Have a great time and ask Jim Lobe about Sibel Edmonds. Maybe it'll perk your interest in her case????

Hiking in the cascades. Wow. Must be nice.

Along those lines, I just saw a herd of elk come down to water in our bird pans. Sounds unbelievable, doesn't it? I'm about two hours out of Los Angeles. Who would believe it? About five calves, a number of cows, a spike bull, and two huge bull old timers, with racks a good four feet across.Its the God's truth. It amazes me everytime I see it.

Speaking about unbelievable, Steve lauds 'ol Dov Zakheim here on occassion. But gee golly, I've never seen him mention this.....

Dov Zakheim and the Missing Trillions.

What is the most outrageous piece of news that isn’t being discussed? I would venture to say it is the strange tale of Dov Zakheim and the missing trillions. I hear all kinds of numbers. I hear 2.3 trillion from Rumsfield and I hear about one trillion that Zakheim can’t explain. Still, you’ll need to check the dates of Zakheim’s days in the saddle as Pentagon Comptroller and then you can wonder to your hearts content. There’s no doubt the money is gone and there’s no doubt about who should know where it went but…what do I know? I know one trillion dollars is a lot of money. Isn’t one trillion dollars a million million? Zounds!!!

Has the cost of the entire Iraqi incursion come to a trillion dollars yet? It certainly isn’t anywhere near 2.3 trillion. Why isn’t this under discussion? Is it just too big a thing, too enormous to comprehend, that our minds go blank when we think about it? Hmmm…

There are a number of researched sources for all of the details you need to get a grasp of the situation. I’m not going to go into that kind of detail here. It’s been done better than I can manage at places like here.....

continues at.....

http://smokingmirrors.blogspot.com/

Steven, you are the coolest and hope you have a well deserved vacation. you bring so much humanity and honesty to these discussions.

thank you for what you do, and for grilling cheney and addington and the bush bad boys.

sss

That photo is too cute!

Have a great trip.

All hail Annie and Oakley!!!

Thanks Steve!

steve,

the cascades are NO place for "planning strategy."

perhaps you should merely experience the mountains, the flora and the fauna, with no agenda.

reconnect with the universe outside the beltway. sleep under the stars. get off the "grid" for a few days. try to stop intellectualizing and let nature inform you.

...and in return, you might just gain a new, greater perspective.

enjoy your hike!

Steve, I was up on top of Rainier (totally exhausted!) this time last year, but am stuck in very hot Tokyo for now. Hope that you come back renewed, with a big-picture understanding of bog government goes off the rails - to the benefit of insiders and rent-seeking elites, and at the greater cost to all of us. This should the main take away from the past six years of foreign policy folly, domestic spending orgy, presidential power aggrandizement and continuing erosion of civil liberties, all aided and abetted by Dems.