You guys should know by now that I don't trust the Bush Admin as far as I can throw them. That said, many people may not know that the military version of the M4 rifle has an option that allows you to fire 3 bullets on one pull of the trigger. You have 3 modes (1 pull fires 1 bullet, 1 pull fires 3 bullets, & full auto or 1 pull fires them all).

The 3 bullet wounds right beside each other (or in a triangular pattern or whatever) was proof positive that it came from one of ours. I would think that as the distance gets longer the 3 bullets would spread out a little, so for the examiner the closeness of the 3 wounds told him that the shooter was not very far away, IMO.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least that he was fragged.

FetzerMillsJr wrote this gem: 'John Edwards is not from a poor background. He comes from a middle-class background. He has done very well in his life but he has turned his back on his roots. How can you trust someone to have any comprehension of the average American life who lives in a gated community with armed security and who gets $400 haircuts?'

You are crazy, IMO, if you think that being rich (especially thru your own work, not from an inheritance) precludes one (or should preclude one) from speaking out or comprehending poverty.

One of our greatest presidents, FDR, grew up in great wealth, with a private railroad car for Godsakes, & vacationed in Europe for a month every year (in his childhood) & he certainly knew about poverty & was our greatest champion of the working man. RFK inherited huge amounts of money, yet had a great heart & an altruistic spirit towards those who weren't as fortunate as himself. I think Se. Edwards has that same spirit.

P.S. Don't think the above 2 examples are the only ones, I could go on & on.

Ondelette asked: 'And trying that hard requires motivation. Maybe in addition to a rotting culture of experts, we need to look at exactly how that motivation arises. Is it fear? Fear of what? Of losing a job, deadending a career, being wrong in public? Is it more insidious? Threats of some kind, fear of accusations or persecution or arrest or something? Is it adulation? Do these people believe so fervently in something? Is it secrecy? Did they all think they were privy to information that made the obvious wrong and the unlikely probable, that converted the uninitiated into the uneducated? What could possibly cause an entire community of experts (well at least some of them experts) to do the wrong thing in concert, when the right thing was being voiced by so many outsiders with so little sophistication?'

Ondelette, assuming you are speaking about the 'serious' experts & the chattering classes, all of them (IMO) had/have divided loyalties that in their mind usurped or trumped their allegience to truth and/or the American people.

Many of the experts were/are hard core Repubs & could easily see how a protracted & (they would assume) successfully prosecuted war would aid their side (look what it did for Roosvelt, in their minds). Others have close ties to the military/industrial complex & the only way more bombs are bought is when the current stockpiles have been depleted.

Then we have our 'Israel-uber-alles' crowd. These are well represented among the talking heads. Most seem to be Jewish (overtly religious or not), although many are not. To me, that is why columnists who never, ever would have advocated us invading say Malaysia or Finland in the event of some kind of 9/11 style provacation from groups allied in some nebulous way with those countries were gung-ho to go into Iraq (coughFriedmancough, coughCohencough, etc.). I don't know if they want to retire to Israel some day or have been seduced by highly sophisticated propaganda put out by the Likudnicks in Israel (Ariel Sharon would do this to Bush whenever he visited) or got beat up by some Arabs when they were kids, but they definitely are not objective when it comes to Israel (a country who I believe has a right to exist & a right to defend themselves vigourosly, but with their own blood & treasure, not ours).

Her poingnant posts deserve a star, methinks.

and his sons had more scruples in their left nuts than the last 7 generations of Romneys.

Golden Boy commented up above: 'Believe me, I'm not minimizing the horror of Soviet-style torture. I'm really more struck by the irony that a rah rah American Presidential administration has adopted Soviet torture methods, and for much the same reason (non-obvious injuries.)'

IMO, the torturers in the Gulag system didn't give a shit about there being obvious or non-obvious injuries to the poor devils who were caught up in their net.

Rather I think it was the fact that this non-sleep, stress position, etc. stuff was more effective than the rack or other medievel forms of torture (less expensive too, do you know how much a quality rack costs).

I think another parrallel to the Gulag and its NKVD administrators is that many times we seem to be torturing people who we have no idea whether or not they have any info that might give one some reason to torture them. This, the Gulag Archipelago states, is like the Soviet system where they actually had quotas to be filled & knew that many of those brutalized were completely innocent.

The author of that book (can't spell the name & am not going to try) said that the Gestapo was 'nicer' (my formulation, not his) in that they would actually have to have some kind of concrete reason for torturing you & on the few occasions when they realized the person was completely innocent would actually apologize for their actions.

Solid gold pigs will fly out of my ass singing 'Kumbaya' before you get a true apology from any Bushie, IMO.

Thank you for your heartfelt response. God will bless you for your service.