Nobody asked, but, if I were to write the vent...

Today we had a comment about how it was OK for John McCain to joke about bombing Iran, but not OK for Harry Reid to state that we have lost the war in Iraq. Writer, get a clue; the Bush War was lost long ago. And, it is not OK to joke about killing civilians. Do you think bombs and mortars only kill the bad guys? Get a life...

There was a note about the DUI that spelled the end of a St. George cop's career expressing shock that the newspaper ran the story. That saddens me. We have no favorites here, we pull no punches and we don't protect anybody...

Continue reading " My Vent... " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The honchos of the Republican Party have been dropping by our state with a lot more frequency as of late.

We had presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee; Dick Cheney will give a commencement address at Brigham Young University; and now we learn that First Lady Laura Bush plans to visit Zion National Park next week.

We're not sure if she'll be roughing it in a tent or staying in one of the beautiful tourist inns near the park, but, she's coming.

Continue reading " First Lady needs welcoming committee at Zion " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

It’s time to take that skinny little bleach-blonde with a taste for leather and vitriol and teach her a lesson.

Ann Coulter, the darling of those who hang so far from the right they have lost all touch with propriety and reason, dropped the F-word the other day.

No, not that one. If it was only the four-letter F-word it wouldn’t be so bad. But Coulter used a derogative term related to gay men to describe Democratic Party presidential hopeful John Edwards.

Continue reading " Little Annie does it again " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

It’s about to get very interesting.

In a story published by the Sunday Times, the claim is made that a handful of America’s top military leaders will quit if the Untied States takes action against Iran.

Of course, no names were given.

Continue reading " Military leaders about to jump ship? " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

I had the pleasure to speak today to the Washington County Utah Democrats, a group that drew a pretty phenomenal group of 150 people to their monthly luncheon.

I'd like to think being a co-conspirator in this endeavor to remove George Bush from the White House had something to do with it, but I would be flattering myself too much to honestly believe that.

Instead, I found some of the Bluest people I've ever encountered in the Reddest of the Red States of America.

And, I used the opportunity to throw my two cents in on this vital campaign for the White House and the 2008 election.

Continue reading " Go, Johnny, Go " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

I'm not much of a TV fanatic.

I have a couple of guilty pleasures, I admit, like "Gray's Anatomy" and, "Deal or No Deal." Hey, we all have our weaknesses.

There is one must-see program for me, however — "Real Time With Bill Maher" on HBO.

Continue reading " Real Time returns " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Among my loyal readers is a guy named Jack, who frequently sends me those bogus e-mails about all the “good things” the “liberal media” refuses to print about what’s “really” going on in Iraq.

He's sent pictures of soldiers giving candy to Iraqi kids; photos of troops sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner as their Commander in Chief carries around a plastic turkey with plastic trimmings for a plastic international photo op; stories of how many schools have been built; and how this newfangled Iraqi democracy is “working.”

It’s necessary, he tells me, to fight ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em here.

Now, the fact that Jack has a computer and is able to use e-mail means he has at the very least enough motor skills to qualify as a human, but I don’t think he should be allowed to amble down the street.

Continue reading " That's a fact, Jack " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The one thing George Bush got right during his speech to the nation Wednesday night is that it is time to change America’s course.

And that means cleaning house from the top down.

After losing more than 3,000 lives, maiming more than 20,000 soldiers and spending more than $400 billion on a war that is now impossible to win, it is time for a change, a change of leadership.

Continue reading " Bush is right, it’s time for America to change course " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

When the American people care more about the feud between Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell than in an escalation in the war in Iraq, you know something is terribly wrong.

But, there it is on television each night — The Rosie vs. The Donald.

While our children continue to die in a hostile desert.

We’ve lost it.

Continue reading " We've lost it " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In the wake of the resignation of John Bolton, now, thankfully the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the president is laying it all at the feet of political obstruction instead of the fact that the Senate, for once, used good sense in not affirming his nominee for this delicate job.

According to an Associated Press report, the president is bitter, “deeply disappointed that a handful of United States senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate.”

“They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate…this stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation,” he said.

What a crock!

Continue reading " Bye-bye, Bolton " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Cha-ching!

There goes another billion dollars.

Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

It adds up fast, faster than you can say, “No WMDs!”

That’s how the cost of combat is hitting the United States. A story in the Christian Science Monitor places the cost of the war on terr-uh — that would be Iraq and Afghanistan — at about $500 billion, with the Pentagon asking for yet another $120 billion to $160 billion to fill out fiscal year 2007.

Continue reading " Money for nothing puts U.S. in dire straits " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The witless drive to develop a next-generation nuclear weapon is in the embryonic stages as the shadow of Divine Strake draws nearer and nearer to the Nevada Test Site where the detonation of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil would replicate the strength of a low-yield nuke.

But, what would happen if a real next-generation mini-nuke was unleashed?

According to a report by Robert W. Nelson, Council on Foreign Relations and Princeton University, a bunker buster with a 0.34 kiloton yield — only 2 percent of the bomb burst over Hiroshima — dropped on an enemy target with a population of 15,000 people per square mile and driven 50 feet into the ground would send a base surge cloud with a diameter of 10,000 feet about 3,000 feet into the air.

Oh, yeah, 10,000 to 50,000 people would receive a fatal radiation dose within 24 hours.

Continue reading " In the wake of Divine Strake " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Are we going to sit back and allow this to happen again or are we going to go after the big dogs who want to bring the Divine Strake test back to the Nevada Test Site?

Are we going to allow our children, our grandchildren and the rest of us to face poisoning from whatever gets shaken up off the floor of the NTS?

Are we going to allow the federal government to once again pry open Pandora's box and start testing new nuclear devices?

Continue reading " How far are you willing to go? " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The four newspapers -- The Military Times -- that serve our military have finally come to grips with the failures in Iraq.

They want Donald Rumsfeld out.

In an editorial that will be published Monday, they tell you why.

They are the same reasons we have believed for some time now.

Continue reading " One down, three to go? " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 07:07 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

One good thing about sports reporters is that they always, no matter what, know the score.

Former sports reporter Keith Olbermann reported the score on the Bush presidency with acute accuracy the other night and it is dismal.

Olbermann sized up the Bush presidency precisely when his outrage brimmed over into one of the classic television moments of the cable era and was preserved in his take-no-prisoners blog.

It was a response to the flak generated by a comment made by John Kerry that was perfectly clear to most people with more than a third-grade education. The comment, aimed at Bush, was deflected by his lackies and distorted into a slur against the mental acuity of the American soldier.

It was not.

Continue reading " Two words, Keith: Mission accomplished " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

(NOTE: THESE COMMENTS DO NOT, IN ANY WAY, REFLECT THOSE OF THE SPECTRUM & DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL BOARD, ITS MEMBERS OR THE NEWSPAPER.)

If you aren't totally outraged, then you're not paying attention.

If you aren't ticked off beyond belief, then you either are one of the hapless sheep or so disgusted you really don't care about the future of this country.

And that, my friends, is at the local, state and federal levels.

Continue reading " If you aren't totally outraged... " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Ever since that little mongrel in North Korea shot off his mini-nuke, there has been prolonged debate and innuendo about what it really was that exploded over there.

First, it was a nuke. Then it was a hoax, a conventional explosion. Then it was a dud.

The only dud in all this is the media for allowing itself to be strung out.

Continue reading " The nuclear freak show " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

For, I don't know, months, maybe a year or even more, we've been keeping an eye on the Bush administration and its foolish desire to test an evil called a bunker-buster missile, capable of digging deep into the ground to kill bad guys. You know, the ones who don't subscribe to born-again theology, a capitalist ethic that feeds only the rich and a brand of "democracy" that has turned off more than 50 percent of the American pubic that would rather watch "American Idol" than vote.

Now, we're on a death watch in North Korea where a looney toon dictator has an itchy trigger finger.

Are we on the eve of a frightening Nuclear Winter?

Continue reading " And I was worried about Divine Strake! " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Overkill, that's all it is.

The idea of creating new-generation mini-nukes to burrow deeply into the ground to strike hardened targets is ludicrous.

It takes no imagination at all to understand what the detonation of even a small nuclear device would do to a civilian population.

Continue reading " Bunker busters, nuclear overkill " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The best gig in the world could soon be covering the governor's office.

Not in Salt Lake City, in Austin, Texas, not too far from The World Armadillo Headquarters.

That is, if Kinky Friedman, running as an independent, somehow wins this November.

Continue reading " I'm a Kinky kinda guy " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

For the most part, it was a fairly unremarkable morning.

Get up, shave, shower, do the crossword puzzle and dress for work.

As every morning, the television was on in the background, tuned to CNN.

Then, in an instant, the world went insane as the network cut to a live shot of one of the World Trade Center buildings in flames. An airplane had crashed into it, the nation was told.

Continue reading " Revisiting 9/11 " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 6 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

To support our troops does not mean becoming bloodthirsty and shouting for war, war and more war.

It doesn’t mean supporting the president, the defense secretary, the Republican-controlled House and Senate.

It means supporting our troops. Standing by them as they go into harm’s way, praying for their swift and safe return, grieving for our losses.

Continue reading " Soldiers' widows don't get fair deal, Part II " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 07:48 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

So, who is waiting in the wings for the next presidential election?

That’s the $64,000 question.

Continue reading " Liberals are core of Demo Party, Part II " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 5 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The nuclear energy question has drawn rabid debate for several decades now.

Leaks at power plants worldwide, what to do with the waste and who is exactly responsible are issues of grave concern, particularly when you are dealing with something this potentially dangerous.

Remember your science classes when they told you about plutonium and how long the half-life lasts? We’re not talking about something evaporative here, we’re talking about thousands of years before the material is safe.

Continue reading " Nuclear option is no option, Part II " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 9 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

For five years, we've heard about how much safer we are from terrorists with the Bushinistas in charge.

So, now what do the far right leaners think after 24 alleged terrorists were busted in Great Britain?

Al-Qaida's only been sleeping.

Continue reading " Safer? Sure we are " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 08:07 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

I am so proud to live in a country where our politicians can handle winning and losing a lot better than politicians from other countries.

Continue reading " Elections Recounts all over the world " »

Posted by Gloria Bertram, HR Director at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

It's time to energize.

In less than a month, the mid-term campaigns will kick into high gear.

It's now or never for those who have had it up to here with a Republican-dominated Congress. And, hopefully, those who understand that we are losing this effort in Iraq, that we are diving headfirst into a dangerous pool in Iran and that it is time to take back this country will get off their hindquarters and throw the bums who created all this mess out on their tin ears.

Continue reading " It's now or never " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Do they take us for a bunch of idiots?

Unfortunately, yes.

The most preposterous item of the week? Claims by the far right that the Israeli bombing of Qana, which killed nearly 60 innocent people, was staged.
Usually, revisionist history is written several years after the fact, allowing enough time for memories to grow stale. However, the “fair and balanced crew,” led by Oliver North this time, is questioning if the Israelis, indeed, dropped a bomb on civilians in Qana. Never mind that four days before his misguided statements the Israelis admitted they did it.

Continue reading " Golly, Ollie, get a grip " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Tuesday in San Francisco, Josh Wolf refused to testify or turn over unpublished video out-takes to a federal grand jury investigating a July, 2005, anti-G8 demonstration. The freelance video journalist was thrown into jail, without bail, with civil contempt by U.S. District Judge William Alsup because California’s shield law does not protect journalists in federal cases, which let me add, this is not. If it’s anything, it is a manipulation of the press to prosecute political activists.

Continue reading " Free video journalist Josh Wolf " »

Posted by Jennifer Weaver at 04:00 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

First, there was a flash of an e-mail yesterday afternoon from anti-nuke activist J. Preston Truman in Idaho. Then came a call from Chicago, where Peggy Maze Johnson, of Las Vegas’ Citizen Alert organization, was doing her part to combat the insanity. It all came together with confirmation from Alyson Heyrend, the super-aide to Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.

Divine Strake, the dangerous U.S. bomb experiment, has been postponed again. This time because the nuclear-powers-that-be can’t prove that testing at the Nevada Test Site, which poisoned so many all those years ago, would be safe. Imagine that.

Continue reading " Good news travels fast; bomb test postponed, again " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

If you’ve been trolling other Web sites recently, maybe you saw the item that the United States was slightly embarrassed when a shipment of bunker buster bombs was discovered aboard a military flight that landed in Great Britain the other day.

The bombs were on their way to Israel.

OK, let’s back that one up, partner.

Continue reading " One, two, three...what are we fighting for? " »

Posted by Ed Kociela at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )