NEW VIDEO: TO DRILL OR NOT TO DRILL: JON STEWART'S "DAILY SHOW"

Leave it to Jon Stewart of the "Daily Show" to spear not only John McCain on the oil drilling debate, but also pokes fun at President George Herbert Walker Bush and best of all a shot at Fox News anchors who kept reducing the time it will take to get oil out of the ground and into gas tanks. And then there is a short bit on "Miss Buffalo Chips" contest that Sen. McCain volunteered his wife for without apparently knowing how the girls dress, or more accurately---undress.

Watch the video here:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=178663&title=indecision-2008-to-drill-or-not

INDECISION 08: INFLATE YOUR TIRES: DAILY SHOW WRITERS

Here is a special segment taken from the Jon Stewart Comedy Central "Daily Show" writers.

I hope you will get a good laugh out of this:

Comment by BILL CORCORAN, editor of CORKSPHERE

August 10th at 2:00PM
From the Writers of The Daily Show: Inflate Your Tires!

POSTED BY: TheInDecider
http://blog.indecision2008.com/2008/08/10/from-the-writers-of-the-daily-show-inflate-your-tires/

This week, Barack Obama publicly suggested making sure tires are properly inflated as one way of dealing with the rising price of gas. At the Sturgis motorcycle rally, McCain mocked his opponent's recommendation, exclaiming, "Barack Obama wants you to inflate your tires!" He added...

* "We should be able to inflate our tires with oil! And then burn them to heat our homes. Even in summer! Which would then require us to run the air conditioning!"

* "This is America! I inflate my tires with oil! I charcoal-grill everything! I don't need you coming around with your fancy, 'use the off switches on your appliances' talk! If I don't keep my refrigerator door open, how'm I going to be able to see what's in there from across the room?

What'm I supposed to do? Take my constantly-idling ride-on lawnmower over there?"

* "I should be able to use my dishwasher to wash one dish at a time! I don't want my forks mingling with my spoons! I should be able to brush my teeth by running my dishwasher! And I should be able to keep my refrigerator door open -- that way, my dog can fetch me a beer!"

* "While I'm at it, I want to fill my windshield wiper fluid with Strawberry Quik!"

* "We should be able to plug our A/C unit into the cigarette adapter! Fuck it -- put a boat motor in there 'with' the motor, have 'em both running! Take that car, keep it running to power the air conditioning in the motor home that I'm also towing, and put all on the back of a bigger truck that's driving to the oil-burning FESTIVAL!"

VETVOICE REPORTS: DISABLED VETS SHUN McCAIN IN LAS VEGAS

The more combat veterans learn about John McCain and his plans, the less they like him. The Las Vegas Sun reports:

Sen. John McCain, speaking to disabled veterans Saturday in Las Vegas, attacked his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, for his foreign policy record, while also proposing a program that would allow veterans to acquire health care at private hospitals and not just through the Veterans Affairs Department.

by: Brandon Friedman
Sun Aug 10, 2008 at 15:30:30 PM EDT
http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1743

The veterans, at Bally's for their national convention, gave him a tepid reception, especially considering McCain's life story. The Arizona senator was a Navy pilot shot down over Vietnam, tortured and held as a prisoner of war for 5 1/2 years.

Just one of 14 veterans interviewed by the Sun after his speech said he is a certain McCain voter, and the nonpartisan group's legislative director expressed concerns about McCain's proposed "Veterans' Care Access Card."

Still obsessing over the privatization of the VA for some reason, John McCain is poised to lose the veterans' vote for good. In fact, in response to his Saturday speech to the DAV, Iraq War veteran and double-amputee Tammy Duckworth had this to say about McCain's proposals:

"John McCain has said that improving veterans' health care would be his top domestic priority as President, yet he has repeatedly voted against increased funding for veterans health care. And now he offers up an plastic card option that will lead to privatization of veterans health care. No one knows how to help and heal veterans like veterans -- had I ended up in a regular hospital after returning from Iraq, I would lost my arm. McCain's plan will only hurt the VA and our veterans more than they are already hurting."

Not surprising. While vets who haven't served in the current war--and those who've never seen combat--have tended to lean toward Republicans in general (as a holdover Reagan/Clinton-era default setting among troops), it now appears that even McCain's support among older veterans is beginning to crack. Significantly.

More from the Las Vegas Sun piece:

Other veterans, such as James Jewett and Jay Johnson of Texas, expressed misgivings about McCain using the occasion to attack his opponent so fiercely.

Duke Hendershot, a double amputee retired Marine who served in Vietnam, supported McCain's run for president in 2000 but is undecided this year.

"John just isn't the same as he used to be. He's not his own man," said Hendershot, who lives in San Antonio, Texas. "A lot of that has to do with how he's wanted this job so bad for so long that he's tied himself to President Bush."

He said McCain's embrace of Bush, whom Hendershot called a "draft-dodging coward," is even more perplexing because of the rivalry between the two candidates during the 2000 campaign.
Hendershot also criticized McCain for taking swipes at Obama in his speech. "He should have been talking about veterans issues, not his opponent," he said.

By contrast, he praised Obama for keeping his remarks tightly focused on veterans.
This is pretty damning. But it goes right in line with what we're hearing from many of Tammy Duckworth's Iraq and Afghanistan peers.

When it comes to today's veterans, they're far from impressed with John McCain's infatuation with the use of force--and his disdain for VA programs.

AFGHANISTAN: US FORCES KILL 25 TALIBAN AND 8 CIVILIANS

KABUL, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces killed 25 Taliban insurgents and eight civilians after an ambush in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Monday.

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=290665

The issue of civilian casualties has led to a rift between Afghanistan and its Western allies with President Hamid Karzai saying on Sunday that foreign airstrikes had only succeeded in killing ordinary Afghans and would not defeat the insurgency.

The Taliban launched multiple ambushes on a patrol in the Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province on Sunday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The militants "then fled into a neighbouring compound where they held 11 non-combatants hostage, including several children and an infant," it said.

The insurgents then fired on the coalition forces from the compound and the troops called in an airstrike, but the statement said they did not know there were civilians in the building.

Read on http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=290665

PHONE CARDS SHORTCHANGE TROOPS IN IRAQ

Prepaid phone cards are packed with ways to shortchange troops in Iraq

By Dan Thanh Dang - BALTIMORE SUNUpdated: 08/11/08 11:01 AM
http://www.buffalonews.com/185/story/411983.html?imw=Y

For soldiers stationed overseas, phone calls are a crucial link to loved ones and the lives they left behind to serve their country.

So when Colin Sawyer’s mom in Mount Wolf, Pa., sent him an AT&T prepaid phone card, the 24-year-old Army gunner in Iraq was excited to have the precious 550 minutes to call home.

“I went to use it one night after patrol and an automated voice came on and said, ‘You have 55 minutes left for this call,’ ” said Sawyer, who was on leave recently to visit family.

“I had barely used the card so I thought that was strange. The thing is, letters can take two weeks or more through mail. Where I’m based, I don’t have Internet access or phone access every day, so I can go three weeks without any contact.

“So when I can call home, I don’t want to worry about whether my call will go through or if I have enough minutes to talk,” Sawyer said. “It’s happened on other cards she’s sent me, too. I never get the number of minutes it says I get on the card.”

Sawyer is right. What he stumbled upon is no glitch in the system or an accounting mistake. With prepaid phone cards — whether used by the military overseas or the public here in the States, whether it’s AT&T or another carrier — the gap between advertising and reality is exasperating and filled with gotchas.

Some prepaid phone cards come laden with fees, surcharges and insidious expiration dates.
Even worse, the amount of calling time a card owner receives may be nowhere near the amount of minutes advertised on the face of the cards.

“Why can’t AT&T just tell you exactly what you’re getting?” asks Kathleen Sawyer, Colin’s mom. “How is it that when you buy a 550-minute phone card, your son or daughter is not even going to get half of that when they use it?”

The angry mom said she has spent more than $1,000 purchasing 1,200-minute, 300-minute and 550-minute AT&T cards for her son and a 22-year-old daughter who was stationed on a Navy aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. It was often a mystery to both her children how many minutes they were actually able to use.

Click here to read rest of story: http://www.buffalonews.com/185/story/411983.html?imw=Y

IRAQ DEMANDS TIMELINE FOR US TROOP WITHDRAWAL: BUSH AND CHENEY RESIST

President Bush and Vice President Cheney continue to insist THEY will decide when US troops are withdrawn from Iraq and not the Iraqi government.

Iraq politicians are DEMANDING a timeline for US troops to withdraw from Iraq and it is their country and you would think Iraq should have the final say so on when US troops should leave Iraq.

But not when President Bush and Vice President Cheney have taken on the duty of also ruling IRAQ and deciding what is best for Iraq.

Iraq is a sovereign nation and should be able to decide what is best for their country, but Bush and Cheney are not listening to Iraq officials and steadfastly say THEY will decide when US troops leave Iraq.

What I would like to know is what does winning mean to Bush and Cheney?

Does it mean someone from the scores of warring parties in Iraq will sign an armistice?

Are Bush and Cheney planning on sailing the battleship Missouri up the Tigris River and have a full-fledged armistice signing ceremony on the deck of the USS MISSOURI like was done at the end of World War II with the Japanese and General Douglas MacArthur?

For two people who have sent 4,144 young Americans to their death in Iraq and another 30,000 seriously wounded and perhaps disabled for life, it appears as though BUSH and CHENEY have exceeded their powers and should step back and let Iraq decide what is best for Iraq.

Commentary by BILL CORCORAN, Editor of CORKSPHERE

BAGHDAD - Iraq's foreign minister insisted Sunday that any security deal with the United States must contain a "very clear timeline" for the departure of U.S. troops.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26123767/

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters that American and Iraqi negotiators were "very close" to reaching a long-term security agreement that will set the rules for U.S. troops in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Zebari said the Iraqis were insisting that the agreement include a "very clear timeline" for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces, but he refused to talk about specific dates.

WASHINGTON POST: SOLDIERS WALK THE STREETS OF BAGHDAD HANDING OUT AMERICAN TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO IRAQIS

Money as a Weapon. A modest program to put cash in Iraqis' hands stretches its mandate with big projects.

By Dana Hedgpeth and Sarah CohenWashington Post Staff Writers
Monday, August 11, 2008; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/10/AR2008081002512.html

In the five-year struggle to finish the war in Iraq, military leaders and their troops have said a particular weapon is among the most effective in their arsenal:
American cash.

Soldiers walk the streets carrying thousands of dollars to pay Iraqis for doorways battered in American raids and limbs lost during firefights. Sheiks appeal to commanders to use larger pools of money locked away in Humvees and safes at military bases for new schools, health clinics, water treatment plants and generators, knowing that the military can bypass Iraqi and U.S. bureaucratic hurdles.

Army documents show that $48,000 was spent on 6,000 pairs of children's shoes; an additional $50,000 bought 625 sheep for people described in records as "starving poor locals" in a Baghdad neighborhood. Soldiers ordered $100,000 worth of dolls and $500,000 in action figures made to look like Iraqi Security Forces. About $14,250 was spent on "I Love Iraq" T-shirts. More than $75,000 sent a delegation to a women's and civil rights conference in Cairo. And $12,800 was spent for two pools to cool bears and tigers at Zawra Park Zoo in Baghdad.

Click on link to read full Washington Post story.