Skank

From MaximumPC.com, my favorite computer magazine:

The lowly plus sign gets little respect in this crazy, mixed-up world. But if you use it the right way with Gmail, it could become your new best friend. By adding a plus sign and a filter tag to your own Gmail address, you can figure out which of the sites that you’ve brazenly given your address to are turning around, stabbing you in your tender, fleshy backside, and selling it to every half-witted Pr0p3cia spammer on the net.

This little hack doesn’t require a single tweak to your Gmail settings. Instead, just use the plus/tag every time you enter your address into an online form. Our favorite method is to use the name of the site you’re visiting as the tag, so it’s easy to track later on. So if you buy some vintage kicks at Raresneakers.com, enter your email address as username+raresneakers@gmail.com.

Gmail ignores the plus sign and everything that comes after it, so messages sent to that address will still make their way to you. But if that site sells your address to its spamifying associates, you’ll know just by peeking at the To address in the header. How you choose to exact revenge is entirely up to you.

You can also use this tip to set up filters for registration codes, listservs, and anything else!

I just heard on CNN that the Virginia Tech killings were the worst massacre in US history. It is certainly a nightmare for the students and faculty in general and an unbearable burden of grief for the families of those slaughtered. Thirty-three persons dead in a few hours is terrible.

I read in the NYT this AM that 45 persons or 1.36 Virginia Tech Units were killed in six bombings in Baghdad today. The Virginia Tech murders help me to understand the enormity of the violence in Iraq, day by day. If the estimates of deaths in Iraq are to be credited 500,000 persons have been killed since the President ordered the liberation of the Iraqi people. That is 15,151.5 VTUs. It’s obscene.

On his new blog, No Comment, Scott Horton writes about, “Torture, Secrecy and the Bush Administration.”

This is an excellent review of the principles of justice starting with Cromwell in England and concluding with the travesties of justice carried out at Guantanamo by military tribunals.

A snippet after the flip (more…)

CNN reports:

The U.S. State Department considers the MEK a terrorist organization — meaning no American can deal with it; U.S. banks must freeze its assets; and any American giving support to its members is committing a crime.

The U.S. military, though, regularly escorts MEK supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf.

“The trips for procurement of logistical needs also take place under the control and protection of the MPs,” said Mojgan Parsaii, vice president of MEK and leader of Camp Ashraf.

We’re helping them over there so we don’t have to help them here. Or something like that. (more…)

This the original unscrubbed AP article on the massive demonstrations in Iraq on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

It looks bad for the US here (emphasis added):

BAGHDAD - Tens of thousands draped themselves in Iraqi flags and marched peacefully through the streets of two Shiite holy cities Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad’s fall. Demonstrators were flanked by two cordons of police as they called for U.S. forces to leave, shouting “Get out, get out occupier!”

Security was tight across Iraq, with a 24-hour ban on all vehicles in Baghdad starting from 5 a.m. Monday. The government quickly reinstated the day as a holiday, rescinding its weekend order that had decreed that April 9 no longer would be a day off.

The Najaf rally was ordered by Muqtada al-Sadr, the powerful Shiite cleric who a day earlier issued a statement ordering his militiamen to redouble their battle to oust American forces, and argued that Iraq’s army and police should join him in defeating “your archenemy.”

Some at the rally waved small Iraqi flags; others hoisted a giant flag 10 yards long. Leaflets fluttered through the breeze reading: “Yes, Yes to Iraq” and “Yes, Yes to Muqtada. Occupiers should leave Iraq.”

“The enemy that is occupying our country is now targeting the dignity of the Iraqi people,” said lawmaker Nassar al-Rubaie, head of al-Sadr’s bloc in parliament, as he marched. “After four years of occupation, we have hundreds of thousands of people dead and wounded.”

A senior official in al-Sadr’s organization in Najaf, Salah al-Obaydi, called the rally a “call for liberation.”

————–

It looks bad: tens of thousands march at the command of Sadr who calls for people to forcibly resist their occupier. The government has to reverse itself on its declaration about a holiday. People complain that hundreds of thousands of people are dead and wounded. It sounds grim, but only if you fail to remember the administration’s and the MSM’s rule of thumb:

“Every event in Iraq is a sign of progress.”

To wit:

Col. Steven Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman and aide to the commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, praised the peaceful nature of the demonstration, saying Iraqis “could not have done this four years ago.”
“This is the right to assemble, the right to free speech �” they didn’t have that under the former regime,” Boylan said. “This is progress, there’s no two ways about it.”

Hmmm. Makes you want to scream, doesn’t it?

mcjoan over at Daily Kos has a nice catch:

George W. Bush, VFW Speech - August 21, 2000:

“The facts are stark and the facts are real. . . Our men and women in uniform love their country more than their comfort. They have never failed us, and we must not fail them. But the best intentions and the highest morale are undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness.”

“. . .these are signs of a military in decline and we must do something about it. The reasons are clear. Lack of equipment and material. Undermaning of units. Overdeployment. Not enough time for family. Soldiers who are on food stamps, and soldiers who are poorly housed. Dick Cheney and I have a simple message today for our men and women in uniform, their parents, their loved ones, their supporters: Help is on the way!”

I thought Bush was criticizing Clinton…but it appears to be his blueprint for our troops during his administration.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee:

“If Republicans in this election vote in such a way as to say a candidate’s personal life and personal conduct in office doesn’t matter, then a lot of Christian evangelical leaders owe Bill Clinton a public apology.”