Daily Kos: Pentagon forbids troops to buy better body armor

Daily Kos: Pentagon forbids troops to buy better body armor: "Yep, it turns out that the company that has the exclusive contract to supply body armor to the Army and Marines is home to a very heavy-hitting Republican campaign donor. Foster Friess, individually and through various family members, has contributed more than $575,000 to Republicans in the previous three campaign cycles, and has chunked in $51,000 so far for 2006.
That $88,000,000 in Armor Holdings stock held by Friess Associates LLC? Before the Iraq war began, it would have been worth about $30,000,000. No wonder he's throwing money the Republicans' way.
I would like to believe that the fact that our soldiers have been forbidden from buying or wearing non-standard-issue body armor that will save their lives, has nothing to do with any of this. But I'm having a hard time shaking the thought"

I just hate this.

Black was not counted fair...

Sonnet CXXVII.

“In the old age black was not counted fair”

IN the old age black was not counted fair
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slander’d with a bastard’s shame:
For since each hand hath put on Nature’s power, 5
Fairing the foul with Art’s false borrow’d face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profan’d, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress’ brows are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem 10
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland’ring creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.

You Say You Want A Resolution

Morford : Is this the year? Is this the time you reset your intent and cut a wide swath and upset your preconceptions and infuriate the fearmongers and the fundies and the sexually terrified, even as you disavow your grudges and cleanse your spiritual colon and wave your bitchin' flame of self around like a Bic lighter at a 1984 Journey concert?

Because gosh look, just look outside, right now: Do you see it? It's a whole new year, all lined up and facing into the wind and waiting to play with you like an eager puppy, like a supple French hooker, like a shimmering glass of God's own tequila just sitting on the counter of possibility waiting for you to tip your head back and let that white-hot firewater slide down your throat like a snake of temptation straight into your undernourished id. Are you ready? Because get this: You need to be.

Because here's the bad news: We have three more ungodly and humiliating and colon-curdling years of BushCo. We have three more years of some of the most miserable foreign and environmental and human-rights policy you will see in your lifetime.

We have three more years of brutal unforgivable war and misprision and of the religious right trying to cram its splintered stick of wicked self-righteousness straight up the country's yamdinger, and if I'm here to tell you anything at all I am here to tell you this: Your energy is needed. Right now... more...