FIRST! CONGRATULATIONS to Barack Obama, our next president IF Americans get off their collective FAT A$$ES and VOTE! John McCain and the REPUGS would not have a snowballs chance in Hell to win a national election if Americans actually voted. BLOOD CONTINUES TO SPILL AND IT IS WARM AND PEOPLE DIE AND YES WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALLOWING IT TO CONTINUE. John McSame is not good for INNOCENT Iraqi people. The numbers have been hotly disputed BUT the official word is all roses AND lies... We elected 2x a retarded man for president by a populace who thought Saddam Hussein was responsible for 911! Yes, a disengaged, non-voting, non-reading, non-traveling America voted for a genocidal maniac for a president 2 times and now this same group of ingrates on the right and in the press will try their hardest to take down Barack Obama as they did John Kerry in '04. John McSame who continuously exposes his ignorance on Middle East issues, and admits that he knows jack about economics (uh, just a thought but these are huge issues right now!), is regarded by the mainstream press as some sort of 'maverick' and yes he is white, from a privileged background, and is just as easily influenced by corporate lobbyists as was/is the infantile retard that now resides in a large white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. Somewhere inside is a bumbling idiot laughing and smirking in his own private psycho-bubble! Oh, and in this Orwellian world, "two plus two makes five" ("Four! Five! Six! I don't know!"). Death toll, Murder toll call it what you will but what is it really? What do you believe and how can YOU justify it on YOUR watch? READ THIS: IRAQ: Death Toll 'Above Highest Estimates' By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail* BAQUBA, Jun 2 (IPS) - The real number of the dead is far higher than even the highest declared in death tolls, many Iraqis say. A study by doctors from the Johns Hopkins School of Health in conjunction with Iraqi doctors from al-Mustanceriya University in Baghdad, published in the British medical journal The Lancet in October 2006, estimated the number of excess deaths as a result of the occupation at above 655,000. Just Foreign Policy, an independent organization "dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy" offered an updated total of 1,213,716 at the time of this writing. On Sep. 14, 2007, Opinion Research Business (ORB), an independent polling agency located in London, produced a figure of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the invasion. These estimates are above any official figures from Iraq, but they do consider the reported official figures. Iraqis believe that the authorities are hiding these figures. "The U.S. military benefits from hiding the real totals," said a political analyst who declined to give his name because of the atmosphere of fear within Iraq. "And the Iraqi government is a puppet of the Americans, so their figures are ridiculously low as well." The report published in The Lancet did not take into account many circumstances of death, say residents in Baquba, capital of Diyala province 40km north of capital Baghdad. "All people know that a large number of bodies are dropped into the Diyala river," said a local resident. "I was kidnapped and taken to a village called Huwaider, which is completely Shia and located on the Diyala River. Sunnis there are killed and dropped in the river by militiamen, but I was freed by the U.S Army. "People in all the villages on the river have gotten used to seeing bodies floating in the river," he added. "I lived in Gatoon district, the volatile stronghold of the militants in Baquba," Yasir al-Azawi, a 37-year-old truck driver told IPS. "Everyday I saw vehicles dropping bodies in the river. Everyone in my district knows this truth; that the river contained an extraordinary number of bodies to the extent that living in that place became impossible. We left our home and moved to live in the north of Iraq." An officer at the directorate-general of police for Diyala province said the number of dead is impossible to calculate exactly. "When the new security plan began in Diyala, some of the arrested militants confessed that they were burying bodies," the officer said. "Some of them led us to the places where they buried the bodies. We found hundreds by digging in the areas that are a stronghold of the militants, and sometimes in the gardens of the houses they were living in, or in a place nearby." An eyewitness at the Baquba morgue spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity. "I was looking for my relative who was kidnapped and then killed, and I saw an ambulance moving the dead who were killed by militants," he said, "I asked the driver about these bodies. He said that the Iraqi army found them in houses and in holes dug within the houses. I also saw a skeleton among the bodies." Many believe that the number of the dead is higher than these studies reflect also because the lack of access to areas controlled by militias and other fighters prevents police and army personnel from finding and collecting bodies. "These militia strongholds have prevented access to police for over two years now," Ali Hussein, a local vegetable seller told IPS. "Dozens, and sometimes hundreds were kidnapped everyday and taken to the militants strongholds. People heard nothing about thousands of them. Even today, thousands of families know nothing about their loved ones because they were not found in the morgue." A policeman, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS that "we were moving the bodies from the main streets of the city through patrols. A body that may have been dropped in the street is a message for people. They dropped it purposely. But these are only a few; the bodies of most we believe were killed, were never found." "The morgue continues to receive bodies brought by the police or the ambulance," said an employee at the Baquba morgue. "We used to receive many daily. The capacity of the morgue was not enough, so they were buried after certain procedures like taking photos or waiting for the families to ask about them and to take them. Sometimes, at times of bombing and disastrous accidents, we were receiving hundreds of bodies." Other officials also offered bleak assessments. "Hundreds of families come to the provincial office everyday to ask about their loved ones who were kidnapped; they do not know whether they are dead or alive," an employee at the governor's office told IPS. "Often the Iraqi army finds records of the dead from the militants through their confessions. Every week there are new lists of names of those who were killed by the militants. People come to find out whether their loved ones are dead, in order to stop searching." New burial grounds are found often, and the dead are usually not recorded. Many residents told IPS that farmers commonly find bones in their fields. (*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East) (END/2008)

The POOL at some point today... maybe a ride too, perhaps a run... who knows in Dime's no plan land of a plan. Most importantly, the pool. I need to swim lots right now. I must get faster or I am going to sink to the bottom of the pool and stay there until my mermaid princess, Ariel, comes to save me and offers me her tail! Oh, my calender is VERY green his month. If I do all 7 races, that will be a record for me. Luckily the longest race is the last race and that is only an OLY... All of these short races hopefully will get me moving faster. I built a solid endurance base this winter during my marathon training, now I want to get fast through the summer and then it will be huge volume into the fall and onto IMAZ in November.

Breaking News: Team Altitude Adjusted - 3rd Place finishers at Last years Hood to Coast Realay (sub masters 30-40 AG)- have added the final piece to their sub 20 hour quest: Adam GearWhore DeVoe will be the newest member of our team. Adam will be running the first leg which Starts at Mt. Hood Ski area and it is a ridiculously steep descent. His running sticks should be toast after that but hopefully all of his Ironman training will prepare him to withstand the beating and run well on his easier 2nd and 3rd legs. For those who don't know much about it. The NIKE Hood to Coast Relay is the largest running relay in the world and generally sells out in less than 24 hours (lottery system). It is made up of 1000 teams of 12 members each. The course begins at the Mt. Hood Ski area and travels 197 miles to Seacoast, Oregon where there is a massive beach party with thousands of naked girls and all the water taps flow with the golden waves of PBR! Altitude Adjusted finished in 4th place in 2006 and in 3rd place in 2007. We have added two BTers to the team this year; Mark Dillard joined us about a month ago. We now have 3 BTers on our team (4 if you count the lurker: JM who is arguably our fastest runner and is on BT but doesn't post). Our time last year was 20 hours and 20 minutes. We averaged about 6:12 per mile. This year we are attempting to be one of the handful of teams that break the 20 hour mark and hopefully move up in the standings as well! To imagine what this race is like, imagine running the Bolder Boulder at PR pace 3 times in a 20 hour period. It is sooo much fun!

I must swim at some point today... I will swim at some point today...