting sick and tired of wading into muck like this in the hope that my conservative friends and neighbors can be convinced to "see the light".
I'm beginning to wonder what has to happen before they realize we are about to lose this country we both love.

Ok, so enough of the really heavy stuff.
Just for fun, let's find out what we really sound like, by taking the American Accent Quiz.
I have lived in half a dozen states, and traveled to more than 40, so I was curious as to what my accent really sounds like when I am just talking with friends and family. Remember, as well, that I have worked in radio and should be relatively accent free...but not so!
Here's the quiz;

And,here's my result;

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Philadelphia   Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard.
The Midland
The Inland North
The South
The Northeast
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Yep, I was born in South Jersey, about 15 miles east of Philadelphia. I haven't lived there in thirty years, but I guess some things just stay with you.

As my Blogstream profile indicates, I picked up a journalism degree back in the Last Century at a place called The University of Florida.
Perhaps you've heard of it.
While I haven't written for a living in a number of years, I still appreciate good reporting when I see it...even if it comes from the Orlando Sentinel.
Despite pretensions to the contrary, Orlando isn't really a major media market. There is one daily paper, the Sentinel, and one "news oriented" radio station of note in this town, and that's it. (I used to work for the only real NewsRadio station, before it turned into another SportsTalk station.)
The only way Orlando is like a New York, Chicago or LA, is that the television news is more "personality" oriented than reporter driven.
People don't believe me when I tell them John Tesh was once a TV anchorman here.
You can look it up.
So when reporters like April Hunt and Walter Pacheco take that little extra step to make a story more interesting, I take notice.
Let me say right here that I don't know either reporter. It's been years since I knew anybody at the Sentinel.
The editorial department has always had the reputation of being reluctant to hire locals, preferring, instead, to bring in people who had worked at small papers in other states.
A friend of mine, also from Orlando, who had also graduated from the J-School at Florida, said he just couldn't get in the front door at the Sentinel unless he was willing to cover High School Sports. He did manage to land a job with the Associated Press, that would base him in Memphis, Tennessee.
"It's probably a good place to start out", he told me, "since nothing ever happens in Memphis."
A week later, Elvis Presley died.
Today's story in Orlando was about three people dying, probably last Tuesday.
The TV and Radio newsies talked about how the bodies were only found today, and that the number of homicides in Orlando hit 44 for the year 2007. This incident would make it 47.
Numbers are easy...real reporting is hard.
The Sentinel reporters checked with the Orange County Property Appraiser's office to find out who actually owned the house where the murders took place. (This is something anyone can do by going to the site and typing in an address, or the suspected owner's name. In my job, I do it all the time.)
Suddenly, the headline went from "Triple Murder in East Orlando" to "Bodies found at Home of GOP Strategist".
That would be Ralph Gonzalez, a former Executive Director of the Republican Party of Georgia, who's Florida consultant company (The Strategum Group) has helped in the campaigns of State Reps Andy Gardiner and Sherri McInvale. Ms. McInvale was a Democrat, turned Republican, indicted last week for allegedly using tax payer funds for her own newsletter. Mr. Gardiner has always been a Republican, but has never been indicted for anything.
Orange County Sheriff's Deputies said they found weapons in the house, a few dogs and a trio of new vehicles; a couple of BMW's and a nice little SUV.
Now these details may mean something, or they may mean nothing when the full story comes out. Personally, I smell scandal...really big scandal.
But what do I know?
I'm just grateful that it appears there are still some honest to goodness reporters working in this town.
Grateful...and more than a little surprised.

** update--apparently one of the victims actually is political consultant Ralph Gonzalez.

A couple of amazing things happened recently.
First, I find it almost hard to believe that it was 38 years ago today, that the first units of the British Army were deployed to Northern Ireland.
Mid-August of 1969 saw a peaceful Civil Rights Movement degenerate into a time of street fighting among Nationalist Catholics and Loyalist Protestants.
Don't worry if you can't keep the names of the players straight, or if places like The Bogside, Falls Road, Derry and Belfast all run together with IRA, UDF and RUC thrown into the mix.
For most Americans, their images of "The Troubles" are of burning buses or young people tossing petrol bombs in grainy black and white film footage. More recently, we remember the incongruent image of the heavily armed British soldier, constantly turning to face from where he has just come from, while walking carefully among women and children going about their business in the city.
It was our first glimpse of a modern army conducting an operation in an urban setting, and the Brits had a name for it.
They called it "Operation Banner".
People are often surprised today to find that the original mission of the troops was to guard the minority Catholic communities from attack by the Protestant majority. Nationalists welcomed the Brits as protectors against the local police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, whose ranks were filled almost exclusively with Protestants.
Within a year, that feeling would change. The British Army was soon perceived to be, as Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole put it,"both militarily and ideologically...a player, not a referee."
By July of 1970, the army had imposed a curfew on the Catholic Falls Road section of Belfast. Subsequent widespread gunfire resulted in the deaths of four people. A policy of internment without trail was followed, in January of 1972, by the famous "Bloody Sunday" incident in Derry. Here 28 Catholic protesters were shot, 14 fatally, by members of a Parachute Regiment.
300,000 British soldiers would eventually serve in Northern Ireland. 763 would die, with another 6,100 injured, before it was all over.
The other amazing thing is that just two weeks ago, it really was all over.
The British Army pulled out of Northern Ireland on the last day of July.
According to the BBC they did so without the usual "pomp and circumstance", or ceremonial lowering of the flag. Nobody claimed victory...or defeat.
After 38 years, they just left.
You may have noticed that, over the past two weeks, nobody is accusing the British Army of cutting and running.

It's been a while since I last checked in with Barry Crimmins.
In case you don't recognize the name (which is likely), Barry is a smart man from upstate New York, a few years older than I am, and also a former altar boy. He started a comedy club in Boston, and has apparently been a curmudgeon since he was in his teens.
In my mind, there is an ever lengthening list of people whose writing I find awe-inspiringly inspirational. The people on this list write in a way that I wish I could, and Crimmins is often at the top. For others, see the "Sites I Like" box on the right of the page.
In his old website "Crim Quips, he wrote short, punchy lines that got at the very heart of what he thought was wrong with George Bush's version of America. I usually found him to be very accurate and very quotable.
For a while, he worked as a writer for Air America Radio, and that kept him from keeping up with his own blog. I've worked both on the air and behind the scenes in radio, and will tell you that the people you don't hear of are often the ones working the hardest.
Lately, I'm not sure he's still doing that.
If not, it's their loss.
Recently, I was pleased to find him with a new site writing in more of a traditional long form, rather than the quick shots I remember from before.
I admit I was not prepared for the emotional impact of the last three postings regarding his friend Lloyd the Dog.
His comments are short and simple, yet deeply moving to a former dog owner like myself, describing what happens when Lloyd becomes seriously ill. Yet Crimmins cannot keep his own sense of humor completely submerged in seriousness, even when describing the benefits of just petting the shepherd-lab mix.
Crimmins says the theory that petting a dog releases endorphins, positive feelings, in humans appears to be correct...

"I feel as if I'm on some sort of miracle tranquilizer that soothes and allows me to think clearly about difficult matters, rather than fog me up so I can't think. I guess I shouldn't mention the pleasant buzz or they'll start a war on dogs. And please, no one let Big Pharma in on this! Ask your doctor if you need Fidosyn!"

I strongly recommend you take a few minutes and read the posts.
Like me, you'll be glad to see that Barry Crimmins is back.

***UPDATE***
Apparently Barry keeps updating his blog at a faster rate than some of us...for the articles in question, please look to the right of the page, under the heading "Lloyd the Dog". Of course, his other stuff is pretty good too. TC

***FINAL UPDATE***
You can read it here.