First Door on the Left

There is a teaser running for tomorrow evening’s Boston Legal in which Alan Shore (James Spader) says something like “We need to start honoring our troops by giving a damn when they die.”

I agree.

Seven U.S. troops killed in Iraq violence

BASRA, Iraq – Seven U.S. troops were killed by bombs near Baghdad, the military said Monday, making October the bloodiest month for Americans in Iraq since January. U.S. jets struck insurgent targets near the Syrian border and at least six people were killed.

Four soldiers from the Army’s Task Force Baghdad soldiers died Monday when their patrol struck a roadside bomb in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad in an area known as the “triangle of death.”

Two other soldiers from the 29th Brigade Combat Team were also killed in a bombing Monday near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The U.S. military also said a Marine was killed Sunday near Amiriyah, 25 miles west of Baghdad.

A week after the U.S. death toll since the March 2003 invasion passed the 2,000 mark, it rose to at least 2,026 with the attacks; they brought to 93 the number of Americans to die in October, the highest since 107 died in January.

They are becoming just numbers. It’s easier when you think of them as just numbers. It gets kind of personal when you put names to them.

Look at young Phil Alito in the photo in the entry prior to this. He looks to be about the age of some of those “numbers.”

From the White House that can do no right:

Alito family

1) Note the caption. Somehow I do not believe that is wife Martha in the center and son Phil on the right.

2) Who is that handsome fellow in the portrait on the wall behind them?

Here.. have some Halloween Condi…

Halloween Condi

Be safe out there!

Bush Selects Alito for Supreme Court

President Bush today named appeals court Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alito, 55, serves on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where his record on abortion rights and church-state issues has been widely applauded by conservatives and criticized by liberals.

With no sign of irony, Republicans demanded that Alito get a vote in the Senate – something they denied Miers.

“Let’s give Judge Alito a fair up or down vote, not left or right,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. It was a challenge to Democrats, but it was Republicans who sank Miers’ nomination without either a hearing or a vote. [AP]